Page 2 of Incoronate
“Before or after I ported back here?” I asked dryly, unsure which of the two was worse at this point.
Trace frowned, his brows creasing as though he already regretted asking the question.
That made two of us.
“I remember everything.” My gaze flicked to Dominic as he crossed the room to join us. He took the seat beside me on the couch and then pressed one of the tumblers into the palm of my hand.
“Start at the beginning, angel.”
“Right,” I said, a humorless breath catching in my throat. As if starting at the beginning had ever gone well for me.
For a second, I considered how much easier this would be if I didn’t remember any of it. Or better yet, if I could skip ahead to a version of the story where I’d never touched the book at all.
Unfortunately, things never really worked out like that for me.
Mostly because of…well,me.
“Everything started off fine,” I began as I set my drink on the coffee table without touching it. My stomach was already sour enough without adding alcohol to the mix. “I ported to Temple like we planned, and for once, all hell didn’t break loose. The study was completely empty. No guards. No wards. Nothing. The whole thing went off without a hitch.” A quiet breath slipped out of me, half disbelief, half something that felt like irony.
After weeks of hiding behind wards and reinforced walls, doing nothing but waiting, it had felt like movement. Like progress. Like we were finally getting somewhere instead of just waiting around to be picked off one by one. I should have known nothing good ever came that easy.
“All I had left to do was wait for the timer to go off and port back. And I swear to God, I had every intention of doing that,” I said and then swallowed against the knot at the back of my throat. “Until I saw it.”
The divot between Trace’s brows deepened. “Saw what?”
“The Sang Noir,” answered Dominic before I could say anything. He didn’t look at Trace when he spoke, his eyes were fixed on me, just like they always were. His jaw flexed once. “Please tell me you didn’t do the one thing you were explicitly warned not to do.”
Heat shot up my neck, reddening my cheeks before I could stop it.
What a fucking question. Did he even know me at all?
“How could I not, Dominic? It wasright thereon the conference table! I barely had to take a step to grab it,” I said, the defensiveness in my voice doing nothing to help my case. “It felt stupid to leave it there after everything we just risked getting into Temple in the first place. Especially when I’d have to do the whole thing all over again anyway.”
Trace rubbed a hand along his jaw, and I instantly wished I could close my mouth and never open it again. But I knew I couldn’t do that. Not yet anyway. They needed to know what happened. I owed them at least that much.
“The second my fingers touched the book I felt their magic slam into me and lock my feet in place. I was completely trapped. I couldn’t even take a single step let alone port back. I had no idea what was going on until I saw the sigils.”
Understanding darkened Dominic’s eyes. “They used the book as a trap.”
I nodded once, knowing thatnow. “Unfortunately, I didn’t have a chance to figure that out or even process what the hell had just happened before William walked in. I don’t even know how he got there so fast. It was like he was standing outside the door the whole time just waiting for me to show up and take the bait.”
“He wouldn’t have needed to,” said Trace, his dimples pressing in as the muscles in his jaw hardened. “The sigils were most likely tied to some kind of detection spell. He probably ported there the second the wards went off.”
“He definitely didn’t look surprised to see me there,” I agreed, ignoring the chill that slid down my back at the memory of his cold eyes. “He looked resolved, like he’d been expecting me and already knew exactly how the whole thing was going to play out before I even got there.”
It was always the same sinking feeling I got when dealing with the Order. The feeling that no matter what we did or how carefully we planned, they were always one step ahead of us, already waiting at the finish line.
Dominic’s fingers stilled against the rim of his glass, his dark eyes moving over my face. “And the Horsemen?”
“They were there too, but they didn’t say much. They just kept staring at me like I was some disease they had to infect themselves with. Honestly, the feeling was mutual,” I bit out, not bothering to hide the contempt in my voice. “William did most of the talking though. He gave me this bullshit holier-than-thou speech about how he was guiding me toward my destiny. That it was what needed to be done for the greater good. Or as he put it, ‘Sacrificing the smaller parts for the wellbeing of the whole’.”
Dominic made a humorless noise at the back of his throat. “I take it you were the ‘smaller parts’ he was referring to.”
“The one and only,” I scowled and then rubbed my palms against my knees.
Blowing out a breath, I went on to tell them about everything that happened after the talking and begging part of the meeting was done and then I told them about the hooded men and their chalice of blood and the strange chanting that felt old and evil and wrong. The way it had felt like they were pushing something foreign into me, ripping me apart at the seams so that it would fit something else inside. Something that I knew didn’t belong there.
Both of them listened quietly, without interruption, but I could see the tension and anger they were trying so hard to hide breaking through with every passing second. Trace’s breathing had gone shallow, controlled with obvious effort, while the boyish ease that usually softened Dominic’s face drained away, hardening his features into cold, angular lines.
