Chapter 2
Nelle
Iscreamed and howled and struggled against the firm, broad hands that pinned me in place.
The speed at which Graysen ran made my hair snap about like a pennant.
The world gave way to nothing but snatches of blurred impressions.
I was gone in a series of twists and turns, through hallways and open-spaced rooms, too fast to take any note…
Into a star-flecked night, the clattering sound of boots on cobble…
Swallowed up by darkness…
Around and around, we climbed a spiral staircase, up, up, up.
Abruptly, we slammed to a halt. I was suddenly upright, back on my feet, swaying drunkenly with streaks of grays and blacks whirling around me. Graysen’s hands were at my elbows, steadying my stance as my head slowly stopped spinning and a strange room came into focus.
I blinked rapidly, shying away from the harsh light flooding the space.
My father… My father…
I’d been stolen away before I could speak with him.
I hissed in rage and tried to pull myself free.
With this magic tied around my neck separating my connection to the wyrm, I had no superior strength, and it was a shock to discover how feeble I’d become.
My fight was pathetic, and it wasn’t I who freed myself.
Graysen, staring with those dark, fathomless eyes, let me go as he stepped back.
My father’s here on the Crowther’s estate…
I flew for the door—twisted the handle, only to find it locked—thumped my fists on it.
Kicked and shunted my shoulder into unforgiving wood.
Nothing… Nothing! A great wave rose, a tsunami, black and muddied with hopelessness, crashed down and pummeled me into despair.
I barely heard the desperate noises coming from my throat above the blood rushing in my ears and the pounding of my battered fists on wood.
I have to get out…get out…
Two large hands closed over my wrists. Warmth met my back. “Stop it. You’re only hurting yourself.”
It was only then that I realized my fingers throbbed and ached, and my knuckles were rubbed raw. But that pain was nothing compared to my heart.
And he was responsible!
I slammed my elbow into his gut. He grunted at the sharp contact. His hold loosened on my wrists, and I wrenched myself free, spinning around, only to pitch wildly into the door handle. Fiery pain sliced down my spine. A startled cry left my lips.
Graysen reached for me, and I slapped his hands away, darting past.
There had to be another way out.
Has to be!
I barely noted the room as I ran like a panicked mouse caught in a maze, scurrying about, flinging open doors, before I stumbled to a frantic halt, breathing hard, my hands shaking.
Graysen stood in front of the entrance, watching me warily.
I stormed forward. Shoved him. “Let me out!”
Nothing. He may as well have been made of stone.
“I want to see my father!”
“You can’t leave here.” To prove his point, he reached behind and pushed down the door handle. The metallic sound of the lock clicking free grated in my ears as he pulled the door wide, stepping aside.
My gaze greedily gobbled up that unlocked doorway.
Past the landing, blue light gleamed over the curve of steps leading downward.
Graysen backed away with slow, steady footsteps, silently observing me as if I were a wild, cornered animal. I jittered on the spot. My gaze cut from him to the door and back to him.
He swept his hand toward the open doorway.
It was a trick. I knew it was a trick. And yet, despite knowing it, I had to try. Like drowning beneath the surface of an ocean, knowing the moment I inhaled, water would rush down my throat, I had to try.
I hurtled forward—
Right as I was about to burst through to freedom—
The collar around my neck snagged tight. My hands scrambled for Zrenyth’s cord, at the agonizing pain squeezing my throat. I skidded, my feet catching beneath me, and I tumbled onto my ass.
Zrenyth’s magic relaxed its hold, and I sucked in rasping, burning breaths of fire.
Graysen loomed above me. The angle of his body blocked out the overhead light, and his shadow fell upon me. “You can’t leave this room.”
Hot, blistering wrath exploded.
I pushed to my feet and shrieked, “You’re a bastard!” My voice was hoarse, my throat ravaged and raw. Savage like the wild animal I truly was, I surged forward. Anguish and loathing reared in a toxic haze, clouding my mind and sending me spiraling into simple, desperate action.
I hit him. An ugly strike. An ugly sound of flesh striking flesh, right across his cheek.
His gaze blazed with pure primal rage and something else I was in no state to decipher.
He got right in my face and roared, “Again!”
I struck out, slapping his face.
“Harder!”
I slapped his face again and again in a flurry of hatred and grief. Smashed my fist into his chest. Pummeled his gut. My knuckles stung where my skin was scuffed and bleeding, my palms throbbed as if I had hit solid adamere, and the room filled with anguished choking sounds.
