Chapter 36
Graysen
The Mustang’s raw power vibrated beneath my boots, rattling through my bones. Icy wind blasted through the open window, the wild currents tearing at my hair, carrying the acrid stench of krekenn blood mixed with gasoline, the smell of burning rubber.
Focused on the twisting country road ahead, the headlights pierced through billowing banks of fog as I raced toward my family’s estate.
Rage had been my companion the entire drive, fouling my bloodstream, fraying the edges of my mind. Nelle’s fury was endless. It seethed along the threads binding her to me.
I kept a tight rein on the bond, sending soothing waves of calm, hoping to steady her as I had before when she’d needed strength to face the darkness as she searched for the escape tunnel beneath the Keep.
But she was drowning beneath waves of rage.
My influence didn’t ease her emotions by even a single degree.
I leaned with the shuddering car as we careened around a corner, dead leaves scattering in our wake.
Slamming my foot down, I shifted back and forth from clutch to accelerator, punching through the gears.
The supercharger screamed, pushing us faster.
Tall, gnarled trees with crooked limbs arching overhead formed a mist-shrouded tunnel.
Ahead, down the straight, the red taillights of a convoy glowed like distant embers.
Nelle?
But the threads between us were still weak, as if she were further away.
I accelerated harder, a rush of furious speed, dodging past the three-deep convoy, frowning as I streaked by. My aunt? My brothers?
None of them had answered any of my earlier phone calls.
But word had reached me that my extended family were at the Emporium, while the Keep had emptied itself of every available soldier, all of them heading to the catacombs as soon as Mela’s phynx raised the alarm.
I left the convoy behind and dug my phone from my bandoleer, scrolling fast, hitting call. The Gate House answered on the second ring. Before they could even greet me, I barked over the thunderous engine, “Open up the gates!”
“Gray—”
“NOW!”
Hanging up, I tossed my phone into the tangle of harnesses and swords beside me.
As I closed in on the estate’s gatehouse, I slammed my fist on the horn, demanding the guards open the wall of iron and adamere up now! FUCKING NOW! The massive gates began to slide apart.
I didn’t slow.
Yanking the wheel, I gave a sharp clutch-kick, countersteering as the Mustang’s back wheels swung out. Tires screamed, burning billows of white smoke as I throttled through the drift, holding the angle until the gates were dead ahead.
Then I slammed forward—
—and exploded through the narrow gap.
I was exhausted, purely existing on adrenaline and my constant fear for Nelle.
I didn’t know what was left of me.
I sure as fuck didn’t know what I’d find when I reached home.
The Mustang roared down the driveway, spraying loose pebbles as the car carved around a bend toward the Keep. Beyond the bend, the Birds of Prey rookery jutted into a low sky, clouds of tiny elemental critters, willwips, coloring the night.
My fists tightened on the steering wheel until it creaked.
The Emporium.
All those godsdamned hours I’d been trapped within the catacombs. What the hells had my brothers put Nelle through? What had she endured because of them?
Panic coiled around my ribs like a python, squeezing hard as Nelle’s rage faltered, then plummeted into pure terror.
I needed to get to her now!
As I approached my ancestral home, despite the late hour, vehicles crowded the entrance, soldiers unloading gear and blocking the drawbridge.
I slammed on the brakes, bringing the Mustang to a skidding, shuddering halt.
Flinging open the door, I ignored the soldiers twisting around in curiosity, the sharp concern in my sister’s voice as she called my name.
Ferne was overseeing something large and battered being hauled out of an SUV.
I didn’t give a fuck what it was.
I launched from the Mustang, exploding into a long stride, dodging cars and milling staff, crossing the drawbridge and hurtling beneath the portcullis.
The passageway swept by, blurring with blue wildfyre flames. And it was Nelle’s voice I heard first, shrieking and cursing up a storm.
My heart nearly stopped beating as I skidded into the inner courtyard.
Nelle was ahead of me. My aunt stood farther away.
Dread hollowed my chest as my gaze locked on Oskar’s creation. His parents’ skulls, Konrad and Posey, mounted at the apex to remind every Crowther what happened when we failed our House.
Gods, how many times had I been tied up there?
How many times had I endured that punishment?
My little bird struggled wildly, pulling frantically at the magical ropes binding her to the wooden posts, screaming, “Let me go!”
Though Aunt Valarie’s stern features twisted with murderous rage, tears glistened on her cheeks as she flung her arm back, choking on a sob.
The lash writhed through the air, crackling with unearthly magic.
Not the simple leather whip I’d been punished with.
No, this one was forged with gruesome dark power.
Its sharp lash sizzled white-hot, as if lightning had been drawn down from the sky and infused within its leather.
It happened so fast.
My aunt slung her arm forward, a strangled cry tearing from deep within her wretched soul.
The cruel lash cracked—
—snapping like a striking serpent.
“NO!” I roared, surging toward my heart tied up at the post.