Page 172 of The Primal of Blood and Bone (Blood and Ash #6)

POPPY

A shudder crawled over my skin, partly because of what he’d called me and because it was the voice I’d heard in stasis. “Do not call me that.”

“But it is your name,” he responded, his voice strengthening. “You are her.” Those milky eyes lit by crimson swept over me, slow and deliberate, making my skin crawl. “Finally.”

My palms tingled with the desire to introduce them to his face. I wanted nothing more than to give in to that need, but instinct whispered it would be a mistake—that he’d exploit any emotion I showed and gain power and control from eliciting a response.

And I refused to give him that.

I had to deal with him like I did Isbeth. Keep calm. Give nothing away.

I forced the tension out of my muscles. “That’s not my name.”

He laughed, spitting blood. “Would you prefer I called you Poppy?”

“I’d prefer that you crawl back into the hole you came out of and die, but I have a feeling you won’t do that for me.”

“It is the same,” he said, ignoring my comment. “Sotoria. Poppy.”

My brows furrowed. The same?

“Come now, Sotoria,” he said in an almost singsong way, the bloody smile increasing as his gaze swept over the shadows surrounding us. “You weren’t the smartest when I first saw you here.”

I drew back my head, offended.

“You were na?ve, gullible, and easily frightened,” he continued, his tongue skimming over his bloody teeth. “But you learned. You became smarter. Stronger. And now, you’ve awakened. You have the knowledge inside you to answer your own question.” He paused. “So…toria.”

The way he said it. As if the name were two words… Because it was in the language of the gods—the Ancients.

So’ meant my or mine .

And toria meant garden. Flower. Or…

I inhaled, but it didn’t feel like I took a breath. Toria meant pretty flower.

Poppy.

My pretty flower.

My pretty poppy.

I was hot and cold all at once, moving back another step without realizing it. That rhyme. It really had been him. My ears buzzed, drowning out all other sounds. I couldn’t feel the cold ground beneath my feet or the breeze lifting the strands of my hair for a moment.

The sharp, humming noise ended as abruptly as it’d started. “Were you there that night? In Lockswood?”

“I’ve always been there, Sotoria.” He almost sounded…disappointed. “Why don’t you believe me?”

Anger and disgust rose and began swirling around one another. I knew I would lose control the moment they collided. “That’s not what I meant. Did you have something to do with that night?”

“No,” he answered, just as I heard the faint crunch of a bone fusing itself back together. “I need and want you alive. Why would I have had anything to do with a situation that could have so easily gotten out of hand?”

That sounded way too logical. “Because you’re insane?”

The crimson burned in the Revenant’s pupils. “Careful, Sotoria .”

“Go fuck yourself, Kolis ,” I retorted, mimicking the exaggerated rise and fall of his pitch.

His smile faded. “I see the bitch’s blood has tainted your tongue.”

“Are you speaking of my mother?” Thicker clouds gathered overhead.

“Not that bitch,” he seethed. “The other bitch. Seraphena.”

“Do not,” I said, grabbing his healing arm, “call her a bitch.”

“Which one?”

“Either,” I snarled, snapping the bone once more.

The Revenant’s howl ended in a disturbing, raspy laugh as I repeated the process on the other arm. “You do realize you’re not harming me, right?” he said.

“I do.”

“Vicious,” he hissed, blood leaking from his mouth and running down his chin. “You used to be so sweet, like sugar dipped in honey.”

Well, now I knew I wasn’t anything like Sotoria because no one would ever describe me like that.

“Your blood tasted like it, too.” My stomach churned. “It changed a little each time. Less sweet. More sweet. This time…” The Revenant drew his lower lip between his teeth. “It tastes like… honeydew .”

No.

Bile clogged my throat.

He did not say that.

“But sweeter,” he whispered.

“You’re not good with adjectives, are you?”

“And you’re not good at knowing when not to speak,” he countered. “Are you?”

Lifting a hand, I extended my middle finger.

The aura in his eyes flashed an intense crimson. “I see you’ve forgotten what happens when you show me disrespect.”

“Want to know what I think of that?” I lifted my other hand and extended that middle finger, too.

He stared at me for several long moments. “Want to know when I first tasted your blood?”

“Couldn’t care less.”

“I’m talking about in this lifetime,” he went on. “And I’m not talking about the very first time I tasted your blood. That was before you could even stand on your own.”

Before I could…

For fuck’s sake.

I couldn’t process that revolting statement—didn’t even want to try. “I’m not interested in this walk down nightmare lane.”

“Oh, but I am very interested in taking that walk, Sotoria.”

My hands fisted at my sides. “Do not call me that.”

