Page 42 of Incoronate
It was a small, blackened thing—no bigger than a walnut—made of wax and hair twisted together in a tight, deliberate braid. Sigils had been burned into the surface, and dried herbs were pressed into the wax, all of it stained rust-red with what I could only assume was blood.
“How did The Order get that in here?” asked Trace, craning his neck to get a good look at it. “We had the entire place warded.”
“Well, there’s only one way to know for sure,” said Anita and this time, her gaze went to Arianna who quickly nodded in response.
Apparently, words weren’t completely necessary for them to communicate with each other.
Without warning, Arianna let out a rough exhale and then rolled her eyes into the back of her head, her chin rising ever so slightly as if to angle herself to the light.
My breath caught in my chest. Because I’d seen her do that before, even if I couldn’t fully pull the memory forward just then.
I didn’t even have a chance to attempt to dig it out of the haze in my mind before Arianna’s eyes were already back to normal, her gaze clearing as she whipped her head suddenly toward the corner of the room where Morgan and Carly were still standing closely together.
“Shebrought it here.”
Morgan’s entire body went ramrod straight, her hands curling into fists at her sides. “I most certainly did not,” she snapped, her voice pitching defensively.
“Not you,” said Arianna, a touch of annoyance in her tone. “The other one.”
Morgan’s mouth popped open. “Carly?”
That was all it took.
Dominic charged, his body dissolving into shadow and momentum so fast it left a gust of wind in its wake. The air snapped where he’d been standing, a violent displacement that rattled the windows and sent a ripple through the room. I barely had time to register what happened before he reappeared halfway across the living room.
One moment Carly was standing behind Morgan, wide-eyed and frozen. The next, Dominic was there, his hand already fisted in the front of her sweater, hauling her forward like she weighed nothing at all.
Carly let out a blood-curdling scream, but Caleb and Gabriel were already there, stepping in to protect her.
Gabriel crashed into Dominic, shoving him back a step as his arm came up across Dominic’s sternum like an iron bar. Without missing a beat, Caleb threw himself in front of his sister at the same time, putting himself squarely in Dominic’s line of fire. His arms were spread wide and his palms wereglowing with the last residual magic he probably had to spend, but desperation had made him reckless enough to try anyway.
My heart pounded as I looked up and met Dominic’s eyes. There was nothing human left in them. No warmth. No restraint. Just a bottomless, obliterating fury that hollowed me out on sight. His lips peeled back in a snarl, and the sound that tore out of him was more beast than man.
Carly reeled back with a choked gasp, her hands flying up defensively as she clambered behind Morgan.
“Stand down,” gritted Gabriel, his voice strained with the effort of holding his brother back. His boots scraped against the floor as Dominic pushed forward, testing the resistance.
“Get out of my way, brother.”
“This isn’t the way, Dominic. Back off and give her a chance to explain herself.”
“Explain herself?” Dominic’s glare turned murderous as his voice dropped to a lethal register, each word wrapped with barely contained violence. “She invited death into this house. She let them inside. Gave them access to the one person—” He faltered, his wrath fracturing into something rawer before he quickly buried it and turned his rage back to Carly. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? What you allowed to happen to her? Stupid, stupid girl.”
Caleb widened his stance, planting himself more firmly in front of his sister even as his hands trembled.
Dominic’s eyes cut to him like an executioner’s blade. “Move.”
“She’s my sister. You know I can’t do that.”
The smile that pulled at Dominic’s mouth was terrible. Painfully beautiful and cold as winter. “If you’re attempting to pull at my heart strings, be warned. I have not a single one.”
“She made a mistake,” pleaded Caleb, doing everything he could to save Carly from Dominic’s wrath.
“A mistake is forgetting to prime your supper before you bleed it out,” he said, baring his teeth. “Inviting the executioner’s hand into someone’s home is murder. The only question is whether it’s premeditated or merely convenient.”
“I didn’t mean for this to happen!” The words burst from Carly in a desperate rush. “They told me it would help her. They said—they promised it would only affect the Horsemen. That it would protect everyone. Keep us safe from what was coming. They told me what would happen if the Horsemen didn’t succeed. I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought—”
“You thought of nothing but yourself,” growled Dominic, his free hand curling and uncurling at his side like he was physically restraining it from reaching for her throat. “You made a choice to put her fate in enemy hands. Do you truly think your fear somehow excuses you? That your good intentions give back what’s been stolen from her?”
