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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The thunder of my bike was as loud as the wind whistling past my ears and tearing at my hair. The Wayfarers shielded my eyes from the streaming headwind while the motorcycle's fairing reduced air drag. I was pushing the Ducati as hard as I could along a pitted road rising up a mountain. Water splashed beneath the bike's tires as I leaned low to race around corners, kicking through the gears, to hurtle up short straights. My blades shivered against my back from the bike's vibrations on the uneven asphalt. Strapped alongside my spine was a second sword, a bastard-twin to the wyrmblade, and forged from pure adamere.
Two thoughts had occurred to me as I'd traveled through the fuck-knows-where backroads of America. The first I'd discarded as soon as I'd thought it. Sure, my bike had a locator, and my brothers would eventually find me. But there wasn't much I could do about the fact that I didn't have my phone on me—incinerated by Nelle back in the woodland—and with no way to contact my brothers, I couldn't let them know what I might discover.
The second thought had occupied my mind almost the entire ride.
I'd ridden for a few hours now, following the threads that bound Nelle to me, the whispering caress of her becoming stronger with every mile I chewed through that brought me closer.
I'd crossed the line. I knew that. Deep down I'd lost myself to her, given in to whatever this thing was between us. I could lie through my fucking teeth and say I was following her, hunting down whoever had her for my family, because we needed her.
But...
It was more than that. This feeling inside me wasn't foreign, but I'd hidden it away for so long that its intensity very nearly overwhelmed my senses as it was dredged up from the darkness I'd shoved it in. And though right now wasn't the time to unravel what the hells I was going to do about it, I'd had plenty of time on my bike to do so. I knew I was on the edge of something so powerful and intrinsic my entire world would be rocked. Deny it, I couldn't. I'd fallen for her. More than fallen for her. I'd fallen into her. Just as I'd feared, and exactly as the Uzrek had teased out as he'd sifted through my memories. Its ancient cruel laughter echoed through my mind—Such a strange fear to have.
As if it had been inevitable.
I'd held her in my arms as she died. I knew it wasn't her, but fuck, that had broken me.
I had to find her.
I had to free her from whoever had stolen her.
It was early morning, the sunlight strong and beating upon the worn wet road that twisted around the edges of the mountain. It had been raining recently and water cascaded in thin streams down the mountainside to spread across the road as it coursed downward.
Bloodlust for whoever the fuck had stolen Nelle burst through my veins, tightening my fists on the bike's handlebars. Weaving a series of sharply cut corners, I leaned the bike over so low my knee was barely an inch from the puddled road, righting the machine to punch into a short straight. West. We were still traveling west.
