Chapter 13 WOLF AT THE DOOR
Annabelle’s words landed in the living room like a thrown grenade, the shockwave rolling outward until every one of us felt the pull of the vacuum she’d left behind.
For one suspended moment, time seemed to fracture—no movement, no sound, just the visceral gut-punch of a revelation raining down on us like ash.
My sister was pregnant.
The words echoed in my skull, over and over again, as if my mind couldn’t quite decide where to put them.
I stared at Tessa, my thoughts lagging a beat behind my vision, struggling to make sense of what I was seeing. She stood rigid near the fireplace, one hand braced against the back of the chair, her expression caught somewhere between shock and defiance.
Of all the things I’d been prepared to hear, that hadn’t been one of them.
Under different circumstances, it might have exploded into something bigger. Questions. Panic. A thousand racing how, when, and what-ifs. But the rot burning through my veins dulled everything into a haze. Even surprise arrived muted and distant, as though it belonged to someone else entirely.
Gabriel dragged a hand down his face, his fingers pressing into his eyes before dropping back to his sides. The gesture was the only crack in his composure, the only hint that Annabelle’s revelation had landed at all. He didn’t look at Tessa. He didn’t look at anyone at all.
I couldn’t tell if it was because he was upset or because he already knew.
“You had no right,” seethed Tessa, glaring at Annabelle and looking as though she were going to launch across the room and skin her alive on the spot.
“It was going to come out eventually,” replied Annabelle without an ounce of remorse. “Besides, outing you wasn’t the goal here. You volunteered, and I simply told you why you couldn’t do it.”
“That’s real convenient,” muttered Morgan from across the room. She was huddled close together with Carly who looked horrified, like this was the last place on earth she wanted to be. “Still a shit thing to do.”
Annabelle shrugged. “Next time don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to.”
“I can still do it,” said Tessa, her voice coming out shaky but with an unmistakable fierceness beneath it. “I can still be her anchor.”
“Absolutely not.” Anita’s tone left no room for debate. “The ritual requires drawing on your core reserves. We’d be putting both you and the child at risk. It’s non-negotiable.”
Tessa looked like she wanted to fight it, but the protest died on her lips. Her hands curled into fists at her sides as she glanced at me, something tender and helpless crossing her face before she locked it back down.
“It needs to be someone she’d let in without fighting it,” continued Anita as if the interruption had never happened. “Someone she’d trust with everything and who’s strong enough to carry the power with her. Someone—”
“I’ve walked through hell for far less,” said Dominic, his dark eyes burning like embers in the night as they latched onto mine and refused to let go. “It would be a privilege to carry her darkness.”
“I’m her soulmate.” Trace stiffened beneath me, his fingers flexing against my shoulder. “If anyone’s going to be her anchor, it should be me.”
Dominic’s eyes darkened. “That bond makes you vulnerable.”
“What are you talking about? It makes me perfectly compatible,” he shot back.
“Her soul already recognizes mine. We’re already connected.
You want someone she won’t resist?” He glanced down at me with so much love in his eyes it made my throat ache.
“She doesn’t have to let me in. I’m already there. ”
I felt the truth of that ripple through the bond, solid and undeniable. He wasn’t posturing. He wasn’t trying to win. He was stating a fact as immutable as gravity.
Then again, I always felt the same exact thing with Dominic, even without the soulmate bond. It was a different connection, darker, but it was just as undeniable.
Dominic’s expression hardened. “She’s The Daughter of Hades.
The anchor needs to be strong enough to handle that power and the Horsemen’s essence without breaking.
That would require someone with a considerable threshold for darkness.
Someone who’s already more than comfortable living in the shadows.
” His mouth hitched at one corner, something dangerous playing there as his attention slid from me back to Trace.
“Tell me, Romeo. How well do you think your hero complex would fare tethered to the corruption eating her alive?”
Trace’s jaw worked, his teeth grinding audibly. “Better than your martyr complex.”
Dominic’s grin sharpened. “Martyr? Hardly. That role is reserved for my brother, Saint Gabriel.”
“Boys,” drawled Annabelle, holding both her hands up to quiet them. “As entertaining as this dick-measuring contest is, it’s truly unnecessary. You can both be the anchor.”
