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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Naked, Graysen stood before me, scarred, tattooed—resplendent.
His sheer physical size enhanced by the shadows.
Breathtaking in his beauty.
I still hadn't looked down, instead, I kept my unwavering gaze on his face while wondering what the hells I'd done.
The shock of what I'd invited, the utter recklessness of it, was a slap in the face, and it snapped me out of the wild desperation that had ensnared me. I hadn't been thinking. I'd been feeling, caught up in the wretchedness of death and grief and the hopelessness of being bound to the Horned Gods. How they held us, insignificant, in the palm of their hands. At the whim of their will.
All I wanted was to feel alive. I'd survived that bloodshed in the temple, when what had happened to Elyse could so easily have happened to me. What had happened to her parents could have happened to my family. I'd wanted a moment of respite from the soul-devouring guilt that I'd survived when they had not.
And I'd blatantly incinerated Graysen's clothes, silently asking for something for which I was no longer sure I was ready.
I stood, frozen, the broken, rotten alder tree behind me. The atmosphere had changed. Now it crackled with intense uncertainty from me and, from him, pure hunger that scraped against my skin with sharp teeth.
Graysen flicked messy locks from his forehead with his hand. Only the cowlick didn't settle into place. The hank of hair slipped back down, dipping just above thick eyelashes. The shine in his black eyes was almost otherworldly—the shine of a beast that hunted at night. The glint in their midnight depth was the edge of a sharpened blade—fixed on me.
What had I been thinking?
I closed my eyes, gathering my courage.
Don't think, don't think, don't think—just give in.
And Graysen could do that for me. He could let me feel something other than overwhelming desperation and grief—a heavy weight tied to my ankle pulling me down, down, down beneath the surface of an algae-choked pond.
His voice was low and seductive and rich with challenge. "Look, little bird."
He taunted me to open my eyes, and I did.
Graysen's essence was the cold snap of dawn, but there was lightness too. His soul lingered in the shadows, and I thought that was fitting since the gloom of the night had settled around him like a cloak. His hand snaked down, but I kept my gaze on his eyes, staring back at me heavy-lidded. "Take a good, long look."
I swallowed, hard, my hands clenching and unclenching at my sides.
Inhaling a deep breath, I let my gaze slowly drift down the tattooed throat, broad shoulders, muscular chest branded with a wyrm and inked with fire, the ripple of abs, and lean hips with the V...
