Page 118 of Incoronate
It was, objectively, the saddest bed I had ever seen in my life.
Trace crossed the room without a word and lowered himself onto it, stretching out with his arms folded behind his head and his eyes on the ceiling. I wasn’t sure if he was testing it or simply done pretending he had any energy left to stand. Probably both.
Dominic moved to the far end of the room where a low partition of rough-cut obsidian sectioned off a narrow alcove. He ducked inside with his hands clasped loosely at his back, taking stock as though he were memorizing the dimensions of something he expected to need later.
“Basin,” he reported flatly, reappearing a moment later.
I peered past him into the alcove and frowned at the shallow basin cut into a slab of dark stone. It was filled with water and had a folded piece of cloth placed neatly beside it. It seemed like such a mundane, ordinary thing, and for some reason, the sight of it made my chest feel heavy and tight.
I stepped back into the main room and leaned against the wall.
Trace still hadn’t moved from the bed, though he had one arm draped over his eyes now. The bond hummed between us,and I let myself sink into it, choosing to focus on that instead of the walls that suddenly felt closer than they had when we’d first walked in. Instead of supper, and the settlement, and all the other things I hadn’t let myself think about too deeply.
“Comfortable?” said Dominic, his eyes moving to Trace with the particular brand of dry amusement he reserved for moments when he found something genuinely funny but wasn’t going to admit it.
“No.” Trace didn’t move. “But it’s better than the floor.”
“That seems debatable,” I said, eyeing the sad, stuffed-fabric situation he was laying on.
“It would be a lot better with you on it.”
He said it without missing a beat, arm still draped over his eyes, like it was the most reasonable thing anyone had said all day.
“But then we’d both be uncomfortable.”
He pushed himself upright and leaned back against the wall, his eyes sweeping over me from my bare legs all the way up to my face. “You can always lay on top of me instead.”
The warmth that moved through me was immediate and completely traitorous given our circumstances.
“Charming,” said Dominic flatly. “I see vampire purgatory has done nothing to dull your priorities.”
Trace’s dimple popped on one side as he smirked. “I’m just trying to be supportive.”
Dominic arched a brow. “Structurally?”
“Whatever helps her sleep,” said Trace, entirely unrepentant.
“How generous of you.”
A laugh caught in my throat before I could stop it, more of an exhale than anything, and I pressed my lips together against the rest of it. Something about the sound of it in thisroom felt wrong. Out of place. Like wearing the wrong shoes to a funeral.
“You’re both impossible,” I said, shaking my head. “Can either of you be serious for five minutes?”
“Who said I wasn’t being serious?” said Trace. “The offer stands. Anytime, any place.”
I felt my cheeks warm again, my body apparently doing whatever the hell it felt like. “I’ll try to remember that while we’re figuring out a way out of vampire hell,” I teased, my eyes moving around the bare stone walls of the room, the low ceiling, the single basin of cold water waiting in the alcove.
I’d meant it as a joke, but the smile slipped from my face anyway as the reality of where we were settled back over me. Cael’s words from earlier were still circling, unhurried and patient, waiting for me to give them my full attention.
I slid down the wall and sat on the floor, pulling my knees up. “What do you make of Cael?” I asked, my voice dropping down to a whisper.
“He’s strategic,” answered Dominic, perusing my legs for a beat before climbing back up. “You don’t survive a place like this for forty years by being careless.”
I couldn’t argue that. “True,”
“Everything he does is in service of something. Hard to tell yet whether that something aligns with ours goals or not,” he added pointedly.
Also, true.