Gabriel’s brows furrowed as he turned to Anita for confirmation. “Is that true?”
Anita nodded. “In fact, it might be better that way,” she said, studying Trace and Dominic like pieces on a board finally clicking into place, approval glinting beneath her scrutiny.
“Splitting the load between two anchors instead of one. Less strain on each of you. Less risk of collapse.” Her eyes flicked to me, then back to them.
“And a significantly higher chance of success.”
“Then it’s settled,” said Tessa, sitting back down into the chair as her hand drifted to her stomach, her palm gently resting against the fabric of her shirt. “They’ll both be the anchors.”
My gaze lingered on her hand. I had so many questions. How long? Who was the father? How had I missed it? Why hadn’t she told me sooner? But none of them connected enough to form words.
“Alright, what’s next?” asked Gabriel, his brows still pinched together in a frown. I couldn’t tell if the weary look in his eyes was due to fear or mistrust, but something haunted lingered there. Something that made the hollows beneath his eyes look deeper than all the times before.
“The next step is performing the spell.” Anita paused suddenly, releasing a heavy breath as her gaze darted around the room, looking wholly irritated. “But before we can do that, we need to get rid of the other spell.”
Dominic’s eyebrows lifted in surprise, which clearly meant he hadn’t shared that information with them yet. “How do you know about that?”
“I can feel it.” She met Dominic’s eyes, blinking lazily as though his question was beneath her. As though he should have already known she would be ten steps in front of all of us. “The entire house reeks of it.”
“We’ve already tried searching for the talisman but had no luck finding it,” said Gabriel, looking as though he still hadn’t stopped kicking himself for being unable to perform the impossible.
Anita’s mouth pulled sideways, more scowl than smile. “Clearly, you weren’t looking in the right place.” She turned her head and nodded to Annabelle.
Annabelle was already moving, her heels clicking against the hardwood as she strode from the room without another word. Gabriel tipped his chin toward Caleb, who scrambled to his feet and followed after her, still looking half-dead but moving on pure adrenaline.
Arianna pouted her lips in disapproval. “Still don’t trust us, huh?”
Gabriel rubbed the back of his neck, but he didn’t bother answering her.
“You should,” she added softly.
The rest of us were left in the wake of her comment, no one quite knowing where to set their eyes.
Morgan stood idly beside Carly, transferring her weight from foot to foot as though her feet were screaming at her in protest while Carly just stared out into the corridor where Caleb had gone, looking like she wanted to chase after him.
I imagined it was probably because she was worried about her brother being alone with a Dark Caster.
My attention moved to my sister as she gazed blankly into the fireplace, her expression preoccupied and distant. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what was going through her head then.
How scared and confused she must have been.
I was just about to make a weak attempt at getting Trace’s attention so he could call her over to me when the sound of Annabelle and Caleb’s footsteps echoed back down the hallway. A few beats later, Annabelle swept back into the room with Caleb hot on her heels.
She ran her fingers through her bangs, brushing them away from her eyes with an easy flick before tossing something small and dark to her sister.
Anita barely made eye contact with her as she caught it easily with one hand.
“The talisman?” asked Gabriel, taking a curious step forward.
“The very one.” Anita turned the object over in her palm, examining it carefully before holding it up for everyone to see.
It was a small, blackened thing—no bigger than a walnut—made of wax and hair twisted together in a tight, deliberate braid. Sigils had been burned into the surface, and dried herbs were pressed into the wax, all of it stained rust-red with what I could only assume was blood.
“How did The Order get that in here?” asked Trace, craning his neck to get a good look at it. “We had the entire place warded.”
“Well, there’s only one way to know for sure,” said Anita and this time, her gaze went to Arianna who quickly nodded in response.
Apparently, words weren’t completely necessary for them to communicate with each other.
Without warning, Arianna let out a rough exhale and then rolled her eyes into the back of her head, her chin rising ever so slightly as if to angle herself to the light.
My breath caught in my chest. Because I’d seen her do that before, even if I couldn’t fully pull the memory forward just then.
I didn’t even have a chance to attempt to dig it out of the haze in my mind before Arianna’s eyes were already back to normal, her gaze clearing as she whipped her head suddenly toward the corner of the room where Morgan and Carly were still standing closely together.
“She brought it here.”