It was oddly quiet except for the wraith-wolf making a strange chomping noise when I stalked into my room.

The chrome lamp was switched on and its tall neck curved over the couch, its golden light spilling downward. A few other ceiling lights glowed in a dimmer setting, a comforting presence for a girl terrified of absolute darkness. Towering brickwork, carved into the likeness of pillars, met the roofline of the outer walls which was opened up with the large spaces I'd cut away for Nelle. The magic of the tower acted like a windowpane—allowing light through but keeping the chilly evening elements out.

Moonlight seeped into the room, spilling over Nelle, who was curled up on the couch reading. Soft cream blankets were tucked around her legs and middle. She looked sweet and innocent sitting there reading a novel with a sleeve of her white oversized dress falling off a shoulder, moonlight glancing over the crown of her pale hair and limning the edge of her features.

A lie.

A godsdamned fucking lie.

The girl wasn't sweet and innocent. She was a wraith-wolf, with claws and fangs and a spiteful tongue.

Nelle didn't bother to look up from her book when I walked in, just coldly greeted me with, "Evening, prick," as she flipped over a page.

Sage gave a low warning growl, his silvery eyes fixed on me as I entered my domain. He was lying on the floor beside the couch, his enormous body shimmering as his misty fur wisped with his movements. His deadly fangs sank into the mangled leather of a shoe as he wrestled his head from side to side, one large paw over the upper of the boot for leverage.

I drifted to a slow halt.

My eyes rounded as I took in what was scattered all over the floor.

What the hells?

Every single shoe I owned was chewed to a pulp by Sage. Torn to pieces. Ripped to shreds. Just mutilated strips of leather and crunched metal zips and butchered soles. The only pair of shoes I had left were the ones I was wearing.

"What the fuck is all of this?" I bellowed, flinging my arms outward, waving them at the surrounding destruction.

Nelle's gaze darted to the boot in Sage's maw, then back to her book. "He's bored and there was nothing else to play fetch with."

"He can leave the rooms," I bit out, as anger blustered its way through my veins. The godsdamned wraith-wolf could come and go as he pleased.

"He won't, because I can't," she snapped back, turning another page with an annoyed flick. She finally turned her gaze toward me. A cold feeling swept through me to see the flecks of charcoal and silver in her gray eyes sparkle with barely concealed mirth. "Enjoy your evening out, asshole?" she crooned, taunting me.

I just lost it there and then. Fury billowed through me in swathes of blistering flames.

"How dare you mock my cock!" I roared, storming forward to stab a finger at her. "You know it's nothing like how you described!"

Her eyes narrowed and became mean. She swung her legs over the couch, the blankets falling away as she pushed up to stand. She stepped over Sage so we were face to face. She craned her neck back and spat out, "How would I know? I hadn't any experience before I met yours!"

"I gave you multiple orgasms. Loads of times. Too many fucking times to count!" The shit that was leaving my mouth—I had no idea how to reign it in.

"Has it ever crossed your ego-inflated mind that I might have been FAKING THEM!"

"Un-fucking-likely!" I roared back. But there'd been a slight hesitation filled with doubt before I roared it.

Nelle hissed and hurled her book at me. I batted it aside and it hit the carpet, the pages flapping as it splayed open wide.

My brothers had returned from dealing with the Widowmakers and needed to blow off some steam in Ascendria. It had been a brutal siege to route the vicious crime syndicate with a few of our Warband falling in the bloodshed. When I'd arrived to pick them up from a nightclub and bring them home, unease had begun to creep through me as I pushed my way through the crowded club. I couldn't work out why the mortals were giving me weird looks, then erupting into laughter.

I had no fucking idea what was going on, but I had an awful feeling as to who was behind it—Nelle Wychthorn.

My brothers, gathered at the end of the long glass-topped bar, had taken one look at me: Caidan had sprayed a mouthful of beer, Kenton cracked a rough cackle, and Jett had nearly fallen off his barstool with his crowing laughter.

