52. Chapter 52
52
Graysen
T here were no other words for it…I was freaking the hells out.
I stood with my family on the outskirts of the temple with the trees at our backs. Leaves rustled and branches slapped and creaked and groaned. The wind was as scattered as my thoughts, the gusts as strong as the panic sweeping through me.
Wearing my usual mask of boredom and indifference, no one could read the riot of emotion going on inside me.
But she wasn’t just anyone.
Nelle possessed a sharpness that rivaled the blade hidden in my jacket pocket. She’d picked up a sledgehammer and smashed the thick wall of ice, splintering it into chunks and shards, and seen right through to the heart of me.
Oh yeah, I am fucked.
That girl let me get away with nothing. She was going to nail me to the wall, pin me there like a moth, and torture the truth out of me.
What Caidan had said back there in the woods slayed me.
It had been scratched across my mind in big block letters I couldn’t run from. A mirror held in front of me, forcing me to see the truth reflected—all those moments when I’d forgotten myself and dreamed of her, of what could have been.
And did my brother have to make it sound like that?
Gods, what kind of bullshit romcom did he pull that from?
As if she’s everything.
But it was true, and it scared the ever-living shit out of me.
Hooking a finger into the knot of my tie that was strangling my neck, I tugged and yanked. The godsdamn thing was too tight. I couldn’t breathe. At least that was what I told myself in my desperation to ignore the fact my hands were shaking.
Shit, my hands are shaking!
Shock flared through me that I’d only just noticed.
I flexed my fingers, curling and unfurling their length until I got myself under control.
I’d left Nelle behind in the gloomy woods, gathering my messed up feelings and confusion at what I’d confessed to her, and had run like a coward.
I couldn’t give her what she wanted.
I couldn’t let myself care for her.
Gods, but I do.
And it was right then, with sickening clarity, that I realized she was a vibrant poison that spiked my blood and fevered my soul. I wasn’t sure I had the strength to bleed her from me like toxic blood, nor even if I truly wanted to give her up.
I pinched the bridge of my nose and sucked in a fortifying breath.
I am so screwed.
Another thought arose, slinking through my mind, and it had me roughly running a hand through my hair, tugging hard enough to make my scalp burn. Why the hells did I confess as much as I had to Nelle? What was wrong with me? It had been there on the tip of my tongue, about to slip free—what her family had done to ours.
She was clever, my little bird. I didn’t think she remembered my mother or knew of her friendship with Marissa. While my mother had rarely visited Marissa at her home, so too had Wychthorn rarely attended House Gatherings.
She’d put it together, though. In my moment of madness, I’d given her enough for the wheels to turn in that brilliant mind of hers. Gods, she’d spent most of her life in her family’s library, searching for any reference of otherworldly creatures in those cumbersome tomes, then tracked down the location of the Uzrek and spoke with it. And what had my stupid-ass done? I’d handed over all the pieces of a jigsaw. All she had to do was fit them together.
She’d soon come to the right conclusion that we’d both been punished the same year. How that inner light her mother glowed with had dimmed as she’d fallen into despair and turned to those little white pills to blanket her guilt.
Marissa had locked her daughter in a tithe prison, trapping her in absolute darkness behind a wall of adamere. Maybe because she couldn’t deal with what Nelle was, but I suspected it was more about the fact she couldn’t face her daughter. Nelle was a living reminder of what she’d done. How she’d saved her at the expense of her best friend .
If Nelle pieced it together, discovered why our two Houses were pitted against one other… What the Alverac meant… What I was going to do to her—
How can I go through with it?
I suddenly felt my aunt’s attention slithering all over me.
I kept up the mask I wore, something even my aunt couldn’t see past, and waited until her interest turned back to her twin. She leaned slightly to the side to whisper something to my father. I didn’t listen in. I didn’t care to. It would only be about those Houses gathered here, or the Wychthorns, always at the forefront of our intrigues.
