42. Chapter 42
42
Graysen
F UCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!
FUUUCK!
My ruined back was no secret. I didn’t fuck with the light off or with a shirt on. Every woman I’d impaled myself in had seen the scars. They’d all asked about it. They couldn’t help themselves after seeing the pain-marred flesh. I simply didn’t deign to offer them an answer.
I’d forgotten myself with Wychthorn.
She wanted to know who whipped me… But it was an answer she really didn’t want to know. So I’d pushed her away. I’d been purposely cruel. But wasn’t that me? A weapon. A blade formed from flesh. This time the blades were words, and I’d cut deep to wound her pride, her heart, her soul. I made her go away and so easily too. That bet my brothers had was true.
Right now, I hated myself.
But it was better than telling her the truth. Why those scars covered my back—the lashes, the bite of the whip—was all because of her. She’d done that to me.
When she’d been seven years old, locked up in the tithe prison, I’d just turned thirteen, and I’d endured a whipping once a month for a full year. A reminder never to fail again.
Ferne had really stuck it to me by choosing me for the Alverac. Maybe she did it because she thought it was my right to claim Nelle, but I had a feeling it all had to do with the strangeness that hummed between Nelle and me. My sister sensed it, and it amused and intrigued her.
And my aunt had assumed that I would be impervious to Wychthorn. That with every lick of the whip, I’d hate her. And I had. My hate for Wychthorn had burned my heart to ashes.
But I’d come to know Nelle over this year, as the Uzrek knew all too well.
Down in the dank chilly catacombs beneath Ascendria, the Uzrek had filtered through my mind, leafing through my memories, my deepest desires, my blackest thoughts, seeking the thing I feared most.
His ancient voice— Such a delightful fear, Son of the Wyrm— and his awful bone-chilling laugh echoed inside my head.
My darkest fear—that I would fall for Nelle.
I need it to stop.
I need to make her go away.
Her discovery of my scarred back was the timely reminder I needed. Today I’d given myself permission to shove aside who we were. No machinations—we were just a guy and a girl. But that was impossible, and it had been foolish of me to think otherwise.
From now on, I had to keep my distance. Every moment I spent with her was dangerous. I could feel her unraveling me, and that I could not afford, not when my family needed her so godsdamned much.
It was simple. A choice I had to make—Wychthorn or my family.
My family.
It will always be my family.
In the bright light of the bathroom, I pinched the bridge of my nose, feeling the bones reknitting beneath my fingers. I didn't let them set perfectly. The unnatural healing was a gift from my mother, but I needed this reminder—another break, this time from Nelle… no , Wychthorn…Nelle…
When did I start thinking of her as Nelle?
I splashed water over my nose and cleaned the blood away, refusing to look at my reflection in the mirror. I didn’t want to see the asshole staring back at me.
After drying my face and snatching up my sweatpants discarded on the bedroom floor and hauling them on, I left my quarters and drifted through the dark mansion. Padding barefoot to the Great Room, I passed several of Byron’s guards who eyed me fearfully, respectfully, as they fucking should. I needed a drink or two or three. Hells, maybe I’d drown myself in a bottle of Macallan and piss off Byron at the same time.
Shadows enveloped The Great Room. Silver moon rays slunk through the massive floor-to-ceiling windows and cut through the darkness of the early hours of the morning. I leaned forward, bracing my hands against the lip of the wet bar, and bowed my head with a weary sigh. I didn’t know what was up or down any longer. What was right or wrong or what she deserved?
She deserves pain. Anguish. The bite of the whip.
But why the hells was it so hard to think about doing it anymore? Making her suffer as I had done?
Maybe if I was Kenton, I could. He was an ice-cold motherfucker.
Behind me, a throat cleared.
I straightened and glanced over my shoulder, watching as Marissa walked deeper into the room. Has she been waiting up for me?
Marissa stepped toward me, and I heard the rattle of those damned pills she used to settle her nerves, coming from a pocket in her skirt. The pills she’d started taking after shutting Nelle up in the tithe prison.
“Nelle’s turning twenty next month,” she whispered.
