CAGED (#3, of Crows and Thorns)

Chapter 50

"How the fuck would I know?" I replied to the silent question they all directed at me, keeping my voice calm but edged with vexation.

Hidden beside Flossie, I stretched my hand against my thigh, flexing my fingers wide, clenching and unclenching the muscles and tendons. I was off-kilter, but I couldn't let them see that. I had to let them see what they wanted to see. And that was me—cold, loyal, hateful.

My siblings had no idea I'd already bonded with Nelle. I didn't know if it was the full connection a wyrm and tamer shared between them or if there was more to it than what I currently experienced. I felt her emotions under my skin. It made sense to me now, this was one way a Tamer could keep one step ahead of the wyrm if the beast lost its temper, wanting to strike out and take a bite out of me or anyone else.

"You're the Tamer," Jett replied, his mouth curling downward, as if annoyed I wasn't sharing vital information.

"That's right, I am." A smug smirk twitched on my lips as I pointed a finger with the hand holding the blunt at Jett. "And you're not."

I'd been the first Tamer born in over five hundred years. My father, with his violet eyes so dark they were almost black, had been on the verge of becoming a Tamer himself. Unlike the degree to which I experienced it, my father could feel a faint and weak vibration coming from Draxxon's body lining the Great Hall. And while I carried full wyrmblood in my veins, he carried the barest trace of it too.

I tried not to bristle. The fact they were even bothering to understand something that was of no use to them just fucked me off. And even more irritating, they were messing with my private affairs. I took a puff on the blunt and blew out a thin stream of smoke. Leaning forward I placed it on the ashtray. The leather beneath me whispered with my movement as I rose from the armchair. Flossie leaped off my lap, circling around to jump back onto the seat I'd departed. Stalking around the table, I leaned between Caidan and Jett to pick up the bottle of Glenfiddich and fill a tumbler with whiskey. "All of this conjecture doesn't matter," I gritted out. "We're using Wychthorn to get into the Witches—"

My sister cut me off, stabbing the wooden table with a finger to emphasize her point. "It matters to us if she can influence you in the meantime."

Kenton interjected. "Ferne's right. You're so territorial you won't let us in the tower." It was so fucking lucky that he thought it was the territorial Tamer side of me that refused them access to the tower, not the truth, that I wanted to protect Nelle from them.

"She's not going to influence me," I scoffed.

"How do we know that?" Ferne replied, her forehead creased with a frown. A heavy curtain of black hair slid across the lace strapped across her empty eyes. She roughly pushed it aside, tucking the locks behind an ear. "Both of you have been connected since birth. I sensed it humming beneath the surface whenever you two were within range of one another. How do we know she isn't going to manipulate you into freeing her?"