Clouds crossed overhead and the sunlight filtering through the scaled stained-glass set in the high ceiling dulled to dark mottled greens. The Great Hall dropped several degrees even though I was standing near the twin hearth fires, radiating warmth. Every inch of my body was chilled like a thick draping of morning frost icing a lawn. My heart rapidly pounded a bayan drum inside my chest.

Sage danced on the spot, snapping and snarling as the Crowthers drew nearer. Their footsteps reverberated down the length of the hall and shadows slunk across the adamere floor as if they'd brought darkness with them.

They all appeared casual enough, but for that predatory stride, that cunning that lurked in the depth of their eyes—various violet shades that ranged from the light amethyst of Caidan's to the darker shade of Kenton's.

For one brief moment, I found myself wanting to run behind the man with black eyes and allow him to shield me. But what message would that send?

Besides that fact, I couldn't rely on Graysen for anything.

I was very much alone.

I pushed my shoulders back and met their indifferent gazes as they split apart and circled, not quite pincering me in, but it sure as fuck wasn't too far off.

Surrounded by their tall, imposing figures I was tiny and insignificant. Behind my back, I ran my fingertips together as if rotating through adamere beads. My roots are deep, my strength is stone, my breath the wind. I bow to none.

I was a Wychthorn and I would never let them see me cower.

Raising a hand to my waist, I clicked my fingers at my wraith-wolf, requesting him to back down. Sage took his sweet time, but eventually drew back to my side to stare through slitted eyes at the brothers, his fur hackled and fangs bared.

Kenton moved to my right side, his polished dress shoes making a soft clicking sound on the floor. He was dressed in casual tan slacks, but with a crisp white shirt, the sleeves of which he was rolling up, as if he were going to get down to business and not the kind that ended in an ink-stained signature and a friendly handshake.

The silence was deafening but for the soft crackling coming from the burning logs, and the blood rushing in my ears. The tension in the room was thick and cloying, making my pulse rap faster. Graysen leaned against the wooden table, his head now cocked, staring just above my head, bored, as if I were beneath his interest.

"Enjoying the tour?" Kenton asked me in that deep voice of his.

While I popped a hand on my hip, shrugging a shoulder, I paid close attention to Caidan and Jett's movements as they drew a little closer. Shifting my position sidelong to Kenton, I turned my gaze upon Draxxon's massive head which jutted out from the wall and loomed over one of the enormous oak doors, and then cast an unimpressed glance over the Great Hall. "Somewhat," I replied, with a bored sigh. I waved my hand with a somewhat disdainful gesture as if searching for the right words. "I am looking at extending my real estate portfolio. However," I scrunched my nose. "It's a bit...I don't know... Pretentious and cluttered."

From the corner of my eye, I caught the amusement tugging on Caidan's mouth, and how he tamped it down, shying his head away as he rubbed at his hair concealed beneath a beanie. He'd taken position up on the left side of me. He shuttered away the laughter and smoothed his expression back to a blank slate as he adjusted his long jean-clad legs and crossed his arms, the black t-shirt hanging loosely on his brawny build.

My gaze narrowed on him—interesting.

He met my gaze, but he stared through me as if I weren't standing in front of him. Both of us were aware of what he'd already done for Graysen. He'd purposely given away his brother's secret, that he more than liked me, he...

And I couldn't finish that thought because Graysen didn't deserve me, not that way.

"Why bother showing her around?" Kenton asked Graysen, ignoring me and turning toward his brother. "She should be kept down in the dungeon until she's needed."

Darkness.

Sweat broke out over the back of my neck and coated my palms in tiny beads.

Part of me wanted to scream and shout at them. To strike out and hit them. To make them see what they intended to do was wrong—trapping me and selling me to those heinous witches. To unleash all my fear and fury and desperation upon them in words and violence.

Smart...I had to be smarter than that.

I stuffed down the anger and choked on the rage. Pushed the wrath further into the quagmire that was my tattered soul.

