The wraith-wolf's attention was fixed on Nelle who lowered her hand from her mouth to brace the heel of her palm upon the granite counter and drum her fingernails. "Where do you go every day?"

The bed's woodwork glistened with sunlight as I ducked under its curved latticed shape. The mattress dipped beneath my weight when I sat down on its edge and tugged my socks on. Leaning over, I slid my feet into my new boots, zipping them up and buckling the straps. Angling my head toward her I replied, "Tell me the name of your favorite book and I'll tell you where I go."

She rolled her eyes and heaved a bored sigh at my desire to continue our game. Leaning her back against the kitchen counter she folded her arms across her chest. Raising her gaze to the ceiling, she pursed her mouth to the side, thinking about it. There was a glint of cunning that sharpened the honeyed flecks in her eyes when her gaze slid my way. "Let Me Go by...um, I forget his name...Ishiguro?"

Let Me Go. Much the same as her favorite song, Set Me Free. While that latter had hurt as she'd intended it to, this time the point she was trying to make didn't. Swiping my thumb across my lower lip, I hid the grin. "Kazuo Ishiguro?"

"Yes, that's him." Her smile became cocky. She moved to lean her hip on the counter's edge and the skirt of her dress swayed around her slender calves. "I loved his book—Let Me Go."

I rose off the bed and strolled lazily around Sage to the kitchen. Standing before her, she craned her neck back and didn't stop me from plucking free a few tiny leaves that had tangled in her silken hair. I really wanted to wrap my fingers around the nape of her neck, pull her in and kiss the smugness off her pouty lips, instead, I settled for this, "I believe the title of Kazuo Ishiguro's book is Never Let Me Go."

The cockiness slipped from her slack features with the knowledge she'd got the name wrong and that it meant something else entirely. Her rage erupted into a fearsome itch all over my body. It was the same irrational rage that had burned through me this morning and unsettled my nerves as I'd tinkered with the Ducatis, worrying that it was going to spill over into Nelle's reckless spitefulness.

Shifting further around, I bent over and opened up a cupboard door to toss the leaves into the trash bin hidden behind it. "The catacombs," I replied to her question, hoping to extinguish her anger.

Startled, her pissy mood dampened as she pushed off the counter and took a step closer. Her indelible scent saturated the air and I dragged it into my lungs like sweetened poison.

Nelle's narrowed gaze raked down my battle-clad figure. "What are you doing in the catacombs? What are you looking for down there?"

Every morning I met Mela and Petra and their hunting party, bringing a team of my own to the dank catacombs beneath Ascendria. It was safer in numbers since the rabbit warren of caves and tunnels were crawling with krekenns. Petra had found fresh trails, some with false endings, one leading deep into the bowels of the earth. It was a tangle of trails as if the creature we were hunting was trying to keep its new nest hidden. So far there'd been no sighting of the nest or the lesser creature either.

Yesterday while I'd hunkered down to analyze the scuffed prints on the dusty floor, there'd been a shift in the gloom. A scraping of talons on stone. And I'd caught the stale scent of the Uzrek.

The sound of a low chuckle had scraped down my spine, and the Uzrek had whispered inside my mind, taunting me—Son of the Wyrm, still spinning your deceit I see.

The Uzrek had been hunting us as we'd hunted the elusive Yezekael.

While contemplating what else I wanted to ask Nelle, a ticklish feeling spread down my forearm and I dragged my fingers along it. I eyed the bags behind Nelle suspiciously—one lay flat, obviously empty, but the other stood up and seemed like it was full, and its handles were knotted together. She'd taken to running every morning and evening, even though the wyrm wasn't present and didn't need to be burned out. This was the first time she'd returned from one of her runs with something.

In the corner of my eye, a ruffle of fur caught my attention. I glanced sidelong to watch the wraith-wolf slowly peel his thin black lips away from his fangs, rising to his paws. When I finally shoved aside Nelle's arousal flooding the room I realized there was a musty fur smell tainting the air.

My gaze cut back to the kitchen counter and my heart began to pound faster.

I swore I witnessed the black bag move.

Pointing a finger at it, I asked, "What the hells do you have in there?"

Nelle's cheeks rounded with her sweet smile.

I stiffened, recognizing the godsdamed smile. It was the smile of an assassin.

"Oh, just a little gift from me to your brothers," she replied enigmatically, spinning on her heel. All the hair on my body stood on end when an unearthly growl came from the bag, and whatever was inside wriggled, straining against the knot.

In a rush of motion, Nelle snatched up the bag and bolted from the room to the balcony.

Holy hells!

Adrenaline kicked into overdrive, pumping through my veins. I surged forward, alarm and panic gouging at my gut.

