CAGED (#3, of Crows and Thorns)

Chapter 6

My adamere armor stuck to my body with clammy sweat. I pressed a button concealed in the collar of the jacket and the intricate fish scales released to allow cool air to soothe my sticky skin.

The running rug beneath my boots muffled my footsteps as I strode through the gallery. Its light green walls were tall and imposing with crown molding and archways, and beyond those open spaces were our staff, hurrying past with medical supplies, murmuring urgently amongst themselves. Their crisp uniforms of black and white were now smeared with ash and blood.

As I walked along the cavernous space, I glanced at the images of our ancestors where they hung on the walls or their likeness had been carved into marble and sat on pedestals, I rubbed the cheek Nelle had repeatedly struck—a furious ball of pain and grief. It hurt, but not as badly as it once would have. Her heightened strength was lost to her. She truly was separated from her wyrm.

Everything was a tangled mess—my mind was a tornado of opposing thoughts. So much fucking shit had gone down—was still happening. I couldn't get a grip on it, on myself—trapping my little bird, only to discover we were Wyrm and Tamer. The approach of the Witches Ball. Byron, here. What I was going to do about my aunt and her burning hatred of the Wychthorns, her contempt for Nelle? How the fuck was I going to protect Nelle from my aunt?

And Nelle...

Such overwhelming worry for her consumed my dark soul.

My heart jackhammered in my chest.

Fuck, fuck—fuuuck!

Nelle had called it right—I had no idea what I was doing.

But I sure as fuck wasn't going along with my family's original plan to lock her away out of sight, down in the holding cells below the Keep. I couldn't, I wouldn't lock her away in darkness.

Gods, Nelle...

Earlier when we'd captured her, I'd wrestled with the choice I had to make—such a fucking impossible choice—and even reminding myself that my mother was still alive, wasn't enough. I was cleaved in two, right down the center. My mother or Nelle. And Nelle had made the decision for me when I couldn't do it. She was the one to guide my hands and place Zrenyth's rope around her own neck. The moment that treacherous rope settled around her graceful throat... Gods, regret twisted inside, gutting me further. What I'd done. What I'd become. The message I'd chosen to send Byron by cruelly tying a Hangman's Noose around Nelle's neck.

I rubbed my chest where the crushing weight was pressing inward, the severity of it all. Selfish. Gods, I was so fucking selfish. But she was the only leverage we had over Byron.

Everything was moving too fast. Far too fast.

And now, what was I going to do?

Nelle...