Casteel approached cautiously. "May I?"
"It burned the priest."
"I know," Casteel said evenly.
After a moment's hesitation, Nero turned, allowing the younger man access to the back of his neck. Cool fingers brushed against his heated skin, and an involuntary shiver ran down his spine.
"It's there," Casteel confirmed, his voice strangely soft. "Like a crown of silver flames."
Nero pulled away, uncomfortable with both the touch and its effect on him. It clearly didn't burn the boy. "Impossible. I've never had a mark."
"Neither did I, until I first shifted," Casteel said. "The crown appeared on my wolf form that night."
They stood in silence, the implications hanging heavy between them. Outside, they could hear the distant sound of celebration—the city rejoicing over a miracle neither of them wanted.
"The bonding ritual," Nero said finally. "What exactly does it entail?"
Casteel's face flushed slightly but he gestured behind him. “Why do you think there’s a bed in here?”
Nero's eyes darted to the ornate bed, then back to Casteel's flushed face. "You can't be serious."
"The priests were explicit," Casteel said, bitterness lacing his words. "The bond must be consummated before sunrise, or the 'divine connection' will fade. Another convenient aspect of their prophecy."
Nero paced the chamber, his mind racing. "Would this so-called connection fading be so bad?" They both needed all this divine rubbish to take a running jump.
Sunlight streamed through stained glass, casting multicolored patterns across the younger man's face.
"Do you know their plans for after?" After they'd fucked, that was.
“I…tried to pretend I couldn’t read,” Casteel admitted softly. “I was hoping if they were convinced, I might hear or see something. I was just given vague threats about bad things happening, but they know I can.”
Nero scoffed. More children’s bedtime stories, except just at that moment the brand on the back of his neck pulsed. "You don't sound like you can't read." He sounded like he'd lived life in the palace not the pigsty.
Casteel hesitated. "My mother insisted. She could read and for a time I was a groom. She had to mind her manners and her tongue in the palace. She hoped for a better place to work thanthe kitchen, so we carried on at home." He was quiet for a long moment. "She was determined that I wouldn't ever be forced to work as she did." His shoulders dipped in defeat.
"There must be another way," Nero muttered, running a hand through his short hair. "Could we fake it somehow?"
Casteel's laugh was hollow. "The priests will know, apparently.” He shook his head. “I have no idea how, but the one that’s a healer—Makim—says that unless the bonding is completed bad things will happen.”
Nero approached the massive doors, testing their weight. Solid oak reinforced with iron bands—no chance of breaking through. "What about the windows?"
"Fifty feet above the courtyard," Casteel replied. "I've already checked. And there are guards posted below, and no ledges or trees. I've actually only spent the first week in here." He glanced around the room. "Once they realized tempting me with promised luxury wasn't working, I spent most nights in the preparation chambers."
Nero didn't ask. He couldn't afford to feel pity for this man. "Perfect," Nero growled, frustration building. The Thief's Heart would sail without him. His carefully hoarded coins, his chance at a new life—all lost because of some mystical nonsense.
"I didn't ask for this either," Casteel said quietly, as if reading his thoughts. "One moment I was mucking out the pigsty, the next I'm a prisoner."
Nero studied him more carefully. Despite his youth, there was a hardness in Casteel's eyes that spoke of endured suffering. "How old are you and how long have they kept you here?"
"Twenty summers, and just over two moons. They've been 'preparing' me—endless rituals, lessons in royal protocol." His mouth twisted and Nero knew there'd been more. There had to be to make him use the knife. "I've tried escaping three times."
"Why not just refuse to shift?"
"I wish I had that chance, but apart from the first time and just now I haven't been able to, no matter how they tried to persuade me otherwise." Casteel's fingers traced patterns on the silk cushions.
"Persuade you?"What exactly did that mean?
"Hot pokers. Poison. Blades. Starvation."
