CAGED (#3, of Crows and Thorns)

Chapter 3

The animosity melted away, replaced by bewilderment.

There were large-scaled maps on one wall, pinned with all sorts of mismatched tacks, as well as images of otherworldly creatures—Horned Gods—I recognized from time spent raking through my family library on a hunt for any creature that could reveal what I was. My gaze glanced over racks of weapons—swords and daggers; war scythes, battle axes, and crossbows. A low glow of several computer monitors emitting dull blue light over documents and files strewn upon a shared desk, along with a nest of wires and half-formed devices from House Simonis, deconstructed by the Crowthers, I assumed, to be made into something new.

I flicked my brows up in curiosity, half-turning my face up to Graysen. At my silent question, he answered, "This is our family room."

My face slackened in surprise. "It looks more like a War Room."

His black eyes flared wide, then narrowed as he glanced about, taking in how I might see the room. Thick, inky brows slashed over equally dark eyes, a moment before he grunted. And I suppose that was his way of agreeing.

But there were touches, remnants of what I supposed the room might have looked like without those brutal additions. In the opposite corner was a stuffy couch with matching armchairs, their colorful fabric now faded and worn. Paintings and photographs were tucked around the maps that had territories crossed out with slashes of red ink; and little clay things that perhaps a child clumsily made—lopsided animals and wobbly cars—had been placed in pride along the mantle above the cozy fireplace. On the bookcases lining two adjacent walls, I spied a collection of children's books, obviously much loved judging by their ratty spines.

Graysen gestured behind me. I took it as a silent request to move, and I did, walking away from where the Crowther women were gathered at the table. As I moved past the wall lined from ceiling to floor with books, I realized the photographs propped up along a single shelf were of the same young woman.

I barely remembered her from my childhood, and it stupidly took me a long moment to realize who she was, even though I was standing in her home. She stared back at me with green eyes alight in a heart-shaped face. A sheen of golden hair curled over her shoulders, and her rosy lips were open and spread wide, captured in a moment of pure joyous laughter.

Oh my gods...

Tabitha Crowther.

My gut twisted and my footing stumbled. I was drowning, pushed under a wavering surface of water as coarse currents of guilt washed through me.

Tabitha had been stolen by the Horned Gods in place of me, for whatever purpose they had in mind for her, 12 long years ago.

Both of us alive.

Both of us trapped.

Would our fates be the same?

Would the Crowthers make me suffer like she was?

But that was a question to which I already knew the answer. I was the Crowthers' way into the Witches Ball, where I'd stand on the auction block and be bid on by those reclusive Horned Gods whose dark power came from an ancient language. I'd be nothing more than an object, reduced down to body parts—the bits of me that could be used in their spells and potions and curses.

Graysen herded me to a far corner where the bookshelves met one another, and the smell of paper and ink greeted me. When I turned to face him, our eyes met. For a moment I saw the turmoil raging inside—guilt and remorse. Fury. My heart pounded wildly at the wintry blast of feelings lashing out at where I stood, chilling the blood in my veins, turning my bones brittle.