Page 80 of Incoronate
I stumbled into the kitchen late the next morning, unshowered and unchanged, looking like I’d been dragged through hell backwards by my ankles.
Which, considering how the night had gone, wasn’t far from the truth.
Ares had woken up every half hour like clockwork, cycling between hungry and crying and needing to be changed, or sometimes just screaming for reasons we couldn’t decipher no matter how many times we checked him over. Trace had tried to help. And surprisingly, so had Dominic, though more from a distance.
They’d been there with me through every single wake-up call, taking turns watching him, even rocking his bassinet in an attempt to soothe him while I heated bottles or fumbled with diapers that seemed determined to make me lose what little of my mind remained.
It turned out that a barely legal eighteen-year-old and her two vampire boyfriends with a combinedzeroexperience in infant care didn’t even translate to one competent parent. We basically stumbled through the whole thing together, consulting frantic YouTube searches on Trace’s phone while Ares screamed his tiny lungs out in the background, until we finally managed to get him clean and fed and back to sleep.
Which lasted all of thirty minutes.
Then we did it all over again.
I collapsed into a chair at the kitchen table and reached for the steaming mug of coffee that Isa had already prepared for me because she was clearly a mind-reading saint.
“Rough night?” asked Tessa from across the table, eyeing me with a look caught somewhere between amusement and sympathy.
“Shut it,” I muttered, taking a long sip of coffee and praying the caffeine would kick in soon. My entire body felt like it was running on fumes and stubbornness, and I’d already burned through most of the stubbornness an hour ago.
Trace lowered himself into the chair beside me, his hand coming to rest on my thigh in a comforting gesture. His movements were slower than usual, more careful, as if he were operating on autopilot too. He still looked flawless, of course, his blue eyes only a touch dimmer than usual, but I could feel the toll of the night through our bond. The pull of exhaustion that pressed down on him every bit as much as it was pressing down on me.
Not to mention how loud the crying and screaming must have been on his heightened vampire hearing.
A soft coo came from the bassinet Trace had wheeled into the kitchen and positioned within arm’s reach of the table. We couldn’t risk leaving Ares alone. Not even for a second. Not when the Order could show up at any moment.
The sound drew everyone’s attention for a brief moment. Tessa’s gaze flicked to the bassinet, then quickly away, like looking at him for too long made her uncomfortable. She sat across from me, hunched over her glass of orange juice with both hands wrapped around it in a white-knuckled grip.
“How long do you think before the Order figures out what happened?” she asked, still staring into her glass. Still not looking at me.
“Days.” Gabriel’s voice came from the head of the table, flat and matter-of-fact. “If we’re lucky.”
My stomach clenched as I turned to look at him. The line of his jaw had gone hard, his moss-green eyes fixed on the bassinet with an expression I couldn’t quite read. Disapproval, maybe. Concern. Possibly both at once.
“That soon, huh?”
“You saved the child they’ve been trying to eliminate since before he was born,” said Gabriel, his tone grim. “They believe he is the harbinger of the apocalypse. The literal antichrist. And now he is here. Alive. Under your protection.” He paused, letting that sink in. “They will not stop until they have rectified what they see as a catastrophic failure.”
My chest tightened. “So what do we do now? We can’t just sit here and wait for them to show up.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t be here at all.” Trace’s thumb traced absent circles against my thigh, the small movement betraying just how unsettled he was beneath that careful composure of his.
Gabriel’s eyes narrowed. “What are you suggesting?”
“My family’s cabin,” answered Trace.
“And how exactly do you propose we get past the wards without alerting the entire Council?”
The question came from Jaqueline, who stood near the counter with her arms crossed loosely over her chest. She still looked drawn, her skin a shade paler than usual from the lingering effects of her bloodbender, but her eyes were sharp and watchful as they moved between us.
Trace’s mouth set in a hard line. “I can try porting us out using the Transfer Bind Nikki made for me back when I used to visit her and didn’t want the Order tracking my movements. It’s worth a shot.”
“Even if that works,” said Gabriel, “the cabin is the first place they’ll look. They know about your family’s property. It’s in their records.”
“Then we go somewhere else,” shot back Trace.
“Ah, yes.” Gabriel’s voice dripped with skepticism so thick it could have coated the floor. “Start your new lives on the lam. With a baby, no less. I’m sure that will go splendidly.”
“It’s better than sitting here waiting for them to break down the door,” fired back Trace.
