53. Chapter 53
53
Nelle
E vvie and Corné had entered the temple to ready themselves for the Horned Gods’ blessing.
My arms ached where my father had gripped them too hard. I didn’t understand what had overcome him. I expected him to urge me to keep myself hidden, but that other look, the one that overwhelmed his features with grief and guilt and caused his silence, unnerved me.
It had felt like both an apology and a goodbye.
My mother tipped a small white pill into her palm and swallowed it dry. Her eyes shone distant and glassy. “Byron, it’s time. We’d better see to Evvie.” He patted her hand as she linked it through his arm. “Come along, Nelle,” she encouraged with a bland smile.
I went to follow my parents when someone stepped in front of my path.
Glancing up, I was surprised to find it was Varen Crowther. In all my years, even since signing that parchment promising me to his second-eldest son, we’d barely spoken, merely politely greeted each other when I’d attended a rare House Gathering. Though I’d felt his heavy gaze crawling all over me, exactly like his twin sister’s, whenever we’d been in one another’s presence.
Varen bowed—a swift and shallow gesture.
He was an imposing man, at six-foot-five he towered over my diminutive figure. The tuxedo failed to conceal the fact that his body was quilted with muscles. Like his sons, he had a riot of wavy black hair that was pushed back from his forehead and lightly winged with silver. Also, like them, he was handsome, but his beauty was more weathered and brutal. The hard glint in those icy eyes, glowering beneath thick eyebrows, froze me in place.
His deep voice, like sliding gravel, rumbled, “You’ll stand with us tonight. ”
My gaze narrowed on him.
Did I hear that right?
My father spun around to face Varen. His features twisted in outrage and he reached my side in three furious steps. “She’s a Wychthorn. She’ll stand on our side.”
The intoxicating scent of cedar brushed over me a heartbeat before Graysen appeared. His body heat singed mine as he shifted closer, but he completely ignored me and everyone there. He studied his fingernails, a bored gesture matching his tone perfectly. “She’s a Crowther.”
My scowl whipped to him— Like hells I am!
Graysen merely raised one brow at me, before his gaze swung to my bristling father as he opened his mouth to snap something. But my mother’s bony hand on his arm stopped him. Her wide-eyed gaze swept between us all, lingering on Graysen. She’d always found it difficult to hold Graysen’s piercing stare, but this time, she met his empty eyes and inclined her head respectfully. Her lips were bloodless and her other hand had stolen into the pocket of her dress. I could hear a rattling sound as she rotated that small vial of pills between her fingers. When she addressed my father, her voice was papery-thin. “She’ll remain with them.”
I sucked in a stunned breath. “Momma?”
But she’d averted her gaze from mine.
I whirled to my father with a look— Get me out of this!
The barest of movements—my mother squeezed my father’s arm. He cleared his throat and nodded to Varen.
I begged him with my eyes— Don’t do this!
Something shrunk within him, and it frightened me. He’d always been my constant, my protector, the man who ruled over all the Houses. But with the Crowthers, he always deferred. Always. I didn’t know what kind of power they held over him. Was it me? Surely it wasn’t this marriage contract Graysen and I had signed?
Father —I mouthed. But his gaze had already slunk aside. As if he felt guilty. As if he was at a loss. As if his authority were bound in this matter.
My heart stumbled as he turned away, stiffly escorting my mother up the steps of the temple, heading to the small inner room where Evvie would be waiting with our family’s tithe.
My mind reeled. They’d left me alone with the Crowthers.
I caught a look of understanding shared between Graysen and his father, before a broad hand was pressed at the dip in my back, pushing me toward the family I never really thought I’d ever be joining.
“What are you doing?” I whispered. But Graysen didn’t answer. He kept his hand on my back and that impassive expression on his face as he moved us toward House Crowther.
A shiver that had nothing to do with the power relentlessly humming inside my chest stroked an icy fingertip down my spine. I was tiny, but I’d never truly felt my stature until this very moment, surrounded by a sea of darkness. Cold. I felt so bone-cold and isolated, hemmed in by the Crowthers.
Valarie had never taken a husband. But Graysen had other aunts and uncles with their offspring gathered here tonight. Curious, discourteous glances, including those of Graysen’s brothers, were cast my way.
As one, the entire family bowed before me.
