Two girls. Two secrets.
Only one can survive.
Years before Nelle Wychthorn plans her escape, Tabitha Catt may unearth something in a Horned God's lair that is the key to freedom.
Desperate to save her beloved aunt from a dark curse, Tabitha is out t...
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Dreary light contoured the brutal edges of Varen's face with hazy fingers. Gloomy shadows deepened the hollows beneath his cheekbones and grazed the square chin and sharp angular jaw. I didn't know this Varen with his domineering stance and mouth set in a hard line. The harsh narrowed eyes with their unearthly gleam. There was an underlying hunger too—a sharpness of phantom fangs pressed up against my throat.
He made no move.
He didn't speak.
There was only silence.
So quiet but for the panicking blood rushing in my ears.
Unease prickled the fine hair on the back of my neck. I couldn't help but feel like prey, small and uncertain, as he stared back cold and unfeeling. The cool metal balanced on my fingertips was a pathetic shield against a wolf.
A few unruly locks of his hair ruffled with a breath of wind. An icy breeze that shouldn't be in a glassware cupboard with no windows.
The dark power inside me stirred, intrigued with the otherworldly threads of wind curling through the narrow room. I braced myself against the chilly air nipping at my bare legs and slithering across my cheek to waver the loose strands of gold framing my temple.
I searched his face, looking for any indication he knew what roused the air around him, and found nothing. He was focused solely on me with threatening intensity. Varen had no idea he was a storm-weaver. An other.
And he was angry. So angry with me.
I chewed my bottom lip, tugging on it with my teeth to hide the tremble, wondering what he was up to. What sinister plan did he have laid out for me?
"What if I don't want to play your game?" I whispered beneath lowered eyelashes, hoping he'd set me free.
Varen moved a pace closer and I almost flinched. Like the hunter he was, he noticed. The corners of his mouth tipped up slightly and there was something close to pity shining in his eyes. "Too late, Miss Cat. We've already started."
Hope faded and sank like drifting sand to the pit of my stomach.
My tongue rasped along the roof of a dry mouth as my anxious gaze darted about my surroundings. Dull light struck off a myriad of curved surfaces—metal and glass and even ancient wood. With my current record of accidental, and on occasion purposeful, destruction of antiques, this was the worst place I could have been trapped. The glassware cupboard was rife with risk. Not only from another servant walking in but from all the graceful crystals just waiting for a jolt of movement to strike the shelves and send them careering.
Varen jabbed his forefinger toward the ceiling. Frost clung to his tone when he spoke a single word. "Up."
Oh gods...
Tentatively shuffling sideways so I stood directly in front of the tall cupboard, rather than in front of the shelving unit with its expensive possessions, I carefully raised the pewter tray above my head.
