Kieran glanced to where she slept. “And that is—”
Mine.
One side of Kieran’s lips tipped up. “Yeah, she’s yours, but depending on her mood, she may not be all that thrilled to hear you continuously snarling that.”
My eyes narrowed as I backed up so my head was level with her arm.
He took a deep breath. “I’m guessing by the state of the chamber, someone attempted to attack her, and it didn’t end well for them.” His blue eyes drifted over me. “And it changed you.” A bit of awe crept into his voice. “Holy fuck, you shifted.”
I… I had. Because this wasn’t my normal…existence. I didn’t see the spotted gold and black fur but a male with golden-bronze skin and dark hair.
“Cas?”
My attention swung back to him. He’d inched closer, on one knee now.
“Do you remember when we were boys, and I first shifted after being in my mortal form for a while? I had trouble separating myself from the wolf, but you were there. You helped remind me who I was,” he said, voice low and soothing as more disjointed images flashed and collided, building atop one another. “I know it can be difficult to pull yourself out of this, but you’re still in there, and I’m going to need you to come back to me as Cas.” His gaze held mine. “She needs you to come back as Cas.”
Kieran.
She.
Penellaphe.
Poppy.
My Queen.
She needed me.
At once, my sense of self came roaring back, clicking into place beside this new part of me, fusing. I took a step forward, then stopped as I shook my fur out.
“You just will it,” Kieran explained. “Like you would a compulsion. You will your body back into its mortal form. That’s how it works.”
I widened my stance. Like a compulsion? I tapped into the eather like I would for a compulsion, doing as Kieran instructed. I willed myself into mortal form, but the rush of power came at me faster and harder than ever before. Silvery specks of light appeared, seeping out of my pores and washing over me. The shift happened much more fluidly. Bones in my arms and chest shrank, muscles and tendons loosening to allow room for them to snap back into place. Canines retreated as my jaw reformed. I rocked back on instinct, my paws changing into feet. I rose, a little unsteady, as flesh replaced fur. I straightened, cracking my back as my ribs settled.
“Gods,” I bit out, throat scratchy as I watched my nails retract and my hands return to normal. “I thought you said shifting doesn’t hurt.”
A shaky laugh of relief left Kieran as he rose. “The very first time can be a bitch, but it gets easier—more comfortable each time.” He blinked several times. “Then it doesn’t hurt.”
“Good to know.” There was still a…a distinctive purr to the tenor of my voice as I looked down at my chest. I was fucking drenched in blood, but most of it was the Rev’s. The wound in my chest had closed, leaving behind a puckered line of almost charred skin.
I looked up at Kieran. “I think I was about to eat Emil.”
The skin crinkled at the corners of his eyes as he laughed again. “Yeah, you were definitely thinking that.”
Fucking Emil.
“What in the hell happened in here?” Kieran asked, moving to stand in front of me. He touched the skin under the wound. “What is this?”
“A Rev came in through the window while I was sleeping. I woke just as he was about to—” My hand fisted as I confirmed that Poppy was okay. She was alive, and she wasn’t vulnerable. “He got me in the chest with this dagger.”
I bent, picking up the one nearest me. “Get the other.”
Kieran went to where the other one had fallen near a few scattered Rev pieces. “What kind of blade is this?” he asked, eyeing the milky-white stone. “It looks like the same kind that fucker Callum used to curse me.”
“It does.” I frowned. “This Rev said it was made of the bones of the Ancients and that it could incapacitate a Primal.”
Kieran’s stare shot to Poppy. “Ancients? Like the Primals?”
“I don’t know, but it did fuck me up. I couldn’t move. It was like the blade severed all control of my body the moment it penetrated my skin,” I said. “I couldn’t move until this…this power filled me. I’ve never felt anything like it. It tasted like ash and felt like ice in my veins.” I swallowed, wiping the blood from my chin with my other hand. “Then I was able to move. I pulled the dagger out, and I don’t even know how, but I…I shifted.”
Kieran came forward, his gaze searching mine. “When you shifted back to your normal self, it looked just like her father when he shifted.” He looked down at Poppy, and when he spoke again, he sounded awed. “It has to be the bond forged during the Joining. It connected the three of us, somehow giving you the ability to shift like me.” His brows knitted. “But then wouldn’t you have shifted into a wolven?”
“No.” I started to reach down and touch Poppy but stopped when I saw the blood and gore smearing my hand. “Her father shifts into a cave cat. My ability to shift might’ve come through the connection with you, but it was her eather. That’s what I felt. Primal eather,” I said, but it had felt like more. Like it had been something inside me, always there. Waiting. But that made no sense. “I bet that was what Nektas was referencing.”
“Makes sense,” Kieran murmured. He was quiet for a moment, and then his gaze shot to mine. “Then wouldn’t that mean Poppy can shift…？”
A slow grin spread across my lips. “She’s going to be so excited when she realizes that.”
Kieran laughed. “Yeah, she will.” Another laugh left him. “Gods, you two are going to be obnoxious with your abilities to shift.”
“You can count on it.” Something occurred to me as Kieran disappeared into the bathing chamber and returned with a towel. I took it, quickly wiping away as much blood as possible. I turned, picking up a pair of breeches from a nearby chest. There wasn’t time to clean up. “You heard my thoughts, didn’t you?”
Kieran nodded as I pulled the pants up. “You heard mine, too. After Emil left, I wasn’t speaking out loud.”
Surprise rippled through me. I wanted to see if that was something we could do in this form or if it was like what Poppy could do with the wolven. I wanted to know if this bond had changed Kieran somehow. There were a whole lot of things I wanted to know—that I wanted to sit down and dwell on for a bit. Because I’d just shifted into a godsdamn spotted cave cat, but there were more important things that needed to be handled.
Starting with the current mess that was the chamber.
I didn’t want Poppy to wake up to whatever horror show a Revenant regenerating themselves from pieces would end up being.
“I don’t know how the fucker is going to come back from this,” I said. “And it might be a good idea to see if we can find Millicent to ask about that, but I’m guessing we should gather up the pieces and put them in one of the cells below.”
Kieran’s lip curled. “How about we just toss them into the sea? Or burn them?”