35. Chapter 35
35
Graysen
C ursing softly, I gathered Nelle into my arms and lowered myself to sit on the cool marble floor, rocking her back and forth gently on my lap. Her tiny fingers dug into my t-shirt as she clung to me. I rested my chin on the crown of her head and murmured, “Ending lives is something you should never get used to.”
Nelle buried her face into my chest and her tears soaked into my shirt. Her voice was muffled when she asked, “Have y-you?”
Loosening a sigh, I offered her the truth. “Yes. Often those lives I ended deserved it.” Killing was part of our world, especially in my line of work as an enforcer. “But not when they’re innocent.” There were times my House had been ordered to take an innocent life on behalf of the Horned Gods and those were the deaths that haunted my soul.
Sniffling, Nelle shivered, and I ?rubbed a hand up and down her trembling arm. “Little bird, those we faced down in the catacombs, they weren’t alive.” Her fingers bunched into my shirt, tightened, relaxed, then tightened again. I wasn’t sure if knowing that we’d battled an army of dead was going to lighten her soul.
I was seventeen years old when I took my first life. I held on until I’d gotten home, then headed straight for the forest and hurled everything in my guts up. Curling up on the forest floor, I’d wept like a fucking baby.
Like the Uzrek had said, I was a death-dealer. That was my purpose amongst the Houses—a weapon in the form of flesh and bone. It didn’t matter that who I’d killed was dark and deserved a swift death. Something had died inside of me. At the time, it had felt as if the last flickering goodness of my mother had winked out.
Had all my brothers felt the same when they’d taken a life?
Kenton, no. As stoic as our father and ice-cold like our aunt .
But Jett, probably. He’d made himself scarce the day he’d taken a life for the first time. Caidan, I knew for sure, because I’d spied on him when he’d returned from the Widowmakers with dried blood crusting his sword. He didn’t even make it as far as I had. He’d stumbled in through the massive front doors and emptied his stomach all over the stone floor before locking himself in his quarters.
Nelle lifted her grime-stained face, and her haunted gray eyes met mine. I wiped her tear-slick cheeks, but only smeared the soot and grime further. “I reacted much like you.” Tucking a lock of wild hair behind her ears, I shared, “After I killed for the first time, I cried like a baby.”
She blinked, sniffing, before scrubbing an eye with the back of her wrist. “A baby?”
“Tell anyone that and I’ll make your life miserable,” I half-teased.
She attempted a smile, but it wobbled, and her brows slashed up as silver filled her eyes. Her little fists bunched the soft fabric of my shirt. “I can’t stop shaking,” she whispered, fresh tears spilling down her cheeks.
“It’s the adrenaline. You’re in shock.”
I tucked her back against my chest and ?stroked her head. The ash that blanketed her pale tresses coated my fingers. The only other girl I’d comforted this way was my baby sister Ferne when she had hurt herself, tripping over her feet or bumping into something unforgiving. And it didn’t feel so bad holding Wychthorn like this either.
This tiny little thing has me wrapped around her finger.
Her bathroom was luxurious and spacious. Lines of gold streaked through the white marble tiles. A large claw-footed bathtub sat beneath a smoky window. The room featured an open shower, and her skin products cluttered the mirror-backed vanity. The space smelled of that strawberry soap she liked so much, mingling with the bitter smoke clinging to her figure and her unique trademark scent.
Nelle’s fingers unfurled, releasing my fisted shirt, and she spread a hand against my chest. Her cheek shifted slightly as she angled her head to look up at me and her sweet breath caressed my throat. “Are they the same ones you spoke of yesterday to Master Sirro?”
“I expect so.” Too much of a coincidence not to be. They’d swifted in and there’d been no trace of scent about them.
Her whole body tensed in my arms. “How do they even know about me?”
I toyed with a lock of her hair as I thought it through, twirling the dirty strands around a finger. How did they know she was other ? I was pretty fucking sure this afternoon hadn’t been an attempted kidnapping of royalty. Byron had been clever, keeping his youngest daughter in plain sight of all the Houses and allowing her to attend enough gatherings so no one suspected. He had been over-protective with all his daughters, ensuring that no suspicious eye would cast its gaze her way.
The truth of it was, I didn’t know how they knew about her.
Besides the Wychthorns, only one other person had known about Nelle—my mother. She’d known all along that Nelle was other, and she’d protected Nelle’s secret to her own detriment.
We Crowthers were the only ones who knew Nelle’s secret. We’d kept purposely quiet all these years to later use.
Has someone she trusted betrayed her?
I tugged on a lock of her hair to get her attention. She rounded her miserable, tear-soaked face to peer up at me. “How did they know you were off the estate? Where you’d be?” Had they sought her because she was other, or was she more to them than that? And what were those things going to do once they’d captured her?
She hitched a shoulder. She didn’t know.