Lightning ripped across the churning storm clouds, chased by thunder. The smell of ozone fizzing through the air muted the foul tang scraping against my tongue from those dark souls eagerly anticipating the blessing. Beneath it all came a low vibration I felt in my bones, emanating from the temple itself.
The last of the stragglers had made their way from the marquee and arrived at the Wychthorns’ temple to await ?the Horned Gods. I watched them mingling like a thick cluster of ants crawling around a kill.
We were the only House that survived the unfolding centuries after the Final War. The other Houses that had lived through that bloodbath had fallen away into history, annihilated from the machinations of other Houses, or fell from grace. We survived by keeping our distance, being ruthless and cunning, like we were doing right now.
My aunt’s gaze slowly raked over those gathered on the outskirts of the temple, her razor-sharp mind no doubt scheming to use whomever she could. Ever since that black night on the country road when I’d lost my mother, she had one singular purpose—find the Horned God with the vibrant red hair and forked tongue.
Garnering the identity of the Horned God had proved elusive.
Nelle would assume that I hated my aunt for what she did, tearing my skin anew, flaying my back until it became tattered shreds. And there were moments, dark moments when I did, when I’d wanted to rip that whip from my aunt’s hand and turn it against her.
But my aunt had been right. It was all down to me. To that foolish kid who’d opened his mouth, wanting to protect a small girl.
If I hadn’t…if only I’d kept my mouth shut.
But then Nelle—
“Bishop to c4—mate in three,” a low raspy voice said, interrupting my conflicted thoughts .
I jerked around, the soles of my shoes scraping against cobblestones and through crumpled leaves. Ferne stood behind me, holding onto Caidan’s forearm, my brother smugly smiling, no doubt thinking he’d done me a favor back there in the woods.
Ferne let go of Caidan and stretched her fingers forward, and I offered her my arm. As she lifted onto her toes, I met her halfway, leaning down just enough so she could press a kiss to my cheek in greeting.
Earlier, after Caidan had checked on Evvie, he’d joined me in my quarters, both of us remaining silent and brooding in each other’s company. I’d changed yet again into a new tuxedo, one that, at my request after Nelle tripped me up into sludge, my sister had brought with her from home. Caidan had been forced into borrowing a pair of my pants since our rumble in the woodland had torn holes in his. The only good thing that came out of the mess he’d shoved me into with Nelle, with all my secrets spilled for her to sift through, was the uncomfortable way he stood, my tuxedo pants too tight for his bulky body.
Sudden fury rolled off me in blistering waves at how Caidan had so brilliantly fucked everything up for me. I’d been drowning in quicksand with every single reveal and he’d forced me to face up to my truth, how I felt about Nelle. And to top it all off, the girl was now onto me.
My brother was going to have a little chat with my fists later on in our training pit back home.
As if he read my dark thoughts, his smile turned into a half-feral grin, those stupid-ass dimples denting his cheeks as he mouthed— Bring it on.
I bared my teeth.
He wiped a mock tear from the corner of his eye with his middle finger.
I raised my fist to break his nose—
Ferne threw up her hands in an exasperated gesture. “Whatever is going on between you two, knock it off.”
While Caidan and I maintained a fearsome glare-off, Ferne barked, “Now!”
He silently snarled and broke first, spinning around to stalk off. Well, tried to stalk. I huffed a gleeful laugh at his wooden stride, how he attempted to tug stealthily at his crotch for more room. He flipped me off over his shoulder without even looking my way, rejoining Elyse Estlore and Mela V?duva.
A stylish gown hugged Mela’s curves. The gleam of fire enhanced the warm undertones of her dark brown skin. She smoothed a hand up over her braids, swept elegantly into a high bun adorned with a sparkling ruby that matched the color of her dress, before she nervously fiddled with her necklace and its pendant which had always reminded me of a tiny golden egg.
I knew Mela well enough to see how on edge she was around Elyse, how she was trying desperately not to seem affected by the other woman.
