A storm surge of feelings—too much, too fast—battered my desolate soul.

"What was that this morning?" she'd asked. "Was any of it real?"

It was real.

It was real for me.

This morning I'd known it would be the last time Nelle would look at me with any affection. Selfishly...selfishly, I just wanted one last moment with her. One last memory of her looking at me like I was actually worth something. As if I were her entire world. I desperately needed something to cling to and I knew that her warmth and depth of feeling for me would be the only light to illuminate the darkness to come.

As she roused from her waking dream, I couldn't do anything but grip the fucking steering wheel to hide the trembling in my fingers and try to bring up the wall of ice as her feelings barreled through me. I could barely breathe through her confusion and shock at my betrayal. Her despair and panic coursed through my veins and corroded my lungs like acid. And when I felt her heart fracture, mine did too.

It cleaved in two like a motherfucker.

Nelle stood in the middle of the driveway not too far from where I'd parked my car. A slender breeze slithered around her legs and ruffled the hem of her t-shirt that swamped her tiny frame. Big wide eyes, framed by dark lashes, were only on me as she unconsciously skimmed her thumb against the pads of her fingers as if running through phantom beads of adamere. Those full, pink lips parted and she mouthed—Please.

Still, after everything my aunt had revealed, what our plans were, and how I had betrayed her by handing her over to my family, she gave me one last chance.

I briefly closed my eyes to her, despising myself for the choice I'd made.

She would never remember what I had whispered to her on the porch, my confession of how I truly felt for her. I realized how wrong I'd been. All this year spent in each other's company, when I'd been ruthlessly telling her that she was mine, I lost sight of one important fact.

I was hers.

I had always been hers.

Yet it wasn't enough to save her from my family. From myself. From the choice, I had to make.

Nelle's eyes, the color like moonlight glancing off a pool of water, had regarded me with something much, much deeper this morning. And now, I watched those eyes flash with devastation and rage before growing cold, like dusk on a bone-chilling wintery afternoon, until there was no warmth left, not even the barest hint she felt anything for me but loathing.

I couldn't blame her. I couldn't explain it to her either.

Whose life was valued above the other?

My mother's or Nelle's.

I was as trapped by my family as she was.

Nelle pushed her shoulders back and held her head high as my brothers descended the terrace steps to form a flush line beside me on the cobblestones. My father too. I darted a quick look on either side of me.

Jett had paled.

Caidan shot me a wary glance, his throat bobbing as he turned back to face the tiny thing burning with wrath in front of us.

"Look at you all," Nelle declared, her icy gaze sliding down the line of us. "All you Crowthers. Pain and suffering are all you know. All you'll ever know. And you think you can use me to get into the Witches Ball? Do you think you can cage me here? Maybe even take to my back with a whip?"

I could feel my brothers' astonished gazes dart to me.

Nelle paced before us, her bare feet crossing the hard cobbles, drawing my brothers' attention back to her.

Lifting her chin, she tossed her hair back. "Fight me, do what you were bred to do—weapons in the form of flesh. Cold, callous, unfeeling," she continued, her voice full of disdainful Wychthorn authority. "But know this. I will tear through you and leave you broken and bleeding at my feet." She addressed this last parting gift to me, her eyes narrowed and mouth a bitter line. "I bow to no one. And I will never bow to a Crowther!"

As the sun's golden rays gilded the leafy copse of trees in the distance, stretching long shadows across its lawns, Nelle began shifting her hands as she'd done in the woodland clearing a few nights back. With graceful twists of her hands, it almost seemed as if she were molding something tangible, like an artist with a block of clay. A humming spark of light peeked between her fingers.

My chest tightened and I shifted my stance uneasily.

She drew apart her cupped palms and between the space was a crackling sphere of energy that sparkled against her honeyed skin like a lit firecracker. It looked like lightning but it was charged fire. In a quick motion, and a snarl of rage, Nelle shifted sideways and hurled the fireball right at my car. It soared fast and furious like a missile—

And smashed into the Mustang broadside—

The car punched back.

