Chapter 41
Nelle
Straw crunched underfoot as I closed the rookery door, then circled Graysen’s kneeling figure, his hands still buried in Sage’s misty fur. The willwips scattered in bright clouds, and the Birds of Prey prowled near the entrance, casting curious glances our way.
The deep bruise on Graysen’s cheek was already fading.
Sweat speckled his skin, trickling over the hard lines of his torso.
But, oh gods, his back… It was a mess of ruined flesh, charred in crisp lines from the fiery heat of the whip.
More scars on scars. But this time there was no way I’d allow his cruel aunt to force him to keep them. No fucking way.
My fingers trembled as I touched his blood-splattered shoulder. He flinched, breath hitching, but his gaze lifted to mine with a stubborn, aching tenderness. “They’ll heal,” he rasped.
I offered him my hand and he slipped his into mine.
And I helped him rise, guiding him to a shallow stone bed set into the wall.
He winced as he sat, spreading his thighs so I could stand between them.
Tilting his head, his expression softened as I brushed my fingers through the hank of hair hanging over his forehead, sweeping it back.
“You shouldn’t have shielded me,” I breathed, still trying to wrap my mind around the brutality of the night.
Graysen scowled. “And allow you to take the punishment? Never.” A heartbeat later, confusion pinched his eyebrows closer. He sounded lost when he murmured, “I haven’t seen her like this, not in a long, long time.”
The onset of more tears tickled my nose, and my bottom lip wobbled. “It was me. I pushed her too far. I destroyed your mother’s portrait, the one in the gallery with her holding the basket of white roses.”
Graysen stared up at the ceiling, blowing out a deep breath that vibrated in a groan.
He shook his head as if trying to work out a way to explain it all, before lifting a helpless hand and meeting my gaze.
“My aunt… She’s an artist. The day Mom was abducted…
” He swallowed, glancing away briefly. “My aunt didn’t go with her to the city because she wanted to finish it before my mother came home.
” He dropped his gaze as he rubbed the fish-scaled adamere at his thighs.
“We’d planned a family dinner to celebrate the grand unveiling.
” His voice was hoarse when he added quietly, “It’s the last painting we have of my mother.
My aunt couldn’t bring herself to even pick up a paintbrush after that.
The portrait means a lot to her… To us all. ”
Deep shame, spiked with ruthless barbs, coiled within my heart, tightening hard. Hot tears scorched a path down my cheeks as I collapsed to my knees with a broken wail at my spitefulness.
“Nelle.” Alarm sharpened Graysen’s voice, and he pulled me onto his lap, cradling me gently.
Warmth enveloped me as I curled into his chest, my teardrops splashing between us.
His scuffed and bloodied hand ran a soothing touch up along my side to cup my cheek, angling my face toward his.
“Don’t… Not for her, not for what she’s done,” he urged, brushing the tears from beneath my eyes as I shuddered, sobbing loud and ugly.
“It doesn’t excuse what she did, Nelle. Doesn’t justify it.
I just…I get why she reacted the way she did. ”
I understood.
But the shame I felt wasn’t for Valarie, it was for what I’d done to the portrait.
To Tabitha. For the unjust fury that had surged through me at the sight of her image hanging in the Crowthers’ ancestral gallery.
It was petty to have placed the blame on her and taken my rage out on her likeness.
Tabitha had done nothing wrong. She’d tried to save me, and instead she’d been stolen by the Horned Gods in my place.
It was the last image Graysen’s family had of their mother. And I’d destroyed it.
Buried beneath the shame was remorse, too.
I’d purposely not told Graysen everything that happened at the Emporium. I’d shared only the first half of the evening so he wouldn’t detect a lie and intentionally twisted him into attacking his brothers because I wanted retribution.
He’d fought and beaten the soldiers—men and women he’d worked beside for years and who were, no doubt, lifelong friends.
And his brothers. Gods, what I’d made him do to them.
I’d been consumed by feral hate and wanted payback through Graysen. He would have done far worse if cursed weaponry hadn’t contained him.
I sniffled, meeting his anxious gaze. “I wasn’t completely honest when I told you about the Emporium.”
