~ JESSE ~At least he didn’t walk away, I told myself.We stood there, staring at each other, my head spinning and my heart aching for him.How could I possibly help him with this?But then he dropped his head and raked his hand through his hair, blowing out a breath before he straightened and met my eyes again, his jaw tight as a bowstring.“Jesse, I know I’ve hurt you. I wish I hadn’t. I wish I wouldn't. But you have to understand, it’s not just you I don't trust. It’s me.”Then he let me see in his head—flashes of memory, flashes of thought. And I stared and drank him in because he was never that open. But… but then it hit me what he was showing me—the inferno of rage that lived in his chest. The violence he’d been a part of. The violence he wanted to be a part of. The ability to shut down his emotions and just act—to let himself act on instinct, brutal and animal though it may be.The tightrope that he walked, day after day. All the ways he had to force himself not to simply destr

~ CASIMIR ~Moments later my sight cleared and I found myself laying on my back, staring up at the ceiling of the dungeon, my mouth agape and chest heaving as I tried to get my breath back. But I couldn’t even think in full sentences yet.Jesse.Love.Power.Holy shit.“Cazz… what… what was that?” Jesse asked quietly from my right.Head spinning and heart hammering, I rolled over to find her curled on her side facing me, her face pale and eyes wide.“Shit. Are you okay?” I asked her hurriedly, combing her hair back from her face and pushing up on a shaky elbow and scanning her body for injuries or… something. I wasn’t even sure what I thought I might see. All I knew was that I’d almost been swept away by that… that tidal wave of power. I didn’t know how she’d survived it. And the panic in me when I realized she might have been hurt, or worse, lost…Everything in me shied away from the thought—and what it would mean.When I didn’t find any injuries on her, I brought my gaze back up to

~ CASIMIR ~“You ready, Casimir?”My father stood in the doorway of my chamber in simple leathers, his hair tied back, and a smile on his face. He winked when I looked at him.I nodded and smiled as I scrambled to my feet, thanking God that he hadn’t arrived ten minutes earlier when I’d been making a model. He could probably smell the glue, but I’d just tell him I had fixed… something.I was twelve, and beginning to grow. He kept telling me to leave puppyhood behind me. And I was eager to do it.But I liked making things.I had decided that when I was King, I was going to make a decree that games and creative things—not just prophecies and books, but fun stuff like building and art and dance—wouldn’t be deemed childish. That anyone would be allowed to do them.Because then I could too.I scrambled out of my chair and ran after my dad, who’d turned on his heel and stalked down the hall, expecting me to keep pace, even though his legs were still inches longer than mine. But I didn’t min

~ CASIMIR ~No one tells you how long it takes to kill an animal that way.Blood loss takes minutes.Suffocation takes at least two.I had to stand there, braced, jaw locked, eye to eye with my horse who was terrified and in pain and shocked and confused.And when he finally fell, sinking to the ground, his heart was still beating, though it was far too fast, far too thin, as his blood and air starved body tried desperately to find what it was missing, and only succeeded in killing him faster.I knew I couldn’t let him go until his heart had stopped. My father wouldn’t accept it until we were certain he was dead.So I stood there as my horse tumbled to his side, and I didn’t let go.But I found my father, still in his wolf, standing under the trees a few feet away on the other side of Prince, panting happily.His eyes locked with mine.And when Prince’s pulse finally slowed to nothing, and I could spit his flesh out of my mouth, my father’s wolf was grinning.‘Well done, Casimir. I di

~ JESSE ~All the way to him I’d been asking myself where he might be. At first, I’d thought it was just another audience or meeting with the council, but I continued to feel that simmer in him—and the impatience that underlined it all wasn’t anger, or frustration. It had a keen edge.Almost like hope.My thoughts had turned then to where he might be, or what he might have planned that would make him anticipate my arrival.It wasn’t hard to guess what he had planned.At first, when I realized I was following his trail deeper into the Palace, I had been envisioning another visitor suite with a four-poster, like the one we’d used the other day… or perhaps some kind of playroom like the room off the Den… or even an office of some kind. Maybe he had a library with a fireplace and a nice couch?From the way he’d felt through the bond, I was certain Cazz was bringing me here for an adventure that we wouldn’t be sharing with anyone else.But when I finally got close, and found the door that