When Nelle Wychthorn was forced to sign herself away in marriage, she should have read the contract's fine print. Because she signs not with ink, but with blood. And that changes everything.
Season 1 'Of Crows and Thorns'
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Fiery Nelle, the isolat...
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I crowded up against Wychthorn in an alcove not far from the den. Sage kept close, prowling back and forth.
"What the fuck were you thinking, going in there?" It came out harsher than I'd intended.
She flinched.
And I felt like a fucking asshole. But when she'd soared through the threshold of the den, I'd panicked. It took everything I had to hide it from Sirro. I didn't even know why fear had flooded through me, why panic crushed my lungs with a tight fist.
Fuck. I never panic.
Well, almost never.
"I wasn't. I just..." Her hands fluttered, trying to grasp the magnitude of what she'd done. "I wanted to speak with my father. I didn't think—"
"Shit, Wychthorn...Sirro." I roughly rubbed my chin with the tips of my fingers. Sirro could find a way to bend the Alverac, and I was so close, so fucking close, to claiming Wychthorn. How many daughters, even a few sons kept away from the intricacies of our world, knew swifting? Carola Pelan wouldn't even know how to spell swift, let alone what it meant. But Wychthorn did. There was finely honed intelligence in my little bird, and the rightful heir to the Great House, if Byron wasn't such a sexist prick.
"You've piqued his interest." And not just her sharp clever mind either. Other women probably thought it a romantic idea to be picked for Sirro's harem. How many daughters had he chosen over the centuries? How many never returned? And those that did, after being used and discarded—
Fuck. It wasn't anything I'd wish, even for Wychthorn.
There was an intimacy in how I caged Wychthorn as we whispered in the shadows of the alcove, our bodies leaning in, heat swirling between the slight gap. We'd never been this close before tonight.
What the fuck am I doing?
In only a few hours, this is what we'd become?
She scrubbed her creased forehead with a knuckle, the adamere beads clacking together with the movement. "Shit, shit, shit..."
Besides my baby sister, she was the only other girl I knew who didn't hunger for the power and beauty that surrounded Sirro. He didn't have her knees buckling and her simpering and drooling after him. As much as I despised her, I had to respect her for that. And there was something else, something gnawing at the walls I'd built to keep her out. Something I didn't want to think about—
Make it stop.
Make her go away.
"Graysen," she softly whispered, severing my thoughts. She darted a wary glance toward the oak door of the den. Her tongue darted out to wet her lower lip, chin lifting as she stared up at me with intense gray eyes.
Graysen. Not Fucking Prick or Arrogant Asshole or Crowther or even, You. Interesting.
She seemed edgy, as if she were still debating whether or not to tell me, her mouth opening and closing and opening once more. She glanced away and shook her head ruefully, her braid swishing over her shoulder. "Nothing."
