“Penelope,” he says gently, “you misunderstand. It isn’t an invitation.” He steps behind me, fingers brushing the back of the chair, catching the ends of my hair. “It’s a future.” He leans close enough that I feel his breath on my ear, his hands folding over the arms of my chair. “My girls are cared for. Protected. Elevated. They serve at my side. They bear children raised with purpose. They never go hungry. They never go unshielded.” His tone softens, dangerous in its sweetness. “You could be one of them.”
My heart is pounding so hard I feel it in my teeth.
“No,” I manage, voice cracking. “I’mPaired. I belong with Billy.”
Silence.
Then a chuckle, low and amused.
“Belong.” He tastes the word like it’s an insult. “Penelope, love belongs in storybooks. This is The Obsidian.”
He circles me again.
“And I am asking you for obedience. Not romance.”
Terror claws up my spine as he stops behind my chair, his hands folding over my shoulders,squeezing.
“Billy won’t allow it,” I rush out, not knowing what else to say, but I know Billy holds some semblance of power here. He has some standing with the elders, with council members, inner circle members thinking highly of him. I scoff a half-laugh that erupts unprompted, disbelief at the audacity of this conversation, “Billy would never-”
“He won’t have a choice.”
My blood runs cold.
The leader of this goddamncultstops in front of me, hands clasped behind his back.
“You see, I could send him away again. Farther this time. Many more months. Years.” He smiles. “Perhaps until after the child is born.”
A tremor rips through me at the same time my baby kicks and I think I might faint.
“Don’t. Y-”
“I could also claim your baby the moment it takes its first breath. Raise it in the high chambers. Untouchable. Unreachable.” His eyes glitter. “You would see the child only during rituals. Or never at all.”
“No-”
“AndTwo,” he continues softly, abandoning the use of Billy’s name entirely now, trying to show me how little Billy means to him, to The Obsidian. “Would break long before he realised the loss was permanent.”
My heart lurches, acid in my throat, sickness threatening to burst out of my tummy.
“Stop,” I choke out.
He crouches again, placing a single finger under my chin to lift my face. The touch is light, almost tender, but it burns like battery acid.
“I don’t want to take anything from you, Penelope.” His voice lowers to a whisper. “I want to give you a place beside me.”
“I don’t want it,” I breathe.
“But you will.” His smile is serene, patient, monstrous. “Because refusal comes with… consequences.” He lets the word settle into the air like ash. “And agreeing guarantees your child grows untouched by our world’s cruelties.”
My eyes sting. I feel like I’m drowning.
His hand smothers my belly, and bile rushes up the back of my throat, fingertips digging in like little dull teeth.
“I could cut this baby out of you right now and you wouldn’t be able to stop me,” he says whimsically, as if imagining doing just that, his grip so hard on my belly, until it’s just suddenly gone. “I could summon Billy here and cut his throat in front of you. Hack him up into pieces the same way you did my Imogen.”
MyImogen.
Now it makes sense as to why Billy wanted me to leave it alone. Why he wouldn’t do anything about her.
