Chapter 2
The fog had already started to roll in by the time I reached my bedroom.
I could see it from the window, drifting across the estate in slow-moving waves that seemed to swallow everything in their path.
The gardens, the tree line, the world beyond the gates, all of it disappearing into the thick white haze.
It felt fitting, somehow, as though the night itself was doing the one thing I couldn’t.
I pressed my fingers against the cold glass and turned away, my eyes immediately landing on my bed.
It was still unmade in the middle of the room, the pillows scattered across it and the sheets twisted and half-draped off the mattress where we’d left them.
I was sure I could still see the faint impression of bodies lingering in the fabric, just waiting for me there like a confession I hadn’t meant to leave behind.
The sight of it made my stomach drop.
All the things they’d said to me…all the things we’d done.
How much of it was real?
The question lodged in my chest, coiling tight until I could barely pull in a full breath.
What if none of it had been real? The pull, the certainty, the way our bodies had fit together too easily in the dark.
What if it was all nothing more than the consequences of William’s spell and we’d just been too desperate to see clearly; too caught up in what we wanted to question what was actually being done to us?
I’d trusted it in the moment. Trusted the way being with them had felt inevitable and right rather than impulsive. But inevitability looked completely different tonight.
Everything did now that William’s voice had worked its way under my skin.
The door to my bedroom opened, but I didn’t need to turn around to know it was Trace and Dominic.
Their presence instantly filled the room, lighting up every nerve in my body with their proximity.
They moved through the space without hesitation, their footsteps easy and familiar, as though they’d walked this floor a thousand times before.
As though they truly belonged here with me.
I cleared my throat and faced them. “How did it go with Gabriel?” I asked, needing to focus on something besides the way their closeness made my pulse race.
“He wasn’t happy about being left out of that conversation,” answered Trace as he walked around me and crossed to the far side of my bed. He seemed far more relaxed now that I was fully conscious and back on my feet again. “I thought he was going to rip us a new one right there on the spot.”
I grimaced at the visual.
After we’d wrapped up in the living room, Trace and Dominic had gone down to the basement to fill Gabriel in on everything that happened.
From the sound of it, the conversation hadn’t been pleasant for anyone involved and I was glad I missed it.
Not that I could blame Gabriel, especially since he was stuck on Jacqueline duty tonight, working tirelessly to pull her back from the blood bender she’d spiraled into.
I couldn’t help but wonder if that too was a consequence of the spell.
Jaqueline had definitely never been mother of the year.
Then again, being a Revenant didn’t exactly lend itself to warm maternal instincts.
But she’d never done anything like this before.
She’d never disappeared for days without a word when she knew we were relying on her, or left us scrambling in the dark while the Order was closing in.
Had all of that just been another casualty of the spell?
“When is my brother ever happy?” drawled Dominic as he casually strode across the room, already unbuttoning his black dress shirt.
My eyes immediately betrayed me, snagging on the smooth stretch of skin revealed beneath the fabric, the familiar lines of his chest already doing far too much damage without even trying.
The memory of his body moving against mine surfaced without my permission, flashes of his lips and mouth and tongue, of the way he—
Nope. Nope, nope, nope.
I snapped my eyes up to the ceiling like it was suddenly the most fascinating piece of architecture I’d ever seen, my cheeks flaming hot enough to roast a marshmallow. God, what was wrong with me? He’d barely popped a button and I was already cataloguing his chest like a horny librarian.
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” I blurted out, the words coming out faster than I meant them to, my voice pitched just a little too high to pass for normal.
Dominic paused mid-button, his gaze lifting to mine. “This…?”
“Us sleeping together,” I answered too quickly. “I mean you two sleeping with me. I mean beside me. Like in my room.” The words tumbled out uneven, tripping over themselves on the way out as though I no longer had control of my own mouth. “I just…I don’t think we should.”
Trace frowned. “We already talked about this.”
“Yeah, I know we did, but…” I dug my fingernails into my palms, grounding myself in the sting.
