“The thing is, you won’t mess up if you get mad. You won’t do the wrong thing. Each couple is different. Some spend their time whispering sweet words in each other’s ears. Some spend the time baiting one another. Both enjoying being the tiger in the cat and mouse chase. That is us,” he said. “Or who we appear to others. This won’t be hard. Not with the passion between us, and before you try to lie and say there is none, just know that it would provoke me into proving I’m right.”
The last thing I needed was for him to prove that he was right. There was passion between us, whether it was right or wrong, and I supposed it would be far harder to do this if we couldn’t physically bear one another’s touch.
And what he said made too much sense. Not the nonsense about us both being the cat in the cat and mouse chase, which made no sense whatsoever. However, the part about there being no textbook to follow, no guidelines did make sense. So much so, it felt like something I should’ve known.
“You probably think I’m foolish for not knowing—”
“I don’t think you’re foolish. I never have—well, I take that back. I thought you were pretty foolish when you tried to escape,” he said, and my eyes rolled. “You’ve never been in a relationship, and you really haven’t been around many normal ones, so I understand why you wouldn’t be sure how to act. And it’s not like this is a normal situation.”
Feeling a little better, I relaxed some. “And you’ve been in a relationship. I mean, you said you’ve been in love before.”
“I have.”
I watched the snow slip from branches as we passed, thinking of Alastir’s daughter. Shea. That was such a beautiful name, and maybe since Casteel had shared things with me before, he would be willing to talk about her. “What…what happened?”
His fingers stilled and he was quiet for so long that I didn’t think he’d answer, which made me all the more curious. But then he spoke. “She’s gone.”
Even though I already knew that, I felt a piercing ache in my heart, and I opened myself to him without giving it much thought. The moment I connected with him, I was hit by a wave of anguish so potent that it almost shielded the thread of anger underneath. I’d been right. Casteel’s pain and sadness wasn’t just for his brother. It was also for this faceless woman.
I thought about what Casteel had told me the night of the Rite, before the attack. He’d taken me to the willow in the gardens, and he’d told me about a place he used to go with his brother and his best friend. A cavern they had turned into their own private world. He’d said that he’d lost his brother and then his best friend a few years later. Could that best friend have been Shea, this woman he loved?
But his pain…
Before I even knew what I was doing, I’d let go of the saddle and started to remove my glove—
“Don’t,” he warned softly, and my hands froze. “I appreciate the gesture, but I don’t need you to take away my pain, nor do I want that.”
Still connected to him, I couldn’t imagine how that was possible. The agony that waited beneath the smirks and the teasing glances—under all his masks—was nearly unbearable. It threatened to drag me to the frozen ground. Being trampled by Setti was almost preferable to what festered from the wounds that couldn’t be seen. “Why wouldn’t you want that?”
“Because the pain is a reminder and a warning. One I plan to never forget.”
I severed the connection as nausea threatened to creep up my throat. “Did she…did she die because of the Ascended?”
“Everything that has rotted in my life has been tied to the Ascended,” he said, his hand returning to my hip.
“I’m tied to the Ascended,” I said before I could stop myself, before I could ignore the strange stinging.
Casteel didn’t respond. He didn’t say anything. Seconds ticked by and turned into minutes, and it felt as if there was a band tightening around my chest.
Staring straight ahead, I spent the next however many hours wondering how he could stand to even be near me—be close to someone tied to the Ascended as I was. They took his brother. They took the person he loved. They took his freedom. What else could they take from him?
His life?
A chill swept over my skin as I sat straight, my hands clutching the saddle. The idea of Casteel dying, of him no longer being there with those frustrating smirks and teasing glances, his quick-witted replies, and those damn, infuriating dimples? I couldn’t even consider it. He was too vivid, too bright to think of him no longer being there.