Page 124 of The Primal of Blood and Bone (Blood and Ash #6)

POPPY

The sudden bang of the door crashing was like a clap of thunder as Casteel’s upper body whipped around.

He shifted to the side, shielding as much of me as possible. Well, he was doing the best he could since my leg was still curled around his waist, above his ass—his bare ass.

Primal essence poured out of him, drenching the air and stirring the eather inside me as his flesh rapidly cooled. And it was every part of him, including his thick length, that was still very much inside me. The contrast of heat and coolness sent a very inappropriate dart of pleasure through me.

“Put the fangs away,” came Reaver’s familiar dry, gravelly voice. My eyes went even wider.

A wholly different kind of heat infused my skin then. While he’d been nude in my presence more times than I cared to recount, I wasn’t just naked. We were naked. And Casteel’s cock was now prodding my thigh, still—

Okay, I didn’t need to think about that. Instead, I should have been wondering if it was possible to will myself into the bed.

Casteel let out a low, guttural snarl of warning that raised the tiny hairs on my arms. The sound snapped me from my haze of desire. I’d only heard him make a noise like that twice before. Once when he was on the verge of bloodlust and then again when he was lost to the madness of hunger.

But this sound?

It was different.

The deep growl continued, rumbling from Casteel as his fury gathered, cold and acidic, in the back of my throat. It conjured up images of smoke and ice. I’d heard that in my voice a few times—the ancient, unfettered power—but I’d never heard it in his before.

I swallowed, my throat dry. “Reaver? You need to leave.”

“Can’t do that.”

Casteel’s flesh hardened under my palm, feeling like cold granite as deep-gray shadows appeared, gliding along the flesh of his back and over his shoulder, widening as some of them disappeared under my hand.

Shadows streaked with faint strands of crimson began to swell with the eather in me, stoking my primal instinct.

It warned of a very real threat to one’s life.

Namely, Reaver’s.

Crimson-streaked black shadows continued to spread, and I felt the eather gathering in Casteel.

The shadows slipped into the air around him—no, not shadows.

Primal mist seeped from him, churning and thickening as it rolled across the rumpled blankets.

My heart lurched as my wide gaze swung to his profile.

Seeds of panic started to take root in my chest as those swirling tendrils of midnight crested the hard line of his jaw.

Instinct screamed that he no longer saw the draken as a friend or even a reluctant ally who’d once helped free him—just like when we’d been in New Haven, and he’d reacted this way to Kieran. He saw him as a threat.

To me.

And while Casteel normally wouldn’t respond all that well to being interrupted during such an intimate embrace, this wasn’t a normal reaction for him. It was the eather—the darker, deadlier energy I sensed when he drank from me.

And I knew beyond a doubt that Casteel was about to attack. And as a true Primal of Death, even a newly Ascended one, he could and would kill Reaver.

I quickly thought about something happy.

It wasn’t hard. Immediately, the thought of our time in the lilac-filled caverns of Spessa’s End came to mind.

“It’s okay,” I said, focusing on him and projecting my emotions—how being there had calmed me—through the eather to him as I gently grasped the nape of his neck.

I started to speak, but something prickled against my palm.

Something soft. It reminded me of hair. Or fur .

What the…?

The Primal mist suddenly vanished, and the eather drenching the chamber eased. I started to relax as I lifted my hand.

Tiny specks of silver light erupted all over Casteel’s golden-bronze skin. “Cas—?”

I shouted as his jaw snapped out of its socket with a crack and his canines jutted forward, thickening and lengthening.

What in the actual—?

Fear punched through me as I reached for him, having no idea what was happening. His back bowed, and the sound of the sheets tearing snapped my gaze down. His palms—his fingernails. They had sharpened. My head snapped up as I heard his joints popping. And then I knew what was happening.

Casteel…

Was… shifting .

My lips parted in shock as I heard bones breaking and fusing back together. The fur I’d felt moments before sprouted from the silver specks all over his body—black fur spotted with gold. He whipped around, a growl rumbling from deep within his chest.

Cas…

Had shifted.

Into a cave cat.

I had to be hallucinating.

But there was definitely a very large cave cat prowling across the bed, the fur along his belly grazing my legs.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing as he crouched, his ears twitching as he sniffed the air.

“What…?” I whispered, his ears flicking again as his tail swished across my stomach. I froze at the feeling of his fur.

It was…soft.