Smoke curled from the tires squealing in protest as the car whisked along the cobbles to slam violently into the wall encircling the driveway. The fearsome impact of meeting the stone wall lifted the car sideways off the ground—

And then it crashed back down with a heavy, grinding thump.

Holy hellsgate...

Nelle was a whirlwind of movement. Swift and fearsome.

She pitched ball after ball of savage fire. The flames brighter than the sun. Carving through the air straight for the Mustang—

BOOM!

BOOM!

BOOM!

Metal crunched and buckled.

The noise deafening as the car crumpled inward with each destructive blow. Pale flames flickered between plates of metal. A sudden squall of icy wind raked through my hair, buffeting savagely against my body. I staggered and braced my stance as it blustered around the driveway, bending rose stems and scattering petals and dead leaves as its mighty current swept up the Mustang—

And my fucking car soared straight up into the sky to hover fifty feet above us.

Looking me dead in the eye, Nelle cocked a brow and twirled her middle finger, flipping me off as she spun wild winds as turbulent as a tornado. For one brief crazed moment, I wanted to bark a laugh, tinged with hysteria and limned with despair, at the delightful smart-ass.

Dying sunlight struck the matte-black metal, sending a spray of butterscotch light up against the deepening blue sky as my car rotated like a spinning top—faster and faster and faster.

She let go—

A whistling sound rushed through the air as it fell—

An almighty crunch cracked in my ears as the car struck the driveway so hard the earth shuddered beneath my feet, shivering through my bones.

"Want to see what I can do?" she taunted, casually shifting her weight to one leg and propping a fist on her hip. "What I'll do to you if you dare lay a finger on me?"

I swallowed thickly as I flexed my hands nervously by my sides.

She wasn't fucking done either. No, my little bird stretched out an arm and spread her fingers apart. And I wondered in sick fascination what she was willing into being. Curling her fingers, she punched her fist forward—

The car exploded upward and outward into fragments.

Jagged metal rained down on fire, clattering loudly upon stone. The driver's door, blackened and melted, skidded across the cobblestones with an ear-piercing screech and stopped right in front of my boots. Acrid fumes seared my nostrils as the burning door rocked back and forth with thin plumes of smoke wafting upward.

"Holy. Fucking. Hellsgate," breathed Caidan.

Threads of otherworldly power wove around Nelle like thick, silvery smoke. Reaching high to stain the sky. Spreading wide to darken the world around us. Her might roiled behind her figure as if she stood in front of a diabolical storm. A tempest birthed from fury.

"Hold the line," my father ordered, his voice a deep rumble.

Every muscle in my body tensed as I wondered what she was about to unleash upon us.

She gestured toward us with a flick of her dainty wrist.

Sirro's power felt like nothing but a faint echo of what now hunted us down.

Power, so much power, rolled toward us like a bank of fog. Its intensity skimmed my flesh like scraping teeth. It fizzed and crackled and thrummed—

And stopped to hover a hand-span from our throats. A midnight ocean with mighty waves of darkness just waiting for her next command.

I could hear Caidan muttering a string of curses like a prayer beneath his breath.

Several tendrils slunk forward and curled around my throat. It felt like chilling, creeping fingers of mist—tasting, testing, tightening.

My little bird waded through her power. She angled her head slightly sideways and her pale hair slipped off a shoulder. Her voice was whisper-soft but I heard her clearly. "I can crush your fragile bones. Steal the air from your lungs. Incinerate your flesh with just a single thought."

Do it!

Fucking do it!

The air constricted in my throat as she squeezed brutally.

Sweat broke out across my brow as excruciating agony seized my body. Panic devoured my mind.

My nostrils flared, mouth instinctively opening trying to gulp down air.

But I couldn't.

I heard a sharp intake of breath—my sister.

Movement—as if one of my brothers were about to surge for Nelle.

I threw out my hand, warning them to stop.

I didn't break, nor blink at Nelle's challenging glare. Beneath the glacial coolness, she burned with righteous fire, and I fucking deserved it.

Holy Zrenyth!

A popping sound burst inside my ears as my windpipe compressed further with the force she exerted. Thorny pain ravaged my throat and dark spots blurred my vision. I swayed, barely seeing the flash of anger storming through Nelle's eyes, not at me, but at herself, when she released me on a frustrated hiss, tugging that wild power back to her in a furious snap.

