Spinning away, I stalked along the broken cobblestones crusted with moss until I was dead center at the back of the temple. My shoulders rounded forward as I toed the stone beneath my feet, crushing blades of grass where they poked free. A thick swell of loss and resentment choked up my throat, and it took a long moment to regain control, to remind myself that Nelle was not for me.

Nelle's distinctive fragrance swept ahead of her, before quick, clipped steps brought her in to stand in front of me. I squared my shoulders and knotted my arms across my chest. Perhaps it seemed an aggressive gesture but it was also defensive.

Her eyes were glacial and her mouth petulant. "I don't want to stand with you and your family—"

"Tough, you're with us tonight. You don't want to be up there with your family. Not at that altar. Nor standing beside the Horned Gods either."

That was why we couldn't let her near the altar.

Faced with the tithe she'd comforted at the tithe prison, along with the sacrifice, and the seductive power resonating from the Horned Gods, it could make her slip. The best we could do was keep her as far away from the dais as possible and the simplest way to do that was for Nelle to stand amongst us. She was unraveling, my little bird. Today she'd proved that with her rage and lack of self-control.

A shudder rippled through her slight figure and her complexion paled. Soft blue light from the wildfyre glanced along the sharp lines of her cheeks. Anxious eyes flitted away, and she absentmindedly scratched her fingernails against her upper arm as she stared at the temple. At the lichen creeping over weather-worn grooves that curved into a monstrous wingtip. "With everything going on between us...I hadn't time to think about the ceremony." She instinctively shifted closer to me. Her shoulder was a hair's breadth away from my arm and caused all the fine hair on my body to rise. My heartbeat kicked up a notch to match hers. "I don't come here very often," she continued, her voice barely a whisper. "I've rarely been inside... I haven't witnessed this kind of ceremony before."

It was going to be brutal tonight.

Urstlo was one of the three Horned Gods who would perform the blessing. It wasn't anything I wished for her to meet. Sirro, of course, would be attending, but as for the identity of the third Horned God, I didn't know who or what it would be.

Who the fuck knew how Nelle was going to react?

But Marissa understood my father's veiled offer disguised as demand. Despite those pills clouding her mind and emotions, Marissa knew how dangerous it was for her daughter to be standing at the altar beside the Horned Gods, with that innocent death performed right in front of her and nowhere else to look. The Crowthers were the only ones who could shield Nelle without raising suspicion.

And perhaps, she agreed so readily with my father because of what she'd shared with me last night. She suspected her husband was capable of doing anything to keep himself as Great House, even taking his own daughter's life, which was why she wanted Nelle as far away from Byron as possible.

Nelle's eyebrows slanted upward. "The sacrifice...? Is that why you pushed for me to join your family?"

Push? It was more a curt demand. One Byron had to give in to.

I nodded, relieved I could at least be honest about that. Tucking my hands into my pockets, I rocked back on my heels. "No—thanks—Wychthorn?"

"You first," she shot back tartly, flashing a grin.

I let out an exasperated huff I only half felt. I was suffocating under the weight of us, and yet she continued to delight me with her ability to both charm me and piss me the fuck off at the same time.

My gaze drifted to the relief sculpture that took up the entire length of the back wall. It slowly came into focus as I untangled myself from thoughts of her.

A wyrm.

Maybe it was just me, the fact that I'd inherited the black eyes from my ancestors that tamed wyrms, but I'd always admired the sleekness of the serpentine body, wings extended, horned head similarly shaped to a dragon—a mortal myth and not in any way real—with a ridge of plated spikes down its spine, and the design of its webbed feet made for chewing through earth. Wyrms didn't have lairs in caves; they dug beneath the earth in burrows and kept their offspring deep beneath the ground until they'd crossed adolescence.

A proud smile threatened to expose itself. Of those families gathered here, House Crowther was the oldest. Our lineage went right back, well past the Final War, to the age shrouded in mist and hidden from mortal knowledge, when Zrenyth gave life to the Horned Gods.

And once, long ago, we'd had an earlier version of this temple on our own lands.

