Wavering, misty fur hackled down the ridge of Sage’s spine. He growled long and low and surged forward. The quiet of the tower exploded with frenzied barks and snapping fangs.
“Go, Sage…GO!” I bounced up and down, clapping my hands enthusiastically above my head. I couldn’t fucking wait—I hungered for Crowther blood to spill!
The wraith-wolf danced on the spot, caught up in his wrath. He lunged to bite Graysen’s leg but pulled back just shy of sinking those saliva-dripping fangs into flesh. Graysen stoodstill, his body locked rigid, muscles clenched tight, and gaze fixed on the wraith-wolf.
And nothing.
I stopped jumping around, my claps drifting apart as I frowned at Sage and jabbed a finger at Graysen. “I said—bite his face off!”
Confusion twisted through me. I didn’t understand why my wraith-wolf hadn’t attacked the asshole.
In fact, as my arms fell limp to my sides, Sage was retreating slowly, drawing back, so he was flush with me. He whined, an awful sound, because it was more an apology than anything else, then lost all his fight, sinking to lie on the floor beside my bare feet.
What’s going on?
I shot Graysen a suspicious look. “What did you do to him?”
He tapped his forefinger against his throat where the inked fire scored upward. At first, I thought he was talking about me, and went to roar at him, when it clicked.Of course.
Kneeling, I searched around Sage’s neck and found a thin coil that hummed a low, electrifying note against my skin. Bottled lightning. The same magic we used in his kennels at home to keep Sage corporeal so he couldn’t fade into the wraith-void and escape.
Graysen’s broad shoulders lifted as he tucked both hands into the back pockets of his jeans. “If it makes you feel any better, that’s pretty much how he greets us every single day.”
It didn’t make me feel any better.
I surveyed the room, my gaze sliding to the door of my little bedroom where I’d slunk off, ill, despondent and depressed, sleeping away my days. Wasting away without food or water. “I’ve never been so ill before,ever.” I glanced over my shoulder and observed him scanning my body, looking and assessing. “What happened to me?”
Shadows lingered in his eyes. “You were…” he paused, his features tightening, as if it pained him to say it. “I forced you into hibernation by keeping you trapped in here without sunlight or moonlight.”
My jaw slackened. “You did what?”
“I didn’t know,” he said, watching me carefully, as if I still had that ancient beast inside me to unleash. “I didn’t realize what it could have done to you, trapping you in here with no natural light.”
He didn’t apologize, and I didn’t expect him to either,yetthere was this small, tiny sliver of me that was disappointed.
“Hibernation.” I spoke the word slowly, testing it out. But that’s what those beasts did, orwerecurrently doing now buried beneath the earth, slumbering, according to Graysen and what he’d shared with me last weekend.
Quickly pushing into motion, I shifted over to the dining table. Sage kept close and settled at my feet. Sunlight sprayed across the dark wood and struck off the tall glass tumbler. I picked it up, sipping but not tasting, simply something reactionary to do while I hid my confusion. I’d spent my days outside burning the creature out twice a day. Always in sunshine. If a storm rolled in, it never lasted as long as this week had without seeing the sun, its shafts of golden light caressing my skin.
And at night…
“I can’t be in the dark.” The words left me in an introspective whisper.
“I know,” Graysen said softly.
I loved the moon, so my bedroom curtains were always open, and it performed as another nightlight to banish my terror of absolute darkness. My bed was perfectly positioned for me to bask in moonlight…
Bask…
Like a wyrm.
I hadn’t been in the right state of mind this past week to think about that.
I stilled, trying to feel the wyrm out. Nothing. Gone. I was hollow as a dry husk of wheat. Zrenyth’s magic around my neck trapped the wyrm and hid it from me. It was such an odd thing to now know what had concealed itself in the banks of fire, drawn out with the strike of Zrenyth’s whip to solidify into shape with flames of moonlight and sunlight.
Hello, tiny little thing…
Cold fury washed through me. I needed to be free of this godsdamned collar. I wanted off the estate and to bring the Crowthers to their knees. A little bloodshed wouldn’t go amiss either.
