There wasn’t any reason to keep the information hidden, but I wasn’t going to give him everything he wanted to know. He needed to earn that. And not knowing would be far more unsettling.
How I’d yearned for this day.
It was much like when I’d waited for the moment to reveal the truth of the Alverac to Nelle. I’d desired for years to see her panic and fear take root. But when that moment came, it no longer seemedright.
This, however, was the complete opposite.
We needed something from Byron, and I was going to enjoy forcing him to hand it over.
“Another House,” I finally replied.
“Which one?”
I didn’t answer.
“Which of the Houses dared do this?”
I could see his mind ticking over, wondering who it might be, if they knew Nelle wasother. And if they did, what kind of hold would they have over him?
I remained silent.
He exhaled and gave a curt nod. His gaze dropped to his hand, now splayed upon the desk—smooth, long fingers that had never had to harden with the daily use of blades. They’d only ever curled around pens and quills.
He swallowed thickly, his voice close to breaking. “Don’t hurt her.”
My chest tightened as those words hacked at my heart with a rust-edged blade.
The only way to get what we needed from Byron was to threaten him with his daughter. My only regret was using Nelleas the tool to do so, but I had to exploit her. There was no alternative to this mess.
I can’t fail.
I can’t…
There was a flatness to my tone that I’d perfected over the years, an emptiness to my expression that could intensify fear, far darker and swifter than anything else. “I can do whatever I feel like to her, and there is nothing you can do about it.”
His gaze shot to mine.
Terror. I tasted it on my tongue.
“What is it you want from me? What can I give you to free her?” The same question he’d posed to me time and time again throughout the years.
There was no point in pretending civility anymore. He had a choice to make. Cut Nelle off or give us anything we wanted. And there was no way he’d abandon his daughter. Yet if the Horned Gods discovered she was a wyrm, for fuck’s sake, they wouldn’t only kill his entire House, they’d erase every single mention of the Wychthorns from history.
We owned Byron just like we owned his daughter.
But I let him scramble in the hopes that he could pull himself out of this shithole he’d shoved himself into.
He waved his hand dismissively. “This revenge on me, going through my daughter to make me pay for your mother’s death…”
Thiswas what had my blood spitting, my fingers fisting. Had that wicked, ancient strain humming through my body, demanding to end him.
The Houses believed my mother had died in a car accident. We’d even held a funeral, and there was an empty tomb resting in our family mausoleum with her name and date of death carved into stone. Though Byron knew the truth, as far as he was aware, my mother had died at the Horned Gods’ hands.
And yet, still nothing. Nothing from him for the part he’d played. At the very least, he owed us a godsdamned apology for condemningevery single memberof my House to death when he betrayed my mother. He knew they would slaughter all of us along with her.
I stalked around the office, taking my time to answer, purely to get the hot swathes of rage burning beneath my skin under control. There were numerous weapons on the wall, and it was far too tempting to snatch up an Egyptian dagger and plunge the copper blade right through Bryon’s callous heart.
“You know what, Byron? I’d have expected something from you. Maybe even an apology for what you did to our mother, betraying her to the Horned Gods. And yet…nothing.”
