17. Chapter 17
17
Graysen
R aking a hand through my hair, I tugged hard.
What the hells was I thinking?
What had I done?
Shit, all I wanted to do was get into that stubborn head of Wychthorn’s that Danne Pellan was off-limits. Her new friend? That twisted motherfucker? When I discovered he was the one she was hoping to see this weekend, I’d completely lost it. Which was easy to do with that hellion roaring at me and fighting me at every turn. That fire she burned with, that damned fight she had in her—was the biggest aphrodisiac of all.
I hadn’t intended what-so-ever to dry-fuck her.
But hells it was fun.
Better than fun.
I want to sink into her.
The heat of Wychthorn pressing against my cock, the surprise and shock flaring in those pretty gray eyes before they melted into desire, filled my mind. She could deny it as much as she wanted, but she’d been running hot for me and one breath away from coming. Her arousal, that scent of hers, had driven me insane with longing.
She wasn’t supposed to feel as good as she did beneath me. Every single inch of me hummed. I felt alive. As if I’d been shaken awake from a deep slumber. What the hells is this bewitchment?
All that thrummed through my head, my blood, was her.
Her exquisite taste.
Her tantalizing scent.
The slide of her silky skin .
Her lips. Hells, I wanted to kiss her. I wanted more of that sunshine. Bask in it. Steal it. Heal my black heart.
I passed a few sentries as I strode toward Byron’s garage, where I’d parked my bike. Thankfully, their gaze lingered on my sword rather than the godsdamned hard-on straining against my pants. My cock throbbed, punching at the armor, desperate to impale itself into the nearest willing woman. I had this awful feeling that it wouldn’t be satisfied with any pretty pussy until it had tasted Little Miss Fire and Brimstone.
This isn’t supposed to happen.
I’m not allowed to crave her.
But that thing, whatever it was between us, pulled and tugged and momentarily blinded me to who she was—a Wychthorn. Which wasn’t hard to understand—this evening with Sirro’s unexpected appearance had more twists in it than a damned helix. I’d kept my distance from her over the past year, with dark looks and surly behavior, acting like a blunt fucking asshole— my usual self— and in a mere few hours, she tore rents into the wall of ice I’d built to keep her out.
Hellsgate, I was on the other side, trying to batter my way through.
Stop it…
Make her go away!
My pace faltered, and I took a moment to link my fingers behind the back of my head and hiss out a long pent-up breath to shake the memory of her soft body against mine. I rolled my neck, cracking it.
Get your godsdamned head back in the game, Crowther.
Wychthorn was nothing to me. Nothing.
She was a means to an end.
I was a Crowther, and she was the reason the heart of my family had been ripped apart.
I grabbed hold of that cold, dark feeling beginning to fill my veins with ice and held tight—Wychthorn meant nothing.
There were things to do. Things to hunt. And I needed to be on point.
Before I could leave the mansion, someone intercepted me, exactly as I expected. The guard caught up to me and requested I speak with Byron in his office.
Byron sat behind his large desk with his jacket off, his tie loosened and askew, while nursing a rose-crystal tumbler filled to the top with cognac. Byron’s salted hair appeared ruffled, his eyes were a little bloodshot, and he rubbed at them as if they were gritty. He looked worn down and defeated—my favorite look on him.
He took in my outfit and the various blades. “Leaving it a bit late to collect a tithe?”
House Wychthorn obviously had its tithe. Someone else dirtied their hands on his behalf. But we were Crowthers, and we came from a long line of ancestors who hunted. We found our own tithes, rather than ordering a soldier to do it for us.
Where is the fun in that?
I shrugged nonchalantly, shifting my weight from foot to foot. “We’re after something unique.”
Nostrils flaring, he drew in a deep breath, placing the tumbler down on the glass-topped desk, his fingers shaking just a touch. A different desk, I noted, than the one I’d signed my name in blood on five years ago. I could taste his anger like mildew permeating a rotting forest floor. His lips curled into a distasteful line. “You’re not staying in the room assigned to you.”
No, I wasn’t. I knew my movements were closely monitored, and someone informed Byron the moment I threw my shit into the bedroom right beside Wychthorn’s.
“I found an empty one next to your daughter’s.” Even now, I found it hard to utter her name. She was always Wychthorn or little bird—never Nelle. It was another way I used to keep her away, to keep up the wall of ice, to keep her distant .
“You will not stay in that room.”
“I think I prefer to—”
“It’s not right—”
I bristled that he dared interfere. But, at the same time, loved it—loved putting him in his place. “No, it’s not right. But it is my right. My right to do whatever I want, because it’s my name signed in blood on the Alverac. She’s nineteen and the terms you agreed to…” I could do anything to her on those days stated in the Alverac. And I meant anything. The last day of every month, and every family occasion we were together, she was mine—until I owned her completely when she turned twenty.
Byron squeezed his eyes shut briefly, deepening the tired grooves around his features. No doubt he was trying to shove away the images, the thought of what someone like me would do with his beloved daughter.
He swallowed a messy mouthful of cognac, wiping his mouth with a hand, the sleeve cuff already stained with the toffee-colored liquid. His shoulders slumped and his hands curled on either side of his glass. He could barely look at me. “Free her of the Alverac,” he said simply.
Always the same, every time we met— Free her of the Alverac. Let her go.
I fought the shit-eating grin tickling my mouth.
This great man, who ruled over us, was swaying on the tip of begging.
I shoved my hands into the pockets of my jacket, shrugging lightly. “It’s not my fault she thinks she’s going to marry me.” No, that was all on Byron and his wife. “Why not tell her the truth of what she signed?” I’d love to see the terror in her pretty gray eyes every time we met. A bit of fucking respect wouldn’t go amiss.
He glanced up, a fragment of the old Byron flaring up with the fierce hate that glowed in his drunken gaze. “She’s fearless. I mean to keep her that way for as long as I can.”
And I meant to break her of that. She was fearless. I’d never been able to intimidate her, not even when we first spoke in the aviary. And it fucked me right off. It also impressed the hells out of me. I still didn’t know if I wanted to choke the life out of her with her pretty pale braid or fuck her. Well, actually I did. I wanted to fuck her first.
“What do you want? What will it cost for her freedom? Name it, Graysen, and it’s yours.”
He meant raising us to an Upper House.
Any of the Lower Houses would have taken up his offer the first time he voiced it. To advance from Lower to Upper House, perhaps usurp the place of another family, meant we’d lord over all those Lower Houses. The rise in status would give us more power and domination.
But power and domination weren’t our ultimate goal.
Our goal was Wychthorn.
My goal was Wychthorn.
I wanted his daughter sinking to her knees, bowing at my feet, broken, bloodied, begging. I wanted Byron Wychthorn to see her breaking apart and in doing so, I’d break him too.
He deserved it.
And even then, afterward, I’d never gift her freedom.
Without waiting for dismissal, I bowed and left the room.