4. Chapter 4
4
Graysen
D on’t look.
Don’t look.
Don’t fucking look—
Ah, godsdammit!
That strange hyperawareness of her coated my skin with a wash of goosebumps and in my ear— Where is she? Where is she where is she…
From the first moment Wychthorn and I had encountered one another as children at a gathering of Houses, I felt her tugging at me to shift my trajectory to orbit a new celestial body.
I hadn’t understood it then and I sure as hells didn’t understand it now.
As if the same thing that pulled at me pulled at her too, Wychthorn shifted, twisting around until her gaze collided with mine. Her eyes were the color of sheets of glacial ice that had been there for millions of years. Cold. Unaffected. But beneath the ice were fire and brimstone. All for me.
Her smile melted away.
I’d earlier noticed that she’d coated her mouth in pale pink lip gloss.
Was this prettiness for me or someone else?
She despised me.
Definitely for someone else, but who?
A cold feeling settled in my gut.
Surely not one of the Pellans.
Even if I hadn’t noticed the fucking Pellan brothers’ attention slithering all over her slight form, the spike of lust filling the room would have been a dead giveaway. I wanted to annihilate them all.
She was mine .
But there’d been no one here she’d singled out. And those piss-scared brothers were put off by the haughty way she carried herself and by the wraith-wolf snarling at anyone daring to venture closer. And me. No one would dare cross me.
Wychthorn’s gaze locked with mine, turned half-feral.
She unwound her bracelet, leaving a loop caught on the back of her wrist, then swung the long length upward and snatched the tail-end in her fingers as it descended. She repeated the motion, releasing the length to swing it back and forth like the twitch of a cat’s tail. I wasn’t sure if she even knew she did it. And always when that temper of hers flared. When she got really fired up, she’d pause, and her fingers would work through every single bead, treating it like a rosary.
Wychthorn’s scowl deepened. The hate-glare she gifted me, like if she had her way, I’d implode in a raging inferno, my bones turning to cinder until nothing remained but a handful of ash—
It transformed her into a glorious creature.
She’ll fight me every step.
Thank fuck.
I returned her death-scowl with a mocking grin, tipping up my glass to her before swallowing the last of my whiskey. One of the staff handed me a fresh glass. I had been here so many times in the past year, they were familiar with my drink of choice.
Wychthorn spun away, her entire body bristling. The baggy ivory dress embroidered with ivy leaves made her look like a waif. My gaze dragged over the messy braid hanging like a rope over her shoulder. I was torn between fisting it and making better use of that pretty mouth or using it to wind around her elegant throat and strangle her.
Strangle her, definitely.
Liar.
She stood with her sister beneath one of the potted palms in the room, its glossy fronds reaching so high they brushed the ceiling. Ignoring my presence, she leaned sideways to sift slender fingers through Sage’s ghostly, misty fur. Wraith-wolves were rare, but my brothers and I hunted one down with a newly born litter of pups.
Sage wasn’t a gift, not like she thought.
Sage couldn’t be bought and no leverage would manipulate the wraith-wolf to do another’s bidding. He would protect her with his life.
But more importantly, we knew she wouldn’t need to be shadowed. As my family anticipated, her father relaxed the leash on his bodyguards and made it possible for someone like me to be tolerated in her presence without minders. Yet Byron still commanded his men to lurk and watch my every move outside the estate.
Not that they could interfere.
No. Not since the day Wychthorn turned nineteen, and the Alverac came into play.
Movement in my periphery caught my attention. Carola Pellan approached with a suggestive smile and a swing in her hips. I rubbed my mouth with a hand to hide my grin. I was here for the entire weekend and I had a job to do.
But, I could have some fun along the way… If I wanted.