[THIS STORY WILL BE TAKEN DOWN ON SEPTEMBER 30, 2024]
He had hunted me, captured me, and locked me in a tower.
Season 3 'Of Crows and Thorns'
***
While in RISING, Tabitha discovers something peculiar that may assist Nelle in her plan to escape the...
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My reply was on the tip of my tongue when Mela retaliated. "What's your problem, Gray?" She popped a shoulder out, widening her stance. Her features tightened with loathing and disgust. "Nelle Wychthorn is it? She get under your skin?"
I blinked.
She tipped her head back and barked a bitter laugh. The sound of it caused both irritation and unease to rake down my spine. "The great manwhore couldn't get it up to fuck for months on end, and sure," she spat, glowering at me, waving a hand in my face, "it was okay for you to be dismissive toward the Wychthorn Princess, but damned if you'd let anyone else utter a word against her. You're an idiot if you thought I wouldn't see through you, see how you looked at her when you thought no one was watching," she sneered, her soft round nose scrunching. "So go on, tell me what's been eating you, huh? She doesn't want you, Gray? Are you too much of a jerk? A cold-hearted bastard? A giant manwhore for her to fall in love with?" Mela continued, taunting me, baiting me. "Or is the lovely princess sitting at home, all made-up and pretty and starry-eyed, anxiously waiting for you to return from this hunt?"
It was far from the fucking truth and also so horribly close that it was a white-hot branding iron pressed across my heart. "FUCK YOU!" I punched the wall right by her head because I was a fucking asshole with a gaping wound in my heart and I wanted to lash out. My fist hit pure rock. Chunks of debris exploded everywhere as I smashed a hole in the wall. Pain ripped through my knuckles—shredded skin and crunched bone, but I felt nothing.
Mela lunged at me, her mouth parting to snarl—
An awful cracking noise ripped through the passageway. We both froze. Horror clenched my heart, as I watched with dread in the dim glow of Mela's flashlight, a fissure render down the wall right behind her. Rock split apart, the fault line splintering right down the wet walls to the tunnel floor.
The uneven rocky ground beneath us began to quake, tossing us about.
"Oh, shit," I hissed, my body shaking and footing stumbling.
A thunderous yawning sound—
And the floor beneath us gave way.
Fuuuck!
We plummeted. Cool air brushed past, with broken rock and dust.
I grabbed hold of Mela's arm—
Flung her around and twisted us both—
And took the brunt of the fall.
I landed flat on hard jagged stone with Mela's body bouncing on top of mine. The air was punched from my lungs, and my bones cracked and fractured. Fiery pain erupted through my body, setting my mind on fire. Dizzying, blinding-white agony hazed out my vision.
It might have been hours, minutes, seconds later when I came too, I had no idea, but my mother's legacy and something else writhed through my blood, whispering like dry scales winding around bark, as the throbbing ache dulled, and the splintered bones knitted back together.