Obviously, Nelle had found my old childhood arts and crafts box stuffed in the back of one of my cupboards. She'd found a special kind of pen my mother had given me years ago. The kind of pen you couldn't see what was written unless you shone a certain light on it. The lights pulsing through the nightclub were perfect for illuminating the message Nelle had written over my black t-shirt.

As my brother laughed their asses off at me, I looked down, peeling the fabric that clung to my chest so I could read what Nelle had written.

MEET

MR. TINY

LIMP DICK

Caidan had howled, barely able to describe what she'd drawn on the back of my t-shirt through his roaring laughter. Nelle had drawn a stick figure of me with a sad face pointing to the tiny limp dick between my legs, and the word Waaaaaah! rolling from my mouth.

The girl in question was now standing in front of me, bristling with barely leashed anger. Nelle clicked her tongue and Sage rose, growling, his teeth banded around my fucking boot. She rounded me, backing away with a smug smile as her gaze slid lazily down my chest. "Just thought I'd give fair warning to any unsuspecting girl you were planning to take home, so they wouldn't be disappointed with your lack of prowess in bed."

My jaw clenched. Did she really think I'd go out and fuck someone else?

Of course, she did.

Spinning away, she stomped toward her bedroom and the thunderous slamming of the door—her signature goodnight—thumped through the air and sent an irritating vibration rattling through my very bones.

I sighed wearily, my taut muscles easing.

Hopefully, she had retired for the night. I could hear Sage inside her bedroom, the crunching of metal and leather as he gnawed at my boot like a bone.

I'd carved a window for her so moonlight would bathe her while she slept. The only time I had some semblance of peace was when she was fast asleep. Nelle had employed psychological warfare the past few days. Her chanting of "Free me," and "Set me free," had been endless: sung in the shower, chanted as she strolled around the balcony, mumbled between mouthfuls of toast for breakfast and mouthfuls of fish for dinner, hurled at me when I was trying to concentrate on my research. I wasn't even Crowther any longer, either. I was back to being asshole and prick, and her new favorite: dickface.

I found a trash bag in my kitchen drawer and began filling it with what was left of my shoes, cringing as my fingers slipped along wraith-wolf drool gunking up the mangled pieces. I strode for the door to my quarters, opened it up, and tossed the bag outside to be dealt with tomorrow morning.

Entering my bathroom, the dark stonework calming with its clean lines and minimal decor, I drew in a deep breath, releasing the ire and agitation before walking over to the vanity and sink.

Twisting the chrome tap I let the warm water heat up before I scrubbed my hands clean from saliva beneath the spray of hot water and liquid soap. Turning off the tap, I leaned forward, my wet hands braced along the smooth stone surface. I stared at myself in the mirror. I looked like shit. My eyes were bloodshot, my complexion had dulled to a tired hue and there were smudges of purple beneath my eyes. I was worn out from being on edge around Nelle for the past few days.

I pushed off the vanity, straightening to drag my hands through my hair and tug a fistful of locks, welcoming the flare of pain searing my scalp. I hadn't slept for nearly a week—the longest I'd ever gone. I was dead on my feet, but I couldn't find it in myself to fall under. And I sure as hells wasn't going to sleep in my quarters where she'd shove a pillow across my face and suffocate me.

Beyond the psychological warfare, Nelle had invaded my personal domain in a way I wasn't prepared for. I'd never shared a room with anyone, not even my siblings, and I certainly had no idea what sharing a space with a girl would be like. In the few days of being awake and healthy, she'd asked Penn for a few extra items that were now scattered throughout the bathroom. In the recessed shelves in the shower were her favorite strawberry soap, shampoos and conditioners, hair detangler, and hair masques—whatever the fuck that was. Cleansers and serums and moisturizers, along with facial scrubs and deodorants were all over the vanity, left in random spots as soon as she was done with them. I couldn't leave them like that, mocking me. I gathered the bottles into a tidy row near the back of the dark stone surface where it met the tall wide mirror. Then rearranged them in height order. And made sure their front was facing forward. Re-adjusting them with the tip of my finger to make sure they were all aligned.

Her pink toothbrush sat next to mine in the glass canister on a shelf.