He stiffened, fear tightening the cords in his throat. “Did someone force themselves on you?”
“No,” I quickly reassured him.
He tilted his head to the side, patiently waiting for me to elaborate as I chewed my lip, hesitating.
“I only told you part of the story. Not all of it. Not the truth. The threat of selling me to the Emporium was a ploy. Your brothers never intended to auction me off. They had rigged the bidding so that your gardener, Oswin, would win.”
Graysen’s brows rose. “Oswin?”
I scrunched my nose. “He kind of gave himself away. Every time I saw him in the crowd, he looked green, as if he were on the verge of throwing up. I think being part of the scheme actually made him sick.”
“Gods,” Graysen muttered, dragging a hand through his hair and glaring. “It was a fucking vile deception.” But there was relief beneath his bitterness that relaxed the tension in his shoulders.
“Like you said about your aunt, I understand why. They needed to scare my father into giving your family Brangwene’s Hjarte.”
“I’m guessing he did?”
“Actually, it was my mother.” I held up my wrist with the adamere-beaded bracelet, the long loops sliding down my forearm. “I got to see my parents briefly afterward. My father had a new bracelet fashioned and carried it everywhere, in the hopes he’d see me again.”
Graysen thumbed a few of the beads, and they chinked gently against one another. When he glanced at me, his expression was solemn. “I felt you… It felt as if you were slipping away from me in death.”
I pulled an I’m-sorry grimace. “I might have gone a little bit insane with anger. I might have wanted Jett to see what he was going to do to me with the Witches Ball. I might have tried to end myself for spite.” Indeed, part of me had wanted it to work.
Shock cracked across Graysen’s features, and his mouth parted to say something, but I rushed on. “I wanted to break Jett. And I did. I broke him, Caidan, and Kenton too.”
An ache lodged in my throat as I whispered. “I shouldn’t have done it.” He’d been hurt and trapped because of me. And I’d been caught up in wrath and selfishness. “I shouldn’t have leaned against the sway and turned you against your brothers.”
Understanding at what I’d done flared in his eyes. “They fucking deserved it. And more.”
“No,” I gasped, shaking my head.
“It wasn’t just you.” His eyes darkened, and voice grew sharper. “For a moment there, I wanted it too.”
I laid a hand on the curve of his shoulder, squeezing gently. “You wouldn’t have been able to live with yourself if I’d pushed you further.”
He covered my hand with his own, offering a small, reassuring smile. “But I didn’t. They’ll be okay, Nelle. Jett will heal.”
He was right. His brothers would recover. I blew out a breath of relief, but it vanished in a heartbeat. “Look at the mess we’re in now.” What were we going to do? We were trapped in the rookery while more soldiers were arriving outside, likely awaiting Valarie.
Graysen shifted me on his lap, and I moved to straddle his thighs. He gripped Furyos Bonefall and, in one fierce, swift move, pried the fingers apart, ripping it free.
Graysen spoke to the leader of the Birds. “Amara.”
He tossed the Bonefall down at her clawed toes.
And she and her sisters fell eagerly upon it, swifting away.
Above came the sound of its destruction, cracking bones and the hissing and screeching of the Birds fighting over its remains.
Graysen kneaded my neck, his fingertips edging around Zrenyth’s collar.
“Why didn’t you just ask for my help with your mother?” The question had been sitting on the tip of my tongue for a while now. “If you’d told me what happened to her, I would have helped you.”
His fingers stilled, his gaze narrowing. “You’d have helped us?”Before I could answer, he pressed a finger to my lips. “Of course you think that now. But tell me, before all of this, what did you know of my family? Of me?”
The truth sank through me, and it was shamefully sharp to swallow. It was mortifying. “I didn’t like you. I didn’t like your family.”
The corners of his mouth curved into a small, consoling smile.
I lifted my chin, but the words broke as they left me.
“I’m a Wychthorn.” And for the first time, I was embarrassed by my position, ashamed of the entitlement I’d been raised in.
If Graysen had asked for my help back then, if he’d told me what happened to his mother, of his family’s hope to save her, I would have gone straight to my father.
I’d dismissed the Crowthers as a miserable Lower House, unworthy of my curiosity.