Down in the courtyard, it was an ocean of black, an army of staff and soldiers clad in armor and their hair tied back into knots, and a thunderous noise like waves belting a rocky shore. They were split into groups and in the middle of working drills. Amongst the sound of grunts and swift footwork, the clack of quarterstaffs came from the training pit where Caidan and Jett were overseeing sparring sessions. Up in the courtyard, Kenton stood behind Penn to correct her form with the blunt-edged sword, while the Weapons Master called out a series of movements for the group to respond to. My sister bent like wheat in the wind as she spun around and practiced a flurry of side kicks, the staff mirroring her movements beside her.

Nelle's hair fluttered in the breeze as she rose up on her toes to lean over the balcony railing. "Jett!"

My younger brother jerked around and stopped, lowering the end of his quarterstaff to the sand. Sweat beaded on his forehead. He held a hand over his eyes, frowning and looking up. His lips parted as if he were about to shout something but Nelle didn't give him a chance. Whatever was in the bag struggled against the canvas, and it looked as if it was growing bigger. A tearing sound followed as talons ripped through the material.

Shit, shit, shit!

Nelle's blistering anger and hunger for vengeance raced beneath my flesh, along with her trademark spitefulness.

I lunged for the bag but was too late. Nelle hurled it over the balcony. "This is for you, asshole!"

The bag flew through the air and as it descended into the training pit the material exploded into tiny black shreds and whatever was inside erupted outward.

All I caught was a vague glimpse of a beast the size of Sage, a fanged maw with curled tusks and razored spines flaring outward like a porcupine before it twisted into movement so fast I could barely see it.

It moved like a ferocious tornado, touching down in the training pit, striking out with lethal claws, before disappearing so swiftly it caused sand to billow upward like a gigantic dust storm that hid everyone from view.

There were screams and shrieks—

The controlled bark of the Weapons Master bellowing out orders—

Sounds of striking quarterstaffs—

An enraged beastly roar.

"What the fuck is that?" I bellowed, jabbing my finger at the pandemonium in the training pit.

Nelle leaned an elbow casually on the stone railing as she briefly peeked down below before returning her gaze to mine and blinking innocently. "It's a Brunnie."

I raked a hand through my hair, tugging fiercely, before flinging my hand outward. "That's not a Brunnie!" Brunnie's were harmless otherworldly creatures. Tiny and cute and shy. They spent most of their time in the undergrowth hunting grubs and raising their young in burrows beneath the trees.

"I changed its life cycle into something else," Nelle replied.

My teeth gritted together. "Define: else."

She hitched a shoulder and spoke in her favorite go-to duh voice. "It's still a Brunnie, Crowther, just more a predator than a cute little critter. Bigger and meaner and stronger. And bloodthirsty right now because it's starving. It'll stop after it takes a chunk out of someone and fills its belly with their bones, unless..."

"Unless?"

"It takes a liking to them and chooses to lay claim instead."

"Lay claim?"

"It's a little like a skunk."

A loud farting sound erupted through the air—POOOOOOOOOOOF!

My eyebrows slowly rose as I stared at Nelle and she stared back wide-eyed.

Below us came choking sounds of revulsion, horror, and dry retching.

A plume of musty air filtered upward and it stunk like a heap of rotting garbage left out in the baking sun.

Nelle cleared her throat. "It lays a claim by marking them with their scent."

"That jacked-up Brunnie doesn't smell so good," I replied dryly.

"Neither will whomever it imprints on."

Or anyone else within the vicinity, judging by the way Jett was buckled over, gagging and frantically waving the putrid dirty air away from his face with his hands. The sand storm the Brunnie had stirred had settled. Caidan was on his back, his body covered in a grayish film of Brunnie claiming stink, struggling against the ferocious creature which had him pinned down. It growled as it slathered his face with a fat wet tongue dripping with saliva. "Get it off! Get it the hells off me!" Caidan wailed.

Nelle peered over the railing, then slapped the stone with a palm. "Godsdammit, I was hoping for Jett."

Half of the warband were bloodied with superficial wounds. Just about all of the quarterstaffs had been chomped into pieces. And splintered wood riddled the pit. The Weapons Master had rallied an attack, the small army charging around the pit to pincer the beast in with what weapons they had left—mostly broken sticks. In a blur of black speed, Kenton swung a broken quarterstaff like a bat, knocking the beast off Caidan.

The Brunnie struck the adamere wall, only to land on its paws. Razored spines vibrated with deadly intent as the beast let out a blood-chilling roar. Bunching its muscles, it leaped for Caidan who was scrambling on all fours to get away. But the Brunnie disappeared into a black whirl of wind and then chaos ensued as it ripped a path through our soldiers.

"I'm going to kill her!" Jett choked out before doubling over and gagging. "Hellsgate, this is so foul!"

