Page 73 of Incoronate
I looked down at the baby for the first time.
Dark hair. Gray eyes that looked just like mine staring up at me, unseeing and still unfocused in the way all newborns did.
Then he made a sound. A soft coo, curious in tone, almost questioning, as if he were trying to figure out who I was.
I froze.
The sword stayed raised. My hand didn’t shake or tremble, but I didn’t move.
I just stared down at him. At his tiny face, at the way his heart beat steady and strong in his chest, at the impossibly small fingers that flexed and curled against the blanket.
Something stirred inside me. Faint at first, like the first crack of light through a sealed door. A piece of the puzzle that had been missing finally sliding into place.
“Finish it.” War’s voice came from behind me. Cold and commanding and impatient.
I nodded once as I lifted the blade higher. There was no hesitation. No warning at all. Not even a tremor in my grip as Ipivoted on my heel and drove the blade straight into his heart before he could even think to question what was happening.
War’s eyes flew open with shock and horror. It was the same expression I’d seen on Dominic’s face. The same look of betrayal and disbelief that had crossed Trace’s features right before he collapsed to the ground.
But this time, I didn’t stop to watch him fall.
I was already turning back to the baby.
23. MERCY OF THE FALLEN
I sheathed my sword without another word, the blade sliding home with nothing more than a whisper of steel as War’s body hit the floor behind me. I barely registered the sound as my attention already fixed itself on the bassinet in front of me. On the baby who was staring up at me with those gray eyes that mirrored my own so perfectly it was like looking into a reflection of myself.
A strange feeling swelled in my chest. At first, I couldn’t quite make sense of it. It pressed up against my ribs like something half-remembered, reaching for me from a place that hadn’t been touched by the Horsemen’s call. Recognition. Or maybe even kinship. The pull of shared blood that ran deeper than magic or prophecy or the will of ancient beings who thought they could bend me to their purpose.
He was…family.
The realization crashed over me like a wave, dragging me under and pulling me back to myself all at once. The fog that had wrapped around my thoughts began to lift, thinning at the edges until I could see clearly again. Until I could feel again. And what I felt was a fierce, bone-deep need to protect him.
I leaned down slowly, my hands reaching for the baby even as my mind struggled to catch up with what was happening. With the fact that I was standing in a cabin surrounded by the ash of dead demons and fallen Horsemen, the acrid smell of extinguished flames still thick in the air, and all I could think about was getting this child somewhere safe.
“If you hurt him, I promise you won’t make it out of here alive.”
The threat came from one of the sisters. Annabelle, I thought, though it was hard to tell through the haze of smoke still rising from the scorched floorboards where the fire had been. Her voice carried an edge despite the small trace of fear bleeding through, the air still crackling faintly with residual heat as steam hissed from the dampened wood where their counter-spell had snuffed out the flames.
“She’s not going to hurt him,” answered Arianna, as though she’d already seen how this would play out and knew there was no point in wasting breath on empty threats.
She was right.
I wasn’t going to hurt him.
I…I couldn’t.
The very idea of it felt wrong on a level I couldn’t put words to. As though someone had asked me to cut off a piece of myself and hand it over with a smile. This baby. This tiny, helpless thing that had every right to a life he hadn’t asked to be born into. He was mine to protect now. I could feel it threading through every cell of my body, taking root with a permanence I knew I would never be able to shake.
I picked him up carefully, cradling him against my chest with the blanket still wrapped around his small body. He was warm. Solid. Real in a way that cut through the last of the haze still clinging to my thoughts.
“Help…me.”
The voice was barely more than a whisper, but it pierced me like an arrow.
My gaze snapped to Nikki. She was watching me from the bed, her aquamarine eyes fixed on me with a desperate burn that didn’t match the rest of her failing body. The sheets beneath her were soaked through with blood. So much blood that no one could have survived losing it. Her skin had goneashen, as though every drop of color had been drained out of her along with any hope of recovery.
She was dying.
