Casteel didn’t finish what he was saying as I rose to my knees and let the slip slide into place. I knew what he was thinking. They didn’t want to take me into Spessa’s End, just in case I had Ascended and became uncontrollable.

Still utterly dumbfounded by the fact that I was alive and wasn’t a vampry, I said nothing as he tugged the thick sweater on over my head. It was a little scratchy but warm. I lifted the collar, giving it a small sniff. The garment smelled a little of woodsmoke, but for some reason, I thought it also smelled of…lilacs.

I remembered.

Looking up, I found Casteel watching me with a raised brow as he finally buttoned the flap on his breeches. I dropped the sweater. “When you gave me your blood the very first time in New Haven, I think…I think I saw your memories. Or felt your emotions. I smelled lilacs then, and I smelled them again,” I told him, thinking of the flowers that drenched the cavern in Spessa’s End. “Were you thinking of when we were married when I…when I drank your blood this time?”

“I was.”

“How did I see your memories, though? Before and now? That’s not the same as reading emotions.”

“It can happen when two Atlantians feed.” He dipped his head, brushing his lips over my brow. “Each can pick up on memories. I think that’s what happened.”

I thought about the first time in New Haven. He’d stopped me just as I reached his memories.

He hadn’t stopped me this time.

“Could you read any of mine?” I wondered.

“I’ve never fed from you long enough to try,” he answered, and I felt a strange little tumble of anticipation. “But right now, I wish I knew what you were thinking.”

“I was thinking…” I drew in a deep breath. Gods, I was thinking about everything. My thoughts bounced from one event, one conversation to another. “Do you know what I did in the Chambers? After…after you were attacked?”

He sat beside me. “I heard.”

I lowered my hands to where the sweater pooled in my lap. They looked normal. “When we were in the Chambers of Nyktos and that arrow struck you, and your body turned cold and gray, I thought you died. I didn’t think I would be okay again. I forgot about the imprint,” I admitted, turning my hand over. There it was, the golden swirl glimmering softly. “I kind of…I don’t know. I lost it.”

“You defended yourself,” he corrected. “That’s what you did.”

I nodded, still staring at the imprint as my mind skipped from the Temple to the crypts, to Alastir so confident that I would be just as chaotically violent as the ancient ones.

Chapter 10

“I know a lot has happened,” Casteel said, gently catching a strand of my hair and tucking it behind my ear. “And I know things are confusing as fuck right now, but do you think you can tell me what happened? I know some things,” he told me. “I was able to get some information out of Alastir and the others by using compulsion, but it’s not like it’s a truth serum or I can force them into telling me everything. I have to be exact in what I ask, and I was mostly concerned about finding you and who else could be involved. So, I want to hear it from you. I think that is the only way we can begin to figure out what has happened here, tackling everything one step at a time.”