This wasn't quite all of Draxxon either. His protruding body would have taken up all the space in the Great Hall. No, this was an artist's rendition of what he would have looked like as a relief sculpture of sorts. I craned my neck back to gaze up at his massive head twisting outward from the stone wall, with the antelope horns sweeping back from his forehead and his maw gaping wide to bare his teeth. I blinked at the length and width of each tooth. It was a mouthful of fangs, rows and rows of them. Enormous.

"Are his bones beneath the body?" As soon as I asked I felt stupid because, no, they wouldn't be.

Graysen crossed his arms over his chest, Draxxon capturing his attention once more. "They're in our treasure trove. Most of them anyway."

"Most?"

He brought his gaze to mine and a cold feeling coiled within my stomach to see cunning lurk in his dark eyes. "Later...when we play our game of trading answer for an answer. You can ask that one then."

Ah, he'll make a game of it later. Of course.

I swiveled my body to face him fully, a hand on my hip. "And your sword was forged from Draxxon's bones," I stated, rather than questioned because I knew that.

"Besides the sword, there are other weapons that were forged by the Blacksmith and handed from Wyrm Tamer to Wyrm Tamer. Those ancestors in between can use them as my father did, but he couldn't touch the cursed sword. It can only be wielded by those of us who have the wyrm tamer genes."

Wyrm tamer genes.

"How do you know you have the mysterious wyrm tamer traits?" I asked, curious to know. What made it obvious that he was a tamer?

He uncrossed an arm to point to his eyes.

I raised my eyebrows. Seriously?

I waved my hands about, palm outward, mocking him. "Oooo... You have black eyes."

His jaw ticked and his gaze was still level with mine, but there wasn't a shred of hardness in them. Amusement shone bright and true. He liked my bite. He always had.

I snorted, then jabbed a finger toward his face. "That's your only clue? Black eyes?"

He shifted his weight, his sparkly boots scraping against the stone. He angled his head and tried to tame the grin that teased his mouth. "Every so often the black show up amongst the violet that's prevalent within my family line. And there hasn't been any for over 500 years."

My jaw slackened and my limbs grew lax. "You're the first tamer in 500 years?" I breathed.

"Yep," he said, rocking back on his heels.

Interesting.

And I was born after him.

I didn't know if there was a connection or not. So I stored that snippet away in my box of puzzle pieces that were Graysen and the Crowthers. "And you know nothing about wyrm taming," I scoffed, shaking my head at him as I took a couple of steps closer to the long table where Sage had padded off to investigate for dropped scraps of food.

"Fuck all," Graysen muttered, turning away to rake his gaze over Draxxon and the line of razored spines down the ridgeline of his back. "All records were destroyed," he said, his gravelly voice low in thought. "I'm assuming after my ancestors freed the wyrms after the Final War."

"Why would they do that?"

He shrugged a shoulder and rubbed the tips of his fingers beneath his bristle-shadowed chin. "Maybe to bring an end to it. Maybe so no one else would learn their tricks and try to tame wyrms for themselves."

I'd drifted forward without even realizing it. The roughness of Draxxon's scale was like sandpaper abrading my fingertips and sent a shiver of low humming power down the bones of my arm. "He's beautiful," I sighed, smiling.

"Beautiful," Graysen murmured in agreement. But when caught a glimpse of his reflection on a small polished patch of Draxxon's dark scales, he wasn't looking at the wyrm, he was looking at me. And there was such deep longing in his expression, something fell away beneath me like stepping into sinking sand, cloying and wrong—grief—at what once had begun to bloom between us. Last night, I slept beside him to keep his nightmares away and it had cracked a rent in the wall I'd erected to keep him out. His heart still matched mine, beat for beat, and it wasn't cold, it was filled with something that I dared not think about.

I wanted that empty feeling back that had carved a hollow space within my chest. The one I'd held tight to after he'd placed the noose over my head. But that wasn't right either. I'd helped him to slip it over my head and settle it around my throat because he couldn't.

Despite the complicated feelings where he was concerned, I reminded myself that Graysen was still going through with his family's plan to use me to get into the Witches Ball.

Straightening my spine, I hardened my resolve to iron. I needed to learn as much as I could about this, us, him, and his family, starting with Wyrm and Tamer.

