Chapter 4
The harsh kitchen light made my eyes ache as it washed over the room without mercy, stripping it of all its shadows and leaving nowhere for my guilt to hide.
I stood against the counter with my jacket still on and my arms wrapped tightly around myself.
I hadn’t thought to take it off when we finally came back inside.
Hadn’t thought much of anything since the moment the world snapped back into place, and I realized what I let happen.
My hands still wouldn’t stop shaking.
Somewhere between the driveway and the kitchen, the tears had finally stopped, but the gnawing guilt remained.
It sat heavy in my chest, bearing down on me with every breath as I replayed the moment I’d used my magic against Trace and Dominic, freezing them in place before I walked away from them like they were nothing.
Replaying the moment Famine raised his blade over Trace’s heart.
He’d been seconds from his end, and I’d just stood there and watched.
The memory looped like a horror reel in my head, each replay carving itself deeper into my mind until I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to think of anything else.
Dominic leaned against the kitchen island across from me, his face unreadable as he watched me with a crystal tumbler lifted to his mouth.
The blood inside was dark and thick, catching the light as he drank.
His neck had already healed, but I could tell he was still moving carefully, stiffly, every sip slow and intentional as the blood worked through his system and accelerated what his body was already doing on its own.
He hadn’t said much since coming to, though I supposed he didn’t really need to. Everything that had happened tonight was still right there in the room with us whether we acknowledged it or not.
I looked over at Trace as he hovered near the far wall, seemingly unable to stay still.
He’d pace a few steps, stop, then drag his fingers through his hair before starting the cycle all over again.
His pupils were blown wide and the blue of his irises were nearly completely swallowed by black.
Every few paces, he’d glance over at me before looking away again like he was afraid to look at me for too long.
I couldn’t even begin to imagine what he was thinking about, but I assumed it wasn’t anything good.
Outside, when I needed him most, he had held himself together for me. But that composure came at a price, and now that the threat was gone and I was safe, everything he’d been keeping in check was finally catching up with him.
He needed to feed again.
I could see it in the tension of his jaw, in the way he kept curling and uncurling his fists at his sides.
He’d fed the moment we came back inside, but his body was still healing, still adjusting, still trying to repair what Famine had done to it.
The newness of his transformation made everything harder to regulate.
Made his emotions run too hot and his instincts too raw.
Every few passes, his attention snapped back to me, checking, cataloguing, making sure I was still there. That I was still myself.
Before I could think it all the way through, I opened my mouth to offer myself up. “I—”
My voice was swallowed by the sound of Gabriel striding into the kitchen, already scanning the room before he’d even fully crossed the threshold.
My sister was still fast asleep upstairs, blissfully unaware of the chaos that had unfolded just outside the estate’s walls while Gabriel had been downstairs in the basement with Jacqueline again.
Pausing at the entranceway, his eyes moved over me from my jacket to my trembling bloody hands to the way I couldn’t quite meet anyone’s eyes for more than a second, and his expression instantly turned to stone.
“What happened?” he asked as he crossed the room to me.
“I…they…” I shook my head, unsure how to answer him because I still didn’t fully understand it myself. “The voices. They came back.”
He stepped closer, his gaze briefly dropping to my hands. “Are you hurt?”
“No,” I said, knowing that he was referring to my physical wellbeing and not to my emotional state, which was altogether a completely different story.
He still didn’t look convinced, though there was no surprise there.
Gabriel had always been like that, protective in a way he tried to disguise as practicality, caring in a way he refused to admit.
It was easier for him to keep that distance, to pretend his concern was tactical rather than personal. But I always saw through it anyway.
“It overtook her, brother.” For the first time tonight, I saw a chink in Dominic’s armor. A small sliver of worry that gave way to just how much he thought was at stake. Of how afraid he was for me. Or of me. “There was no stopping her. They had absolute control of her.”
Gabriel’s expression went dangerously still. When he looked back at me, something terrible had broken through his mask. Something that looked a lot like fear. “And the Horseman?”
“Dead,” answered Trace from across the room.
He’d finally stopped pacing and had his arms folded along his chest, observing my conversation with Gabriel, but there was nothing relaxed about his stance.
Every muscle in his body looked coiled tight, ready to spring into action at the slightest provocation.
Dominic and Trace went on to tell Gabriel the rest of what had happened while I listened numbly.
The white horse waiting for me in the fog, pristine and saddled.
Famine’s increased strength from the activation of the Power of Four, the way he’d moved with a brutal efficiency that hadn’t been there before.
The fight that had nearly ended with Trace’s permanent death and with Dominic’s neck snapped and his body thrown aside like discarded waste.
Gabriel listened without interruption, his posture rigid and his jaw clamped down tight. I could see the tension radiating through him, the sheer amount of effort it took to stay still, to keep his expression even when everything underneath it was anything but.
When they finished, the kitchen fell into a thick, uncomfortable silence. The kind that spoke volumes and made it feel like it might suffocate us all if someone didn’t break it soon.
Trace uncrossed his arms and pushed off the wall. “Look, for all we know, that’s the end of it,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck like he wasn’t sure he believed it himself. “They needed the Power of Four. Without Famine, they’re down to three. Maybe killing him broke the connection for good.”
Gabriel didn’t respond immediately, but I could tell he was thinking it over. Weighing the possibility against everything else we knew. A small, stubborn spark lit up inside me at his silence, clinging to the possibility that maybe, just maybe, there was hope that this nightmare might be over.