“I’m talking about the first time Teerman had his fangs in your skin,” he said, his voice dropping along with my stomach. “I have to wonder how you never knew.”

“I don’t,” I lied. “Did you—?”

“He wasn’t supposed to do that, but I spent so much time inside him.” He tipped the Revenant’s head back against the bark. “Your blood was to be drawn and vialed. You were not to be fed upon. But he inherited some of my…” His head lowered. “Desires.”

I was going to vomit.

In his face.

“I didn’t expect that to happen,” he cut in. “He managed to control himself until you first bloomed.”

“Answer my—” Wait. First bloomed? He couldn’t seriously mean what I think he did.

He chuckled, the sound like dry bones scraping together.

He did.

“Then he couldn’t control himself. Or was it I who couldn’t?” He lifted the Revenant’s shoulder in a painful-looking shrug. “Perhaps both of us. Though he handled…his lessons. That was all him.”

My skin tightened.

“Watching your sweet flesh bleed was quite…arousing, however.”

I needed to stop listening to him. Everything he said could be a lie meant to mess with my head—and it was working. My heart slammed against my ribs, and my stomach continued to churn.

“It didn’t happen always, but when you slipped into oblivion, we couldn’t help ourselves.

” The Revenant’s body tipped forward. “He was smart enough to take from your vein where it wasn’t visible, and you wouldn’t look.

After all, my pretty flower was so obedient then, submissive to the Priestesses.

You would never…explore such forbidden, shameful areas. ”

At first, I didn’t know what he was talking about. He sounded fucking unhinged. Or maybe it was more that I didn’t want to understand because I was stuck in denial. But my body understood. My skin prickled and itched, starting to feel like a foreign entity instead of a part of me. Because…

I did know.

I knew exactly where. And I had been taught—groomed—not to even think of that area, let alone touch it outside of bathing. And I was always in so much agony after Teerman’s lessons that it felt like the pain was everywhere—

Or was that also an illusion of denial? Had I known the two couldn’t be related and just hadn’t understood what was happening at the time? My chest tightened, and my fingers twitched.

“It’s such a decadent vein.” His voice rumbled and thickened while my skin felt like something was alive beneath it. “I drank from there before. The one near your prettiest flower. And you know what, so’lis ? You liked it then just as much as you liked it before.”

I lost it.

There was no other way to describe my response.

“Shut up.” Lunging forward, I grabbed the hilt of the Revenant’s dagger as I drove my knee up, slamming it into the area between his legs. “Shut the fuck up, you sick fuck.”

His body spasmed as I twisted the blade, but Kolis laughed. He howled .

“Keep laughing,” I seethed, gripping his hair with my other hand. “It only makes you sound as unstable and weak as you are.”

That shut him up.

“I know what you want,” I said, holding his stare as the essence flared in me, turning the corners of my vision gold streaked with silver and shadows. The wind picked up, whirling across the meadow.

“Is that so?” he whispered.

“It’s not going to happen,” I bit out. “Keep sending your Revenants to watch, and I will end them. I don’t care. But know this, you weak, pathetic…fuckboy.”

The Revenant blinked. “Fuckboy?”

“You heard right.” I smiled. “And hear this. I’m going to kill you, Kolis.”

He went completely quiet and then said, “Then you’ll have to do better than this.” He pulled against my hold until strands of hair snapped. “You’ll have to be smarter.”

“Thanks for the advice.”

He laughed.

And then his arms lifted—his healed arms.

Fuck.

He saw the moment I realized it. “Yeah.”

He gripped the sides of my head and swung his forward. Pain exploded behind my eyes as he slammed his head into mine.

“Fuck,” I gasped, letting go of him and stumbling back.

I couldn’t believe he had used such an immature move, but then again, it wasn’t his head he’d just cracked.

And he’d seriously cracked the Revenant’s head.

Or at least I thought so. My vision was a little wonky at the moment, but it sure looked like blood was pouring from the center of the Rev’s forehead.

Maybe he’d cracked mine, too, because warm liquid ran down my face, as well, and there appeared to be two of him.

Gripping the dagger, he tore it free and landed on his feet. I pushed aside the sharp, thudding ache behind my eyes, summoned the eather, and—

He threw the dagger—or daggers—directly at me.

Son of a bitch.

Throwing out my hand, I stopped the blade about an inch from my face— my actual face —and shattered it. “Nice try.”

“I wasn’t trying.”

He twisted sideways as if to run, but I lurched forward. He reached behind him, pulling a—

Godsdamn it!

A second dagger had been strapped to his back. It must’ve blended in with his black shirt. I should’ve checked. I knew better.