1
Nelle
Raw, unfettered hostility surged through me at Graysen’s touch. I twisted away, shaking free of the hand he’d splayed across the small of my back. Stepping into the room he’d guided me toward, my bare feet made little sound on the cool stone floor.
Menacing shadows rippled along the walls, striking out at the undulating light cast by candles in candelabras and spilling from the chandelier. Ferne sat in a high-backed chair. A Heriz rug with a bold, geometric pattern was nestled beneath the long table. Graysen stepped flush with me where I’d slowly drawn to a halt.
There were large-scale maps on one wall, pinned with mismatched tacks, as well as images of Horned Gods I recognized from time spent raking through my family library on a hunt for any creature that could reveal what I was. My gaze glanced over racks of weapons, swords and daggers, war scythes, battle axes, and crossbows. A low glow of severalcomputer monitors emitting dull blue light over documents and files strewn upon a shared desk, along with a nest of wires and half-formed devices from House Simonis, deconstructed by the Crowthers, I assumed, to be made into something new.
I raised a brow in curiosity, tilting my head up to Graysen. At my silent question, he answered, “This is our family room.”
My face slackened in surprise. “It looks more like a War Room.”
Black eyes flared wide, then narrowed as he glanced about, taking in how I might see the space. Thick, inky brows slashed over an equally dark gaze a moment before he grunted. And I suppose that was his way of agreeing.
But there were remnants of what I supposed the room might have looked like without those brutal additions. In the opposite corner was a comfy couch with matching armchairs. Paintings and family photographs surrounded the maps that showed territories crossed out with slashes of red ink. And someone had proudly placed little clay things—lopsided animals and wobbly cars—perhaps made clumsily by a child, along the fireplace mantel. On the bookcases lining two adjacent walls, I spied a collection of children’s books, obviously much-loved judging by their ratty spines.
Graysen gestured behind me. I took it as a silent request to move, and I did, walking away from where the Crowther women had gathered at the table. As I moved past the wall lined from ceiling to floor with books, I realized the photographs propped up along a single shelf were of the same young woman.
I barely remembered her from my childhood, and it stupidly took me a long moment to realize who she was, even though I was standing in her home. Captured in a moment of pure, joyous laughter, she stared back at me, beaming with green eyes sparkling in a heart-shaped face, a sheen of golden hair curling over her shoulders.
Oh my gods…
Tabitha Crowther.
My footing stumbled as coarse currents of guilt washed through me.
The Horned Gods had stolen Tabitha in place of me, for whatever purpose they had in mind for her, 12 long years ago.
Both of us alive.
Both of us trapped.
Would the Crowthers make me suffer like she suffered?
But that was a question to which I already knew the answer. I was the Crowthers’ way into the Witches Ball, where I’d stand on the auction block and be bid on by those reclusive Horned Gods whose dark power came from an ancient language. I’d be nothing more than an object, reduced down to body parts, the bits of me that could be used in their wicked potions and curses.
Graysen herded me to a far corner where the bookshelves met one another, and the smell of paper and ink greeted me. When I turned to face him, our gazes connected. For a moment, I saw the turmoil raging inside, the guilt and remorse. Fury too. My heart pounded wildly at the wintry blast of feelings lashing out at where I stood, chilling the blood in my veins, turning my bones brittle.
He blinked slowly and, when he next looked at me, his gaze was blank and unfeeling. “Stand here and do not say a word,” he ordered, his voice low and gravelly.
A spike of anger flared—Like hells I will!
My mouth parted, but he pressed a calloused finger across my lips.
I went to bite him when his sharptskstopped me. “Not a single word,” he whispered. “For your own good, be silent.”
Without waiting for a response, he twisted away to stride further into the room. Only then did I realize he’d positioned me as far from his aunt as possible.
Despite the modern lighting set into ceiling recesses, candlelight was the only source of illumination. The shadows lingered in the room like another presence. I welcomed the shadows, pressed myself deeper into them, welcoming the dull ache as the bookshelves at my back dug into my spine, desperately trying to ignore the photographs of Tabitha.
Graysen placed himself between his aunt and me, forcing me to lean sideways to peer around his tall body.
Valarie stood at the head of the dark wooden table while Ferne sat stiffly, her hands threaded together, rubbing her thumb back and forth, pulling the skin taut over the knuckle and turning it white with pressure.
Silver threads ran through Valarie’s midnight hair, woven into a simple bun. Her features were as sharp as her gaze. Coldness radiated from her—I could feel it nipping at my flesh like hoarfrost. She was curious, wanting to know what I was, what lurked beneath my skin, and how it might be turned to her advantage. Information her twin brother, Varen, and her nephews had discovered less than an hour ago.
Her pitiless eyes glowed otherworldly in the shadows. And I fought the urge to shrink away. To keep myself from trembling. To remind myself who I was and what it felt like to have wrath burning through my veins.
