The silence stretches. My patience wearing thin. But I keep my expression blank.
Then he gives the slightest nod.
Agreement.
Cowardice.
Submission masked as strategy.
“And if you try anything.Anythingat all that affects Penelope or our baby, I won’t spill your secrets, I’ll just kill you.”
I take my time removing the gun from his mouth, the barrel dripping saliva, I wipe it off on the bed, his blue eyes stay on me, watching as I finally take a step back from the bed, putting a few feet of distance between us.
“You get one warning,” I inform him quietly, weapon still steady in my hand, still raised, still aimed. “And this was it.”
Chapter 37
PENELOPE
In the courtyard, I stand at the very edge of the crowd, my hands pressed against my stomach as if I can hold the baby still, as if I can keep the fear from leaking through my palms and into him. My breath is sharp, shallow, too loud in my own ears. Everyone around me is quiet, quiet in that way a forest goes silent when a predator steps into the clearing.
Billy stands in the centre of the courtyard with his shirt stripped from his back. His shoulders square like he’s facing down an executioner, not a crowd of people who claim to be his family, his brethren. His wrists aren’t bound, he insisted they wouldn’t be, but the stillness in his arms is so tight, so rigid, it feels like they’re shackled anyway.
I want to run to him, scream, tear the world apart with my bare hands.
But all I do is stand here, frozen.
Limp wounded prey.
A thin winter wind snakes through the courtyard, lifting the ends of my dress, prickling over the sweat on my skin. I am coldand burning at the same time. My heart races in frantic stabs that make my stomach twist.
This is happening because of me.
Because I left, ran.
Because I thought I could outrun a cult, a legacy, a curse.
Because I thought I could save our child by saving myself.
And now, Billy is the one who bleeds for it.
The Obsidian leader, the god, my Pair’s father, steps forward, dressed in ceremonial black like his name. His expression is carved from stone. Cold-eyed, sharp-edged, monstrous in how little he seems to care that this is his own son’s flesh he’s about to sacrifice for the crowd’s appetite.
His voice carries like a blade thrown across water. “Tonight, The Obsidian witnesses a debt repaid.” My pulse slams hard enough to blur my vision. “Two’s Pair fled.” Milus’s eyes flick toward me, brief, dismissive, poisonous. “She broke vow and sanctuary. She endangered her child. A child of The Obsidian. She sought to flee this sacred ground.”
Murmurs ripple through the crowd, a low tide of judgment, satisfaction, cruelty. I want to scream at them all. Tell them they don’t know anything. Tell them their god is a man who lies through smiling teeth.
Tell them everything.
But my throat stays closed, strangled by fear.
Because they wouldn’t care even if they did know. The likelihood is they probably know exactly what he’s like and don’t give a fuck anyway.
He continues. “Two has offered restitution. He takes her punishment upon himself. As is his right. As is his burden.”
I flinch, a physical jolt of pain rocking through my entire body, making my breath shred into nothing.
His burden.
