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'
***
Fiery Nelle, the isolat...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
I expelled a deep breath and spoke softly. "I know about your mother. She was like me. Other."
Graysen didn't look surprised, more sorrowfully resigned than anything. He nodded. "She was. Though, not like you. She was a quieter kind." Chewing on his bottom lip, his brow furrowing, he looked away at the silver birches, lost in deep thought. The wind ruffled his hair, sliding locks across his face and hid the angles of his cheekbones. "Our mothers were childhood friends. They shared everything. Even if Marissa had never divulged your secret, my mother would have known. She had the ability to sense others and she knew you were one too. She knew you were unique. I'd been with my father that day at the Novak estate and I overheard Sirro speaking of the orders he'd been given to investigate you. I told my mother what I'd listened into... She phoned Marissa and urged her to take you and run. It was me...my fault...if I hadn't..." Inky brows slashed downward as he gritted his teeth, a muscle feathering in his jaw. He slowly turned back to look at me, the shadows of the night softening the hard glint in his eyes. "The Horned Gods didn't come for you. They came for my mother instead."
If he hadn't said anything, he'd still have his mother...but I...I would have died along with my family.
I squeezed my eyes shut. "It was my father. He overheard the conversation. He pressured my mother into giving Tabitha up." My voice broke when I said, "She did it for me."
I inhaled sharply as I felt the tips of his fingers slide beneath my chin, gently tipping my face up. "I know... Afterward, it was easy to figure out," he said.
Opening my eyes, I found his fixed on mine and filled with sadness. "How did you survive the Horned Gods?" A sacrifice was required. Often the whole House was annihilated. How did the Crowthers keep their lives after Tabitha was discovered?
"She was on her knees begging for my life. She reminded them of House Crowther's servitude, our loyalty. That the Horned Gods only survived the Final War because of Hamon and Draxxon's sacrifice."
The vague memory I had of Tabitha flashed unbidden into my mind as I imagined her on her knees begging. Of Graysen too, broken, and lying shattered by her side. And Ferne...
I felt so cold and numb, every part of me.
"Me... You've wanted me all along... That's why your family didn't choose Lise or Evvie for the Alverac. You knew all along that I was other. You've always known. Gods, no wonder you'd despised me." He opened his mouth to speak but I interrupted, stepping sideways and flinging up a hand warning him not to. "Don't lie to me, not now."
He didn't nod in agreement. It was the sharpening in his eyes, the violent flare of warring emotion. The dangerously calm voice he used when he was lethal. "You're right, I have despised you...and also craved you...and hated myself for both. I want you, yet I also want to hurt you, little bird." He closed his eyes briefly, and when they opened, they burned with need so hot that the intensity of feeling shot through me like a lightning strike. He moved fast, impossibly fast, a sudden terrifying rush of motion to pin me up against the birdcage. Black eyes, a night sky pin-pricked with golden stars, were level with mine, and his mouth hovered an inch from my lips. "You think I don't want to mark that honeyed skin with bruises the shape of my fingertips?" I shivered as he traced the curve of my cheekbone with his own, his gentle touch at odds with his darkest desire as he breathed into my ear. "I want your pretty lips open on a silent scream, cheeks wet and spilling onto mine, to lick up the salt of your tears with my tongue."
