Page 40 of Claimed By the Mothman (Greymarket Towers #1)

She was good. She was . Just this morning she had bathed in sunlight and afterglow, sore in all the best ways, a bonded woman wrapped in the scent of sleep and moth wings and love. But now? Now she was seventeen again, standing in a too-tight dress at a party she hadn’t been invited to.

She felt her still-damp hair going frizzy in its clip. The sundress she wore, that she loved, looked juvenile and cheap. There was a tiny hole in the hem that was a jagged reminder that she wasn’t polished enough to stand next to a woman who looked like she’d been born in a Vogue spread.

Nell shifted in her chair, trying to smooth the dress with damp palms, and forced a smile that felt like a lie in her own mouth. “Really good. Really.”

Elinore tilted her head, performative concern curving her lips just so. “What are you doing here?” she cooed brightly. “I didn’t know that farmer’s markets were your scene!”

Nell swallowed hard, her tongue thick. “I live here now,” she managed. “I moved here.”

“Oh!” Elinore gave a tinkling, delighted laugh that was just barely hemmed with mockery. “That’s so wonderful. It’s such a charming little town. You must love it. Especially with all the—” She fluttered her hand at the tables in the cafe. “—local color.”

The strawberries on Nell’s plate fuzzed out of focus.

Her skin was too loud and her body felt wrong.

This was exactly what it had been like, standing in the doorway of her bedroom that day.

Watching Elinore pull the covers up over her perfect body.

Watching Edward say, I didn’t expect you home this early.

She could feel herself regressing into that smaller version of herself—the one who wore flattering neutrals and kept her voice gentle and never, ever fought back or demanded to be chosen.

Nell nodded again, unable to stop. “Yep. It’s nice. It’s all good.” The words spilled out, as sour as spoiled wine.

Elinore smiled sweetly. “That’s so brave of you.”

Brave. Like she was a pity project. Like she was some sad story they’d dusted off for brunch conversation. Do you remember Nell? She used to be so vibrant. Now she’s just…brave.

Something cracked behind her sternum. It didn’t matter that she was bonded now. That her thighs still ached from pleasure. That her mark glowed and her soul was singing and someone believed she was worthy of worship. Because beneath those two shark-toothed smiles, she was crumbling into dust.

A chitter, horrifying and beautiful, lanced through the air, as sharp as bones being played like a violin. It scraped through her vertebrae and rattled down her bones, subtle as poison and cold as grave soil.

All around them, the café chatter dulled. Silverware clinked, then silenced. The soft jazz wheezed into stillness. Even the breeze paused and the ever-present, polite background birds forgot how to sing.

Next to her, a figure rose. She looked up.

Up.

Up.

Up.

Sig had risen from his chair with the kind of silence that emptied rooms, pressed against skin and made memories tremble. He now loomed behind her—unfolding, expanding, filling the air with something that was not human and never had been.

The shadow beneath their table twisted and bent upward. The tea in the carafe trembled. Inside the bakery, someone screamed briefly, the sound quickly muffling like it had been pulled under a bed.

Sig Samora. Her cryptid made of wing and vow and vengeance was burning from the inside.

And Edward—smug, oblivious, all diamond-sharp smiles and polished cruelty—took half a step closer.

—

Everything had been going so well.

They’d laughed. Eaten. Kissed. He had touched her constantly, because to not touch her felt wrong, and joy exploded in his heart whenever she leaned in to him. She had glowed under the weight of happiness and powdered sugar.

The moment her breath hitched, he felt it. A single sour note rippling outward, collapsing through his nerves.

In front of her—standing in sunlight he did not deserve—was the source of it. The origin. The wound. The ex. And he was smiling in a predatory way that made Nell shrink like a mouse before a hawk.

Sig rose. Around him, the breeze halted. A pigeon folded its wings mid-flutter and settled to the earth, trembling.

You will feel the pull, Harbinger, he heard, the memory of the Broodhome resonating in his ears. Layered wings whispering, overlapping like a chorus, pulsing in solemn cadence. The threads of fate are not yours to twist. Resist the urge to race down them.

But Sig did not care. Because his beloved was hurting. And the two before her, shining like fool’s good, brittle with ego and arrogance, were standing too close. They dared to make her shrink. To make her fold herself smaller so they could shine brighter.

He wasn’t supposed to interfere with mortal fate. But Sig had already broken one vow to save her, and now, without remorse, he nudged .

