Page 40 of Incoronate
“How do we do that?” asked Tessa, breathless.
“By tethering her to one of you.” Anita’s eyes swept the room again, pausing on everyone as if to evaluate their worthiness. “An anchor strong enough to take on the excess magic and bleed it off safely. This way, the load is split. The corruption slows and eventually, balances itself out.”
“The stronger the anchor, the better this works,” added Annabelle, her brow arched high. “Weaklings need not apply.”
I absorbed their words in numb, disjointed pieces, trying to force them into some kind of sense. They wanted to temporarilytetherme to someone else so the magic inside me had somewhere to go. Somewhere else to spread. Just enough to stop it from killing me. It sounded like it could work. Maybe. I just had no idea if something like that was actually possible. Or safe for that matter.
Before anyone else could speak, a chair scraped loudly against the wood floor, drawing everyone’s attention to my sister who was now standing by the fireplace.
“I’ll do it,” she said, lifting her chin. “I’ll be her anchor. I don’t care what it costs me as long as it keeps her alive.”
“That’s a nice sentiment, but it can’t be you, Slay Belle,” informed Annabelle, looking amused by something.
“Excuse me?” Tessa’s eyes narrowed on her with anger. “Why the fuck not?”
Annabelle’s smile widened just enough for us to know it was meant to be cruel. “Because, duh. You’re with child.”
All the blood drained from Tessa’s face as the room plunged into a silence so complete it felt like the floor had vanished beneath us.
What the fuck did she just say?
13. WOLF AT THE DOOR
Annabelle’s words landed in the living room like a thrown grenade, the shockwave rolling outward until every one of us felt the pull of the vacuum she’d left behind. For one suspended moment, time seemed to fracture—no movement, no sound, just the visceral gut-punch of a revelation raining down on us like ash.
My sister was pregnant.
The words echoed in my skull, over and over again, as if my mind couldn’t quite decide where to put them.
I stared at Tessa, my thoughts lagging a beat behind my vision, struggling to make sense of what I was seeing. She stood rigid near the fireplace, one hand braced against the back of the chair, her expression caught somewhere between shock and defiance.
Of all the things I’d been prepared to hear, that hadn’t been one of them.
Under different circumstances, it might have exploded into something bigger. Questions. Panic. A thousand racing how, when, and what-ifs. But the rot burning through my veins dulled everything into a haze. Even surprise arrived muted and distant, as though it belonged to someone else entirely.
Gabriel dragged a hand down his face, his fingers pressing into his eyes before dropping back to his sides. The gesture was the only crack in his composure, the only hint that Annabelle’s revelation had landed at all. He didn’t look at Tessa. He didn’t look at anyone at all.
I couldn’t tell if it was because he was upset or because he already knew.
“You had no right,” seethed Tessa, glaring at Annabelle and looking as though she were going to launch across the room and skin her alive on the spot.
“It was going to come out eventually,” replied Annabelle without an ounce of remorse. “Besides, outing you wasn’t the goal here. You volunteered, and I simply told you why you couldn’t do it.”
“That’s real convenient,” muttered Morgan from across the room. She was huddled close together with Carly who looked horrified, like this was the last place on earth she wanted to be. “Still a shit thing to do.”
Annabelle shrugged. “Next time don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to.”
“I can still do it,” said Tessa, her voice coming out shaky but with an unmistakable fierceness beneath it. “I can still be her anchor.”
“Absolutely not.” Anita’s tone left no room for debate. “The ritual requires drawing on your core reserves. We’d be putting both you and the child at risk. It’s non-negotiable.”
Tessa looked like she wanted to fight it, but the protest died on her lips. Her hands curled into fists at her sides as she glanced at me, something tender and helpless crossing her face before she locked it back down.
“It needs to be someone she’d let in without fighting it,” continued Anita as if the interruption had never happened. “Someone she’d trust with everything and who’s strong enough to carry the power with her. Someone—”
“I’ve walked through hell for far less,” said Dominic, his dark eyes burning like embers in the night as they latched onto mine and refused to let go. “It would be a privilege to carry her darkness.”
“I’mher soulmate.” Trace stiffened beneath me, his fingers flexing against my shoulder. “If anyone’s going to be her anchor, it should be me.”
