Chapter 15
Nelle
The sun’s dying rays spread a sheen of fall throughout the room.
Streaks of pale yellow and shafts of rust and burnished amber played with the creeping shadows on the pillars and in the deeper recesses of my prison.
I was pacing again, as I’d done in the early days of being ensnared within the tower.
But this time it wasn’t despair that had slunk like thick, smothering ivy around my soul and whispered insidiously that I would never be free.
It was an uneasy, prickly feeling that harassed me.
I was worried.
Graysen had spent the entire day elsewhere, the longest he’d ever been gone since I’d awoken from nearly slipping into hibernation.
I didn’t understand what had kept him away.
Me?
Or something else?
Sage lay beside Graysen’s monstrosity of a bed, his head on his paws and ears alert.
I didn’t know what to do. If I should be worried or not. And I didn’t wish to think about what could have kept him away, but it had been tormenting me for the past few hours. Was he with a girl? And I hated that bitter jealousy ate at my insides at the thought of him entwined with someone else.
Scowling, I shoved that jealousy aside, stuffed it down deep, stomped on it like I’d want to stomp on him if he came back reeking of sickly perfume. I had no right to be jealous. He meant nothing to me. Nothing.
He was my jailer, and that was all.
The man I had to destroy to get myself free.
Spinning around, I flopped into the oversized armchair. My baggy dress hung limply, and I absentmindedly plucked at the delicate leaves embroidered on the skirt, trying to loosen a silver thread. As much as I hated to admit it, I was worried.
Suddenly, Sage surged to his paws. He let out a deep, rumbling growl as he prowled ahead to place himself before me, staring right at the entrance to Graysen’s rooms.
A moment later I heard the muffled sound of voices.
I pushed to my feet instantly.
The door crashed open.
On the landing was Graysen, his head hanging low, unruly locks falling forward, shielding his face as he slumped against his brother.
Blood rushed in my ears, drowning out everything else.
I ran my gaze over his body, assessing his limbs, searching for a wound.
An unbidden memory flashed through my mind of him lying at the bottom of a cliff, his skin ashen and blood spilling down his face, blank eyes staring up into the sky, and the raw grief that had drowned me beneath its crushing waves.
Without realizing it, I was moving toward him, only to stumble to a halt halfway across the room as I came to my senses.
He couldn’t be hurt, not with his mother’s unnatural healing flowing through his blood.
A breath wheezed from my clenched lungs as I finally understood.
Graysen was clearly almost asleep. His arms were banded over Kenton and Penn’s shoulders, and they braced either side to support him.
Kenton wore a suit—a polished uniform and mark of the upper ranks, a disguise to hide the death-dealer inside him. His neat, short hair, with a slight wave through the longer locks, was swept back off his forehead, but appeared a little disheveled.
Kenton’s hard gaze shot to mine. He was always cold and imposing.
On the rare times I found myself in his company, his expression had remained nearly indecipherable.
Except for the gleam of challenge in his eyes, as if he were sizing up an opponent.
That was how I’d always felt around him, an emotion I had mistaken for sheer dislike.
Now I understood. The wyrm. He hadn’t known then what lived within me, but the Crowthers had always known I was hiding something powerful, buried deep inside.
His square jaw flexed, and his full lips thinned as his stony gaze narrowed on me.
The look set my teeth grating and my ire stirring beneath my skin. I straightened my spine and returned a hateful smile.
Kenton retreated a step as if he’d changed his mind about bringing his brother up here. The abrupt movement jolted Graysen, who wobbled unsteadily.
Penn’s soft voice cut through the silence. “Kenton?”
The elder brother glanced over Graysen’s sagging head.
Penn and Kenton side by side, albeit with Graysen between them, was almost laughable.
Graysen and I were at odds with our height, but there was something more streamlined and lean about Graysen’s muscled build.
Kenton was brawny and barrel-chested, like a rugby player.
His expression, similar to his physique, was unyielding.
And then there was Penn, only a few inches taller than me, in her old-fashioned servant’s uniform, looking doll-like with her fine-boned features and delicate frame, staring back at him with large, luminous sapphire eyes.
And akin to the precious gem and the vast age it took to form, there was a wariness in their blue depths, as if she’d seen too much of life.
Despite his formidable size and position in rank, Kenton deferred to Penn, waiting for her to decide the next move.