Reaching out, I plucked my toothbrush from beside hers, applied toothpaste to the bristles, wet it, and began brushing my teeth. I wasn't going to sleep, but I was going to get ready as if I were: clean my teeth and wash my face, change into more comfortable clothes—a new t-shirt and sweatpants.

Minty white toothpaste frothed in my mouth and singed my tongue as I brushed away at my teeth. The bathroom door creaked open and Nelle padded into the room barefooted, dressed in a nightie and an ivory silk dressing gown, the belt loosely tied around her waist. Her thick wavy hair cascaded down her back like wild savage water tumbling off a cliff.

I tensed, my gaze snapping to hers, reflected in the large bathroom mirror as she casually sidled up.

What the hells is she doing in here?

I shuffled over, giving her room to stand in front of the mirrored vanity beside me, close but not touching.

Show no fear.

Show no fear.

The noise of the running tap water and my panicked heartbeat picking up, then settling at a slower pace to match hers, was a deafening pounding in my ears.

I swallowed thickly. One more thing I hadn't anticipated when bringing Nelle to the safety of my room, was her trademark scent. Which made perfect sense after learning what we were to one another—Wyrm and Tamer—a scent to scramble my senses and draw us both closer. Yet at the same time, she and I weren't the normal Wyrm and Tamer either, so I wasn't sure if the intense awareness of one another's intoxicating scent was because of the strangeness of what she was—both human and wyrm—and this was an exclusive trait that marked us as a unique pairing.

Nelle's bittersweet fragrance flooded the room, soaking into my pores, and there was no way free of it, of her. Standing so close to her had that thing that existed only between us whispering pure electric desire across my bare skin and made my heartbeat falter then race to match hers.

I blew out a low, slow breath, trying to be inconspicuous and dampen down my yearning.

Nelle's gaze flicked to the bottles I'd rearranged, and she made a disparaging sound that was half-hmm and half-snort. A swift flash of cold amusement gleamed sharply in her gray eyes, there and gone so quickly I couldn't be certain I'd seen it.

My heated need for her cooled as an icy shiver inched down my spine.

Somehow, I'd amused her. But I had no fucking idea how, or what I'd walked into. As I ran the bristles of my toothbrush across the back of my bottom teeth, I quickly ran through the last couple of minutes of being in my rooms—what I'd touched and where I'd been. Apprehension scratched away at my chest and set my nerves on edge.

What could it be?

Shit. I wasn't just paranoid, I was terrified of this tiny little thing.

Nelle sighed lightly as she ran the hot tap, wet the cloth, and used it to dampen her face, dumping it on the side of the sink afterward. She picked up a cleanser, pumping a thick and oozy lotion into her palm, and rubbed it onto her face, making it shine. "I helped Penn with her chores today," she said in a conversational tone.

I spat toothpaste into the vanity sink and replied cautiously, "The room is pretty tidy."—Apart from all the fucking shoes your wraith-wolf decimated—"Thanks."

"Yeah, there wasn't much else to do," she said, picking up the face cloth to wipe the creme lotion from her face. She tossed it, almost like she was taunting me to retaliate, onto the vanity with a wet slap.

I eyed the black facecloth where it lay seeping water all over the dark surface. Why couldn't she have folded it up neatly? Put the fucking thing on the shallow recess of the sink that had been carved for that very purpose?

Nelle scrunched her nose, and said, "So I figured, while I still had these," raising both hands to wiggle her fingers, "I'd help tidy."

My gut twisted painfully and that ever-present guilt sank its claws into me at the reminder that, in a few months' time, she'd be standing on an auction block at the Witches Ball.

Nelle's gray eyes sharpened on the toothbrush I was using to scrub away at my teeth. I glanced away to spit froth into the sink, watching it get caught up with the running water and swirl down the drain. I went back to cleaning my teeth, the back molars in particular, shoving the guilt down deep into the dark festering pit of my black soul.

"I cleaned the bathroom for her," Nelle said, picking up a smaller bottle. She closed her eyes as she sprayed mist onto her face.

