Page 146 of Incoronate
“You can’t be serious.” I gawked at the instruments on the tray like they had personally offended me. “You’re not actually going to put those inside us,” I balked, my attention stalling on the scalpel.
“Oh, Hades, no,” crooned Annabelle, her tone dripping with sarcasm. “She just wheeled the cart out for the ambiance. Really pulls the room together, don’t you think?”
“Do you ever shut up?”
“No. Not usually,” she answered smugly.
“Well, you should really consider it sometime,” I said, my eyes still on the medical tray. “Might do wonders for your personality.”
Arianna made a sound that was almost a snort and then buried it immediately as Annabelle turned a withering look on her.
Anita snapped on a pair of latex gloves, yanking my attention back up to her.
“I’m going to make a small incision at the back of your neck and insert the shard there, just below the surface of your skin,” she informed as though she were simply discussing the weather.
My mouth went dry as fuck.
“Isn’t this a little excessive?”
I’d partaken in many a spell during my time in Hollow Hills and not once had any of them required someone coming at me with a scalpel.
“A standard talisman in this instance would be a liability. A potentially deadly one at that,” she said with a look that could have curled milk. “In the event that it ever broke, or was taken from you, or simply lost, you would instantly be pulledfrom your Timeline. And you wouldn’t be returned to this one. You would remain trapped in the in-between. Permanently.” She paused. “So, you tell me. Is it excessive?”
The image smacked me right upside the head. Reaching up, I gathered my hair and swept it over to one shoulder, clearing the back of my neck without another word.
“That’s what I thought,” she said and then ripped open a sealed alcohol packet with her fingers.
The cool press of the swab swept clean across the back of my neck as I fixed my eyes on the wall and kept them there. When she finally picked up the scalpel, I held my breath and braced for the pain, but it never bothered coming.
That, or I’d simply become far too accustomed to puncture holes being made in my body.
The thought made me snicker.
A few deft movements, followed by a small closure strip pressed flat against my neck and I was done.
“That was easy,” I said, pushing my hair off my shoulder.
“And just think of all the time you wasted crying about it,” jabbed Annabelle who had somehow managed to migrate over to Trace and was crowding his personal space with the subtlety of a streetwalker.
I didn’t say a word. I just crossed the room, slid my hand up Trace’s chest, and kissed him. Open-mouthed and unhurried, my tongue sliding against his until I felt his breath hitch and his free hand come up to grip my jaw, angling me deeper before I had the sense to pull back.
When I did, he was breathing harder than he had been a moment ago, pupils blown wide and dark, his hand still curved around my jaw like he didn’t want to let go.
“You’re up,” I told him and then turned to Annabelle who was gaping at me with an expression that was a mixture ofirritation and flat-out envy. I smiled at her, sweet as sugar and then walked over to the couch.
I dropped onto it and met Dominic’s gaze across the room, where he stood waiting for his turn. His mouth was skewed in a smirk as he raised his glass to me in a small approving toast.
I think he thought it was cute when I got territorial.
I smiled back and turning toward the bookshelf in the corner, resting my arm against the backrest as I tipped my head back and skimmed the titles without really reading them.
Distracted by the pretty, old books, I hadn’t even heard Arianna walk over to me. One moment the space beside me was empty and the next she was simply there, her amber eyes level with mine, her hands folded neatly in her lap.
I startled badly enough that my elbow slipped off the backrest.
She didn’t bother to acknowledge it.
“When you get there,” she said, her voice barely carrying past the two of us, “things will move faster than you expect. And there will come a moment when you hit the edge of what you can hold on your own.” Her eyes didn’t leave mine. “Don’t reach for what’s familiar. Reach for what you are.”