I couldn't afford to let the Crowther brothers suspect what I was up to until it was too late and I was free. I had to get them to agree to allow me to roam freely in their home so that I could come and go as I pleased. And the only way I could do that was to appear weaker than them and not a threat. As much as I wanted to incinerate them with my temper I had to leash it.

"What does it matter?" I said, spinning around to fully face Kenton, my cold, numb feet padding toward him across equally chilly stone. "You've got me. There's nothing I can do. I can't escape. So why not let me wander about in my extended cage for a little bit while I can? Because you know, I don't have much longer before..." I drew a fingertip across my neck and made croaking noise as I tipped my head sideways, poking out my tongue and slackening my features as if I was dead.

Something wounded flickered in Caidan's amethyst eyes.

Quiet.

It was so quiet.

Good.

Their unease stirred in the air. Some inner part of me grasped that they knew all of this was wrong, but they shored themselves up with resolute glances at one another. To save myself I needed to find a slender fracture within the brothers and hammer it into a crevasse.

A dazzling smile broke across my face as I shimmied my shoulders. "You want me to be in peak condition for my auction, right?" I raised a foot and flexed my toes. "All I'm doing is stretching my legs while I still have them."

Curiously, the sound of Jett's combat boots thudded on stone as he approached head-on. I braced myself and held my ground. He tilted his head, his long hair pulled back into a messy man-bun, as he stared at me with cruel eyes and a wolf's smile. Out of all the brothers, his hostility was almost tangible. "I agree. It'll be a lot more fun with her out mingling."

I wanted to gag on the small smile I gave him. I didn't know why he was so readily agreeing with me. I'd expected more of a fight. But I'd take his assistance, even though I knew he was up to something.

From the side, I heard Graysen ask Kenton in his usual bored-as-fuck tone, "What do you want?"

"It's time to get some new ink," Kenton replied, his dark eyes briefly flicking my way.

New ink...

My gaze slid over Graysen's arms, braced on either side of where he leaned his ass against the table. Both of his hands were curled around the edge of the table. One arm was fully sleeved in Ukkenskrit and wyrmfire, and the other arm was inked to just above his elbow. The tiny Ukkenskrit script detailed the Crowthers' personal history—their conquests in particular. Obviously, it was my tale they were going to ink on his body...their bodies since it was a joint effort.

Jett smoothed a hand down his silky navy shirt before lifting up his arm to rotate it and show me his exposed ink-free forearm. "It'll look good," he purred. "Probably one of the more impressive tales. Taking down a Wyrm, how fucking cool is that?"

I knew he was taunting me to retaliate, I knew it, yet I couldn't stop my gaze from narrowing and becoming stormy. My body tensed, ready for a fight. Sage too, a low rumble coming from his throat as he reacted to my blustering anger.

Just in time, I caught myself...

Calm, calm, calm...

Jett wanted me to react to give him a reason to hate me further.

But I think it was more than that. He needed to feel justified in what they were going to do. They all needed it I realized, as I swept my gaze over them, watching them survey me, cold and heartless. All they saw was a spoiled princess. Someone pampered. The girl that was saved instead of their mother. And here I was about to meet fire with fire. But what if I were to douse it?

I needed them to see me as a human. A person—just like them.

What's more, I needed to get to know them all. I needed to discover their weaknesses and find a way to take advantage of them.

Blowing out a breath, low and steady, I arranged my expression into neutrality as if I didn't care that they'd tell their tale of how they'd captured me and permanently score it on their skin. "Just be sure to spell my name right—W.Y.C.H.T.H.O.R.N," I instructed airily, turning to drift closer to the fire.

Judging by the way Jett's jaw flexed, he didn't like that I hadn't taken his bait. "Instead of playing babysitter we need to be getting back to work," he snapped at Graysen.

"Jett," Caidan warned, but there was something else running in his tone—concern.

Jett rolled his eyes and lifted a shoulder as if to say—whatever. He half-twisted away, wincing slightly and rubbing the back of his hand across his forehead. I swore the muted light glanced off beads of sweat that coated his furrowed brow, but I wasn't sure.

