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."

I should have been afraid, but there was something seductive in the way he whispered his threat in his low velvet voice, just as he'd promised me earlier, making his point with every thrust of his hips, wringing a cry, a moan, a gasp from me. That I'd want this... That I'd be begging him to.

Graysen pulled back to tip his forehead against mine and our breath mingled as regret swam in his gaze. "My aunt whipped me and it didn't end, not for a long time. I was punished for not being able to save my mother. Whipped because I betrayed our House. Because that night I chose you over my family."

The words were trapped in my throat—I'm sorry—but he read them all the same.

"You weren't to know," he said softly.

"But you weren't to know what was going to happen, that my parents would betray yours."

He straightened his posture, drew in a deep breath, and turned aside, taking a step away from me. Cold air slid between the space he'd left behind. His head hung low as he stared down at his feet. "Do you think that makes a difference in my aunt's mind? I failed. Not only my mother but my sister too. Lyressa stole Ferne's eyes that night simply because they were pretty, for no other reason but the fact they reflected a sunrise."

I shivered just as lightning cracked overhead, light skittering over the loose folds of storm clouds.

If his aunt had whipped him—what would she do to me?

I knew what was coming. But I needed him to say it. I needed the truth. "Tell me what the Alverac means. What you'll do...because...you own me. Isn't that right? What you've been saying all this time and I didn't hear you. But you meant it every single time. You own me in its truest sense."

He sighed wearily. Pushing the hair from his brow, his expression darkening as his gaze returned to me. "Remember when we signed the Alverac, those filaments of magic settling inside?" How could I not? That night, five years ago, as soon as our ancestors dust settled on the parchment, and soaked into our blood-signatures, the magic wound itself around both of us. "The moment you turn twenty, the Alverac will sink its teeth into us and bind us completely. It will bind you to my will. Whatever I want from you, you'll give to me. You'll have no choice but to. None. Your thoughts and your spirit will rebel. But your body will obey me—"

"Like a pretty little toy,"—a marionette doll, is that what I'll be?—"you'll pluck at my strings and I'll dance." He nodded curtly. "Is this why you've pushed me away? Closed yourself off from me? All I can think, all I can imagine, is that you need to keep your distance because you're going to hurt me."

"You've always been far too clever, Wychthorn."

My skin was cold and clammy, and a sensation like icy fingers raked down my spine.

Dread had a stranglehold around my heart.

His voice was whisper-soft as he moved closer. There was nowhere for me to run. The bars of the aviary met my back as I tried to keep my distance from him as he loomed over me. Shadows wreathed his expression as if drawn to his darkness. "I own you, every single inch of you. From your pretty pale hair to those tiny little feet. If I want you to dance, you'll rise up on those toes of yours and dance until you bleed. If I want to fuck you, I'll drag you into my lair and fuck every inch of you raw. If I tire of your smart-ass mouth, I'll cut your tongue out." He tipped his head to the side, his hair sliding with the movement. "You see how it goes?"

Nausea rolled in my stomach and I had the vague feeling of the earth shifting beneath me.

Gods...oh my gods...

My tongue felt heavy when I asked, "And no one can do anything about it? There's no recourse for me?"

"None whatsoever. In fact, I can exact punishment on anyone else who might dare to interfere."

My father...that was why he bowed to Graysen every single time I was involved.

My voice broke. "I thought it was a marriage contract."

His voice was grim. "No, little bird. An Alverac isn't a marriage contract. It binds one soul to the other. In this case, you to me. We, Crowthers, were extended a boon by the Horned Gods that's not lightly given. Nor often in our times. We consider ourselves more civilized these days. But we're a dark sort of people, don't you agree?" I squeezed my eyes shut as he carried on speaking. "The Alverac is ancient, heralding from the time well before the Final War. None of the families here, besides your own, would know what it means to sign it in blood. Signed in blood takes the Alverac to its root. To what it was originally created for. Byron knew that the instant my aunt told him what we required, both signatures in blood. He knew in that exact moment, both of your parents did, that they were going to pay for what they'd done to my mother all those years ago. But not through them, they'd be punished through you, their beloved youngest daughter. While, perhaps, they thought we hadn't worked out who had betrayed them, they finally understood we'd only been biding our time."

My bottom lip quivered. "My father... My mother... They made me believe it was a marriage contract."

"I know," and there was deep sorrow lacing his tone.