Nelle noticed what I was looking at. When her gaze slid from me to the wall of stone, I quickly snatched a glance at her. Her expression smoothed into wonderment as she stared wide-eyed at the relief sculpture of the wyrm.

Pinching her skirt between her fingers, she lifted its length while ascending the steps. The soles of her high heels cracked against the stone porch that wrapped around the building. Wildfyre torches blazed, shadows dancing over the carved wall and pillars and creeping dead ivy, and cast her in an icy blue light that was reminiscent of those ancient glaciers up north. I trailed behind, drawn to her like a moth to a naked flame, unheedful of the danger.

Gods, why can't I stay away?

Her body weaved side-to-side as she took in the rendering of the wyrm. "Greedy. Obsessive. Territorial," she murmured so quietly, I knew she was talking to herself.

"Easily offended. Cunning and shrewd. Stubborn as fuck," I added, shifting my weight to one hip. "Volatile too. The young were kept in burrows until their tempers were tamed." I gave her a sly sideways look, unable to resist adding, "Like someone else I know."

She'd been craning her neck to look up at the roofline of the wall where the tips of the wyrm's wings were extended. Surprised, she whipped her head back to mine. Gray eyes sparkled in amusement. "Volatile indeed," she scoffed.

"The females mark and claim their mate during estrous," I said, thinking back to our ancestors. It must have been both exhilarating and terrifying to see wyrms warring in the skies over the right to mount the female. But from what I'd learned about them, even winning the battle didn't ensure winning the female. She chose her mate.

Her mouth rounded into a surprised O. "They go on heat?"

Those eyes of hers, lashes darkened with mascara, seemed so much larger as she slowly blinked, taking in what I knew. Her eyes dipped to my mouth, and with the languid swipe of her gaze, a tangible caress sparked against my lips and fired a straight line of heat down to my cock. I bunched my hands into fists at my sides, and told my stiffening shaft to back the fuck down, or else I was going to do something stupid like clench my hands in her pale hair and claim her mouth.

Gods, I want her.

Nelle's gaze sliced back to my own, a notch forming between her brows and I suddenly realized, rather belatedly, she was waiting for an answer. I could only swallow and nod in reply.

She reached out, hesitating briefly before touching the ancient pockmarked stone. Her delicate fingers traced a curve of a leathery wing, just as she'd done last night to the wyrm branded above my heart. "It looks too sleek, too light to carry them into flight."

I cleared my throat, surprised at how uneven my voice was when I replied, "They spin squalls to keep them aloft."

"Draxxon," she said softly, reverently.

I made a humming noise in confirmation. The rendering of the wyrm wasn't quite right, though.

Anyone looking at me would only see boredom and simmering aggravation to be stuck in her company, but inside...I couldn't help the excitement fizzing through my veins. Out of anyone I knew within the Houses, she was the only one who would appreciate our families' vast history. I couldn't wait to see her reaction when she came face to face with Draxxon at our home, his gigantic body lining the wall of our Great Hall.

Weather-roughened stone prickled my palm as I ran my hand over the wyrm's head. Draxxon's horns were more graceful like antelopes than what was captured here, thick and gnarled and ram-like. "He basked in sunshine. Wyrmfire, pure sunlight. He brought mountains to their knees."

She half-turned my way, the furrow between her brows deepening. "Were there many of them?"

"Wyrms were rare, even back then. A few frost-wyrms in the northern tundra of Russia. Like those that bathed in moonlight, their fire was cold as ice." That sensation that always coursed between us, shimmered and sparked, beckoning me to move closer to her. "Draxxon was tamed by Hamon."

"Let me guess, a Crowther."

She couldn't help herself. She was a curious little thing. She heaved a sigh, reluctantly asking, as if she wished there was someone, anyone else, besides me to provide her with an answer. "How do you tame a wyrm?"

"Charm the fuck out of them."

Her brows shot up in surprise. Then she threw her head back to laugh skyward, giving a full body shake of laughter, the infectious kind that enticed you to join in. It peeled from her, bright and radiant, each note rich with exuberance.

The sound wrapped around my body and infused me with her sunshine.

