“Why do I have a feeling I’m the idiotic boy you speak of?” Casteel asked as he returned to his seat. The smile on his face faded as he took in Alastir’s and my expressions. “What have you two been whispering about?”

“I don’t think now is the time—” Alastir started.

“I think now is the perfect time,” I cut in, well aware that those around us were starting to pay attention.

“As do I.” Casteel eyed Alastir. “Speak.”

That one command demanded a response. Alastir shook his head, jaw tight as he said, “You didn’t tell her that you were already promised to another.”

Chapter 32

The sudden roaring in my ears made me think I hadn’t heard Alastir correctly. Or maybe it was because my heart pounded so hard that I’d misheard.

But I hadn’t, had I? Because, suddenly, I remembered everything Alastir had said the morning I met him. He’d spoken of obligations upon Casteel’s return. Marriage was definitely an obligation.

A sharp slice of pain tore through my chest. It felt like a crack, and it sounded like thunder in my ears. How no one else heard it was beyond me.

Slowly, as if I were caught in the stage between waking and sleep, I turned to Casteel. He was speaking, but I couldn’t hear him, and I couldn’t believe what I’d heard.

What I’d just learned.

Promised to another when I met him in the Red Pearl and he’d been my first kiss, when I knew him as Hawke and had grown to trust him, desire him, and care for him. Promised to another when he’d taken me under the willow and told me that he didn’t care what I was, but rather who I was. When he showed me the kind of pleasure we could find with each other, first in the Blood Forest and then again in New Haven. Promised to another when I learned the truth of who he was and when we took from each other in the woods outside of the keep, when I fed him, and he thanked me afterward.

Promised to another when he proposed marriage as the only way for us to get what we wanted. Promised to another when he said that we could pretend. Promised to another as Kieran claimed we were heartmates, and I decided to give him my blood.

Promised to another when I told him in the cavern that it had to be real.

Somehow, even though I knew that the arrangement between us had not been borne of love, and I wasn’t sure Kieran knew what he was talking about when it came to the heartmates thing, this betrayal still stabbed more deeply than all Casteel’s other betrayals.

And if that wasn’t a wake-up call that I’d already slipped too far, I didn’t know what would be.

Pain I didn’t want to lay claim to ripped through me so fiercely that I thought I would be split in two, but snapping on its heels was an anger so intense that my entire body vibrated with it.

Only seconds passed between when Alastir spoke and the bitter, acidic burn of rage pouring like a rainstorm through me.

“Promised to another?” I demanded, my voice surprisingly steady but so damn raw. I didn’t care that we were in a room full of people who disliked me.

“It’s not what you think, Penellaphe.”

My brows flew up. “It’s not? Because I imagine that promised to another means the same thing in Atlantia as it does in Solis.”

“What it means doesn’t matter.” His eyes were an icy golden color as he stared down at me with an expression I couldn’t believe I was seeing. He looked shocked. He looked angry with me. And I could not believe what I was hearing or seeing or living.

And he felt angry. Even with my own volatile emotions I could still feel the cool splash of surprise from him and the burn of anger underneath it.

“How could you—?” he started, jaw flexing. His chest rose with a heavy breath. “The promise was an oath I never took. Did I, Alastir?” He tore his gaze from me. “Can you claim otherwise?”

“It was all but agreed to,” Alastir responded. His anger burned through my senses, scorching my skin. “You know what your father has planned for decades, Casteel.”

Decades.

A part of me recognized that Casteel denied what Alastir had stated and that Alastir had basically confirmed such. So, there was a slight lessening of my fury, a halt to the continuing cracking in my chest, but the pain and the anger were still there. This had been discussed for decades? For longer than I’d actually breathed life? Did it not occur to Casteel to tell me any of this? To warn me? I pulled my senses back, closing them down.

Vaguely, I became aware of the silver-haired man and Kieran approaching. They were close enough to hear everything—close enough for me to see that the newcomer was a wolven, and that the curve of his jaw and the lines of his cheek seemed familiar.

“You mean that for decades my father assumed that I would eventually agree, but not once did I ever give him or anyone an indication of such,” Casteel fired back. “You know that. How in the world did this even come up?”

“How in the world did you not think to tell her?” Alastir demanded.

There was a soft inhale from the tables of Descenters, and the silver-haired man murmured, “I have the best timing.”