Feathery grey wind spun around her, kicking up leaves and dust and rippling the hem of her t-shirt.

Our gazes held for the briefest of moments—

And then she swifted.

Freed, I collapsed forward, bracing one hand on a knee while using the other to knead my throat as I wheezed in a loud, ragged breath that set my lungs on fire. I could still feel those strands of power on my skin like chaffing rope, choking the life out of me.

Woozily straightening, I turned to my family. The pain receded with my mother's blood gift as the half-crushed cartilage in my throat rapidly repaired itself.

"She'll be heading for the gates!" Kenton yelled, his gaze dark with fury.

Jett quickly tied back his hair with a thin strip of leather he kept on his wrist. My father spun toward me, tossing a small black cylinder—a shield House Simonis had originally created and Caidan had perfected from his tinkering—and I snatched it out of the air.

Caidan unbuckled the lasso at his hip. He glanced down at it, his fingers squeezing the coils of rope. His eyes snapped to mine, and I read the barest trace of indecision in their depth until my father barked, "We cannot allow her to break free!"

My father launched forward with thunderous speed, racing down the driveway to disappear swiftly from sight. My three brothers, right behind him.

"Gray?"

My boots gritted on stone as I turned, just as my aunt descended the terrace steps and strode past, but it had been my sister calling out for me.

Ferne hurried over, her hand outstretched before her while using her heightened senses to help guide her downward. In quick ascending strides, I met her halfway up the stone steps.

Delicate fingers gripped my arm and she turned her face toward mine. The lace strapped across her eyeless pockets matched the color of her pale blue dress. "Are you all right?"

No, I'm fucking not.

My sister didn't wait for an answer. She pressed closer, her whispering voice tremulous. "Nelle here, actually doing this, going through it..." Her mouth wobbled with welling misery and bewilderment. "It's not how I thought I'd feel."

"That's because she's innocent. Nelle doesn't deserve this."

She rubbed her lips together and bowed her head slightly. A sheet of black hair fell over her face as she took a moment, before deeply inhaling and answering. "Our mother didn't deserve it either. It's been twelve long years, Gray. We've got one chance to save her."

Glancing over my shoulder, I found my aunt standing in the middle of the circular driveway with her back to us, staring as if she could see all the way to the estate gates.

Such heavy despondence washed through me, I was surprised I was still standing. I turned back to my sister. "Our mother will be heartbroken over what we're about to do."

Ferne gave a single nod of agreement. When she lifted her face upward, her features were pinched as if she were holding back tears, and her voice was threaded with hopeless determination. "If we can save her...I'll learn to live with what I've done."

I knew I never would.

I cast one glance at my sister, at the lace strapped around her eyes that brought back memories of that tragic night so long ago. The shrill, agonized screams of my baby sister. My mother's panic and desperation. Her sacrifice for us. And loss. Overwhelming heartache and loss as I lay there broken like a snapped twig unable to save either of them.

Infused with resolve, I surged forward in a whirl of speed.

The last thing I heard was my aunt's cold voice. "Do not fail us."

Power curled around my bones and pumped through my veins, pushing me faster and faster, as I hurtled across the long lawn, easily catching up with my father and brothers. As we ran, a smear of battle-black along the narrow, twisting driveway cutting through the thick knotted copse of ash and hawthorn and oak, I clung to the memory of my mother like a dying man.

Tabitha, Tabitha, Tabitha.

Her name was a tattoo drum beating in my ears.

I could not fail her again.

But another sang. An ancient strain. A wicked melody that softly chanted and became the heart of the song—Save her, save her, save her.

But I couldn't save Nelle.

The copse fell behind me in a wash of gloom and a streak of muddied green as we raced across the stretch of land to where those monolith towers stood at each side of the estate's gates.

Unlike the Wychthorns, we had an additional failsafe gate, a formidable wall of adamere that rose from underground and locked like a jigsaw with the rest of the wall that surrounded our entire estate like a compound. And our soldiers had it in place the moment I'd driven Nelle onto our property.