"They knew what it meant. They didn't tell me."

He looked grave. "They didn't want to frighten you."

"Should I? Should I be frightened?"

He didn't answer.

"Gods, I really should be, shouldn't I?" I slid sideways away from him, the metal bars scraping at my knotted spine. "And will you do those things to me?" Hurt me? Bend me to his will? Maybe even take a whip to my back? Even worse, cut my tongue out. But he didn't need to even do that himself, he could ask me to do it...and I would. I'd fight it, I imagined. I'd try not to, but if the Alverac was as he'd explained, then it could very well be my own hand that picked up the blade and sawed through the muscle.

Graysen shook his head fervently, and for one moment he seemed broken and helpless. His eyes pleaded with me to believe him. "Never," he said, his voice full of raw anguish. He closed the gap between us and my hands went to his chest, to push him away, to pull him closer, my mind was in too much turmoil to begin to understand what I wanted. "Never, Nelle. I'd never do that to you. But you have to understand the power and control the Alverac will hold over you." Dark lashes shielded his eyes as he looked down at my hands pressed against him. "Not only that... My aunt loved my mother greatly. She's grown cold and cruel since my mother was..." he swallowed. "She needs someone to blame. Someone to punish."

Me.

He means me.

"My father and aunt hold Byron responsible for my mother. They'll use you to bend him to their will. They'll break you to break him." He shook his head, pain cutting through his gaze as he raised his head. "I can't protect you from them."

My fingers tightened on the lapels of his tuxedo. "Can you protect me from yourself?"

"Always, Nelle."

His large hand brushed along my hair, smoothing the wayward strands down. Softly and gently he said, "When you were a small child, I protected you. That was the way between us. You didn't know and I didn't let on. We spoke very rarely and as I grew up you did too. I watched you grow from a young girl—full of spirit and strength and fire—into an ethereal beauty who not only withstood my personal brand of bullshit but gave back her own." He closed his eyes as if this were too vulnerable to share with me. "And...and the last few years...if...even if there hadn't been the Alverac tying you to me. I would have found a way to make you mine." My breath caught at the naked truth of him. At what he confessed. His voice was low and raw. "I need you, Nelle. It's not want. It's need."

He sighed, resting his forehead back on mine. "But you can't stay."

"I don't know what to do?" I said, bewildered and terrified.

He pulled back, his gaze swinging wide as he blinked sluggishly. He cursed and wiped a forearm across his forehead. "Shit..."

He suddenly staggered, stumbling backward.

I blinked, caught off guard. "Graysen?"

He lurched, swaying woozily, and I caught him before he fell. But both of us were driven sideways by his weight and we staggered into the metal bars of the aviary.

"You have to run, little bird." His hands gripped my upper arms and he leveled a dazed look at me. "Find a way off the estate. Go as far as you can. Swift. Keep swifting. Until you're so far away I'll never find you."

"You'll come after me?"

"I'll hunt you. I'll be expected to." His words began to slur. "I might not be able to stop myself from doing it."

His body wove to the side and he stumbled to his knees. "Graysen?" I gasped. "What's wrong?"

He blinked slowly, heavily. "I'm going under."

At first, I didn't understand. It took a long moment to remember he'd confessed that he was an insomniac. Finally being awake for so long it was at an end. His body and mind demanded rest and he was being dragged into unconsciousness.

A last flare of desperation lit his black eyes like lightning. "Run, Nelle. Run. Promise me...when I awake...you'll be long gone... You'll run and...never let me find you."

And then he tilted sideways, crashing hard to slump upon the grass. His eyelids shuttered, the lashes thick on his cheeks. I knelt beside him, spreading my hands over his chest as it rose and fell with sleep.

What am I going to do?

Run?

How can I escape?

As the thought consumed my mind, my gaze took in the mansion, skimming to the roof line at its highest peak, before gliding down the gentle slope to the guttered edge where birds roosted.

I wanted to perch on the roof of the mansion like any other small bird and feel the sunrise on my face. Close my eyes and pretend I could spread my wings and fly.

There was nowhere I could fly to, nowhere I couldn't be found. No way off the estate.

My family, Evvie, Lise and her unborn child... What would become of them if I ran? What price would they have to pay for my freedom?

And the thought slunk through me and ensnared me with its simplicity.

This would never end. My parents and sisters weren't safe. None of them would ever be truly safe... Not unless I was dead.