Penn turned her gaze to mine. “I need help.”
Jutting my hip out, I crossed my arms over my chest, giving her a look—Seriously?
“I can’t do this by myself,” she urged.
I shot an annoyed look at Kenton. Why couldn’t he help his brother? Maybe he abhorred me so intensely that he couldn’t bear to be anywhere near me.
The wildfyre torches braced to the stairwell walls tainted Graysen’s dark locks with indigo as he drowsily lifted his head. I heard him mumble something, but I wasn’t able to make out quite what he’d said with the way the words were slurred from sleepiness.
Locking my gaze with Kenton’s, I ran my forefinger across my neck, the tip of my finger grazing the rough fibers of the cord collaring my throat. “While he sleeps…”
Kenton’s dark eyes flashed dangerously.
In answer, I delivered a small, mocking smile.
“I’ll stay with him,” Penn quickly reassured the elder brother, then frowned at me, her eyes widening with a warning to watch myself.
I gave an irked snort. Petulantly, I padded across the room to the doorway, with Sage snarling and shadowing every footstep.
Kenton hesitated until I arched an imperious brow. What did I care if Graysen slept on the cold stone landing or in his own bed?
He gave a slight sigh of resignation, ducked out from under his brother’s arm, and Penn stumbled forward into the room, enduring Graysen’s full weight. I quickly wrapped my arm around his back. His tattooed arm fell heavily over my shoulder.
It was the first time since I’d walked into his family’s fortress that I willingly touched Graysen.
That thing that existed only between us struck with the violence of lightning soaring through black storm clouds, scorching every single cell in my body, making my heart beat faster.
His too. Cedar scent infused my lungs, and the warmth and strength of his body had my own heaving a traitorous sigh.
His head hanging low, shifted to mine. Though his slurred voice was raspy with sleep, I heard it clearly, ‘little bird,’ as my nickname washed over my sensitive ear. I bit down on my lip as a full-body shiver rippled through me and his fingers on my bare arm flexed in response.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
I steeled my resolve.
There was nothing between us any longer.
This was simply the chemicals of wyrm and tamer—nothing more.
Gripping Graysen’s wrist, the leather and silver chains imprinting on my palm, Penn and I stumbled, then righted ourselves, and walked his sleep-drunk, weaving body to the bed. He collapsed, falling onto the mattress with a soft thump.
Penn arranged his splayed legs so he was a little more comfortable, and I lingered nearby.
The curve of the black bowlike bedposts that twisted high above threw a slatted effect of shadows over his prone figure.
I blinked, suddenly realizing what that other smell running beneath his cedar scent was.
He’d returned smelling of sugar and all things sweetly spiced, like a bakery.
Which was strange for someone who wouldn’t take a bite out of any sugary shit.
Graysen blinked blearily, his glassy gaze staring right at me. The defiant hank of hair half-obscured his sight. He mumbled something, his arm rising, blunt-tipped fingers stretching out to touch me. My arm, perhaps, or my hand.
I jerked away, out of reach.
Hurt flashed as his hand fell onto the bedding of grays and midnight blues right as his thick lashes fluttered to rest on those upper cheeks, and he sank into slumber.
Kenton remained outside the room’s doorway, a forearm braced against the doorjamb. Penn hurried to speak to him, both whispering in hushed tones, with the odd wary glance from Kenton to me, as if he was just as concerned about leaving Penn alone in my presence as he was with his younger brother.
A minute later, Kenton, drumming his fingers on the wooden doorjamb, nodded to Penn before shooting me one last glare of lethal warning and left.
She closed the door, cutting off the sound of his footfall drumming a beat down the tower’s staircase.
As the sun descended and the shadows of night took over the room, Penn and I settled in for the evening. A servant brought up a light meal for us both to eat, and Sage wolfed down his manky, rotten chicken carcass out on the balcony.
Penn was comfortable in silence, and I was out of sorts having Graysen back here sleeping peacefully.
A rare repose for a man who suffered from insomnia and nightmares.
Not that I’d ever encountered him sleeping with the relationship we’d had prior, him visiting me once a month, sometimes more often, and both of us at war.
The only other time I’d witnessed him go under was at my mother’s aviary when I discovered the truth of the Alverac and he begged me to flee.
Run and never stop running.
And that was something I wished not to think about too closely, so I made an early retreat to my bedroom.