When Nelle Wychthorn was forced to sign herself away in marriage, she should have read the contract's fine print. Because she signs not with ink, but with blood. And that changes everything.
Season 1 'Of Crows and Thorns'
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Fiery Nelle, the isolat...
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Graysen stole the blunt from me. "Like the alcohol, you won't be able to handle this."
Stealing it back, I skipped out of reach and awkwardly lit it. Poking the air with the hand that held the blunt, thin strands of smoke coiled from its burning tip, a sweetly rancid smell perfumed the air. "I've had a really, reeeaaallly, shitty day at the office. I just need a break from all of this,"— twirling a finger around my temple—"going on in my head."
I took a drag, just like I'd seen him do before. Too hard, too long. Doubling in half, I coughed and sputtered and hacked against the burning tickle, trying to gasp down air. "Holy shit!" I wheezed.
Graysen rolled his eyes at me, leaned sideways to pick up a glass of water next to a splayed book on the bedside table, and handed it to me.
Taking a sip, the water soothed the scratchy, ticklish feeling in my throat. Eventually, I could rasp out, "I just need to...I don't know. This seems to calm you. So why not me?"
"Take small easy puffs," he advised, plucking the glass of water from my hand.
This time I did, and found that he was right; it was much easier to inhale the smoke that way. Crawling onto the bed, I sat down in the middle, cross-legged, fixing my skirt over my knees.
Graysen strolled over to the light switch and reached for the button—
Cold panic engulfed me. "Not off!"
He regarded me incredulously as if surprised. His gaze softened. "I wasn't going to."
The dread clenching my heart eased and my breathing evened out. But it was a different kind of feeling that tied knots into my stomach—the realization that he wouldn't do that to me so soon after my panic attack down in the catacombs. Something momentous had shifted in him with regard to me.
Graysen twisted the round button. The illumination spilling from the brass chandelier above dimmed, bathing the room in a softer glow of light and shadow. "I promised you a date."
"A date?" I'd forgotten what he'd said to my father, what had excited me earlier—a date with kisses. A thrill rippled through me at the thought of a date with Graysen, even if it was at home in a guest bedroom. "Is this what you do on all your dates? Set the mood?" I teased.
He shrugged, turning to stride toward the tray of food sitting on the table beside the window. "I wouldn't know. I've never been on a date."
"Me either," I murmured. Learning that he'd never taken anyone on a date before shouldn't have surprised me, but it did. I knew he played around...but still, he hadn't taken one single girl on a date? Even just to get into her panties?
He retrieved the tray of food he'd gathered from the kitchen, and joined me on the bed, placing the tray between us. He'd sourced meats and cheeses, olives and grapes, with freshly baked bread and crackers. While we ate, we passed the blunt back and forth, using an empty side dish to tap the ash onto.
