Page 20 of Claimed By the Mothman (Greymarket Towers #1)

She followed the path from the HARBINGER column to LUSTRUM. “And the Lustrum was… my Doom. That’s what he sensed. He was coming toward me because he’s supposed to watch it happen. Be present for the unraveling.”

Goldie beamed. “Right. You’re so smart. I love you.”

Her finger moved to the BOND column. “But then he didn’t just watch . He did the whole claiming thing and… what? That hijacked everything? The Lustrum had to let me go?”

Goldie nodded, but her expression tightened. “Yeah, but because you were already in the Lustrum when he made the claim, I’m not sure what that means. I haven’t found anything that describes a case like yours where someone gets claimed mid-unravel. But if I had to guess…”

She glanced at Nell, then back at the page. “You were in the middle of something ancient, and he reached in and pulled you sideways. And now…you’re stuck between two bonds.”

Nell blinked. “What the actual fuck, Goldie.”

Goldie gave her a look, part grimace, part apology, and part oh babe, I hope I’m wrong.

Nell stared down at the matrix, her heart thudding like a too-fast metronome. Her opal ring pulsed once—low, deep, not urgent but undeniable. And beneath that, the hum in her chest gave a faint, answering throb.

“Well, shit,” she muttered. “That actually makes sense, doesn’t it?”

—

Nell didn’t speak on the walk home.

Goldie did. Quiet, gentle commentary about the weirdness of the day . She made soft jokes about cursed indexes and haunted margins, as if the sound of her own voice could keep the edge of the world from curling inward.

Nell appreciated it. The cadence of Goldie’s words kept her tethered, gave her something solid to hold onto.

Around them, the city flexed. Lights flickered out of sync with the hour. Awnings lifted against a wind that wasn’t there. Someone’s radio skipped, then played backwards for a beat before dying entirely.

Nell didn’t mention it. Neither did Goldie.

By the time they reached Greymarket Towers, the sky had softened into that impossible hour between gold and gray.

“You sure you’re okay?” Goldie asked, hovering at the doorway of the apartment building..

Nell nodded. “Not even a little,” she said. “But I’ll text if I see the doors. Or, you know, feel like throwing myself at the mothman upstairs again.”

Goldie grinned, gave a two-finger salute, and disappeared down the block.

Nell climbed the stairs slowly. The building greeted her with its usual comfortable hush. But behind the hush, something felt… attuned.

Like it was waiting to see which version of her had come back.

Nell’s gaze drifted toward the elevator at the end of the hall. And then she was walking without thinking. One foot in front of the other until she was inside, pressing the up button.

The hallway on the fourteenth floor smelled faintly of rain. The carpet muffled her steps, and the lighting was all wrong—too golden, too still, like a painting that hadn’t decided if it wanted to move.

She stopped in front of 14C. Her knuckles hovered over the door.

This is stupid. This is so, so stupid.

Her cheeks burned hot with leftover adrenaline and the kind of memory that made her thighs clench before she could stop them.

Straightening her shoulders, she knocked—two quick, sharp raps.

Footsteps approached. Soft. Careful. The door creaked open.

Sig stood there, tall and shadowed. His eyes glowed infinitesimally brighter, and he winced, as if her presence had scraped against something raw inside him.

Her stomach flipped. She wanted to bolt. She wanted to scream. She wanted to kiss him. She wanted to punch him in the throat. She clenched her fists.

Anger. Righteous, justified, badly-needed anger. He claimed you. He didn’t ask. He might die. You might die. You are not here because he has wings and red eyes and—

“I need to talk to you,” she said sharply, cutting her thoughts off at the knees.

His antennae, pulled tight against his brow, twitched. “Yes,” he said, the word low and rough in his throat. He stepped aside with a small, deliberate gesture. She hesitated for half a heartbeat, then stepped into the room like a woman walking into her own damnation.

She should have sent a letter. A memo. Filed a metaphysical complaint with the building or left a flaming bag of dog shit outside his door with a Post-it that said don’t claim people without consent you lunatic .

