The Crown of Gilded Bones (Blood and..

prepared to deliver a fatal blow. Moonlight glinted off the
man’s facial covering—a silver mask.
Jansen.
“Casteel, stop!” I shouted. He halted, his chest rising
and falling with his heavy breaths as he leveled his sword at
Jansen. Later, I would marvel over the fact that he had
stopped without hesitation. Without question. I walked
forward. “I made him a promise.”
“Thought you were sitting this one out,” Kieran stated
as he kept pace with me.
“I am,” I told him. “But he’s different.”
Casteel stiffened at my words and shot forward so
quickly that I thought he might deliver the fatal blow
anyway. But he didn’t. He gripped the front of the silver
mask and ripped it aside.
“Son of a bitch.” He tossed the mask to the floor.
Jansen’s eyes darted between Casteel and his father.
“She will—”
“You need to shut the fuck up,” Casteel snarled as he
stepped to the side.
I stalked forward, the stone cool under my bare feet as
Kieran followed. As I passed Casteel, he pressed the hilt of
his sword into my palm, and his bloodied lips touched my
cheek.
“Poppy,” he said, and the sound of his voice punched a
small hole in the wall I had built around my gifts. Everything
he felt in the moment reached me. The hot acidity of rage,
the refreshing, woodsy feeling of his relief, and the warmth
of everything he felt for me. And given what he’d
experienced before, the bitterness of fear and panic.
I shuddered as I stared at Jansen. “I’m okay.”
Casteel squeezed my hand that now held his sword.
“None of this is okay.”
He was right.
It really wasn’t.