“That was before. We were under a spell, Trace. We are under a spell. We don’t know how long it’s been influencing things or how deep it goes.
” I glanced back to the bed without meaning to before averting my eyes again.
“What if none of us are fully in control right now?”
Dominic scoffed. “I’m always in control.”
“You know what I mean, Dominic. And that’s really not helping.”
He crossed the room to me in three strides, lifting my chin so I had no choice but to look at him. My skin all but purred under his touch, warming me in a way that almost made me break right there on the spot.
“Do you truly believe I’m here because of a spell?” he asked point blank. His voice was calm, almost amused, but there was something else beneath it. Something unyielding.
“I don’t know,” I admitted, my heart turning heavy and chaotic. “That’s the problem. How can any of us know anything right now after what William said?”
“Because I know,” he said simply. “I’ve been around long enough to recognize when my will isn’t my own, angel.
You want to doubt William’s machinations, doubt them.
Be skeptical of his manipulation. But don’t insult what’s between us by pretending it’s anything other than what it is. What it has always been.”
His unwavering gaze held mine, and for a brief moment, I almost believed him.
Almost gave in.
I tried to turn away but Trace stepped up on his other side, blocking my exit, his dimples pressing in on both sides like they were in on this too.
“Come on, Jemma. You know he’s right.” His eyes moved across my face, slow enough to send an unwanted flutter of warmth curling in my stomach.
“Do you honestly think we don’t know the difference? That I can’t feel it?”
“How?” The word came out more desperate than I meant it to. “How can you be so sure when I can’t trust anything right now let alone my feelings?”
“Because you’re my soulmate.” The words hit me with the force of inescapability.
Of destiny. “That doesn’t come from a spell, Jemma.
It can’t be erased or manipulated by anyone, not even the Order.
What we have—” He broke off, his hand lifting to mine to intertwine our fingers.
“It’s woven into who we are. It existed long before William ever laid a hand on you, and it’ll exist long after we level him. ”
“You can’t know that,” I whispered, my throat tight.
“Yes, I can,” he said, his voice dropping lower, rougher. “I’ve felt you in every version of my life, Jemma. In every Timeline. In every possibility. You think a spell can fake that? You think it can replicate the way my soul recognizes yours?”
My breath caught at his words as something deep inside me stirred to life, like a commanding presence shifting just beneath my ribs. Rearranging things. Trying to make them fit again.
They were getting to me, chipping away at my resolve by the second, and I knew the second they saw it in my face I’d be done for. I couldn’t let that happen.
Not until we knew for sure.
Steeling myself, I drew in an even breath and forced myself to hold his gaze, even as my heart hammered against my chest. “And what if you’re wrong?
What if you can’t feel it because whatever this is doesn’t work like that?
What if the spell isn’t making you feel things that aren’t there but instead twisting them.
Distorting what you actually want. Making you think you’re okay with sharing when you’re not. ”
A muscle jumped in Trace’s jaw.
“You’ve both spent years wanting me to choose.
Hating each other. Neither of you has ever been willing to share me with anyone, let alone each other.
And now suddenly you’re both fine with it?
” My throat squeezed around the words, around the truth that was simmering just below the surface.
“What if that’s the spell? What if it’s not creating feelings but warping them—making you accept something you’d never actually want just so William can watch us destroy ourselves from the inside out? ”
Dominic’s expression hardened, the lazy amusement bleeding out of his features and leaving something colder in its place.
“Is that what you believe, angel? That my acceptance of him was conjured by some spell?” His chin lifted, his gaze never wavering from mine, though his jaw had gone tight enough to cut glass.
“That I required magic to make peace with the fact that you love him too? That you have always loved him?”
“I…” I faltered, his words knocking the wind right out of my argument.
“I don’t know what I believe anymore.” My hand came up to rub at the ache forming behind my temple.
“But I know William. I know how his mind works, how he wields people like chess pieces. And what better way to destroy us than to make us think we can have something we can’t?
To let us build it up just so he can watch it crumble when the spell breaks and you both realize you never actually wanted this? ”