It was the second-best sound I'd ever heard, the first being those delicious hitched gasps she made just before she came and the godsdamn scream as she detonated. The erotic sounds vibrating along my bones had made me want to fall upon her and claim her entirely.

Nelle spun around to slump against the temple, clutching her stomach. Her laughter died down to broken chuckles and she swiveled sideways to brace her shoulder against the wall, her eyes bright with joy. "How do you do that?"

I arched a brow because I didn't know what she was asking.

"How do you manage to simultaneously piss me off and make me laugh at the same time?"

I shrugged, taming the grin, because I'd asked myself the same question about her only minutes ago.

She pushed off the temple, turning back to Draxxon's image, still smiling. "And the wyrms...how were they tamed?"

I hitched a shoulder and shook my head. Fucked if I knew. "Draxxon and Hamon were bonded, I didn't know how, it just was." The precise knowledge of wyrm-taming was lost to us after the Final War. But there were bits and pieces of knowledge I'd gathered from other books when I had time to dig around in our family library. While Nelle was busy in the Wychthorn library researching anything that would give her clues to what she was, I was usually in the training pit getting the shit beaten out of me by my father as he taught me the art of warfare.

Dragging the messy locks of hair from my brow, I thought about it more. It wasn't easy to break a wyrm. One had to hunt it, capture it, bind its powers, and then get it to submit.

Nelle's gaze scoured the serpentine body, at the scales flanking its body that were harder than adamere. "Did your ancestors ride wyrms?"

I snorted. "Hells no. You can't constrict wyrms with harnesses." Draxxon was the most powerful wyrm of all time. Due to the deep bond with Hamon, he battled by my ancestor's side in the Final War.

"Draxxon and Hamon were the only ones between the Horned Gods and the army of mortals," she said, her forehead creased in deep thought, obviously running through the last war and the Houses' history.

I shot her a sidelong glance, finishing off the history lesson but adding a few more details she wouldn't know. "Clever fuckers had aligned themselves with Children of the Harbinger, created a legion of others, and used them against us." We were also betrayed by a few Horned Gods too. "Hamon was killed. Draxxon wounded. Without Hamon and their bond, Draxxon was freed." I spread my legs wider, crossed my arms, and absentmindedly rubbed my fingertips back and forth along my jawline while taking in the flames of wyrmfire blazing from Draxxon's snarled mouth. "He could have turned feral and left the battlefield, but he fought on until he'd burned himself out. Brought down by wyrm-harpoons. But his sacrifice allowed the few of us that managed to survive the slaughter to scatter."

She blinked, confusion tightening her features. Her gaze bounced from me to the wyrm and back again. "How do you know all of that? I didn't even know about the wyrm-harpoons."

That knowledge, along with many others, had been forgotten and vanished from the lessons we were taught growing up, along with the names of the first and most ancient Houses which had succumbed to treachery when new Houses arose.

"Our family library."

For a brief moment, her gray eyes lit up with excitement and she bounced on the balls of her feet.

Her own family's library only went back so far in history. I could see her mind churning, what she thought she might learn in those ancient tomes of ours. A ghost of a smile danced across her lips.

Then she remembered herself.

That look of delight melted away a frosted lawn meeting sunshine. Darkness swept across her features. She stepped closer to the temple to tap her forefinger against the stone, frowning as she fixed her gaze on the movement. "I don't know if I can stand near your aunt without saying anything."

The sudden reminder of our reality, what I was to her, and her to me—had me falling from a great height, slamming into pavement with a jolt that shook through me.

"You will. You have to." I rubbed my hand across my face. Gods, I'd completely fucked everything up. "Shit, Wychthorn. I should never have told you any of that."

Her tongue darted out to wet her lips as she turned to face me. Those eyes, more silver in the dim light, snagged on my mouth, and heat scorched through my veins, then froze to ice as soon as her words registered. "I...I didn't know for the longest time about your mother...her dying."

Dying...guilt churned my stomach.

And for a moment I had to close my eyes to hide myself from her as another image burst unbidden into my mind. The last memory I had of my mother was her crouched over my shattered body, her terror as tangible as the blood splattered all over her face. The bright red flecks thinned by tears, washing down her cheeks in watery streaks.

