Page 4 of Incoronate
“He was too specific,” I went on despite the discomfort, because I needed them to understand the severity of what he’d said. To understand that we couldn’t just brush this under the rug. “He wasn’t guessing. He wasn’t throwing random shit at the wall to see what would stick. He said—” I hesitated, my cheeks burning as I met their eyes. “‘All that fighting. And fornicating. And slothful laying about.’”
Neither one of them said a single word. I knew they were doing the same thing I was…replaying the last few weeks in their minds. The arguments. The tension. The indecision. The nights we’d tried to forget the world was closing in around us. The mistakes we couldn’t take back.
The more I thought about it, the less it felt like coincidence, and as much as I didn’t want to follow that line of thinking all the way through, it was already there, forcing itself into the forefront of my mind.
Trace was the first to break the silence, though his voice lacked most of the punch it had from earlier.
“How could they have worked a spell on us when the house is warded?” he asked, his voice coming out low and bemused, as though he couldn’t reconcile any of it in his mind. He turned to face Dominic, and I followed his gaze because frankly, I’d been asking myself the same exact question.
“I can’t say with any certainty. They would’ve needed to place a talisman on the premises, and I don’t see how they could have done so with the protections Caleb put in place.” He took a slow sip of his drink before finishing, “Unless, of course, he didn’t.”
“Didn’t what?” asked Trace.
“Put the wards in place.”
“What?No. That’s impossible.” I shook my head, cutting the thought off before it could go any further. “Caleb’s our friend. He wouldn’t do that. If he said the house is warded, then it’s warded.”
“And that conviction is founded on what, precisely?” asked Dominic as he stretched his arm along the back of the sofa, his posture maddeningly casual. “Perhaps the Order got to him first.”
“Then he would have told us,” I fired back, certain of it. “He would have told me his hands were tied—that he couldn’t help us. He wouldn’t have pretended everything was fine and then betrayed me.” I turned to Trace, looking for validation. For backup. “Tell him.”
Trace hesitated, just barely, but it still felt like a gut-punch.
“Look, I don’t think Caleb would do something like that either, at least not by choice,” he said carefully, his voice dropping so low on the last part that it felt like it was vibrating over my skin. “But I don’t think we should take anything off the table. Not until we’re sure.”
“You can’t seriously believe Caleb would sell us out,” I snapped, anger flaring in my chest that we were even having this conversation. “Youknowhim, Trace. He wouldn’t do that to us. To me! Not after everything we’ve been through!”
It wasn’t him.It couldn’t be.
He’d stood beside me too many times. Taught me how to control my magic when I was still flailing. Bled with us. Fought with us. Risked himself without hesitation. Caleb didn’t hedge. He didn’t play both sides. He wouldn’t smile to my face and hand me over to the Order in the same breath.
Dominic watched me for a long moment, his expression completely unreadable. “People don’t always betray you because they want to, angel. Sometimes they do it because they’re given no other option. They’d only need leverage,” he went on evenly, his face the picture of calm. “Something he wouldn’t be able to walk away from. Something that would make his compliance feel like the lesser evil.”
My breath caught on his words because I knew exactly what he was referring to.
Carly.
Caleb’s twin. His weak point. The one person he’d never be able to sacrifice, no matter the cost. My stomach dropped as the pieces shifted, rearranging themselves into a shape I didn’t want to look at.
What if the Order didn’t need Caleb to betray us willingly? What if all they needed was leverage over him?
The thought of Caleb betraying us, of the Order breaking us so easily made my head spin in a way that I wasn’t sure I could recover from.
If they’d threatened her—if they’d promised to spare his sister in exchange for access, or silence, or one small oversight—then none of this would have required an outright lie. Just an omission. Just obedience given under duress.
Trace exhaled slowly, rubbing a hand over his face. “If that’s what happened, then Caleb may not even realize how much damage he actually caused,” he said, though I wasn’t sure if he was answering my thoughts or if he’d just arrived at the same conclusion I had.
“Yeah, well, that doesn’t make it any better,” I answered numbly.
“Or any less inexcusable,” added Dominic, his eyes never leaving mine. “However, it does tell us where the Order is willing to strike and just how small our trust circle really needs to be.”
He said it so evenly, so matter-of-factly, like it was simply the natural conclusion of everything that had happened tonight. And maybe it was. Maybe that was what finally undid me. Not the ritual or the Horsemen, not even Caleb’s possible betrayal. Just the cold, hard reality of how small and exposed we actually were.
“I can’t do this anymore,” I finally said as a deep and unfamiliar exhaustion flooded in, sinking past skin and muscle and bone until it wedged itself somewhere I couldn’t shake no matter how hard I tried. “I can’t keep pulling at this right now. My mind is all over the place and it’s making my head hurt.”
“Should I be worried?” asked Trace, lifting my chin so I had no choice but to meet his eyes.
I shook my head, though I wasn’t entirely sure of the truth myself. “I’m just tired.”