Ferne had her arm entwined around Valarie’s. Delicate lace covered her empty eye sockets. She, I was the most curious about. However, it was Valarie I locked my gaze with. Her dark hair had been pulled into a severe coil at the nape, which matched her stern features. The blustering wind whipped her simple black dress and made it flow like molten liquid. She held my hate-glare, staring back at me down the length of her straight nose with arctic eyes. Her expression was impenetrable. I had no idea what she was thinking. That violet gaze unreadable.
A familiar fire began to spark and inflame the smoldering embers in my blood.
Vengeance.
The creature breathed out, filling my veins with a pulsating power that demanded to be unleashed. That scratchy feeling returned. It felt as if I was going to crawl out of my skin. I raked my fingernails along the exposed flesh of my arm, back and forth, faster, harder. My dress, the godsdamn bow cinched around my ribs, constricted my breath, and my body itched— everything itched!
I tried to block out the images flooding my mind. The sound of a whip slicing through flesh. The blinding fury at what Graysen had endured.
My roots are deep, my strength is stone, my breath the wind. I bow to none.
But I wanted it too badly. I wanted her to suffer.
“Easy, Wychthorn,” Graysen murmured. My head jerked around to meet his blank gaze. There was a disinterested line to his posture as he stood beside me with one hand shoved into the pocket of his pants. My fury bored him. I bored him. That’s what everyone else saw.
But not me—I saw the truth of him.
Long lashes were half-lowered over sharpened eyes, while his thumb rubbed across the nails of his curled fingers, and he minutely sawed his jaw. I honed in on his shallow breathing. He was on edge. This wasn’t a power play for him. It wasn’t him showing me my place. He was worried. Worried I might upset his aunt.
What sort of hold did she have over him? Over this entire family?
And why in hells did he think his aunt could do anything to someone like me?
Foremost, I was a Wychthorn. No one would dare raise a hand to me.
As for myself, though…
Do it— the creature hissed.
And maybe it was more about the man standing beside me than myself. Protectiveness burned bright, along with a strange territorial fury that I wasn’t in the right mind state to question.
I’d touched those scars, that seagrass-textured back, with my own fingers.
She’d done that to him. A child!
I ripped my gaze from Graysen and my high heels scratched at the stone as I stepped in front of him, giving in to the creature which was reacting to the monster that stood before me.
I unwound my adamere bracelet and held it aloft.
I used this on Corné… Maybe she needs to be taught a lesson.
Maybe she needs to be whipped.
Valarie’s detached gaze fixated on the ripple of beads as they caught the glow of wildfyre and spun shards of blue light across the clustered darkness of Crowthers.
“Wychthorn.”
This time, the soft chinking of adamere failed to distract me, failed to remind me to keep myself calm. Instead, they were the melody to my heart pounding a heavy war drum inside my chest. There was nothing but wrath and abhorrence hurtling through me, directed at the vile woman staring at me as if I were insignificant. All that roared in my ears was the cracking of branches against the stone temple like the strike of a whip.
I bared my teeth, moving fast—
Shifted a foot back. Swiftly spinning my body sideways—
The Crowthers moved like ink spilling on parchment, stepping forward to encircle me, tightening their ranks like a fortress.
“Wychthorn,” came again.
Graysen might have shouted it or whispered it. I couldn’t tell because I stopped hearing anything but the roaring of the creature— END HER!
I flung my arm back. The bracelet’s length snapped outwards—
A large hand wrapped around my slender wrist, stopping the arc and whipping motion as I went to strike.
A second later, I felt Graysen’s other hand pinch the nape of my neck. I gasped, my spine instinctively bowing. It was a possessive touch, purposeful and primal, a signal from a predator to its prey to submit. Despite the message, the way his blunt-tipped fingers squeezed the vulnerable spot, his touch doused the rage burning in my gut, the flames and fury scorching my throat.
I blinked rapidly, coming to—the roaring in my ears for bloodshed, dulling—but not able to fully gather my wits, nor quite able to let go of my revulsion for his aunt.
“If you’ll excuse us both,” I heard him respectfully address his father and aunt. Then he suddenly jerked me sideways as he tugged me away.
I flung a dark look over my shoulder. Valarie’s chin tilted imperiously, watching me through slitted eyes as the Crowther family stepped aside to let us pass.
“Graysen,” I ground out, stumbling to keep up.
“Don’t—” he gritted out as he led us toward the back of the temple. His cold, black gaze slid to mine. “Just don’t.”