“Unless they only needed the Power of Four to be activated,” reasoned Dominic before taking another slow slip from his glass.
“Meaning what?” Trace’s frown deepened.
“Meaning the anointment is already done. Their powers have already been activated.” Dominic’s gaze shifted between Gabriel and Trace, then settled on me with an intensity that made my skin prickle.
“There’s every possibility that Famine’s death changes nothing at all, other than removing a player from the board. ”
I swallowed roughly as they all turned to look at me at once.
“Are you still hearing them now?” asked Gabriel, his eyes bouncing over my features as though he could pull the answer out of my face before I gave it. “Anything at all?”
I focused inward, searching for any whisper or trace of the presence that had wrapped itself around my thoughts so completely just an hour ago. I reached into the silence where the voices had been, where they’d burrowed in and made themselves at home, and found nothing.
“No,” I answered honestly. “It’s quiet again.”
But even as I said it, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the silence didn’t mean the connection was broken. Only that it was dormant. Waiting…
Gabriel nodded carefully, still watching me as he considered it. “That’s a good sign then,” he said, though there was no real conviction behind it. It sounded more like a passing observation than any kind of reassurance.
“So what do we do in the meantime?” asked Trace point-blank. “Just sit around and hope for the best?”
“For now, yes,” replied Gabriel. “We don’t have enough information to do anything else. Until we know whether the connection held or broke with Famine’s death, all we can do is wait and see which way it goes.”
“That’s not good enough,” said Trace, his jaw muscle pumping. “What happens if the voices come back and she can’t snap herself out of it this time? How are we supposed to stop her when we couldn’t do a single fucking thing about it tonight?”
Neither had an answer for him.
I looked between the three of them and saw right through to the fear they were trying so hard to keep buried beneath the composure and the practicality and the careful, measured words.
It showed in the way Trace finally pulled out a chair and dropped into it like his legs had made the decision before he did, in the rigid set of Gabriel’s shoulders, in the way Dominic’s fingers tightened around his glass until his knuckles paled.
None of them were going to admit what needed to be done. They cared too much about me, or maybe they just couldn’t bring themselves to be the one to put it on the table. But I knew what we needed to do, and I had to be the one to say it.
“We can’t risk anyone getting hurt,” I said, my voice holding better than I expected. “I have to be locked up.”
Dominic’s head snapped toward me, his expression darkening immediately. “Absolutely not.”
“Why not? It’s the only thing that makes sense right now and you know it.”
“I know nothing of the sort,” he answered flatly, his eyes never leaving mine as he took another purposeful sip of his drink. “That cell is no place for you.”
“What difference does it make? Everyone else has been in it,” I argued without giving him a chance to answer.
“Besides, it’s not like I haven’t been chained up before.
It’s only until we know for sure the voices are gone.
I don’t want to be able to freely walk out that door, and I’m not putting any of you in the position to have to stop me from doing it. Not again.”
The image of Famine raising that blade over Trace flashed through my mind before I could stop it, and my stomach turned. I couldn’t go through that again.
I wouldn’t.
Gabriel shook his head. “The cell isn’t an option until Jaqueline sobers up. We can’t risk setting her loose while she’s still in the throes of bloodlust.”
The reminder of my mother’s dire condition sent another wave of guilt through me, adding yet another thing to my never-ending list of problems.
“Then what do we do?” asked Trace, his arm braced on the table. “What’s the plan?”
Dominic slowly set his glass down on the island, his dark eyes fixed on me with a ferocity that made my pulse quicken without my permission. “We watch her tonight.”
Trace stiffened. “That’s it? That’s your big idea?”
“No.” Dominic’s heated gaze slid down my body, taking in every detail like he remembered exactly how I looked when I came undone for him. “We restrain her.”
“How?” asked Trace, wetting his lips as his eyes cut to me briefly.
“Chains,” answered Dominic, his mouth curving into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “Handcuffs if needed.”
Heat bloomed low in my stomach at his words, unbidden and entirely inappropriate given the circumstances. I buried it quickly, forcing my expression to remain neutral even as my heart rate picked up.
Now was so not the time.
Gabriel looked between Dominic and Trace, something apprehensive moving across his face. It was the look of a man who had just handed a loaded weapon to two people he didn’t entirely trust with it.
He seemed to think better of saying whatever had come to mind, and instead, pressed his lips together and nodded once. “Unfortunately, it appears to be the best option we have for tonight.”
“And what happens tomorrow?” I asked, the question sitting like a lump of coal in my stomach. “What if this isn’t over and we’re right back at square one?”
“Tomorrow, we bring Caleb in.”
My stomach tightened at Gabriel’s words. The name alone was enough to make my chest constrict with a complicated mix of emotions as the memory of everything he’d ever done for us pressed up against the possibility that he’d also been the one to help tear it all down.
“Hopefully the Caster can work some kind of spell to lessen the ritual’s effects,” continued Gabriel. “Providing it’s still at play.”
“And if he’s the one who helped the Order breach the wards,” added Trace, his voice dropping low enough to make the back of my neck prickle, “we'll find that out too.”
“Let’s hope for his sake that he didn’t.” Dominic’s smile was slow and dangerous, the kind that promised violence wrapped in civility. “Because if he did, it’ll be the very last thing he ever does.”
The threat came down on the room like a verdict, dark and absolute and entirely without bluster. No one argued with it or tried to soften it.
Because we all knew he meant it.