“I’m Edward McMillan,” the man said, extending a hand with a politician’s grin. “I don’t believe we’ve—”

“You are the Edward.”

The words did not rise, but settled like a dirge.

Edward froze, caught mid-handshake. “Uh… I mean, yes?”

Around them, Bellwether shuddered. A barista spilled milk and stepped back cautiously.

A rack of handmade jam jars trembled like glass chimes.

A dog three tables away gave a strangled whimper and slunk behind its owner’s legs.

The owner looked down, sighed, and turned his attention back to the crossword puzzle on his table.

Edward just laughed awkwardly and tried again. “So, are you a friend of Nell’s, or…?”

The question dangled smugly. Like this was his town. Like Nell was his to define.

Sig didn’t answer right away. Instead, he turned his gaze inward. Paths opened before him. Thousands. Tens of thousands. He chased down the timelines like prey.

Saw the ones where Edward grew old and fat and content. Too kind.

Saw the ones where Edward floundered, failed, and stumbled into quiet obscurity. Too easy.

Saw the ones where Edward tried to make amends, where he wrote long, sincere letters to Nell in his dotage. Too pathetic.

He dove deeper into the winding helix of might-be until he found the ones that bit.

—Edward at fifty-three , in a kitchen that smells of bleach and regret. A child at the table scrolling on a tablet. He offers a story about the past, about the first woman he married. The child shrugs and says, “Mom said not to listen to you.”

—Edward at sixty-one, standing at a sun-bleached yard at a graduation party, alone. The child—sharp-jawed, beautiful, distant—introducing her partner. Edward offers his hand. The partner nods. The handshake doesn’t come.

—Edward at seventy, staring at an empty inbox. His name not on the wedding invitation.

The letter says “due to space limitations.” He knows that’s a lie.

With all the quiet gravity of a falling guillotine, Sig returned to the present, lifted his gaze, and spoke.

“You.” His voice slid prophecy into syllables. “You, who mistook comfort for love. Who measured devotion by silence and called it peace.”

Edward stiffened. The smile congealed on his face. Elinore shifted beside him, uncertainty creeping into her features. Sig reached down, settling his hand on Nell’s shoulder.

“You, who saw softness and thought it smallness. Who plucked your own future from another’s skin and called it destiny.”

Edward’s pupils dilated. The flush drained from his cheeks. A muscle jumped in his jaw.

“You will build your home on quiet regret,” Sig intoned, voice dipped in inevitability. “And when the noise dies down, you will find no one left who speaks your language. The hum in your chest will still long before your children know you.”

Edward’s lips parted, then closed. Then parted again. No sound emerged.

The café’s jazz remained dead. The breeze continued to hold its breath. A jam jar toppled from a nearby cart and rolled in a perfect spiral, untouched, until it stopped at Nell’s feet.

Then Sig turned to her. The Elinore.

The young woman froze. Her grip on Edward’s arm tightened, manicured nails pressing into his sleeve. For the first time since she arrived, the confident lift of her head faltered.

He saw her clearly. Not the shine, or the skin-deep beauty, but the absence beneath. An echo of everything Nell had been told she should be, but nothing else.

“And you.” Sig’s voice lowered even further, like the sea pulling back before the tsunami strikes. “You, who sip sweetness like wine and spit back bitterness.”

Elinore blinked—once. Slowly. As if the words didn’t make sense until they lodged deep and refused to dislodge.

“You who measure love in mirrors. Who mistake adoration for security. You whose voice echoes only when reflected.”

The young woman shook her head, a tiny, brittle movement. “I—I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

But she did. Oh, she did. Sig saw her reflection in the spiral of futures.

Watched her paraded on arm and pedestal, smiling through years of curated moments and beautiful silences.

She would be cherished, yes. Until novelty faded.

Until fatigue set in. Until laughter became performance.

Until devotion dulled and she was no longer the trophy, but the weight.

“You will be worshiped,” he intoned, “until the novelty fades. Until silence finds you.”

His eyes—terrible, glowing—held hers. “And when the end comes, you will look into the dark and realize your own name no longer answers. Your reflection will be your only witness and your only mourner.”

Elinore recoiled a half-step like the ground had shifted beneath her. Her gaze darted to Edward, to Nell, to anyone who might soften the moment. But no one spoke.

A woman at a nearby table sipped her tea, eyes lowered. The man behind the bakery counter ducked into the back. Two tables away, a man calmly stirred his coffee, then folded his napkin with delicate precision.