I caught her eye and smirked, mouthing— Good luck.
A small sliver of white teeth flashed as she shot back a disheartened grimace, one that neither my brother nor Elyse noticed.
Nelle had assumed wrong in the water well when she accused me of favoring the girl with the scent of honey and orange blossoms. I let Nelle believe that Mela and I occasionally fucked. But the truth of it all was… hells no. Mela was my best friend and our friendship was and always had been platonic. Besides, Mela wouldn’t ever be interested in me. She was attracted to her own gender. The only reason Nelle picked up on Mela’s perfume was that every so often we’d crash together. Maybe after we came home exhausted after a hunt or we’d gone out to a bar and gotten absolutely hammered, I’d succumb to my insomnia and collapse into a deep sleep while she passed out beside me. Mela was the only other person outside of my family that knew of my insomnia. Well, I supposed that was no longer true since I’d entrusted my secret to Nelle too. Not that either of them knew the reason behind the affliction.
My sister cleared her throat, rousing me out of my thoughts. Welcoming the distraction from the mess I was currently in with Nelle, I said, “Bishop to c4, huh?” Tucking my hand into my pocket, I dug out my phone and swiped the screen. Ferne’s last chess move showed up as a notification. She’d sent it through a moment before sidling up to me. I arched an eyebrow I knew she wouldn’t see, but she responded all the same, her small smile growing wider. “Mate in three? Gods, Ferne, so damn cocky.”
She shrugged a slender shoulder. “You have to be with brothers like mine.”
“You haven’t won yet,” I reminded her. Though, with Ferne, it pretty much was an absolute.
She nudged my side with a pointy elbow, making me shirk away. “Oh, but I will.”
Ferne tucked a lock of glossy black hair behind her ear and stilled as if she sensed something. I frowned, watching her worry her bottom lip with her teeth as if biting back a secretive smile, while those sweet cheeks of hers pinked.
My eyebrows nearly rose to my hairline as an uneasy feeling squeezed my gut.
Oh, hells no.
I searched through the milling crowd and found him easily enough. The boy was staring at my sister with a dreamy look in his green eyes. He noticed my incensed attention fixed on him, and his head swiveled my way so fast that his brown hair shivered.
Snatching my dagger from the inside of my tux jacket, I twirled it. The spinning blade caught the wildfyre light and gleamed blue as I delivered Ezra Qillisan a cold, vicious smile.
His eyes widened in understanding and his throat bobbed as he swallowed.
Yeah, that’s right—stay away.
My sister tensed. “What did you do?” She pressed her lips into a thin line.
I tucked away the dagger and used my most innocent voice. “Nothing.”
Her nostrils flared. “Ezra Qillisan, right?”
I grunted, glaring at the boy , who I thought would have heeded my warning and shuffled away, but the little fucker tipped his chin up at me. A sliver of me delighted in his bravado. The rest of me wanted to crush him beneath my leather shoes.
Ferne crossed her arms defiantly over her chest. “He’s my friend.” But her cheeks flushed a brighter pink at her botched attempt at subterfuge.
“Then what,”—waving a pointed finger at her expression—“is all this?”
She slapped my hand away. “I’m sixteen, Gray. Siiixteeen and old enough to like a boy and hope he likes her back.”
An anguished noise crawled from my throat as I scrubbed a palm against my face while hissing, “Gods, Ferne, I’m your brother.”
She thwacked me on the arm, good and hard, and expelled a sound like ugh , but more peeved. “I knew I should have stayed with Caidan.”
I didn’t know if the suffocating sensation around my neck was the uncomfortable knowledge that my baby sister was growing up or the fact I’d messed up my tie, as per usual. My hands scrabbled at the knot, trying to loosen it up.
