Chapter 20 #2
They wanted to see Graysen in control. They needed to see me as weak and frightened.
More importantly, they had to see that Graysen wasn’t swayed.
That he was in charge and the reason he had me trapped up in his tower had nothing to do with him deviating from his family’s mandate to use me.
That he was keeping me up there to break me.
Except.
He wasn’t.
My fingers fiddled anxiously with the top layer of my skirt as I curled my toes on the rough stone floor while staring downward. Here, I was confronted by his brothers and what his family wanted: for me to break. Yet what he showed me up in his tower…
He wasn’t striving to break me. He was trying to keep me together.
In that respect, Graysen was going against his family, and he didn’t want them to know.
I pursed my mouth to the side, looking up at him from beneath my lashes. Yes, he and I were going to have a rather interesting conversation later on. 20 questions—definitely.
“Sirro’s already given me orders,” Graysen replied, crossing his arms over his chest and settling his weight onto one hip. “So, I plan to wait until I hear from Mela and restart the hunt for Yezekael.”
Yezekael.
Now, that wasn’t a name I’d heard of before.
“Zielenski’s had word that Jurgana’s stirring,” Caidan slipped in, ignoring his younger brother, as he wandered over to a table and jumped up to sit on it.
“It won’t be much longer before Jurgana will attend the Emporium,” Jett added with a cunning glance my way.
I held onto that bit of knowledge as if I were a dragon and it were a precious bauble.
Though this bauble wasn’t shiny, it was tarnished, because the mention of that merciless place stirred something else deep inside.
Fear. Zielenski ran the Emporium. I’d seen him once or twice at House Gatherings.
Charming. Sinfully handsome. But there was something dead inside him.
You had to be soulless to run the Emporium.
And the Crowthers were trying to gain interest from the Horned Gods to first obtain a Goods Appraisal.
Me.
They needed me to pique Jurgana’s interest.
My soul shriveled up in terror at the mere thought of stepping inside the Emporium.
The things I’d overheard my father speak about… What I’d read… The horrific sketches of it in old books in my family library. It was one place I never wanted to investigate.
“I’m going to the Emporium?” I asked, my voice slightly shrill.
Because it was obvious that I was. And they were timing the visit with Jurgana, one of the witches that slumbered between events in a nest deep inside the Heart of the Hemmlok forest. “Because you haven’t received a request for a Goods Appraisal, right? ”
Were they intending to let Jurgana know I was other? That I was a wyrm?
Tucking my trembling hands behind my back, I gripped them together. “What…” I licked my lips and cleared my throat. “What do you intend to happen there? How do you plan to use me to get a request?”
Graysen paced back and forth, growing more agitated. I caught the roll of his shoulders, the way he cracked his neck. A gleam in his eyes, fast and swift, quicksilver seeping through the black. There and gone again.
Tamer.
The air was taut with tension.
Three pairs of eyes flicked from Graysen to me, surveying my face, perhaps to weigh my worth, how I’d react being hauled into the Emporium because that was how I’d go. My fingers gouging wood trying to stop myself from being dragged in there.
Jett leisurely strolled closer. There was an empty smile on his handsome face, but his eyes were glassy, and on the crease of his top lip was a light sheen of perspiration.
“Ah, where would the fun be if we told you that?” he answered, tapping me on the nose with a finger. A finger that shook slightly.
Scowling, I batted his hand away hard.
A softly given snarl, and it hadn’t come from my wraith-wolf.
I realized here, right here in front of Draxxon, was the worst place Graysen’s brothers could have discovered us for the first time.
My spine stiffened at the silent exchange between Kenton and Jett, the sharp look from Caidan. The glance that went from Draxxon’s scaled body to Graysen and then slid to me.
This aspect of Graysen and I, wyrm and tamer, unnerved them. It was a variable they hadn’t anticipated. It turned a spotlight on Graysen that revealed he wasn’t completely trustworthy. That this thing between him and me could cause their brother to sway.
Clarity shone true like a bathroom mirror wiped clean of steam.
I was Graysen Crowther’s weakness.
He was a tamer, and I needed to exploit that.
It wasn’t me he was going to tame—I was going to tame him.
