What would I do if it were my mother?
How could onenotdo something? The Crowthers were surrounded by her memory. Tabitha’s rules were still maintained, and her thoughtfulness, the stamp she’d made as a servant, then as Matriarch of a ruling House, was imposed by everyone.
“What you’re doing is wrong,” I said quietly, fiddling with the end of my braid.
Graysen’s gaze snapped to mine, his body following to face me fully. He knew what I was referring to.Me.
I frowned petulantly and scratched my bare arm hard enough to hurt. For twelve long years, he and his brothers had been molded to do exactly what they’d done: capture me to sell. And yet here, this home of theirs, was at odds with the cruelty they’d displayed.
Though their actions were brutal and they might have a warped agenda, there was life here. Seemingly a normal life, too.
I didn’t know what to make of it. Of them.
I didn’t know how I might use it to twist them and bend them to my will.
I didn’t know if I could show them that what they were doing was wrong. That they were doing thewrongthing for therightreason.
I sighed.
They must love her immensely.
Graysen had his thumbs tucked into his jeans side pockets, weight on one leg, gazing downward. He lifted his head, the wayward locks of hair sliding across his forehead. “Oh, for sure, we’re going to Nine Hells for all of this…”
Lifting a hand, I gestured toward myself. “Your brothers think they’re right about what they’re doing. But it’s more than that. They think I deserve whatever comes my way at the Witches Ball. But I’m innocent in all of this. Why can’t they see that?”
“Why?” He straightened and took a step closer. His voice was soft, and his gaze edged with something else I wasn’t sure about. “You’re smart and clever and that brilliant mind of yours—”
“They’re deranged! You’re all vicious bastards!” I snapped, scuffing the grass with a toe, interrupting him not because of his compliment but because I didn’t like how he was looking at me, with an earnest hope that I’d listen.
A muscle in his jaw ticked while his gaze hardened and became shadowed with disappointment. “Exactly. That’s all we’ll ever be to you because it’s easy to see what you want to see. Take a closer look, little bird, and ask yourself, why.” He wandered off, turning back to say, “And while you think on that, or maybe not, because there is no one else I know more stubborn than you, why don’t you answer this. Who is Silas Boon?”
The mysterious Silas Boon. I hadn’t mentioned that Silas had arrived at the cottage soon after I’dswiftedus there. I’d only spoken of what had happened in the limousine as I’d wept within Graysen’s arms in the small bedroom flooded with moonlight and lit with candles, with its chipboard walls and mismatched blankets.
A gentle current of air coursed across the lawns and brought with its innocence a hint of molasses that turned sour and toxic as soon as I inhaled. An ugly miasma.
Danne Pellan…
My heart exploded as fast as the beat of dragonfly wings as the insect hovered over the curled leaf of a lily pad.
I didn’t hear what surrounded me…
Sage’s worried bark…
Peals of laughter…
The rattle and squeak of bike chains and wheels coasting on grass…
“Shit…” And another soft curse…
My awareness blackened at the fringes as if a raging tempest had erupted from nowhere. All that hollowed out my ears were my rapid, hitched gasps. Terror locked every inch of my trembling body rigid. My thoughts turned in on themselves as a wave of dizziness threw my equilibrium off balance.
Danne brought with him a flash flood of memories. I was no longer standing in Tabitha’s garden. I was somewhere else, closed in with rich walnut finishes and the scent of expensive leather. Somewhere that rocked and swayed. Greasy sensations I couldn’t scrape from my skin and mind.
A calm voice, sounding as if it came from a distance.“He’s not here. He can’t hurt you.”
Fingernails gouging flesh. A spike of pain across my cheek. Heinous laughter and spitting curses…
“You’re safe, Nelle. You’re standing in my mother’s garden, her lawns.”