He stood there and took everything I threw at him.
I kept hitting him, only half aware of the cry leaving my throat that sounded like heartache and felt like falling into an abyss, my limbs flailing, desperately trying to grip onto anything to save me.
Too much…it was all too much.
I crumpled. And before my knees hit the carpet, he caught me.
My fingers latched onto the front of his armor. “I hate you…” I wanted to snarl it into his face, but it came out more as a pathetic whimper.
He was panting, his breath as uneven as mine, his swelling cheek a canvas of red and bruised purple. Thick brows drew together over dark, glittering eyes shot through with remorse, shuttered away a heartbeat later.
He eased me back to standing, and when I’d steadied myself, he backed off, giving me space.
I bent in half, bracing my hands on my shaking knees, dragging in rasping breaths.
My heart sank, weariness seeped through me, despair and sorrow at being caged.
I’d been denied speaking with my father, and he with me as well.
I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have thought I’d taken my own life because I couldn’t face the Alverac: the contract I’d unwittingly signed in blood, tying my body and spirit to Graysen Crowther.
A man who had lied to me. Hurt me in the worst possible way.
This thing in my chest…it was empty and hollow and yet, at the same time, filled with such raw pain and loathing that itched and scratched.
I wanted to fall to my knees and beg for my freedom.
I wanted to shatter into a million pieces.
I wanted to cry.
Instead, I bowed my head and let my hair drape in front of my face to hide myself. I blinked back the burning heat and rubbed my nose, prickling with oncoming tears.
Though I might not feel the wyrm inside me, that didn’t mean it had gone. I was the wyrm. Its fire breathed through my veins and set my blood on fire. Perhaps a small, slender, tentative flame right now, but it held enough light to remind me who I was.
I wouldn’t beg.
I wouldn’t break.
I wouldn’t let him see me cry.
Straightening, I squared my shoulders and faced him.
Blurred fingerprints, the proof of my rage, slowly faded from Graysen’s reddened cheek.
His chest rose and fell with heaving breaths as he paced back and forth, his features tight.
He dug his hands through his ash-clumped hair, locks feathering through his widespread fingers. He clenched, tugging hard.
My voice rasped. “Why couldn’t I see my father?”
He had thought I was dead. Perhaps wished I was, now that the Crowthers had captured me and intended to use me to break him.
Graysen’s voice was hoarse and broken, and it startled me. “You know why.”
Of course…
He did it to rattle my father, to tear another hole in his position as Head of all Houses. To put more pressure on him, for whatever the Crowthers needed. Whatever their plans and schemes were for me involved.
Bastard.
Moving in a tight circle, my knotted hair grazed my shoulders as I gave the room a cursory glance.
It was big and circular, much like a studio with a free-flowing layout and two inner rooms. And no windows.
Not a single one. I frowned. “Where am I?” Air conditioning filtered through metal slats in the vaulted ceiling.
As my chest swelled with the intake of air, cedar spiked my lungs.
I let out an exhale of shock.
Graysen’s scent was everywhere.
This was his room. And we’d climbed high, a twist of steps, up, up, up. I was a Wychthorn princess, and he’d locked me away at the top of a tower.
He confirmed it a moment later by replying, “My residence.”
He’d stopped pacing and was staring down at the floor, his large hands, dusted with soot, clenched and unclenched beside his muscular thighs.
Slowly, ever so slowly, my eyes widened as I finally understood. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”
His head whipped toward mine. I saw it. A flash of raw turmoil. He looked lost, utterly lost. And then whatever storm was inside of him, he swallowed it back.
He had no idea what he was doing. All of this—stealing me away, imprisoning me in this room.
This wasn’t planned at all. His family really had intended to lock me below the Keep in the dungeon.
Out of sight, out of mind, I assumed. What the hells was he thinking?
What was he doing locking me up here in his room?
Either way, it didn’t matter. My wyrm was lost to me, and I couldn’t leave.
“I’m not sleeping here,” I spat, popping a fist on my hip.
A groove deepened between his brows as he stalked closer. “You want to be locked up in the dungeon below the Keep? There’s little light down there. It’s dark and damp and cold.”
“Preferable to being anywhere near you!”
“Liar.”
I bit out a bitter laugh. “Liar?” My hands bunched into fists, and I lifted them both and shook them right in his face. “That’s rich coming from you, spinner of deceit!”