Page 43 of Incoronate
“I didn’t know—”
“Dominic,please,” urged Gabriel, his muscles coiled from the strain of holding him back, but Dominic paid him no mind at all.
His eyes were still locked on Carly. “Your ignorance is excusable. It does not diminish the pain she has endured or the death sentence you put on her life,” he bit out so low and cold that it was almost worse than if he had screamed it at her.
“I…I’m sorry.”
“SAY IT TO HER!” he boomed, his command cracking through the room like a whip. “She’s the one paying for what you did.”
Carly’s gaze found mine, and I watched her face crumple completely. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she took in the full extent of the corruption—the death sentence written across my skin in black veins and failing muscle.
My hands shook in my lap, fingers twitching with spasms I couldn’t control. I wanted to look away from her, to close my eyes against the horror and guilt on Carly’s face. To scream at her and ask her how she could do this to me. But I couldn’t do anything. The poison had long since spread past my jawline and was creeping into my mouth now, thickening my tongue and turning even the smallest movement into a fight.
But I had to know. I had to understand. Drawing on nothing but fumes and the crushing shock and betrayal of what Carly had done, I somehow dug all the way inside myself and forced out one single word.
“Why?”
It came out as nothing more than a rasp but she’d heard me.
Carly shook her head, sobbing. “They approached me with the Horsemen. They said they were trying to contain the threat. That the spell was the only way to stop what was coming without hurting anyone. I believed them.” She looked at Caleb, desperate for him to understand. “They promised our family would be protected. That this was the price for keeping everyone safe.”
Caleb looked gutted. His face had gone ashen, his eyes glassy as he stared at his sister like she’d become a stranger. “How could you bring a Talisman into this house? Without telling anyone? Without telling me?”
“I was trying to save us!”
“By sacrificing her to them?” asked Morgan, her tone biting. “That’s not saving us, Carly. That’s screwing all of us over.”
“I didn’t know they would force her into the ritual,” cried Carly, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. “They promised no one would be hurt. They promised—”
A terrifying growl thundered out of Dominic, making Carly flinch back as though it had struck her.
“Dominic! Enough!” yelled Gabriel, his arm trembling with the effort of holding Dominic back, but his voice remained even. “This won’t fix anything.”
“I beg to differ,” snarled Dominic, his eyes tapering at the corners. “I’ve come to find that consequences are an excellent deterrent to repeat offenses.”
“Alright, enough of this shit,” snapped Trace, glaring over at the whole lot of them. “We’re wasting time here. She needs to get the fuck out of here so the witches can do the spell. We’ll deal with this later when Jemma’s out of the woods.”
And bythis, I assumed he meant Carly.
“We’re going.” Caleb nodded jerkily, guiding Carly behind him with one hand. “I’ll take her home. Okay?”
His eyes went to Dominic, waiting.
Dominic didn’t move an inch. Neither did Gabriel’s arm across his chest. The entire room held in the balance of whatever passed between them, nobody breathing, nobody reaching for anything that might tip the scale the wrong way.
Then Dominic’s gaze cut to me. Just for a second. Just long enough to see how desperately I needed this to be over.When he looked back at Caleb, he gave a single, barely perceptible nod and shifted his weight, clearing enough space between him and the doorway for them to pass.
Caleb didn’t wait for him to reconsider. He steered Carly forward, one arm still braced around her as he guided her past Dominic and Gabriel and out into the hallway. She stumbled alongside him, still crying, still whispering apologies into the space between sobs. But no one was listening anymore.
Not Trace, whose face had gone flat and distant. Not Morgan, who had turned her head toward the fire. Not Gabriel, who kept his arm locked against his brother’s chestuntil the sound of the front door clicking shut confirmed they were gone.
Only then did the tension in Dominic’s body ease fractionally.
Gabriel finally lowered his arm and stepped back, blowing out a long breath as though he’d been holding it the entire time. He didn’t bother to relax though. Instead, he took three long strides and crossed the room to Anita, palm extended. She dropped the talisman into his hand without a word and then watched as he pivoted toward the fireplace and tossed it into the flames. Sickly green fire immediately flared up, devouring the object in mere seconds.
The air shimmered around it then pulse outward from the hearth like heat over pavement. The moment it passed over me, I swore I could feel something loosen inside me, something I hadn’t even known was there, lifting suddenly from my chest. Even the house itself exhaled right along with me.
And it wasn’t just me who felt it. Across the room, Dominic rolled his neck slowly, deliberately, as though shedding something that had been coiled too tight. Tessa’s hand slipped from her stomach to her lap, her posture softening for the first time since she’d sat back down. Even Gabriel seemed to stand a little straighter, the weight he’d been carrying in his shoulders easing by degrees.
