Poppy gasped, whirling back around. “Vikter.”
“Is it because she’s the ultimate challenge?” he continued.
“I get that you’re protective of her.” My chin dipped as my voice dropped. “I understand that. But I’ll tell you just one more time, you’re way out of line.”
“And I’ll promise you this…it will be over my dead body before you spend another moment alone with her.”
I smiled then, my anger calming, but that wasn’t good news for Vikter. I tended to do the worst things when I was calm, and I could make his promise come true. Right here. Right now. End him and take Poppy. That’s what I should be doing.
But I didn’t want to do that in front of Poppy. “She thinks of you as a father,” I said softly. “It would hurt her greatly if something unfortunate were to happen to you.”
“Is that a threat?” Vikter demanded.
“I’m just letting you know that is the only reason I’m not making your promise come true this very second,” I said. “But you need to step back. If you don’t, someone is going to get hurt, and that someone won’t be me. Then Poppy will get upset.” I turned to her. She stared with wide eyes. “And that’s the sixth time I’ve said it,” I told her, and she blinked. I faced Vikter once more. “I don’t want to see her upset, so step. The fuck. Back.”
Vikter looked like he was going to do the exact opposite.
My grin kicked up a notch.
“Both of you need to stop.” Poppy grabbed Vikter’s arm. “Seriously. This is escalating over nothing. Please.”
I held Vikter’s stare even as another scent reached me. I looked straight into Vikter’s eyes and let a little bit of what I was come to the surface. Just enough that he recognized who we really were to each other at the end of the day.
Predator.
And the prey.
Then, Vikter stepped back. The man had balls. I had to give him that.
“I’ll be guarding her for the rest of the evening,” Vikter told me. “You’re dismissed.”
I smirked, my eyes dropping to where Vikter took hold of Poppy’s arm and turned away from me. The grip was gentle. That was the only reason he still had an arm.
Stepping back, I gave Poppy one last glance, taking in the fall of now-tangled hair and the lush curves I’d had my hands on. Then I moved into the shadows of an unlit pathway. The wind picked up, tossing several strands of hair across my forehead as I walked under the jacaranda trees. I caught a faint acrid smell as I spotted Kieran leaning against one of the older, moss-adorned statues, dressed in the black of the City Guard. No one, not even Nyktos himself, would’ve gotten him to wear the red of the Rite.
“Are you forgetting something?” he asked.
“No.” Reaching up, I tore the domino mask off and tossed it aside. “Her other guard showed up.”
“So?” He pushed off the statue, frowning. “You could’ve taken him out—ripped the heart from his chest if you wanted to.”
“I would never do such a thing.”
He snorted, giving me a knowing look. “What the fuck?”
“It’s not a big deal. Just a slight delay,” I told him. “I’ll get her in a bit, and we’ll meet in the Grove instead.”
Kieran made a low sound in his throat. “I don’t like this, man…”
“I know.” Frustration with myself, with Vikter, and this whole godsdamn thing rose. “Look, if I took him out, she’d be fighting us even more than she already will be. We don’t need that headache.”
“I think I already have a headache,” he shot back. “Anyway, the Descenters have set things in motion, so you’d better get her to the Grove.”
PRESENT VIII
“That strange
feeling I’d felt when we were beneath the willow?” I said to Poppy, brushing my lips over the crown of her head, just like I had then. “The sensation of rightness? It was a part of my soul recognizing yours. Heartmate. That’s what I felt falling into place. I had no idea that was what I was feeling then.”
“And you didn’t want to believe it,” Kieran remarked. He sat cross-legged between Poppy and Delano, rooting through a small bowl of almonds. “When I told you she was your heartmate.”
“Who would believe it?” I countered.
He pinned me with a dry look.
“Anyone who saw you two together.”
I huffed out a laugh, shaking my head. “It was just hard to believe. Heartmates are rare.”
Kieran’s gaze shifted to Poppy.
“Yeah, but she’s rare.”
I glanced down at her.
“Understatement of a lifetime.” I brushed aside the strand of hair that kept finding its way onto her face. “What she allowed herself under the willow? It was brave. I know it wouldn’t seem that way to us, but it was.”
“No. I get it.” Kieran popped an almond into his mouth, chewing softly for several moments. “I didn’t really know her then, but I knew enough about the society the Ascended had created and what was expected of her—what she was forbidden.”
I nodded slowly.
“By the way, I had my suspicions even then.” He threw an almond, and I caught it. “I knew something was up.”
“Because of the Duke?” I tossed the nut into my mouth.
Kieran chuckled, shaking his head as he offered Delano a handful of almonds. “Before that.”
I arched a brow as Delano took the nuts, somehow managing not to bite Kieran’s hand off in the process.
“After the Red Pearl, when you didn’t want to talk about her. I knew then.”
Kieran leaned down, placing the bowl on the floor. “You were already protective of her.”
I had been, and it seemed a little ridiculous even now, but that was the thing about heartmates. It didn’t mean that any other love was less than. Fuck, I knew others who loved each other just as strongly as Poppy and I loved one another.
Heartmates were just a whole other breed. An emotion that was stronger and more secure, creating an undeniable pull. It hadn’t mattered that I didn’t know Poppy then. We were two pieces that fit together, and our souls had recognized that, even if neither of us had.
And it made me think of my brother. What he claimed. What I knew had to be true for him to stay in Carsodonia and not attempt to escape any number of times.
But Millicent? I exhaled a long breath. Could she even have a heartmate? I supposed it wasn’t impossible, but… “What the fuck is Millicent?”
Kieran’s brow rose. “That was random.”
It was. But it was a legitimate question. “I mean, she’s not exactly a Revenant, right? She’s still Ires’s daughter. That would make her a god.”
“But not,” Kieran said, his dark brows furrowing. “Because she didn’t Ascend. Your blood wasn’t…” He frowned.
“Good enough.”
“Thanks.”
A brief smile appeared as he straightened the hem of Poppy’s nightgown. “We still don’t for sure know how Revenants are even made. Or how the hell that Callum fuck has managed to stay alive so long.” He leaned back, patting Delano as the wolven gave a low growl. “But I bet Millicent knows.”