I'd reached for her, three of my fingers broken and bent awkwardly—

She screamed—

And then she was gone.

I still didn't open my eyes, my throat thick and burning, when Nelle said quietly, "But I remember her, I think, from when the Houses came together and my father allowed me to attend. I have faint recollections. She had a smile and laugh that warmed the soul."

She did. My mother did.

Green eyes, bright and full of mirth, and hair spun gold.

"I think I have one memory of her. She'd made my mother smile. Back when she smiled and laughed a lot." Opening my eyes, I found Nelle staring down at her fingers rotating through her adamere beads. "Not so much anymore." Her gaze lifted and her eyes seemed faraway in thought. "She crouched down to tap me on the nose." Her brows nudged together as she gave me a sidelong glance, contemplative. "You were there too. I don't know why I couldn't stop looking at you. You were a curiosity, but I also resented you too. I never understood why I couldn't look away whenever you were nearby. I never had to search to see where you stood, I could feel it. Feel you looking back at me, trying to understand it yourself."

You never did stop.

Neither could I.

Her chest expanded with a sudden rush of air and she blinked rapidly as if coming back to herself. "She said I was something special. At the time, I thought she just meant what grownups liked to say to make a small child proud. But that wasn't what she meant at all. Was it?" Her gray eyes sharpened on mine. "She knew what I was, or suspected at the very least."

Panic erupted and I could feel tiny beads of sweat coating my palms. I hooked a finger through my dampened shirt collar where the necktie seemed to have suddenly gripped me in a stranglehold.

Nelle took a step toward me. "Your mother was killed by the Horned Gods."

Hearing those words fall from that innocent mouth, I was pretty sure being run over by an eighteen-wheeler and backed over several more times for good measure, wouldn't have hurt as much.

A thief, a death-dealer, a spinner of deceit.

The Uzrek's proclamation rang true. I was all of those things. The last, the one I hated with every inch of my being the most. But it was true. I was a spinner of deceit.

"I was locked in a tithe prison the same year you endured that punishment."

She took a step closer—I took one back.

"My mother changed overnight, a shadow of her former self."

Two more steps and she'd backed me up against the wall. Cold uneven stone jabbed against my spine.

"When your family claimed me, we'd hardly ever directly spoken before, just skirted around one another, but when we spoke in the aviary for the first time, you'd acted as if you knew me and had already passed judgment, and you didn't like me." She tilted her head back, worry glistening in her silver-gray eyes "So what is it, Graysen? What have I done to you to make you resent me this way?"

She was close, so close to discovering the truth.

What good would it do but terrify her?

I wasn't sure I was breathing, and terror ripped at my insides with razor-sharp talons. It wouldn't take long for that clever mind to piece it together.

Her gaze lowered to her hands fiddling with the adamere bracelet, fingers distractedly rotating the beads. Her voice dropped to a whisper, and I could hear the fear laced through the words. "Because I can't help but think that I have something to do with those whip marks on your back. That I was responsible for it." She drew in a deep breath and she slowly raised those big wide eyes to stare at me again. She was determined, but her bottom lip trembled and she was trying to hide her anxiety from me by rolling her lip into her mouth. "You need to tell me what I've done."

Even if it will break you?

Frighten you?

Her thick eyelashes fluttered even wider as she waited, her chest rising and falling with shallow breath, and her knuckles turned white around the bracelet from their forceful grip.

Gods, Nelle, what I'm going to do to you?

As a child, she'd mesmerized me. I'd protected her and she'd never known that fact. Then everything changed between us, one night on a dark country road when my world, the heart of our family, my mother was taken in her place. Someone had given up my mother to save her. And it was me. If only I hadn't breathed a word, sat in the dark recesses of the limousine, and held my tongue, my mother would still be with us and I wouldn't be standing here with the girl who I saved through my reckless choice.

She'd have been killed or stolen—

But I'd still have my mother and my back wouldn't have been ruined with slashes of the whip.

What could I tell her?

The truth?

The truth was raw glass that would flay her soul.

But wasn't that what I'd wanted all along? Hadn't I wanted her to hurt as much as I had been?