Page 52 of Incoronate
A tear-filled smile escaped her. “You sound like Dominic.”
“God, I hope not. I mean, I love the guy, but one Dominic in the world is already more than enough for the general population to handle.”
That got a real laugh out of her, even if it was weak and shaky. She wiped at her eyes with the heel of her hand, her breathing finally starting to even out a little. The tension in her shoulders eased too. It wasn’t gone by any stretch of the imagination, but it looked a lot less crushing. Like she was finally able to set down something after carrying it on her own for far too long.
There was something else I needed to ask her though, even if it meant pushing a little on a bruise she clearly wasn’t ready to look at.
“Who’s the father?” I asked before I could lose the nerve.
Her expression shuttered immediately. It was like watching a door slam shut in my face. One second she was open, albeit vulnerable, and the next, she was locked down tighter than Fort Knox. “He’s no one.”
“Tess—”
“I mean it, Jemma. He doesn’t matter. He’s not going to be part of this.”
I studied her face, trying to read what she wasn’t saying. There was something there. Something tangled and angry and hurt. But she’d buried it deep, and I knew better than to dig it out before she was ready.
“Is that his choice or yours?” I asked instead.
She pulled her hand back, wrapping her arms around her knees again. “Does it matter?”
“Yeah,” I said evenly. “It does.” Because if it was his choice to abandon my sister, I had a major ass kicking that needed to be delivered. Among other things.
“It was my choice. He doesn’t even know.”
I frowned at her. “Are you going to tell him?”
“No.” The word came out hard and final, as though she’d already had this argument with herself a hundred times and already decided it. “He doesn’t get to know. He doesn’t get to have a say in this.”
I wanted to ask why. Wanted to push for answers. But the look on her face told me that door was closed and locked, and I wasn’t getting through it today. And maybe that was okay. Maybe she needed to keep that part to herself for now and I just needed to let her.
“Okay,” I finally said, choosing to just support her. “Then we won’t talk about him.”
She looked at me, surprise flickering across her features. “Just like that?”
“Yeah, just like that.” I crawled over to her and propped myself against the headboard beside her before leaning my head against her shoulder. “You tell me what you want to tell me when you’re ready. Until then, I’ll just be here.”
Her breath hitched, and then she was crying again. The kind of broken, gasping sobs that came from somewhere deep and wounded and terrified. I wrapped my arm around her and held her while she fell apart, letting her soak my shirt with tears and grief and all the fear she’d been carrying alone.
“I don’t know how to do this,” she said between sobs, her voice muffled against my shoulder. “How am I supposed to bring a baby into this world? Into our world?”
I pulled back enough to look at her, understanding flooding through me. This wasn’t just about being a mother. Itwas about being a Slayer. About the cost of our bloodline and the price we paid for it every single day.
“Look at our lives, Jemma.” Her voice cracked. “The Order. The Horsemen. The constant running and hiding and fighting. What kind of person brings a baby into that? What kind of mother would I be to drag an innocent child into this nightmare? I’m bringing a baby into a war zone and pretending that’s somehow okay.”
I swallowed against the ache her words left behind because I couldn’t argue with a single one of them. Our lives weren’t safe. They never had been. They were stitched together with stolen time and broken promises and the kind of luck that always ran out at the worst possible moment. We lived in a world where fathers were murdered in front of their daughters. Where monsters were real and mercy was rare and the line between hero and villain was a moving target nobody could quite hit. Where tomorrow was never guaranteed, and where safety was just another lie we whispered to ourselves in the dark, hoping it might be true long enough for us to close our eyes and rest.
She wasn’t wrong to be afraid. Frankly, I’d be more worried if she wasn’t.
“Maybe I should just do what Mom did and leave.”
“How would that help?” I asked, confused.
“Because I’d give the baby to someone with no ties to this world. To a normal human family that can raise it like a normal human baby.”
That seemed like a nice sentiment. “Except it’s not a normal human baby,” I pointed out quietly.
She squeezed her eyes shut as she shook her head, more tears falling down her cheeks. Her fingers dug into her arms hard enough to leave marks, as though she were trying to hold herself together through physical pressure.