"We've got a meeting with Yoran tomorrow," Kenton added, dragging my attention from Jett to the eldest brother, as he slid a hand into the pocket of his slacks. "He wants another syndicate to take over from the Widowmakers, and later on we need to shadow the shipment the Troelsens are bringing in for the Witches Ball."

Shipment. Mortals. People the Witches would feast on at the Ball, before it even, when they started gathering in numbers for the event.

Graysen's grip on the wooden table beneath him was white-knuckled, and I heard the groan of wood, the crack and splintering. He suddenly moved, shifting his footing, and the soles of his boots scraped along the stone, hiding the sound of breaking wood. But I caught the dust and wooden slivers sprinkling down beneath the table.

His head was slightly bowed and his ruffled locks of hair shielded him from his brothers' eyes. He pushed off, rising, and assumed a wide-legged stance. If he'd been angry, it was wiped carefully away.

Give them what they want to see.

They wanted to see Graysen in control. They needed to see me as weak and frightened. More importantly, they needed to see that Graysen wasn't swayed. That he was in control and the reason why he had me trapped up in his tower wasn't anything to do with him breaking away from his family's mandate to use me. That he was keeping me up there to break me.

Except.

He wasn't.

My fingers fiddled anxiously with the top layer of my skirt as I curled my toes on the rough stone floor while staring downward. Here, I was confronted by his brothers and what his family wanted from me—to break—but what he showed me up in his tower...he wasn't trying to break me, he was trying to keep me together.

In that respect, Graysen was going against his family, and he didn't want them to know.

I pursed my mouth to the side, looking up at him from the shadow of my eyelashes. Yes, he and I were going to have a rather interesting conversation later on. 20 questions—definitely.

"Sirro's already given me orders," Graysen replied, crossing his arms over his chest and settling his weight onto one hip. "So, I'm going to wait until I hear from Mela and restart the hunt for Yezekael."

Yezekael.

Now that wasn't a name I'd heard of before. I stored that name away to ask about later.

"Zielenski's had word that Jurgana's stirring," Caidan slipped in, ignoring the flare of anger from Jett, as he wandered over to a table and jumped up to sit on it.

"It won't be much longer before Jurgana will attend the Emporium," Jett added with a cunning glance my way.

I stored that bit of knowledge like I was a dragon and it was a precious bauble. Though this bauble wasn't shiny it was tarnished, because the mention of the Emporium stirred something else deep inside. Fear. Zielenski ran the Emporium. I'd seen him once or twice at House Gatherings. Charming. Sinfully handsome. But there was something dead inside of him. You had to be soulless to run the Emporium. And the Crowthers were trying to gain interest from the Horned Gods to first obtain a Goods Appraisal.

Me.

They needed me to pique Jurgana's interest at the Emporium.

A small tiny piece of me shriveled up and trembled with terror.

The things I'd overheard my father speak about when it came to the Emporium... What I'd read... The horrific sketches of it in old books in my family library. It was one place I never wanted to investigate.

"I'm going to the Emporium?" I asked Kenton, my eyes wide and my voice pitched high. Because it was obvious that I was. And they were timing the visit with Jurgana, one of the Witches that slumbered between events in a nest deep in the Heart of the Hemmlok forest. "Because you haven't received an invitation to a Goods Appraisal, right?"

They'd all known I'd harbored a dark power inside me. What it was exactly, they hadn't figured out, only that I was powerful and they might not have been able to bind me.

But a wyrm...

And now they knew what they were facing. What their brother was too.

A wyrm tamer hadn't been born in over 500 years.

And now here one was along with the strangest wyrm—me.

Were they intending to let Jurgana know that I was other? That I was a wyrm?

I sucked in a sharp breath, and let fear flow through my veins, which was easy, so easy to do because the thought of entering the Emporium was terrifying.

This time, I wasn't faking the tremor in my fingers. Tucking my hands behind my back, I gripped them together. "What..." I licked my lips and cleared my throat. "What do you intend to happen there? How do you intend to use me to get an invite?"