They’d never warranted any of my time or thoughts.
Hells, if given a choice to marry Graysen, I’d have said no.
My sights were loftier. I’d always known, in the deep recesses of my mind, that my parents would never allow me to marry.
It would be impossible to keep my secret from my husband and his family.
No, I knew in a distant, resigned kind of way that I was going to be a spinster and live at my family’s estate forever.
Yet I’d still dreamed of marrying into a family that had prestige and would bring honor to my own.
Graysen read all of it on my collapsing expression and gave me a pitying look. “Exactly.”
“You could have told me about all of this, about your mother, after we—”
“Could I have?” he cut in.
And this time, I put myself fully in his shoes.
The Horned Gods didn’t know the Crowthers had discovered Tabitha was alive. None of the Houses either.
If I were them, could I have trusted the family who betrayed mine?
Hells no.
It was the only leverage the Crowthers had—that no one knew what they were up to.
If anyone learned they were working against the Horned Gods to find and free her, from me, my father, another House, they would have betrayed the Crowthers instantly to gain themselves an advantage with those we served.
I sniffled, wiping away another tear before it fell, and said pathetically. “But I could have helped.”
“You are helping in your way.”
I framed his blood-splattered cheeks with my hands. “Let’s be free of everyone and run away…please.”
Anguish tightened his jaw and sweat-damp curls swept across his forehead as he shook his head. “It’s not as easy as that.”
He withdrew his touch, and only then did I realize he wasn’t untying the cord around my neck. I blinked. “Set me free.”
He reached for me again, not for the knot, but to cup my face gently.
“There’s no reason you should trust me. Hells, I know I’ve not earned it with everything I’ve done to you.
But please, Nelle, trust in this.” He took my hand and placed it over my heart, where it beat wildly beneath my palm.
“You’re going to find your way free of us before the Witches Ball takes place. ”
“How can you know that?”
“Because I know you. You’re cunning. You’ve already found the escape tunnel.”
“There’s a wall.”
He drew his other hand to my temple, swiping his thumb slowly across my forehead. “Trust this brilliant mind too.” He beamed with pride. “What’s a wall to someone as clever as you?”
My nose wrinkled and my bottom lip wobbled as I gave him a bright, tremulous smile. Indeed. All I needed was a key to get past it.
“I just need time,” he said earnestly. “Trust in me enough to give me that. Help me get an invite to the Witches Ball and then leave.”
“You’ll come with me?”
His smile fell. “My mother…”
I knew. Of course, I knew. This wasn’t only about me. This was about his mother too, and he’d been torn right down the center, half his heart with each of us.
“Graysen…”
He sucked in a sharp breath, an awe-filled gaze fixed intently on my lips. I didn’t understand why until he curled his fingers into my hair, cradling the back of my head, and breathed, “Say it again.”
I leaned forward, pressing my forehead to his, and spoke his name aloud for the first time since entering the Keep. “Graysen.”
His eyes fell shut, and a shudder rippled through him. He expelled a breath that seemed to have been dragged up from the deepest part of his soul. “Again.”
I couldn’t give him what he wanted: an exchange of devotion, of honesty.
So I gave him the only thing I could—his name.
I whispered it again and again. And as the willwips danced overhead, chittering sweetly and painting the gloom in hues of ivy and bluebell, daffodil and poppy, Graysen and I stared into each other’s eyes, breathing the other in.
“You love me?” I needed to hear it once more.
His embrace tightened. “Everything I am is yours. My blood. My bones. And all the scars that paint my flesh. My heart beats with yours because you own it too.” Pulling away, he brushed a tender touch along my temple, tucking a wayward curl behind my ear.
Reverence softened his smile and he huffed a laugh.
“How the fuck could I not love you? You’re my queen, little bird. ”
His smile faded as he heaved a soft sigh and tipped his forehead back against mine.
The sonorous words vibrated against my lips, and I closed my eyes as the intensity of his feelings shivered across my skin.
“You were the moonlight that kept my empty heart beating with every cruel cut of the whip. And this past year, through all those long, lonely nights, it was your promise of sunshine that saved my cold, black soul.”