“Yep.” Couldn’t wait for it. I unscrewed the cap, took a swig of whiskey, and thumped the bottle back on the wet bar. The crack of glass on marble echoed through the room.
I half-turned toward Marissa. She’d stopped a good distance away, nervously rubbing her arm with a hand. The rasping sound of dry skin, like sandpaper smoothing roughened wood, irritated my ears. “Byron, send you to beg for your daughter’s life, Marissa?”
She shook her head—no.
I raised an eyebrow. So this was all on Marissa. Ballsy.
“Nelle. She’s innocent of this. She doesn’t know… She doesn’t know what we did. Why Byron…” She untangled her hands, lifting them in defeat, at a loss what to say. “Why he did what he did.”
“Either way, he did it all for her.”
“Please, Graysen.” And I flinched at hearing my name leave her mouth. “Don’t make her pay for our mistake.”
“Mistake?” I ground the word out between clenched teeth. Mistake —like it was some sort of mishap, spilling one’s drink or accidentally smashing a glass. Easily cleaned up and easily replaced. “Your mistake—”
I couldn’t even continue. Anger and heartache throttled the breath in my lungs and I gripped the bottleneck of the whiskey so hard the sound of glass compressing and threatening to shatter crackled through the room.
She thought us claiming Nelle was revenge. She was right—partly.
“I’m sorry for the part I played.”
I couldn’t look at her. My voice was raw and filled with malice. “Tell that to my mother. To my sister. ”
In the corner of my eye, I caught her flinching. I swore I could hear her frail, brittle bones splintering. She’d fallen apart all those years ago under the weight of guilt she carried.
Lifting the bottle, I took a long, long pull of whiskey. The alcohol burned my throat. Wiping away the wet beads from my lips with the back of my hand, I continued. “You can’t save Nelle from me.” From the things I desired from her once the Alverac tied her to me for the rest of her miserable life, however short or long it might be. From what my family ultimately intended to do with her.
Finally, I twisted around to confront Marissa, seeing the deep anguish that ravaged her thin, sharp face. She once had been stunning. I remembered when I’d been a child, her shiny tawny hair, the radiant smiles, and the joyous laughter she brought with her whenever she visited my mother at our home.
“Save your other daughter. Don’t let Evelene marry Corné.” There was no divorce in our world. Sure, both of them could have affairs, that was common, but Evvie wouldn’t be free of Corné until death claimed her.
She might even start begging for eternal sleep after a few years.
Marissa blinked, the change in conversation from Nelle to Evelene startling her for a moment. “Byron—”
“Byron is an egotistical prick.” He’d do anything to keep himself as Head of Great House Wychthorn, including betraying my family all those years ago. With one whisper in the right ear—Sirro—our family had been ripped apart, all to save his own.
“Stop the wedding,” I advised Marissa. Grabbing hold of the whiskey, I stalked out of the Great Room. But a moment before I pushed through the doors, she said something that made me come to a stumbling halt.
“Byron. I’m afraid of what he might do to end the Alverac.”
“He’s already tried killing me.” Loads of times. I was fairly certain I was safe this weekend. He wouldn’t be foolish enough to try ending me here on his very property and incriminate himself. And I was a Crowther. We didn’t die easily, especially one that hardly slept and was always on guard.
“I know. And he’s failed. But…he can’t allow you to claim Nelle next month.”
The blood in my veins turn icy and my heart faltered. Why did I have a horrible feeling I knew where this was going? Spinning around, I faced her. She stood beside a chaise. The moonlight falling upon her made her seem as if she was a spectral phantom. Especially the way filmy shadows deepened the gaunt lines of her face. “What are you saying, Marissa?”
Her throat bobbed as she swallowed. “I’m saying I’m worried about what he might do to her. He can’t let you claim her. And…if he can’t kill you…”
Her?
He’d kill his own daughter?
We stared at each other. Horror etched my features, while sadness and grief engraved hers. She truly believed it. She really believed her husband, Nelle’s father, was capable of doing that.
But of course, he could. He held the mantle of the Great House. When we’d claimed Nelle with the Alverac, Byron and Marissa knew we’d discovered their betrayal. Byron suspected once we possessed Nelle, the moment she turned twenty, we’d hand her over to the Horned Gods because she was other , and Byron and his entire House would be punished with utter finality—death.