Anything would’ve been better than standing in the middle of his space while her thighs thrummed.

Her gaze drifted toward the table in the corner and she immediately regretted it as she saw that its legs were warped , bent outward and back as if they’d fought and lost to contain something feral. Which, of course, they had.

She looked away, fast, and crossed her arms over her chest, fists tucked tight under her elbows like she could physically hold herself together.

Sig was watching her, barely breathing, barely moving. His face was too long, too sharp, too strange. But also? Kind of hot, now that she really looked at it.

Godsdamn it, body.

“Would you like tea?” he asked.

The words startled her like a slap. “What?”

“Tea,” he said again, gently. “It is natural to offer refreshment when a visitor has come calling, yes?”

He moved smoothly before she could answer, crossing the floor and beginning to work with a kind of revenant calm.

He grabbed a kettle that looked older than time, placed it on the burner and gracefully twisted open a cabinet to capture two mugs in his large, clawed hands.

She watched him curiously as he drew handfuls of leaves from a drawer and began setting a tea service with the grace of a dancer.

“You’re good at that,” she said, before she could stop herself.

He didn’t look back, but something in his posture shifted, like her voice had landed somewhere tender. “I have practiced,” he said, voice steady. There was an awkward pause as the cups continued to clink. The kettle suddenly whistled, far sooner than she would have expected.

He turned and stepped towards her, extending a mug like a peace offering.

She took it cautiously. The ceramic was warm, solid, and beautiful.

Handmade, clearly. The glaze shimmered in shifting hues of indigo and violet, catching the light in a way that made her throat tighten.

It looked like the ring. Of course it looked like the ring.

Sig moved with careful grace, gliding to the bend-legged table and sitting down. Nell stood where she was, her knees locking as memory hit her like a body blow. That table. This table. She coughed.

A soft, chirring sound escaped Sig’s throat and his cheeks flushed a faint, luminous blue. He reached for his cup, then stopped, hands twitching, fingers curling against themselves in anxious choreography.

“How is your shoulder?” he asked. His voice cracked halfway through the words.

Nell squeezed her eyes shut. Gods above. You can do this, Nell. You are a grown-ass woman. You are capable of having a civilized discussion with the crypid who threw you on a table and—

“I need answers,” she blurted, her voice too loud, cutting clean across the tension like a knife.

“Yes.” He did not look at her, instead keeping his eyes fixed on his hands.

“So…” she began, slowly and carefully. Hesitantly, she stepped forward until she arrived at the table and she clumsily plopped down in a chair, her knees folding beneath her too quickly.

“I was at the library today. I read about Harbinger bonds.”

His antennae twitched at the word.

“You are a Harbinger, right?” She hated how small her voice sounded.

“Yes,” he said again, quietly. He tilted his head to the side, and a small clicking sound escaped his throat, like a lock falling into a latch.

She took a long sip of her tea to keep from screaming. “Apparently, if the bonds are rejected, it can lead to, um…” Her eyes flicked to his hands— hands she’d felt digging into her hips, her thighs —and she swallowed hard. “Death.”

“Yes,” he said a third time. Barely audible.

“That’s real? Not just theory?”

He didn’t answer right away. Just kept staring at his hands around the mug. She remembered how those same claws had gripped her as he—

Stop it, Nell. Stop it. She wasn’t sure if she was going to cry or climb across the table and ruin both their lives.

“It depends on the Harbinger,” he said, voice nearly a whisper. His wings gave a slow, involuntary flutter. Click. “And the lingering. A bond claim is not meant to hover without landing for long.”

Her chest ached. “And you did this anyway?”

Ruby-red eyes snapped to hers.

Her breath caught. She saw him as he’d been the day before, towering over her, glowing with heat and violence and need. Her body recognized it before her mind could catch up. Her thighs clenched and her nipples peaked and oh gods above what is wrong with me—

“I just—” Her voice cracked. “I don’t understand what happened. I don’t understand what we did last night—”

A pulse of heat rolled through her pelvis and she gasped. Her grip tightened on the cup and memory hit—his mouth on her throat, the grasping of his fingers, the way her body had opened for him like it had been waiting for just that moment.