"I can't quite wrap my head around it all," I offered honestly, turning back to him to see that he'd safely tucked away his brimming emotions behind a neutral facade.

"Me either," he replied, stalking closer. He slid his hands into his front pockets as he came to stand flush with me. I waved a hand between us both. "Wyrm and tamer—what does it all mean?" How did it affect us both?

My mind swept back to our family temple and the things Graysen had shared about Hamon and Draxxon. "Obsessive. Territorial. Greedy. And the females..." I muttered under my breath. And before I finished the thought I'd spoken aloud, it slammed into me what I was about to say, what it meant. The females chose their mate. During estrous they marked them, claimed them... And they mated for life.

Estrous.

Oh my gods.

In heat.

They claimed their mate in heat.

I had no idea if that would affect me as a human. My wyrm was male. I sensed it. The wyrm and I were connected, its characteristics melded with mine. I was fire and brimstone, and when slighted, easily fell into a rage.

But I was female. And very much human.

Every inch of my body went taut with shock.

I covertly glanced at Graysen who was stroking a fingertip along the edge of a scale.

That connection he and I shared. That hyperawareness of one another as Wyrm and Tamer was more than that. He was my human counterpart.

For some gods-forsaken reason, I started blushing at the thought of going into heat. I was pretty sure my skin was scarlet from the tip of my head all the way down to my toes as my mind flooded with what we'd shared together in the guest bedroom at my family home. I was helpless against the way my secret inner muscles clenched as the memory of him pushing his body into mine echoed between my thighs. The way he thrust. His hips slapping mine. The deep moans and soft gasps of shared pleasure. I bunched my fingers into my skirt, shifting my bare feet, trying to appear casual to hide the fact I rubbed my thighs together to rid myself of the burning desire aching between my legs.

Hells-gate.

Fucking hells-gate.

For how long? Would it be days of blissed-out mind-altering sex? The two of us rutting like animals? That night I had fallen willingly into a world of white-hazed pleasure, no awareness, just a greedy need to take what I wanted, and then suddenly shaken awake with cold water splashing down upon me, sitting at the bottom of the shower looking up at him.

Suddenly, I was aware that Graysen's head snapped around to face mine, like a stretched line of string that tugged at us both. I met eyes that widened in shock. Perhaps he'd sensed my thoughts, or my flaming cheeks gave me away.

His nostrils flared, and I cursed myself, realizing it was my arousal he could scent. Cursed him too for his keen senses. Cursed us both for this connection.

He shot his gaze forward once more, as did I, both of us hyper-aware of the other, yet pretending that Draxxon was so fucking amazing—which he was—and that there was nowhere else to look but on the wyrm. But both of us stole sidelong glances at one another, our gazes shooting away like startled birds before we connected because we knew what the other was thinking about.

I blew out a long, low breath, dampening the arousal fizzing through my blood and between my legs. I focused instead on the mystery of my wyrm.

And forced my mind to flow back to the Uzrek.

You have soared above the heavens and chewed beneath the earth. You are familiar to me, yet a stranger.

Familiar because I was a wyrm. Or was there more to this, to Graysen and me, than that?

A strange feeling plucked at my senses. There was something hidden within those carefully chosen phrases the Uzrek had shared. And there had been something else the Uzrek had told me, but for the life of me, I couldn't remember what it was.

The same humming came from Draxxon's body that I had felt when I'd picked up Graysen's cursed sword after falling off the cliff. I'd used it to protect him against Danne who was intent on killing him and kidnapping me. Danne wasn't going to give me over to Silas Boon, the man to whom he owed a debt, but to his father, Aldert, who he'd hoped would forgive him for the gambling. Because Danne knew that I was a worthy prize. Not so much what I was. Only that Silas Boon wanted me enough to steal me from my family and the Crowthers, and that knowledge was enough for Danne to betray him.

I moved sideways and raised both hands flush with the plated foreleg of Draxxon and allowed the power to spark against my flesh. "I felt the same thing when I picked up your cursed sword."

"Wyrmbone," Graysen replied, his voice a little uneven.

Maybe that had been the connection—my wyrm had recognized its own kind. The curse couldn't afflict me either. "Do you feel it?" I asked him, dropping my hands and swiveling to face him.