Marissa inclined her head and walked away, leaving me alone in the shifting shadows of the room.
I felt as if the ground had tilted beneath me, spinning on its axis, altering everything my family had planned. What was I going to do now? I couldn’t leave Nelle here.
I had just made it back to my room that still smelled sweetly of Nelle when I heard a scream.
Who’s hurting her?
I’ll fucking shred them!
Her terrified scream tore through me, rattled through my head, and fear squeezed my chest.
Byron. Not Byron…
I tossed the bottle of whiskey aside and barreled through the adjoining door linking our two rooms. My heart pounded fiercely and adrenalin burned my blood.
What is it, what is it, what is it, what is it?
The door to Nelle’s bedroom blew open as I crashed through. It slammed against the wall so hard that the handle smashed a hole in the plaster. I threw my senses outward— Who is here, what are they doing to her?
I skidded to a halt in the bedroom lit up with gentle illumination from her night light and the fairy lights twisted around her bedhead.
Scanning the room, fast, intently, I discovered no one was there.
Moonlight poured through the windows and bathed Nelle in silvery rays .
She was thrashing, caught in a nightmare, her bedsheets tangled about her limbs and her nightgown stuck to her sweat-slick skin.
Calm her, calm her, calm her—
I hesitated.
Do it.
Don’t! Don’t comfort her!
DO IT!
But I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. I fisted my hands and forced them to my sides. All I wanted to do was crawl onto the bed, wake her from her nightmare, and comfort her.
I can’t, I can’t, I can’t—
I had to keep her away. I had to keep the wall of ice. I couldn’t let myself care for her.
Nelle screamed once more. I plastered my hands over my ears—the blood-curdling scream deafening. Her anguish too much.
I felt it then, a tremor in my bones. But it was beneath my feet. An almost imperceptible jostling of the floor, the walls too—
She was losing it.
Whatever she was, whatever power she had, was seeping out from her dream world.
Nelle’s terror vibrated outward, getting stronger. And I knew in a mere moment that slight tremble would become a violent quake. I’d felt it before in the catacombs beneath Ascendria. I knew what kind of power she could expend.
Someone darted past me, flinging a surprised look over her shoulder as she threw herself onto Nelle’s bed. She scrambled across the mattress and grabbed Nelle’s arms to pin down her flailing limbs.
“Nelle, Nelle, NELLE!” Evvie shook her sister hard. “WAKE UP! WAKE UP!”
Nelle awoke with a start, gasping for breath, tears rolling down her cheeks.
The quaking in the room, the bed, the walls—died instantly.
“Evvie … ” Nelle only had eyes for her sister. “ Evvie… ” she repeated distantly, as if she were finding it difficult to untangle herself from that dark dream world. Her tremulous voice sounded scratchy from screaming. “I couldn’t see… I couldn’t see…”
“Shhh… it’s okay, it’s okay …it’s just a dream…just a dream…”
I couldn’t move. I was a voyeur watching from the outside as Evvie settled beside Nelle, cradling her in her arms and stroking a hand up and down her little sister’s trembling back until her stifled sobs eased and her ragged breathing relaxed, soothing her until she fell asleep.
I realized in the glow of the night light, the fairy lights twined around the four-poster bed, Evvie was staring at me. Her voice was soft but threaded with steel. “She dreams of the dark. She can’t be in the dark. Ever. Do you understand, Crowther?” She gave me the fiercest look I’d ever seen her give. It rivaled Nelle’s death-glares. “You lock her up without any kind of light and you’ll break her.” I was pinned under that glare; it promised violence. “You do that to her, and I’ll come after you, and I’ll keep coming after you until I’ve broken you too and buried you so deep you can’t claw your way out. You got that, Crowther?”
Fuck, the Wychthorn sisters burned with such fire.
I inclined my head in acknowledgment, spun on my heel, and left. I had no doubt Evvie would do as she threatened.
And yet… yet, I’d still do what I had to do.
I’d break Evvie’s little sister.
Deep down, I suspected how it could be done.
And now I knew for certain.
Fuck. I really wish I didn’t know that.