I leaned my forearms on the balcony railing and barked a laugh, hard and loud and obnoxious. It actually was pretty cathartic. Finally, my brothers had gotten a taste of what it had been like for me—paranoid hells—for the past year in Nelle's company.

I stabbed a finger toward my youngest brother. "That's all on you, asshole. You're the one who wanted Wychthorn out. I fucking warned you!"

Still laughing, I half-twisted toward Nelle. I mean it was actually incredibly clever and funny. The laugh died in my throat. Creeping anxiety chilled the air in my lungs because Nelle's attention wasn't on the mayhem down in the courtyard, it was on me. She was watching me closely, a little too intensely.

From down below, I heard a high-pitched shriek from Caidan. "Oh my gods, its gotten inside the Keep!"

Widening my stance, I frowned. "What's it going to get up to inside the Keep?"

"Oh," Nelle waved a hand dismissively. "Don't worry, it'll just find his bedroom, settle there and become a teensy bit territorial."

I bent my arm back to scratch the sting irritating my shoulder blade as I approached with concern. Because that didn't sound good. "Become territorial?"

She nodded, her eyebrows nudging together as she made a hmmm-ing noise at the back of her throat as if thinking. "From what I read, it'll destroy everything he owns to build a nest out of it all, and then attack anyone that comes within five feet of him..." She paused, frowning and tapping a finger on her chin. "Or was it, it'll attack anyone it comes across? Maybe even Caidan himself?" She shrugged, lifting a hand. "Who the heck knows."

A wide grin spread across my face. For once, that shit wasn't happening to me. I was safely tucked away in my abode in the tower.

It was a slow awareness of building heat and an itch here, an itch there, that I realized my fingers were scratching at my neck, then my arm, my thigh, my lower abs...

The grin faded. And an awful, cold feeling curled through my chest to see Nelle's gray eyes alive with mirth. She wasn't silently laughing at Caidan, she was laughing at me.

Hellsgate, what has she done?

An intense scratchy-itchy heat erupted all over my body, more fierce and scorching than the chili she'd spiked my whiskey with a few weeks back. My body was on fire. On. Fucking. Fire!

My hands were suddenly everywhere, fingernails burrowing into the fish-scale cuts, scratching and digging. I rolled my shoulders so my inflamed skin could rub against the inside of my armor. Jiggled my leg. Then the other.

"What the hells have you done?"

But Nelle had already turned away. Flicking her hair over a shoulder, she flounced into the room.

Storming behind her, I frantically tore at my armor, whizzing down zips and tearing at buckles, stripping myself free from the jacket and pants and boots, flinging them aside.

I balked at what I saw.

My entire body from the neck down to my ankles and to my wrists was vicious scarlet red with ripples of blisters. And everything hurt! It itched! It burned!

I wanted to throw myself onto the carpet and rub my back like a godsdamned dog!

The smell emanating from my discarded armor was woodsy. My head whipped Nelle's way and I snarled. For the ever-loving-fuck, I was going to kill her!

Anger fueled my blood. "You rubbed poison oak on the inside of my armor?!"

Nelle stood in the middle of the room with her hands popped on her hips and a gleeful grin plastered over her lush lips. She rocked back on her heels. "Yep."

I lost my mind to unfathomable mind-obliterating itchy pain. My fingers ferociously scratched at the rash and rising welts, everywhere, all over my body, as fast as I could.

She'd driven me fucking crazy this past week. It was exhausting always being on edge, trying to anticipate her cruel pranks. And I'd fucking had enough of her malicious spitefulness! I kept finding more and more t-shirts that she'd written shit about me all over their fronts and backs. She'd cut one arm off all my suit jackets like a crazed divorcee. Fucked up my laptop. Used my godsdamned toothbrush to clean the toilet bowl. And now I was officially full-blown deranged because my body was as red as a stop sign and itchier than a mangy dog infested with fleas!

I couldn't take her abuse any longer and I. Lost. The. Fucking. Plot!

A haze of red descended and a strangled roar of outrage ripped from my throat.

Fright tightened Nelle's features. She leaped backward, her arms extended to ward me off. "Holy shit, Crowther, chill the hells out!"

But I was on her like a rabid dog.

Her shrill scream cut through the tower when my hands clamped around her forearms and she was yanked off the ground.

Her tiny body dangled in the air. She fought against me, struggling to get herself free, hair flailing as she kicked out to stamp me in the balls. "Let me go!" she shrieked.

"It's 'Never Let Me Go!'" I hissed into her face.

I whipped us both around and in one smooth motion flung myself on the edge of the bed and tossed Nelle over my lap, her ass up in the air. "You're a spiteful brat!" I roared, jerking my hand high, palm flattened and fingers extended. "And you deserve to be punished like one!"