Ferne heaved an annoyed sigh and reached for the tie’s silky length, her fingers inching upwards. She deftly unknotted it and retied it properly, the silken ends whirling around with her deft moves. “I don’t know why you’re all so useless at this.” Finished, she brushed her hands along my shoulders, feeling the fabric of my jacket beneath her touch. “What number tux is this?”
“Fourth,” I grouched.
“Lucky for you I’d brought so many,” she grinned. My sister, though resentful of Nelle, had always found my time spent with Little Miss Annoying grudgingly amusing, and knew the tricks played on me well enough to have thought ahead and arrived with not one, but half a dozen tuxedos.
Ferne’s hands stilled. She tipped her head to the side. Dark eyebrows nudged together over the delicate lace that covered her forehead and eyeless sockets. The lace was a pale pink that matched her dress perfectly. She brought her hands up to hover in front of my face, fingers spread wide, before she made a soft, considering hum. I felt her senses sweeping over my body, wrapping around me, prodding and poking.
Ferne reeled back, her mouth falling open. “Something’s changed…shifted in you, brother.”
“Nothing has—”
“Bullshit,” she snarled. Her fury cut brutally into her beauty.
Dread clenched my heart with sharp claws and squeezed like a motherfucker.
If my sister could sense what I railed against, who else could? My gaze instinctively sliced to my aunt, but she was too busy listening to Kenton informing her he and Jett would escort the tithe convoy later tonight to have noticed.
“Ferne,” I glared, shoving her hands away from my face. “Leave it alone, okay? I got this.”
She grew serious, deadly. Everything about her. “You better. The Witches Ball is nearly upon us and we need her.”
The Witches Ball was held every seven years at a secret location and attended by those Horned Gods whose power dealt in nefarious spells and potions. It was less a ball, and more an auction. We’d already teased out our bait and were waiting for the tug on the line to reel in an invitation. Houses were rarely invited to the Witches Ball unless you possessed a unique offering or something that would pique their curiosity…like a Wychthorn princess.
Revulsion, as thick as bile, surged up my throat.
Why couldn’t it have been any of my other brothers chosen to do this to her?
I looped a hand around Ferne’s elbow and gently led her away. She frowned in question, but allowed me to direct her off the cobblestones and into the woodland. The curtain of leaves and branches blocked out the radiance glowing from the wildfyre torches and plunged us into darkness. I carefully guided her a short distance from my family, over jutting roots and the uneven layer of dead matter rotting on the ground, stopping before a twisted adolescent wild pine.
There was a question that Nelle had asked me last night. One I had asked myself over the years but never raised. “Why me?” I implored my sister quietly, my voice strangely hoarse.
Confusion had her angling her head. The dark curtain of her hair fell across the laced forehead and the shiny lengths cascaded over a shoulder.
“Why did you choose me for the Alverac?”
The question startled her. But the way she quickly settled made me feel that she’d been expecting me to have asked, perhaps for a long time now. “Complicated and simple.”
I squeezed her hand, urging her to explain.
She huffed, her bottom lip jutting out a fraction, and she looked exactly her age, a surly teenager. “Simply, spite. I was too young and angry to be standing there amongst the Wychthorns. And I figured she deserved to be broken by the person who needs it to heal himself.”
My breath constricted tight in my throat.
Is that me?
Broken? Fractured?
My sister seemed to read my mind and my feelings. Reaching out with her free hand, her callus-roughened skin scraped atop mine. She whispered, distress in her tone, “You shouldn’t carry the burden of what happened that night with our mother. It’s not right—”
“None of this is right,” I barked, cringing when I glimpsed my aunt swing my way at my outburst, her sharp eyes glowing like a nocturnal animal. I ducked my head until my aunt’s attention returned to Kenton, before hissing quietly, “What we’re going to do with her? The why of it all. She doesn’t know. She’s innocent—”
“None of this is fair or right.” Ferne whipped back fiercely. “There’s only what we can do, what we have to do.” She squeezed my hand so hard my knuckles buckled, and fiery pain shot through my finger bones, my arm. “Our father and aunt won’t rest. And neither will I until it’s done.”
