Page 160 of Incoronate
51.THE CALM BEFORE
The rain didn’t stop on the drive over to Temple. If anything it got worse, sheeting down across the windshield in slow, christening waves, turning the world outside the SUV into something blurred and indistinct. The wipers worked in steady arcs and never quite caught up. Trace drove in silence with one hand on the wheel and the other resting loosely against his thigh, his jaw set and his eyes on the road.
Dominic sat in the front passenger seat with one ankle crossed over the opposite knee, looking like he had personally invited the storm and was looking forward to its arrival.
I sat in the middle of the back seat. Far enough from either window that nothing could reach me without going through metal first, my hand curled around the hilt of the Sword of Angelus inside my jacket. Just to be safe.
The rain was coming down hard, but somehow, it almost felt like a baptism.
That was the word my mind kept coming back to, even though I’d really never been a religious girl. There was something about the way the water came down, indifferent and absolute, washing the world clean ahead of us. Like the storm itself had decided to come along for the ride. Like the rain knew what the night was about to require and had decided to consecrate the asphalt under our wheels.
It felt full circle in a way I couldn’t quite put into words. The very first time I’d ever driven into Temple it had been in the rain. The day my uncle had taken me there, back when I still believed the Order was the closest thing I would find to safety. Maybe even a family. Back before I knew that the building we were driving toward had been built on the bonesof every truth they’d ever buried about my father, my blood, and my future.
Now I was driving back to it as the very thing they had spent my entire life trying to make sure I never became.
I pressed my fingertips against the glass of the window and watched the water sluice down the other side of it.
“A penny for your thoughts?” asked Dominic, turning his head just enough to glance back at me from the front passenger seat.
I smiled, remembering the first time he said that to me. God, it felt like a lifetime ago now. “I’m just thinking.”
“About?” He quirked his brow.
“About the first time I drove to Temple with Uncle Karl and how terrified I was.”
“And now?”
I looked up and held his gaze. “And now I’m terrified for them.”
Trace’s eyes flicked to the rearview mirror and caught mine, just for a beat, before returning to the road. He didn’t say anything. Then again, he didn’t need to. The bond between us was humming steadily, and through it I could feel everything he was feeling. The fear. The immovable certainty. The love that had twisted itself so completely through the rest of it that the three were no longer separable.
‘Fret not, love’, said Dominic into my mind, his voice as smooth as silk against the inside of my skull. ‘Whatever waits for us in there, we’ll burn it to the ground together and then make the ruins blush.’
Trace shot Dominic a look, his brow pulling in tightly. “Could you not?”
I blinked at the back of his head, then turned to Dominic, who hadn’t moved an inch from his comfortable sprawl in the passenger seat.
“Not what?” asked Dominic, the picture of innocence.
“The scratchy mind thing. While I’m driving.” Trace exhaled hard through his nose. “It’s distracting.”
“Apologies, Romeo. I’ll try to keep my private conversations with our Queen to mortal hours of the day from now on.”
“Yeah, real big of you.”
I bit down on a smile and leaned forward between the two front seats, bracing my forearms on the center console so I could keep both of them in my sightline. “You’re going to have to give him a minute,” I said to Dominic. “He’s still adjusting.”
“Adjusting,” repeated Dominic, like the word amused him. He turned his head just enough to look at me where I’d propped myself between them. “To what, precisely?”
“To you in his head. To me in his head. To the three of us all being able to hear each other now.”
The corner of his mouth pulled up a fraction. “Well. He may have to adjust quickly. I don’t imagine I’ll be giving up the privilege any time soon.”
“Heard that,” said Trace flatly, eyes still on the road.
“Yes,” said Dominic without looking away from me. “That was rather the point seeing as I said that part out loud.”
Trace’s lips twitched but he didn’t take his eyes off the windshield. Dominic exhaled a breath that was almost a laugh and let his head tip lazily back against the headrest.
