Total pages in book: 241
Estimated words: 229266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1146(@200wpm)___ 917(@250wpm)___ 764(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 229266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1146(@200wpm)___ 917(@250wpm)___ 764(@300wpm)
That I’d started falling in love with him when we first met and hadn’t stopped.
But beyond that, I was the Maiden—a person his people, his family, would most likely loathe. I was only half-Atlantian. I would age and die, and he would be who he was today for so many years, it would feel like an eternity to me.
I stared at the sand, feeling more out of my element now than I had since this whole thing started. “The night before I learned who he really was, I had already decided that I could no longer be the Maiden. It wasn’t just because of him. Maybe how I felt about him was the start of me realizing that I could never live in the skin of the Maiden, but I wanted to stay with him,” I admitted, my voice hoarse and barely above a whisper. “Even though I thought he was a Royal Guard and would have to basically go into hiding with me, I wanted to be with him—to stay with him somehow. Because he made me feel…. He made me feel like I was alive.” I swallowed hard. “I did care for him. I cared for him a lot.”
“He was Casteel then just like he’s Hawke now,” Kieran stated quietly, drawing my gaze to him. “And you know that. You just aren’t ready to accept it.”
I briefly squeezed my eyes shut. Still, caring for him could cause a chain of reactions I wouldn’t be able to prevent. Caring for him felt like I was betraying not just Vikter and Rylan and all of those who’d died because of him, but also myself. That I forgave his lies and his misdeeds. Still caring meant…
“Still caring for him would only lead to heartache,” I whispered, knowing the truth right then and there. I did care. I never stopped caring. And acknowledging that felt as if I’d slipped under the black water.
“It doesn’t have to,” Kieran said. “But even so, sometimes, the heartbreak that comes with loving someone is worth it, even if loving that person means eventually saying goodbye to them.”
The roughness in his tone spoke more than his words shared. “You sound like you have experience with that.”
“I do.” A long moment of silence passed between us. “Do you know what happens when an Atlantian cares for someone?”
I shook my head, wanting to know more about this person that he’d loved but had to say goodbye to.
Kieran didn’t give me a chance. “They find the idea of feeding from someone else repellent. It’s too intimate for them to even consider. And if the partner is mortal? It usually takes the mortal proving to the other that it’s okay for them to feed, and in some cases, the Atlantian is lost to the darkness of hunger. That’s why he hasn’t fed.”
My heart thudded against my ribs as I told myself that couldn’t be the case with Casteel. It just couldn’t.
Kieran was quiet only for a few minutes. “Cas told me once that he felt as if he already knew you after speaking with you just a few times.”
I wiggled my toes in the sand once more. “I asked him about that.”
“This is my surprised face,” Kieran murmured, and when I looked at him, his expression was the same as always. Bored with a hint of amusement.
My lips twitched despite the insanity of our conversation as I turned back to the sparkling, sun-drenched midnight water. “He told me he believed it was the Atlantian blood in him, recognizing mine.”
“And you felt the same?”
I nodded. “Is that a possibility?”
“Possibly,” he said after a moment. “But I don’t think that’s the case. I think it’s something deeper than that. Something intangible, far rarer and stronger than bloodlines and even the gods. Something powerful enough that it has ushered in great change in the past.”
Tensing, I had a feeling I didn’t want to know what he thought. That whatever it was would be even more earth-shattering than what he’d already shared. It’d be words given life that I wouldn’t be able to control.
“I think you’re heartmates.”
Chapter 24
Heartmates.
Kieran didn’t elaborate on what that meant, and I didn’t ask for more information. I’d never heard of such a thing, and I didn’t want to.
Processing the idea of Casteel caring about me was complicated enough without adding yet another intangible element to it.
But what Kieran had said—all of it— lingered throughout breakfast, robbing the food of all taste as my gaze kept roaming back toward the white banners hanging on the walls of the dining hall, spaced six feet apart. In the center of each of them was an emblem embossed in gold, shaped like the sun and its rays. And at the center of the sun was a sword lying diagonally atop an arrow.
I knew I was staring at the Atlantian Crest.