My sister was right. None of us would stop. We’d been at this for far too long to give up. It was too ingrained in my siblings, the hate for the Wychthorns.
Ferne gentled with an exhale. She released my hand and lifted her own in a defeated manner. “Gray, I know it’s complicated. That’s what I meant earlier.” She gnawed at her bottom lip, her brow furrowing as if she wondered how to voice it. She sighed, a resigned sound, turning her head in my direction, and I imagined, though she no longer possessed eyes, she was staring at me hard. “There’s something between you two. I felt it the night of the Alverac. I’d felt it before when you two were in one another’s space at House Gatherings.” She glanced away, her face angled toward Nelle as if she was drawn to her the same way I had always been. “I still don’t know what it is, but I recognized that night, it had to be you. It had always been you.”
My heart lurched with hope. Stupid hope that my sister might understand.
Her fingers wrapped around my forearm as swiftly as an asp. Agonizing pain erupted as my bones crunched together under the force she wielded. I struggled not to wince, not to tear her hand from my arm. Her voice was edged in savagery as she dragged me closer, teeth shining brightly in the dark night. “You cannot pity her or give in to her if we are to honor our mother.”
My heart drummed a rapid beat inside a hollow chest.
My sister was right.
I was teetering on the precipice of something all-consuming, about to fall into oblivion. I had to haul myself back from the edge, from making the wrong choice before it was too late and I was condemned along with Nelle.
As if sensing my resolve, Ferne relaxed her hold on me but didn’t let go. She jerked her chin in the direction of Aunt Valarie and pushed me toward her.
If I was ice, my aunt was absolute zero. And it was she—with every slash of the whip, every hissed accusation that fell from her lips that I’d failed my mother, my family, our House—who had sculptured the wall of ice and incinerated my heart, rendering it to ash.
She’d strategically placed herself where she could see through the line of guards that separated the Wychthorns from the rest of the Houses.
Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look—
But I’d never been very wise. And my gaze traveled to the Wychthorns.
I covertly watched Aldan guide Lise away to House Reska as his family made their way inside the temple. Lise absentmindedly rubbed her swollen belly with a delicate hand, glancing back over her shoulder at her youngest sister, smiling as she mouthed— See you later.
It wasn’t her jerky movement that ensnared my attention. It was a sudden flare of panic that erupted beneath my skin and set my senses scrambling.
My little bird stood in front of her father, the layers of her silver-gray dress swirling with the brisk wind. His broad hands gripped her upper arms so tightly I saw her bite her bottom lip to stop from wincing.
Fury engulfed me with the ferocity of a brush fire.
I’m going to annihilate him!
Byron had been absent most of the day, spending his time in his office in meetings with Heads of Upper and Lower Houses as they’d arrived. His bright eyes studied hers, but there was a glassiness to them, shining with too much alcohol.
My heightened senses allowed me to listen to their conversation. He’d demanded she explain what had happened to Corné. She was trying to, without giving herself away—what she’d nearly done, reveal herself—but Byron wasn’t having any of it .
“ Enough! ” he barked, raising a hand, and she reared back, flinching.
Violence hissed through my veins. I almost took a step toward him, wanting to strike him down.
Self-preservation roared in my head, overriding the bloodlust— DON’T!
Fuck, don’t!
I caught myself in time, forcing myself to stand still, and became aware that my hand had inched inside my jacket pocket, reaching for my dagger. Withdrawing it quickly, I balled my fist against my thigh instead.
Every inch of my body went on lockdown.
I felt my aunt’s curiosity, her intrigue at my reaction.
Despite the rage, I maintained a bored expression as if everything disinterested me. But nothing was further from the truth. Satisfied, Aunt Valarie turned back to the Wychthorns, her hands linked at the center of her waist, and we both watched Nelle shrink, confused and hurt by her father’s response.