I blinked once and then twice, but the cave cat was still there. I rose onto my elbows, the shock beginning to wane. “What. In. The. Actual—?” My volume increased with each word until I screamed, “ Fuck ! Are you kidding me?”

Casteel jerked at my screech. I’d startled him. Probably not wise, but honestly, I couldn’t care less.

Because he was a fucking cave cat!

I jerked upright. “A cave cat! Oh, my gods!” I shrieked, this time causing Reaver to jump. “The fur! The fucking fur. And Kieran…that asshole didn’t—”

“Poppy,” came Reaver’s dry, gravelly voice. It irritated me. Deeply.

“What?” I yelled, my hands balling into fists.

“You might want to take it down a notch,” he advised. “Or five hundred.”

“He’s a cave cat!” I shouted.

“I can see that—”

“And he shifted before I did?” I leaned forward. “What in the fu—?”

“Don’t!” Reaver stepped into the chamber from the doorway. “Don’t grab at him.”

Casteel sank lower, lips vibrating as he let out a snarl of warning.

“I’m not here to hurt her,” Reaver said.

“Of course, not,” I exclaimed. “He knows that—”

“He doesn’t know shit right now, other than he wants to tear my throat out.”

My gaze snapped back to Casteel. His chin had lowered, and he bared his really big, really sharp teeth.

This motherfucker was a cave cat!

“Yeah, I see them, big boy,” Reaver said. “Mine are bigger.”

The rumble deepened, and muscles rolled and flexed under his thick fur.

“I’m warning you.” Reaver unfolded his arms. “You come at me, you’ll regret it.”

Casteel’s ears flattened as his claws dug deep grooves into the wood of the footboard.

I knew I should do something, but the part of my brain that was still functioning on logic recognized that he wasn’t actually a cave cat, even as I stared at the thick, spotted black fur.

He’d only just shifted into one. The vadentia told me it shouldn’t be possible.

Only true Primal gods could shift after Ascension.

Deminyen Primals were more like Ancients.

It took time for them to gain the kind of power needed to shift one’s being.

Not days, weeks, or even years. It should take centuries .

And it wasn’t just the Joining that’d enabled this.

I wasn’t sure what had. It felt like I was missing a key piece of information, but I couldn’t focus on that right now.

The very big, larger-than-Kieran-in-wolven-form—maybe even as large as Kieran’s father Jasper in his wolven form—cave cat was ready to attack.

I saw it in the power building in his hind legs, but it wasn’t just that.

It was also his emotions. They poured out of him in a way they rarely did, and there was no mistaking them: sharp anger and feral distrust.

Clutching the blanket to my chest, I scooted forward—

Then rocked back when his long tail whipped into me from the side. My mouth dropped open. “Did you just hit me with your tail? Your tail ?”

Beneath the spotted fur, bands of muscle along his back rippled as he tensed further.

“Cas.” I rose to my knees again. “Look at me.”

His tail swished, but he remained fixated on Reaver.

“I don’t think he’s going to do that,” the draken said.

I shot Reaver a quick look of warning. “You really need to learn how to knock.”

“I did.” He started to lift his arms but stopped when Casteel growled. “Neither of you answered.”

I almost pointed out that that should’ve implied we were busy, but I needed to get Casteel under control before explaining basic manners.

A sound came from Casteel, reminding me of steam escaping a thin fissure. He was…

“Stop hissing at Reaver,” I ordered, drawing in a shallow breath.

I stretched forward and placed my hand on Casteel’s side.

He stiffened as my fingers sank into his fur.

Gods, it was dense and… “Your fur is soft,” I whispered, feeling the shiver of muscles beneath my palm as I slowly drew my hand along his side. “Really soft.”

His torso vibrated as a low, humming sound radiated from him.

My eyes widened. “Are you…purring?”

He was.

That was good…and cute. It was also what I heard when he drank from me.

Fucking gods.

Focusing on him, I opened my senses and found his mark. There was something stronger than his pine scent and the citrus- in-snow scent of his blood. There was the spice scent—the wild, lush spice scent.

My heart, which was already pounding fast to match his, skipped a beat. The scent had always been there, but it had really only been an undertone until now. Now, it made me think of how his movements had always reminded me of a large feline.

I filed that piece of information away and opened the connection between us. Casteel? You know Reaver. I kept petting him. You can’t attack him just because he tends to barge into chambers.

Other than the ear movement, he gave no indication that he’d heard me, but the pathway was open.

The sound of footsteps reached us, and Casteel lifted his head, sniffing the air. I focused on the connection.

Cas, look at me. You need to look —