Our Warband was a long double-line of black in front of the gate and adamere wall with their shields activated and locked. Like my own held in my hand—but not yet triggered—theirs were a cunning weapon of magically hardened air that shimmered and fizzed like contained energy.

In a wild streak, Nelle sprinted across the grassy field toward our small army and threw herself into a swift only to reappear a second later, flying backward, tumbling back over the grass, skidding, and rolling. She shook her dazed head, leaped to her feet, and swifted—only to ricochet back.

It was like watching a bird seeking freedom beyond but not seeing the glass in front of it. The monolith towers radiating anti-swifting magic rebounded her. She was a blur of intermittent flashes—disappearing only to reappear—as she bunted up against the adamere wall time and time again.

Materializing from a swift, she soared backward to land heavily against the packed earth with an oomph in an awkward tangle of limbs. She jumped up, shrieking in outrage.

Breathing hard, I came to a stumbling halt not too far away from where she stood vibrating with fury. "Wychthorn! You can't get out. You'll never be able to leave!"

"Fuck you, Crowther!" she roared back, stabbing an aggressive middle finger at me.

My brothers spread out, keeping to a safe distance, and my father headed straight for the warband at the wall.

The steady approach of the gloaming began to shade the world in rich dusky hues. Nelle drew her hands apart to reveal flames wrought in metal. Her fire of silver, gold, and copper, grew stronger and brighter against the deepening shadows. The hum of magic pulsated through the air and skimmed against my flesh.

The flickering flames cast an eerie glow over Nelle's fierce expression as they lifted off her fingertips to hover above her figure, spitting and fattening into a raging fireball.

A sinister sun against the gloom of the falling twilight.

My clammy fingers tightened on the cylinder in my hand.

Nelle punched a fist forward—

The fireball razored through the air in a menacing streak—

High above the warband to slam into the adamere wall.

Engulfing it within an inferno.

A flood of hammering flames. Of rage. Of destruction.

An explosion of wrath.

Flames spat outward, burning pockets of grass and scorching the earth.

But the wicked fire could not burn its way out and was shredded apart, dispersed in puffs of black smoke. Nelle cursed in frustration. She shot me a foul look as an unnatural breeze began to stir, teasing the tangled tresses of her hair and ruffling her t-shirt.

I shifted uneasily under the intense glare that wished it was me burning to a crisp. A chill slipped down my sweat-beaded spine as the air charged with aether that shimmered, floating like dust motes in streaks of sunshine.

It came out of nowhere.

A thunderous quake thumped the earth—

Throwing me momentarily up off my feet—

I landed heavily, throwing my arms out wide to steady my balance.

Grass shivered. Stones bounced.

Dust hovered like a blanket of dirty mist above the trembling ground.

Shallow fissures tore apart the earth, spreading outward and racing onward from where Nelle stood facing the stoned enclosure.

Shit, shit, shit—

My father and our warband scattered—

Dodging the cracks in the ground as the tremors speared forward—

To strike with an almighty punch.

The wall of adamere shuddered, but it was rooted beneath the earth like trees, with spikes three times as long as the wall's height buried deep underground. She'd never blast her way through, nor unearth them...

Or so I thought just as a colossal earthquake detonated the world around me.

Tipping me about like monstrous ocean waves underfoot. Jostling my bones. Making my teeth chatter as the ground rumbled and groaned.

Nelle stamped a dainty foot—

A great yawning noise erupted through the air like rolling thunder.

I was bounced upwards as the earth heaved, split and cleaved, spewing up chunks of damp earth. Stones and clumps of grass and dirt tumbled into a shadowed chasm.

Holy shit...

I sucked in an astonished breath, trying to keep my balance steady against the aggressive trembling.

That brilliant strategic mind of Nelle's.

Nelle stood at the epicenter of two gigantic rifts carving through the earth, growing deeper and wider as they surged forward.

She wasn't aiming for the wall at all.

She wanted to bring down the monolith towers.

The towers kept her from swifting from the estate. But if she was able to unearth those magical barriers, knock them down, and render their dark magic useless...

She'd escape.