The Crown of Gilded Bones (Blood and..

I heard her laughing. I heard him begging. “No. No.” I
gripped the hair that had come free, pulling until I felt my
scalp burn. I could hear Casteel saying: “I was nothing more
than this thing without a name.” That was what she’d done
to him. What she would try to do again. “No. This wasn’t
supposed to happen.”
“Poppy,” Delano said, and I hated how he said my
name, how softly he spoke it. I hated the sorrow pouring into
the air around him, soaking my skin. I shook my head,
twisting toward Vonetta.
“We’ll get him back,” Vonetta promised, but she…she
couldn’t make that promise. “We will, Poppy.”
Kieran inched closer, his hands at his sides. “Look at
me, Poppy. “
Still shaking my head, I backed up. I couldn’t catch my
breath. I couldn’t breathe again as my chest throbbed with
eather. The pain tore through me—the pain and fear
because Ian was gone, and I knew what would happen to
Casteel. I knew what they would do to him—I knew what she
would do because I knew what she had already done to him,
to Malik, and to Ian.
Ian.
My gaze fell on Tawny, and I…
Throwing back my head, I screamed as the rage erupted
from me. Over and over, I saw Ian falling. Over and over, I
heard Casteel shouting—begging for her to stop. Lightning
ripped through the sky, heating the air. A deafening boom of
thunder exploded, rattling the trees and sending birds flying
in every direction. Hisa and the guards froze. Delano
pressed back, bumping into Naill. They began to back up
slowly—away from me as my fury charged the air, whipping
up a storm. And in the distant parts of my mind, I realized it
had always been me. It hadn’t been the gods that’d caused
the storms. It hadn’t been Nyktos. The blood rain had been
them, but this…this was me—the violent stir of energy