Pushing up, she looked at me sidelong. There was a wariness to her gaze and she nervously linked her fingers together. She asked softly, “What are you going to do, Graysen?”
Fucked if I knew. She was right. I couldn’t go telling anyone what she’d been up to. Her father, yeah, sure, I could inform him, but what could he do? He certainly couldn’t alert the Houses, because they’d want answers to why we were hunting down the Uzrek. I ran a hand through my damp hair. “Shit, Wychthorn, I don’t know.”
One of her dress’s shoulder straps had been scorched, which left a thin webbing of melted fabric barely clinging together. I couldn’t resist trailing my fingertips along the exposed skin of her shoulder, grazing over the charred material too. Her flesh rippled and pebbled at my touch, and that electric prickling sensation bounced between us and coursed against my hand.
“No. I mean about me…about me being…” She glanced down at her hands. A worried frown creased her brow as she slid her fingers anxiously back and forth against one another, the adamere bracelet ?chinking with the motion. Her cautious gaze slowly returned to mine and she gave a defeated sigh. “The Horned Gods, they’ll—”
“Take you,” I interrupted, my expression as cold as my tone. “Maybe give you over to House Pellan. Maybe one of the Horned Gods will claim you for their own. But they’ll strip you bare to discover what you are and what you can do. Then they’ll either steal it for themselves or worse, let you live—”
“My family…” She swallowed, her graceful throat bobbing. Fear and panic flooded those pretty gray eyes.
“An example will be made. Great House Wychthorn hiding an other … All this time…?” I tsked . “I’d hate to be in Byron’s place.” I was being a prick. And I knew it.
Brushing my hand back along her shoulder, I wound my fingers around her vulnerable throat. She sucked in a breath and went rigid, her eyes rounding. It was a threat, my hand wrapped about her neck, and I tapped my forefinger on the pulse point on her throat, feeling it kick into a rapid beat. But she held my gaze, unflinching, waiting to see what I’d do, what I’d reveal.
“They won’t accept a sacrifice like House Simonis did for their little boy. They’ll wipe out your entire House. Every single Wychthorn. Every single servant. They’ll burn your home to the ground, so nothing remains.”
If it was mere revenge we were after, that’s what we Crowthers would do—hand her over to the Horned Gods. But she was so much more to us than that. She was a pawn on a board that extended far further than eight rows wide and eight rows high.
Nelle wet her lips with the tip of her tongue. “And?” What are you going to do? —her gaze ?demanded.
“I’m not going to say anything.”
She slanted her chin, staring at me through narrowed eyes. “Give me your word.”
Clever little Wychthorn.
I let myself smile, maybe a touch too cocky, because she needed to bind me. Smart to bind me. But she didn’t know that I’d never willingly give her away. I’d already done that twelve years ago. And besides, she wasn’t currently in possession of any dark magic or a device that would ensure my word would be bound.
I nodded. “You have my word, little bird.”
Her pent-up breath left her in a whoosh. The tension in her slender shoulders relaxed, and she shook her head at me, her knotty hair swaying down her back. She rubbed her temple with blackened fingers and shot me a look of disbelief. “Why? Why wouldn’t you?”
Simple. Complicated. We needed her alive. We needed to keep her hidden.
And me… I just needed her .
Something had happened when I’d kissed her in the woodland well of water. That jolt of energy that had passed between us—I’d felt the turning of the Alverac, its iron teeth biting harder, and something else twining around me, filaments of magic, of power. I was connected to her, bound to her more than ever before. That was blindingly obvious by my panic down in the catacombs.
Fuck, I’d almost lost her.
I needed time to sort it out and work out what it was. Because there was something inside me, she’d tamed and claimed.
Nelle shivered, teeth chattering, and I stupidly realized, “Shit, you’re freezing.”
I shifted her off my lap, rose ?to my feet, and flicked the shower on. It was one of those open tile spaces with a single wall for privacy. Steam began to plume and billow within the bathroom. Assisting her to stand, I reached for her dress, about to tug it off, but she stepped ?out of reach and frowned.
I shrugged, a little disappointed. Instead, I let my gaze skate leisurely down her figure and the dress half-eaten by flames. There was something fucking sexy about that wild, untamed hair, the rawness of her emotion—the puffy, red-rimmed eyes and lips salted with tears. The defiance shining back at me as she locked her spine straight and raised her chin imperiously.
“If you’re sure?” I purred, taking a step closer, forcing her to back up against the elegant vanity. I bent lower, enjoying how her pretty eyes flashed wide and lips parted in surprise as I ghosted her neck with my mouth and coasted my hand along the outside of her thigh. “But I could make it so much more—”
But before I could finish, something pinched my ear painfully.
Her thumb and forefinger twisted unmercifully.
“The fuck!” I bellowed.
Her eyes were thin glacial slits as she forcefully tugged me away by the ear. “I’ll say this once, Crowther,” she growled. “No, thanks.”