I’d carefully rolled out of bed. Sage watched warily, giving me a soft warning snarl as I’d crouched down and banded my arms around Nelle’s slight body. Careful not to wake her, I carried her back to her bed, tucking her beneath the soft blankets. I sat therefor a good while, letting the brief and fleeting contentment fill the hollow space carved into my chest. Contentment rose at the barest contact between us when I linked our little fingers again, each gently curving around the other.
Afterward, I’d risen quietly, changed, and gone downstairs to run drills with my siblings and our soldiers. But this time my brothers had a bone to pick with me, in the form of Nelle Wychthorn.
Power hissed through my veins as I emptied everything out of my head. It was just me and the extension in my hand—a wyrmbone quarterstaff. The rapid-fireclackof bone on wood cracked through the training pit as I drove Jett and Caidan back. This quarterstaff had once temporarily been my father’s weapon. Twin hunting daggers, the quarterstaff, and my cursed sword, which had been forged by the Blacksmith from Draxxon’s femur bone and passed to me when I’d reached the right age and skill level to claim them.
Caidan, Kenton, and Jett circled, moving like a pack of wolves. Like me, they were bare-chested and sweaty and armed with quarterstaffs. While I was untouched, fresh bruises marred their bloodied faces. Each of them glared, panting from exertion. All were inquisitive and demanded answers.
“She shouldn’t be up there,” Kenton snarled. He whirled his staff over his head, the motion so swift it was a blur. He charged forward with a flurry of ruthless strikes I easily knocked aside. “I don’t like it!”
I felt the air moving behind me—Jett.
Crunching feet on sand to my left—Caidan.
I could feel it pulsing through my blood. Raw, vicious power wanting to lash out. A savage, unearthly growl clawed from my throat as I flowed with the battle. Faster, stronger, and more lethal. I disarmed Kenton with a furious swing. His staff soared through the air and crashed into the opposite wall, splinteringinto pieces. So fast… I moved so fast, a streak of speed, almost as if I were there and then not.
Spinning to kick a sparkly boot into Jett’s gut.
Whirling to smash the end of my staff into Caidan’s face.
Pivoting low and sweeping Kenton from his feet.
He landed on his back with anoomph.
I stormed up, fury burning through every inch of me. I slammed the tip of my wyrmbone staff down, sending a wave of spraying sand. He scrambled to a sitting position, swiping the grit from his eyes. I bent over and got right in his face. “I don’t give a flying fuck. She’s mine. It’s my blood signed on the Alverac, not yours, or any-fucking-one else’s. I decide what to do with her!”
“What the hells are you doing with her, Gray?” I heard Jett croak. I swiveled in his direction and found he’d tossed his staff down by his feet and was clutching his stomach.
“Just messing with her head is all.” I replied, lying through my fucking teeth.
Jett’s gaze, beneath brows thick with fresh wounds, sharpened on me. The tight line of his mouth curved into a smirk. “Yeah, well, you’re doing a fine job breaking her, Limp Dick.”
I whipped around in a strike too fast for him to defend and drove my elbow into face. Bone crunched and blood sprayed. “Holy hells!” Jett howled. He staggered back. Crimson streamed over his knuckles pressed to his broken nose and splattered onto the scuffed sand between his boots.
Caidan’s left cheekbone was caved in, and the skin rippled where the bones were beginning to knit together. He gingerly touched his face, shooting me a pissed look. “Hells…you wanna pull back next time you hit me?” He spat a gob of blood, wincing.“Shit…”
Kenton rose. He was bigger, brawnier, but so far neither he nor any of my brothers had been able to lay a blow on me thismorning. He glared at me with one black eye, which was already fading to yellow bruises, and dried blood crusted on one side of his face from an earlier wound. I held my ground as he stalked up, both of us refusing to budge or blink. “What the fuck is up with you?”
I stared at him incredulously.What the fuck isn’t up with me?
It was about to roll off my tongue—what the hells was wrong with our entire family, my brothers, my father, aunt, all this messed up shit—when I heard Caidan say, “Your eyes…”
Shock slammed into me.
I shot him a sidelong glance. He tilted his head and stared at me curiously. As they all were. Kenton and Jett sharing a look.
The fury that had engulfed me slipped into icy worry.
I shied away, scowling, and rubbed my palm over my sweaty forehead, shielding myself from my brothers. I knew my irises must have changed color to reflect Nelle’s.Why?I had no idea. It seemed to happen whenever I was caught up with the territorial possessiveness that heated my blood to boiling point when this strange ancient power, whatever the hells it was, coursed through my veins.
I stalked over to the tap, beads of liquid dripping into the repurposed wine barrel below, and twisted the faucet to release a spray of water. I cupped my hands and splashed cool water over my face and used the metal of the curved tap as a mirror, watching as the silver-gray eyes faded to black.
“Wychthorn’s got less than three months before she’s on the auction block, so why not let her out,” Caidan said. A statement. A fact that had me frozen in place.
Because I didn’t trust them. I sure as fuck didn’t trust Jett not to mess with her.
“That’s if we get a request for a Goods Appraisal,” I bit back, shaking my head to flick the sweat-damp hair off my forehead.As much as I didn’t want an invitation to the Witches Ball, I needed it to save my mother.
“We will. I’ve been working on something with Zielenski,” Jett said, his voice a little stuffy from the rapidly healing broken nose. He gave me a sly look when I turned to face my brothers. All of them still hummed with wariness of me. “Twofold. We’ll introduce the Wychthorn Princess to the Emporium the moment Jurgana arrives.”
