She's the reason the heart of my family had been torn apart. Because that night, I'd unwittingly chosen her. Now, years later, she's my prey.
[Season 1 'Of Crows and Thorns']
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NELLE:- Cursed by a terrifying dark power, I'm a secret hidden in plai...
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I searched through the milling crowd and found him easily enough. The boy was staring at my sister with a dreamy kind of look in his green eyes. He became aware of my incensed attention fixed on him, and his head swiveled my way so fast that his chocolate brown hair shivered.
Snatching my dagger from the inside of my tux jacket, I twirled it. The spinning blade caught wildfyre light and gleamed blue as I delivered Ezra Qillisan a cold vicious smile.
His eyes widened in understanding and his throat bobbed as he swallowed.
Yeah, that's right—stay away.
My sister tensed. "What did you do?" She pressed her lips into a thin line.
I tucked away the dagger and used my most innocent voice. "Nothing."
Her nostrils flared. "Ezra Qillisan, right?"
I grunted, glaring at the boy, who I thought would have heeded my warning and shuffled away, but the little fucker tipped his chin up at me. A sliver of me delighted in his bravado. The rest of me wanted to crush him beneath my shiny leather shoes.
Ferne crossed her arms defiantly over her chest. "He's my friend." But her cheeks flushed a brighter pink at her botched attempt at subterfuge.
"Then what,"—waving a pointed finger at her expression—"is all this?"
She slapped my hand away. "I'm sixteen, Gray. Siiixteeen and old enough to like a boy and hope he likes her back."
An anguished noise crawled from my throat as I scrubbed a palm against my face while hissing, "Gods, Ferne, I'm your brother."
She thwacked me on the arm, good and hard, and expelled a sound like ugh, but more peeved. "I knew I should have stayed with Caidan."
I didn't know if the suffocating sensation around my neck was the uncomfortable knowledge that my baby sister was growing up or the fact I'd messed up the knot in my tie, as per fucking usual. My fingers scrabbled at the knot, trying to loosen it up.
Ferne heaved an annoyed sigh and reached for the silky fabric of my tie, her fingers inching upward along its length until she reached its apex. She deftly unknotted it and began to retie it properly, the silken ends whirling around with her deft moves. "I don't know why you're all so useless at this." Finished, her hands brushed along my shoulders, feeling the fabric of my jacket beneath her touch. "What number tux is this?"
"Fourth," I grouched.
"Lucky for you I'd brought so many," she grinned. My sister, though resentful of Nelle, had always found my time spent with Little Miss Annoying grudgingly amusing, and knew the tricks played on me well enough to have thought ahead and brought not one, but half a dozen tuxedos with her.
Ferne's fingers stilled. She tipped her head to the side. Dark eyebrows nudged together over the delicate lace that covered her forehead and eyeless sockets. The lace was a soft pink color that matched her dress perfectly. She brought her hands up to hover in front of my face, fingers spread wide, before she made a soft considering hum. I felt her senses sweeping over my body, wrapping around me, prodding and poking.
