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Her hands trailed along his old friends’ arm, as she laughed breathlessly at something he said in her ears. Her lashes were shadows against her cheeks, as Arwin’s hand disappeared beneath the table. Castian bit the flesh inside his mouth, his eyes narrowing.
She released a light gasp, as his lips brushed her neck.
The first course had just arrived, when he made his choice and stood causing the seat to scrape back hard against the floor. “Oye.”
The noise immediately garnered the attention of all those at the table. Everyone looked at him in shock, but he ignored their stares. Focusing only on the woman who now looked at him in surprise.
He leaned forward, bracing himself on the table. “You have two choices, either come with me. Now, or I’ll reduce him to nothing more than flesh and bones," he said, turning his eyes to Arwin who looked at him in shock. Castian looked back at her. “And know this, I’ll take great pleasure in doing it.”
“Torick, you said—” Arwin jumped up in protest.
“I know what I said.” Castian cut him off. “But I can change my mind, like now. After all, she’s stillmine.”
“It’s okay,” Oye stood. “I’ll go.”
She turned and left the table. Castians eyes followed her, before he pushed off the table straightening, and pulling down his opened suit coat he gave a short bow. “Well, please enjoy the rest of your dinner.” He turned and left.
He could easily burn the entire dining room down, fuck them and their names. Asher could disappear, he didn’t give a fuck if he could get the woman who’d taken his heart and loyalty. The anticipation that ran through him had him sinking into the floor.
Using his shadows, he entered the room and released a surprised grunt when Oye’s body slammed into his.
A growl erupted from him as he hit the couch hard. She straddled his hips with her, blade in hand, like it was meant to be there; she pressed it to his throat. She stared down at him with glittering eyes, her hair a midnight curtain surrounded them. “I thought I said no more games.”
He grabbed her hips but didn’t move, “This is no game.”
Her brows rose, “Then what is it?”
“It’s me baring myself to you,” Castian explained, as he lifted his chin exposing his neck to her blade. “Tillon, the Renson’s, Asher, I don’t care about any of it if you aren’t there at the end of it. If this all ends, and I can’t call you my home then there was never a point to me regaining my sanity or identity.”
She frowned, her brow creasing the hand holding the blade lifted slightly. She searched his eyes searching for the lie in his words.
“Darling, you can search my eyes all night, and you will only find truth.” He pushed up, “I vow to you, here and now that I will never lie to you ever again.”
She lowered her blade, “I don’t need your vow.”
“But I chose to give it,” he insisted.
She tried to move away from him. “Enough, Castian.”
He captured her hand and pulled her back. Closing his eyes, he started to tell his story. “I was born during winter, my mother said it was one of the worst storms Georgia had seen in a long time, but it didn’t matter because the minute I came to life, she felt a warmth she never knew.”
OYE
She should have pushed him away, but she couldn’t.
Not with the way he held her hand like it was his lifeline, and she couldn’t in good conscience push him away when he was exposing himself to her.
It felt like they were the only two in the world. She sat in his lap now, his arms wrapped around her shoulders.
“My brother has always been more prone to anger than other children. It was understood from the start, that I was the one who would lead the family but even as a child he seemed to be jealous of what was given to me and as a child, I merely thought it fair to give him what he wished for but often I would later find it broken or he’d tell me he’d lost it.” Castian voice held pain, “I thought I was as kind as an elder brother should be, but I should have known when he took to hanging around the Renson’s that my brother wasn’t savable. My father never liked Robert’s way of doing things.”
“So, your brother plotted with them?” Oye could easily see how the prodigal son had fallen into their younger brother’s trap, he’d only been trying to do his duty.
Castian sighed, his chin brushing against hers. “The day I was to dawn the true mantel of Lord Napier, taking the pact with the family demon familiar. Someone came to the Altar, and changed the ruins in the sacred circle with virgin blood, they drew the ruins for a demon assimilation ritual, a forbidden ritual to all warlocks. To attempt tying a lower or higher being to one’s own flesh, is punishable by death. That day I entered the circle with the eyes of all the families of Syed watching me as I committed the greatest sin.” His voice suddenly grew rough, “That was when my hell started. All the faces I saw from then on were masses of flesh, twisted and ugly. Filled with the sins they’d performed.”
While Oye couldn’t imagine awakening in such a situation, she could surely empathize.
“At first I thought it was all a nightmare. But things only got worse when they found the source of blood buried near the garden. Piles and piles of corpses, of women with faces twisted in macabre masks of terror.” He shuddered, tightening his arms around her. “Nothing I said convinced them, I yelled, screamed and begged, and begged but no one would believe me and then he spoke.”