"A dull hum. I always have. But I never put it together with you and me," he answered, sauntering over to my side. "I feel more from you. It's different, more intense," he added, his mouth pursed in thought. Graysen raised a hand and I let him ghost it down my upper arm, both of us feeling that strange electric hum bouncing between us, watching the way the fine hair rose on my arm wherever his hand passed, raising gooseflesh. "There was a bond between them that linked their minds and Hamon could hold sway over Draxxon to a point."

"To a point?" I asked, craning my neck back to look up at him, worried that he'd hold the same power over me.

He gave me a lopsided grin, cocking an eyebrow. "It's a fucking wyrm. Full of fire. Temperamental. And at times seriously moody and pissed off. I'm pretty sure Hamon often said 'fuck this shit' and bailed."

I couldn't help but laugh. The joyous sound bounced off the stone walls and scaled wyrm. I strode off to the other side of the hall, shaking my head and grinning, but needing distance to get away from the intense sparking connection that bound us together. I rubbed my arm to erase the pleasure from my skin. "It makes sense now. I never understood why I felt drawn to you." I drifted along the length of Draxxon's long serpentine tail that thinned to a bladed note. The tip curved upward, the wyrm-stinger much like a scorpion's. I turned around to face Graysen who had followed me over as if he couldn't help himself. "Could you hold sway over me, now we know what we are?"

"As your tamer?"

I scowled at the term—tamer.

He threw his head back and laughed, a deep hearty belly laugh that grew louder at my peeved expression. When his chuckles finally subsided and his shoulders stopped shaking, he rubbed his stubbled jaw with the flat of his fingers. Life sparkled in the endless depth of his black eyes. His lips twitched as he tilted his head, raising an eyebrow while his upper body canted forward. "Holy fuck, Wychthorn, I'd have more chance of holding sway over Sage than you."

My wraith-wolf chose that moment to give a bored little huff.

Graysen darted a glance at Sage, who scratched and sniffed at the foot of one of the stools tucked under a table, but when his gaze returned to mine, his expression had sobered. He took a couple of paces closer and I held my ground. I braced myself against his scent, the acute awareness of just how close he was, yet refusing to move. Maybe in truth, I couldn't. Maybe if I was being honest, I didn't want to. He stared down at me for a long moment, the golden flecks in his eyes glittering with awe, before saying softly, "I think you're untamable."

My breath caught tight in my throat.

There was something in those words. I wasn't sure if he saw me as a challenge or if he liked that I wasn't tamable and preferred me that way.

The moment stretched out and my heart sped up. His too.

He lifted his hand, reaching out as if he were about to push his fingers through the tendrils that had escaped my braid and tuck them behind my ear, and froze when I said quietly, "It doesn't really matter though, does it? In a few weeks' time, you'll own me completely with the Alverac."

His hand fell limply to his side. He swallowed, and the vibrant life gleaming in his eyes died.

Sage reacted first, his body lunging into motion.

He bound from beneath the table to place his massive hackled form in front of me. He hunkered low, thin black lips pulling back from fangs that glistened with saliva. His snarl ripped through the large hall.

Graysen surged forward, a rush of speed.

I was caught off guard. I lurched backward, tripping over my feet.

He grabbed me by the arm, righting me, spinning me around. He pushed me up against Draxxon, his hard overlapping scales digging into my spine. My hands instinctively grabbed hold of his biceps to steady myself.

Graysen wound his calloused palm around the nape of my neck beneath my heavy braid and tipped my head back so all I could do was stare wide-eyed into his fearsome glare, but there was a real fear too shining in his black eyes. "Do not give in to your temper." His touch was gentle, the thumb stroking my fluttering pulse point a caress. He bowed his head and whispered into my ear, "Give them what they want to see."

And then he was gone. So fast, so terrifyingly fast, this time I hadn't even been able to track his movement.

I swayed off balance, sucking in a sharp breath.

Steadying my stance, I looked to where he'd gone. He was leaning his ass against a table, arms crossed over the breadth of his chest. Blank. Emotionless.

He slowly blinked and when his thick lashes parted, his black eyes blazed with distaste. He crackled with tension, practically bristling.

All for me.

And then I heard them walking in, one by one, heavy footsteps upon stone that echoed through the cavernous Great Hall—Kenton, Caidan, and Jett.