“Fuck. Enough,” Graysen warned his brother, pivoting on his heel.
“I’ve got things to do. I’ll join you later this evening.
” He jerked his chin toward the far door past the rows of tables and gigantic pillars holding the ceiling aloft.
“Come along, Pet. Time to stretch your legs before going back into your cage.”
My gaze snapped to his as a spark of fury lit at being spoken to like that. But I dampened the hot coals his words had stoked and followed him out with Sage padding beside me.
Striding past the Crowthers, I let my icy gaze shift from one to the other.
Caidan’s weakness was Evvie.
Kenton, I suspected, might be swayed by someone who seemed to be already twisting my way, judging by the look of silent approval she’d given me earlier today.
Jett was the only one I wasn’t sure about.
I also didn’t like the way he was staring at Sage. There was a sly gleam in his eyes that glistened with dark interest. “I like your dog,” he murmured quietly as I strode past. “His head will look really good nailed to my bedroom wall.”
Anger ignited. Embers of wrath crackled through my veins. Churning heat waves and smoke boiled my blood. I forgot everything that I’d momentarily decided, and the control over my emotions unspooled. He’d pay with blood if he did anything to Sage.
I rushed Jett, striking out with a fist and a scream of fury.
He did too, his hand coming up to block me…hit me…?
I didn’t know.
I didn’t get to find out because Graysen had moved with that untraceable speed once more.
He was beside me in a blink. His large hand lashed out to grab Jett’s wrist before he could touch me, fingers latching so tightly that his younger brother winced.
“I don’t want the merchandise marked,” Graysen warned.
For once, cold flames burned in his gaze, making his eyes shine sharper.
Jett’s head whipped around to face Graysen with an incredulous look.
Caidan caught my fist before I struck Jett in the jaw. I struggled, hissing and spitting my fury at Jett. “You do anything to Sage and I will kill you!” I breathed in ragged pants, pulling at Caidan, trying to tug myself free. “You hear me, Crowthers? I’ll kill all of you!”
Caidan held up a palm. “Whoa… Let’s just drop this a couple of angry degrees.”
Jerking back, I wrenched myself free. Sage danced on the spot barking, the contained lightning around his neck crackled and sparked as he tried and failed to sink his fangs into Jett’s leg.
Graysen relaxed his grip and let his brother go. He leaned close. The fire blazing in his gaze had been extinguished, and his tone was back to being bored and flat. “If any fingerprints should bruise her, brother, they’ll be mine.”
An icy shiver rippled down my spine.
But I was too far gone to fall into caution.
I wanted to bite back at Jett. And no one was going to stop me.
“Here’s the thing,” and I poked Jett in the chest, not caring if he didn’t look right, with sweat glistening on his temples and eyes glazed with pain.
“You need me in one pretty piece to auction me off.” I hooked a thumb toward Graysen.
“Like he”—dickface—“said. No marring the merchandise.”
“I can terrorize you in other ways,” Jett threatened, his features strained.
“So can I,” I shot back.
Jett bared his teeth at the same time his hand fisted.
Graysen hissed, a warning his brother caught and heeded. Jett froze, reluctantly unfurling his fingers.
Though Graysen directed the question at me, he didn’t take his sight off Jett. His voice was a low rumble. “Why did I let you out of your cage, little bird?”
I swiveled slowly around to face him and stilled. There was nothing in his expression, nothing at all. And he made it so much easier for me to be afraid of him.
He was territorial before, strangely protective.
Now he was pure menace.
He didn’t need brute strength, only utter stillness.
Bone-biting fear froze my blood.
I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry, my tongue too heavy to speak.
Subarctic cold radiated from him, and I staggered back as it brushed against my skin in frigid waves. I bumped into Caidan and stumbled away as Graysen stalked toward me, his posture intimidating, his stride predatory.
My heart sped up and faltered and raced. I backed up, and he matched me step for step until my hip suddenly caught on the edge of a table.
I jolted, barely stifling a startled cry. The movement shuddered the table, sending plates and mugs clattering against wood.
Graysen loomed over me.
All the hair on the nape of my neck stood on end.
He slowly leaned down so we were at eye level, his breath skating over my lips. This time he smiled, but it was cold, and the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Because I love the hunt.”