My gaze shot to his and locked. The pale blue eyes flared brightly, nearly luminous as his lips parted. They moved, but there was no sound. His surprise was like freezing rain, sudden and all-consuming. He jerked, taking a step back. Was it my scars? Or did he feel that weird static charge even though we didn’t touch?

“Do you think I don’t know why you brought this up?” Casteel queried in a voice too soft, snapping my attention back to him. “It is weak of you.”

Alastir tensed beside me. “Did you just call me weak?”

A smirk twisted Casteel’s lips. “What you just did was weak of you. If you think that equates to weakness of mind or body, that is on you. Not me.”

The wolven had recovered from his reaction to me. He placed his hands on the table, and when he spoke, his voice was low. “You should both calm down.”

“I’m perfectly calm, Jasper,” Casteel replied.

This was Jasper. The wolven who was supposed to marry us. Great.

“Since you’re bound and determined to have this conversation right now when you should’ve had it in private ages ago, then let’s have it out for all to witness since everyone here has been thinking it from the moment they learned of your engagement,” Alastir snarled. “You may not have agreed, but an entire kingdom, including Gianna, believed you would marry upon your return.”

Who in the hell was Gianna? Was that her name? The one the King and Queen expected Casteel to marry when he returned?

“This has nothing to do with Gianna,” Casteel replied curtly.

“I can actually agree with that,” Alastir returned. “It has everything to do with the kingdom—your land and your people and your obligation to them. Marrying Gianna would’ve strengthened the relationship between the wolven and the Atlantians.”

Jasper’s head snapped in Alastir’s direction. “You are overstepping, Alastir. You do not speak for the entirety of our people.”

The older wolven burned with rage beside me, but there was a connection there, one that harkened back to Landell, to one of the things he’d said in response to Casteel stating his intention to make me the Princess. He’d said that it was supposed to be an honor meant to bring all of their people together.

“I know what my obligations are.” Casteel’s words fell like chips of ice. “And I know exactly what my father expects of me. Those two things are not mutually exclusive, nor would marrying a wolven suddenly erase the deaths of over half of their people. Anyone who believes that is a fool.”

“I didn’t say I agreed with it.” Alastir picked up his drink.

“Perhaps this conversation should occur at another time,” Emil stressed, having moved to Alastir’s side. He looked to Jasper as if to say, “do something.”

Jasper sat in the chair Kieran had occupied, and quite frankly, he stared at Alastir as if he hoped the man would continue.

“You mean when we don’t have one of them sitting right there?” a man spoke, an Atlantian who I thought had been at the house Beckett was injured at. “Who was raised in the pit of vipers and is most likely just as poisonous as the nest she grew up in? When we are this close to finally seeking retribution against them?”

Casteel opened his mouth, but something unlocked inside me, raising its head. And whatever it was breathed fire. Years of grooming to remain silent and demure, to allow people to do and say whatever they wanted to me caught fire and burned to embers and ash. I was simply faster in my response. “I’m not one of them,” I said, and the focus of the entire room shifted in my direction. All except Casteel. He still watched the Atlantian, and I had a wicked suspicion that we were seconds away from repeating what had happened to Landell. “I was their Maiden, and even though I suspected the Ascended were hiding things, I fully admit to not opening my eyes to who they truly were until I met Casteel. But I was never one of them.” I met the Atlantian’s stare, tasting his anger and distrust, feeling it swell inside me, fueling my burning fury as if he were a lit match. “And the next time you want to call me a poisonous viper, at least have the courage to do so while looking me straight in the eye.”

Silence.

Ian would’ve said it was so silent you could hear a cricket sneeze.

And then Jasper let out a low whistle.

The Atlantian snapped out of his stupor. “You were their Maiden. The Chosen. The Queen’s favorite. Isn’t that what they say?”

“Dante,” Emil warned, shooting the fair-haired Atlantian a sharp look. “No one asked for your opinion on this.”

“But I’m glad he gave it since I’m well aware that he is not the only one thinking this,” I said, flicking my gaze over the room. “Yes, I was the Queen’s favorite, and I was raised in a cage so pretty that it took a very long time for me to see it for what it was. The Ascended planned to use my blood to make more vamprys. That was why I was their Maiden. Would you feel loyalty to your captors? Because I do not.”