The Crown of Gilded Bones (Blood and..

My heart tripped over itself as I stared at Casteel. I
wasn’t a…
I couldn’t even force my brain to finish that thought
because I had no idea what I was. No one did. And as my
gaze fell to where the little girl was still held tightly by her
mother and now her father, as well, I…I couldn’t disregard
that possibility, even as impossible as it seemed.
“Momma.” The girl’s voice drew my gaze. She had
wrapped her arms around her mother’s neck as her father
held them, kissing the top of his daughter’s head and then
the mother’s. “I was dreaming.”
“You were?” The mother’s eyes were squeezed shut, but
tears streaked her cheeks.
“There was a lady, Momma.” The little girl snuggled
closer to her mother. “She had…” Her words were muffled,
but what she said next was clear. “She said I-I always had
the power in me…”
You always had the power in you…
Those words were oddly familiar. It felt like I had heard
them before, but I couldn’t place them or remember who’d
spoken them.
Casteel rose, and in a daze, I watched him walk toward
me, his steps full of fluid grace. If someone said he was a
god, I wouldn’t question it for a second.
He stopped in front of me, and my chaotic senses fixed
on him. The breath I took was full of spice and smoke,
warming my blood. “Poppy,” he said, his tone full of heat.
His thumb slid over the scar on my cheek. “Your eyes are as
bright as the moon.”
I blinked. “Are they still that way?”
His grin spread, and one dimple hinted at making an
appearance. “Yes.”
I didn’t know what was said to the others, but I did know
that he spoke to them with the calm confidence of someone
who’d spent their entire life in a place of authority. All I was
aware of was him steering me around people, past the man