Byron paused momentarily, then raked a trembling hand through his salt-peppered hair. His thin lips parted as if he was going to speak, then they fell shut. Smooth fingers, which had never held a blade, went to her chin so he could tilt her face upward. And he stared at her as if he was memorizing how she looked, how she felt, as if this was a goodbye. He whispered hoarsely, “ I’m sorry. ”
I tasted guilt, desperation, and fear clouding his emotions. A godsdamned volatile cocktail. The memory of Marissa’s warning and the thought of Byron even considering ending Nelle’s life chilled my blood. It was an effort to curb my natural instincts. I wanted to shove my dagger into the back of his skull.
Byron blinked, and the moment between them broke. He stepped into his role once more, brutal stoicism returning. An order. “ Keep it hidden, Nelle. For your sisters’ sakes. For all the Wychthorns. ”
She nodded, rising on her toes and then rolling back on her heels, one white-knuckled hand clenching her bracelet of beads behind her. Her other hand slid over her swirling skirt, gripping the fabric to stop the layers from being buffeted by the brisk winds. But I saw it for what it was, nervousness and something to do to avoid his icy glare.
At that moment, the beauty of her wildness struck me.
She hadn’t changed. Maybe she hadn’t found the time or had the inclination to do so. Her skirt lifted and fluttered. A few of those fine silvery layers were dirty and torn and hooked with tiny leaves. Grass and mud stained the silver shoes. Her hair, the pale locks of moonlight, was a tangled mess of cobwebs across a bare shoulder, and her high-cut cheeks were flushed from the harsh rebuke from her father.
She stole the breath from me.
Nelle suddenly glanced sideways. An intoxicating jolt razed through me with the velocity of a lightning strike as her silver-grays locked with my blacks.
I felt like I’d been sucker punched.
Her thick lashes widened in surprise at encountering my stare. Astonishment glittered in those pretty eyes first before she flashed a secretive feminine smile, and my heart thrummed in response. Everything in me wanted to return it.
Don’t…don’t…don’t…
A flash flood of panic drowned me beneath a sickly deluge, making it hard to breathe.
I was going to ruin her in every single depraved way.
She was going to burn with hate for me.
It wouldn’t matter to her that I already hated myself.
The hurt and fear had dissolved and now there was something else slinking under my skin, humming down that strange bond we shared—curiosity tempered with trepidation. And delight, utterly enchanting delight.
I couldn’t look. I couldn’t feel. I had to shut it out. Shut her out. Shut out all those feelings she was projecting.
Gods, no good will come of wanting someone like me.
Didn’t she know that, recognize it?
The sweetness in her features cleverly disguised the dark power lurking beneath her skin. The markings that should warn of her lethality were innocent freckles scattered across her nose and cheeks, shifting as she failed to tame the charming crooked grin blooming on her lush pink lips.
But me, I practically screamed predator—the blatant markings were all over my body, the tattoos, the Ukkenskrit tales that told of my exploits, of those who had fallen to the blades I carried, even to my bare hands—screaming loud enough to spike the protective instincts of those weaker and send them scrambling away. My entire body was a weapon forged in violence.
And she was my prey.
But I wasn’t delusional, not to realize that I was also hers.
Gods, she’s my match in every single way.
I closed my eyes and drew in my aunt’s subarctic temperament. A reminder of what was at stake here—my mother.
A heavy feeling pressed itself on me. It wasn’t her—it was all me. A dull, aching void had carved a hole inside my chest .
I wanted her.
I wanted everything.
I wanted everything I couldn’t have.
I shoved that want down, down, down, to that dank, dim place where I shoved every complicated feeling I had for her, but for those rare moments where I’d forgotten myself and let it surface.
As if she’s everything.
I cracked my neck and let that bleak frostiness seeping from my aunt flood my veins and freeze my cold, black heart.
It came down to a choice—my choice.
Her or letting go of our plans and schemes.
Her or the Horned God.
Her or my mother.