“I swear.” I bit the inside of my cheek. It didn’t hurt. His touch, nor the area. The smooth swipe of his thumb felt…pleasant and shivery.
His chest rose with a deep breath and then he dropped my arm, taking a step back. “I’m going to check in with Quentyn and the others. Go ahead and make yourself comfortable. I’m sure you must be tired. Just make sure you clean the wound.”
“I will.”
His gaze met mine, and all I could think about was those moments outside, after he’d helped me down from Setti. Would he have kissed me? Would I have allowed it? I imagined we would have to kiss in front of people.
“Get some rest, Poppy.”
Casteel was gone before I could even formulate a response, and I knew I should be relieved by that. But I…
I wasn’t sure what I was.
Turning to the settee, I walked over to the bundle of clothing. There was a thin lilac-hued sleeping robe and a thicker, forest green tunic that would definitely come in handy.
Unhooking the sheath, I parted the curtain and was greeted by soft furs and a mountain of pillows.
“Goodness,” I murmured, placing the sheath on the bed.
Using only one of the warmed pitchers, I carried it into the adjoining chamber. Half afraid Casteel would return while I stood naked, I cleaned up as quickly as possible in the much cooler room, making sure to clean out the wound with fresh water and a mint-scented bar of soap. Once I was finished, I slipped on the soft robe, tying the sash around my waist. Digging my brush out of my bag, I undid my braid and worked through the tangles in my hair as I stared at the doorway to the living area.
Sometime later, while under the blanket, I wasn’t thinking about the Dead Bones Clan, the marriage, or what had happened at the keep. I wasn’t even thinking about what the sun would reveal about Spessa’s End come morning, or how strange it was that Casteel had left the room so quickly. I lay there thinking of all those stone graves, burnt-out and rundown homes in Pompay and in the fields between the two cities. If Tawny were here, she would be convinced that spirits roamed the night.
I shivered as my eyes drifted shut, wondering how the Ascended had been allowed to grow to this kind of power where they could destroy entire cities with no recourse.
And the only answer was a bitter one.
So very few had questioned what the Ascended claimed, and I’d simply accepted what they said, never truly giving life to any of the suspicions I had. That went beyond submission and straight into willful ignorance.
Shame slithered through me, another tell-tale sign that in many small ways, I’d been a part of the problem. A spoke in the wheel of the very system that brutalized hundreds of thousands, including myself.
The fire must’ve been fed at some point during the night because a pleasant heat surrounded my body. I couldn’t even remember being this toasty in my bedchamber back in Masadonia. That was my first thought as I slowly came awake.
I didn’t want to wake up and leave the warmth of the bed nor the heady scent of dark, lush spice and pine. Snuggling down against the warm, hard bed, a contented sigh escaped me.
Wait.
The hard bed?
That…that didn’t make any sense. The bed had been soft, the kind that you sank into. But now it was warm, hard, and smooth against my cheek and hand. Not only that, the bed was wrapped around my waist, my hip—
My eyes flew open. Tiny particles of dust floated in the morning sunlight seeping through the terrace doors across from the bed. The curtains had been tied back, and I knew I hadn’t done that before I fell asleep.
And I wasn’t lying on the bed, at least not completely. What was under my cheek wasn’t a pillow. It was a chest that rose and fell steadily. Beneath my hand wasn’t the worn texture of the blanket, but a stomach. The bed wasn’t wrapped around me. It was a heavy arm over my waist and a callused palm against my hip—my bare hip.
Oh my gods, I was using Casteel as my own personal pillow.
And based on the fact that I was lying on him, it was me who had sought him out in my sleep. When had he even returned to the room? Did that matter at the moment? It didn’t as I became aware of every place our bodies met.
This was nothing like curling up together while camping on the road. There was no excuse for being all tangled up in him.
I lay there frozen, my breath in my throat. My breasts were pressed against the side of his body. One of his thighs was tucked between mine, the soft buckskin of his breeches nestled against a very, very intimate part of me. The robe had parted below the sash in my sleep. There was nothing between his palm and my skin, and that hand spanned my hip, the tips of his fingers resting against the curve of my rear.