Sig’s hands slammed down flat on the table with a loud, jarring thud . His fingers splayed, claws digging into the wood, anchoring himself. He inhaled sharply. Shuddered.

Neither of them moved for a long moment.

“What occurred yesterday… was an aberration.” The muscles in his jaw jumped, and a flicker of something dangerous flashed in his expression. “It is not unheard of for such an event to follow the act of claiming.”

Heat surged low in Nell’s belly, traitorous and sharp. Her thighs pressed together beneath the table, pulsing slowly with want and need. Just her body reacting to some shit with no permission from her brain whatsoever.

All the gods above, I am about to leap his bones. Think of something unsexy. Tax season. The DMV. Raw chicken breast pooling on a plate.

Nothing worked. She was drowning in the memory of his mouth, his voice, the way he'd held her like she belonged to him.

“As you may have discovered in your research,” Sig said, each word sounding like it was pulled unwillingly from his chest, “claims are not made without courtship. And so…an event such as last night…would be considered… expected.” A pause. “Even welcome.”

Her whole body buzzed. Fuck fuck fuckity fuck fuck fuck.

“But,” he said, voice lower now, almost broken, “there has been no courtship. And so this is… unprecedented.”

The word hung between them like a guillotine blade. They were breathing too loudly now. Both of them. Not quite panting, but close. The table was too small. The room too warm. Her skin too tight.

Nell cleared her throat, trying to ground herself. “So now what? I have to accept the bond or we’re just in this liminal space?”

“You may also reject it,” he said after a moment in a voice rougher than sandpaper. “It is not a chain.”

“What if I just reject it right now—”

A low, grinding pressure snapped through her ribs like an invisible rope pulled too tight. She stumbled back from the table, her chair scraping loudly behind her. Her vision went white-hot at the edges.

The opal ring on her finger flared with sudden heat—tightening, tightening, like it wanted to burrow into her bone.

Her lungs seized. Her knees buckled. Everything went dark for a second, and when her vision cleared, she was on the floor, breath heaving. The tea mug lay shattered beside her, its contents blooming like across the floor.

A soft trill filled the room. Sig crouched over her. His hand hovered just above her shoulder, not quite touching, but close. Too close. His entire body was vibrating with restraint. And his eyes—those terrible, beautiful, terrified eyes—were fixed on her like she might disappear if he looked away.

“That was the Lustrum, wasn’t it?” Nell whispered.“If I reject the bond, those doors decide it’s open season on me?”

“I do not know for certain,” Sig said hoarsely. “But yes. It is possible.”

“Possible,” she echoed, shaking. Her voice cracked at the end, and that only pissed her off more.

“The Lustrum has tasted you, and now it is curious.” He paused. “If you do not bond with me, it may return. The ritual was interrupted. I acted out of instinct, not—”

“Great,” she barked, cutting him off. “So I’m just fucked either way. Good to know.”

She clutched her stomach, one hand flying to the floor for balance. The pull toward him was visceral , like her own nerves were betraying her.

The space between them shimmered with heat and fury and something achingly tender, and she hated all of it.

“This isn’t fair, ” she whispered, and her voice broke. “I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t want—” She gestured wildly between them. “Whatever the hell this is.”

“I will not allow this to remain so,” Sig said, voice low but trembling with urgency. “Nell—I take full responsibility. I will find a way to sever it, to shield you, to—”

“Don’t,” she hissed.

His mouth snapped shut like she’d struck him.

She scrambled to her feet. “Thanks for the tea,” she said flatly. “Leave me the fuck alone.”

He didn’t move to stop her, but she could feel the sorrow blooming from him, pressing against her chest like a second heartbeat, echoing in her ribs. It made her stomach turn. Made her want to scream. Or cry. Or go back and—

No.

No.

She reached for the doorknob, yanked it open, and slammed it shut behind her.