Page 68 of Incoronate
“It’s not working!” shouted Trace over my screaming. “Nothing’s reaching her. She’s fucking hurting herself!”
“I am well aware,” he bit out, struggling to contain me.
“What the fuck do we do?”
“I. Don’t. Know.”
“You don’t know?!” snapped Trace, the panic in his tone overriding everything else.
“Would you shut up and let me think,” snarled Dominic, his grip on my legs tightening hard enough to bruise.
Trace gave it all but five seconds before he shoved Dominic off me and growled, “Fuck this.”
“What are you—” started Dominic, but Trace was already moving.
One moment he was beside me, the next he was straddling my body, his weight pinning me down like a physical anchor as his hands moved to frame my face.
“I’m sorry,” he said gently, his eyes meeting mine for just a second before I heard the soft click of his fangs descending. “But I’m not losing you.”
Then he struck.
His fangs tore into my throat like knives, rearranging everything in my head as if to make room for him. Pain lanced through me first, immediate and bright, stealing the breath from my lungs. But it lasted only a heartbeat before the venom flooded my system, turning the agony into something else entirely. Something hot and liquid and consuming.
The voices screamed in protest, their commands still clawing at my mind, but Trace pulled harder. Drank deeper. Taking more than he should have. More than was safe.
The pull to hunt started to fade, the Horsemen’s commands losing their grip as the rush of his bite took over. Pleasure washed over me in waves, pushing their voices further and further back until they became nothing more thandistant whispers. Background noise I could barely hear over the intoxicating warmth spreading through my veins.
He kept drinking.
He drank until the pleasure turned hazy and soft around the edges. Until my thrashing slowed, and then stopped entirely as my body went slack beneath him.
And still, he didn’t stop.
He kept drinking until the haze finally darkened and the shadows rose up to yank me under. And somewhere in that growing nothingness, I felt the voices finally slip away completely, their hold on me dissolving like smoke through a closed fist.
And then there was nothing at all.
* * *
Consciousness returned slowly, like surfacing through deep water, my limbs heavy and unresponsive as I fought my way up through the murky depths toward a light I could barely see.
The first thing I registered was presence. Someone sitting to my left. My hand being held. A thumb brushing slow circles against my skin as if the contact alone could pull me the rest of the way back. The touch tugged me further toward awareness, though some part of me wanted to stay in the dark where everything was simple. My eyelids felt heavy. Too heavy. But I forced them open anyway.
The soft glow from the lamp painted everything in warm amber. I stared at the ceiling for a moment, cataloging, taking everything in. The cotton sheets beneath me. The faint ache in my wrists. Metal cuffs.
Movement drew my attention to the right. Dominic rose from the armchair he’d been sitting in and crossed over to me in two strides as Trace tightened his hold on my hand resting above my head on the pillow.
They both looked like they’d aged a decade in the span of however long I’d been out. Hair disheveled. Shadows carved deep under their eyes. Blood on Trace’s shirt.
Myblood.
Dominic’s hand came to my face, his cool fingers brushing against my cheek as he searched my expression. His other hand pushed matted hair away from my forehead. On my other side, Trace leaned in closer, his eyes moving across my features like he was looking for something specific.
“Angel?” Dominic’s voice sounded almost too tense to be his. “Can you hear me?”
I managed a nod, but the movement felt mechanical.
The tension in his jaw loosened just a hair as Trace let out a sharp breath.