There was no way I could resist staring at her in the mirror, as those light gray lashes fanned the curve of her upper cheeks and her plump lips parted slightly, dusted in a glittering sheen of moisture.

Beautiful.

Her hair had swung over a shoulder to her chest and it drew my gaze downward to where the robe gaped above the swell of her cleavage. I swallowed once more. Her eyelashes parted and I snapped my traitorous gaze away before she could catch me blatantly leering.

This time, her slender fingers curled around the smallest bottle. She followed up with two tiny drops of an amber oil that smelled of roses, and gently rubbed them onto her skin.

I squinted. What the hells was she doing now? And how many layers of oils and misty shit and lotions was she going to coat her face in?

She turned to face me, casually pumping another lotion into her palm, a moisturizer I think, and leaned her hip against the vanity. "It's a little hard to get it super clean, you know...the bottom of the toilet bowl and all..."

I started getting this horrible feeling, and the scrubbing of my teeth slowed down as I stared sidelong at her suspiciously through narrowed eyes.

"Penn has some really good tips for cleaning," she continued airily, rubbing the sweet-smelling lotion onto her face with the tips of her fingers, which made her honeyed complexion and the smattering of freckles glow. "And that toothbrush of yours was a perfect fit for the small area down the bottom and back of the toilet bowl, where I could scrub away into the curve of the bowl, really get in there," she said, making a furious motion with her hand as if she was busily scrubbing away at the bowl with an invisible toothbrush.

My toothbrush...

I blinked. "You used my toothbrush to clean the toilet?"

She wouldn't...

She fucking would.

"Well, yeah," she said, frowning, pulling a duh face. She flipped up a hand, pointing to the toothbrush currently in my mouth. "It was there after all, and the perfect fit."

Oh my fucking gods!

I hurled my toothbrush across the bathroom, minty froth spinning away to splatter upon the stone floor as the plastic thing clattered and bounced along, and struck the opposite wall.

I gagged.

My stomach dry heaved in cruel convulsions.

I was going to throw up.

I scrambled for the mouthwash, fumbling with the lid, and poured it into my mouth, gargling and spitting it into the sink before refilling my mouth, suffering through the fiery mint that burnt my mouth.

"You are most welcome," the sassy-mouthed assassin added, as she smiled at me with one of her crooked grins and drifted from the bathroom. "Goodnight, dickface."

Throwing back my head, I gargled mouthwash, again and again, spitting the green liquid into the sink, before grabbing a new toothbrush from the drawer and coating it with a generous dose of toothpaste. I scrubbed my teeth, my tongue, the roof of my mouth, the soft inside cheeks, gagging every so often thinking of what she'd done with my toothbrush.

Holy fucking hells that girl was spiteful.

Finally, I finished up. Changing out of my jeans and the t-shirt she'd scrawled her message all over, I slipped into new comfy clothes and left the bathroom. I hid my one and only pair of remaining boots in the linen cupboard, on a high shelf behind the blankets.

Filling a glass of water, I sat down at my work desk, intending to use the rest of the night for more research. A plan had formed a few nights back and there were things to do and uncover on Nelle's behalf. I also needed to find out what my mother had been up to in Ascendria. There was an elusive puzzle piece missing from the jigsaw, and I needed to unearth it somehow.

There were passwords on my cell phone and laptop so I wasn't worried about Nelle getting past them. I'd disconnected the room's phone yesterday after discovering Nelle was using it to prank call our staff. She'd been annoyed to Nine Hells that the phone only connected to the house and not the outside world. Instead, she randomly called rooms and deep breathed to whoever answered, or hurled abuse at them.

I frowned as my fingers curled around the mouse. It didn't move. In fact, it didn't budge from the desk's surface.

What the...?

I tapped my keyboard...a couple more times...a couple more keys when I realized nothing was happening on the screen.

A hiss of annoyance was gritted out between clenched teeth. I should have fucking known. Nelle had obviously found my arts and crafts box to write the message on my t-shirt.

And in the box were other crafty things.

Like super glue.

Little Miss Annoying had superglued my mouse to the desk, as well as all the keys in my laptop too. Fuuuck!