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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Tucking the blunt into the corner of my mouth like I'd seen countless actors do in movies, freed up my hands so I was able to pull Graysen's t-shirt up. The backs of my fingers grazed along hard muscle encased by silken skin. A thrill rushed through my veins when I caught the twitch of muscle and the throaty moan he tried to stifle.
Graysen took over, tugging the hem of his shirt up with one hand, but he didn't remove it, instead holding the bunched material near the base of his throat. Reaching forward, he plucked the blunt from my mouth, taking a hit as he leaned back against the headboard to allow my gaze to roam leisurely over his chest.
A shooting spark of arousal carved downward to spear through my core. His face was beautiful, his chest perfection.
Holy, holy, holy hells—he's finely cut.
There seemed not an ounce of fat on him. All muscle and golden skin. His tattoos scored across most of his chest and twined up one side of his throat to his jawline. The whorls of ink curled over both shoulders and downwards to a full arm sleeve on the right, while the flames and Ukkenskrit tales reached only as far as his left bicep.
But it was the brand that ensnared my attention.
My greedy gaze gobbled up every detail of the insignia of his House.
The flesh over his heart was raised, ruined flesh. It was a brand of a wyrm—a scaled serpentine creature. Elegant wings were tucked into the sides of its long, coiled body, while its talons and fangs were extended. The wyrm's detail was a little rough, not neat and precise like it had been created professionally with a laser. No, this was done with an iron brand dipped into fire and pressed against flesh.
"Did it hurt?"
"Like a motherfucker. I almost passed out." His free hand returned to my side, his fingers splayed wide and curving around my hip. I swallowed, my blood heating. His touch was a brand on my own skin.
My fingers skimmed the scarred flesh of a wing. He grunted and his pec flexed as my fingertips traced around the coiled serpent's body.
"They're territorial, obsessive, and greedy," Graysen shared. "When they want something they pursue it with single-minded determination. Claim it. Mark it...and they mate for life."
"They're gone now," I said with a pinch of sadness. "All died out." I'd come across that in the history books I'd read in my family's library.
"No. A few still hibernate deep in the bowels of the earth."
I glanced upward, astonishment expanding through my entire being. "How do you know that?"
"My ancestors tamed wyrms. Used them to hunt for the Horned Gods. Battled alongside them. But we freed the last of them after the Final War."
Excitement raced through me to think that Wyrms still lived.
When I took a really good look at everything together—the naked flesh of the wyrm brand surrounded by inked flames— it looked as if half his body was scorched in wyrmfire.
