He frowned, “What are you talking about?”
Layla looked away, pressing a shaking hand to her throat. “It didn’t start with you,” she said quietly.
Dominic’s pulse spiked, “Explain.”
She took a deep breath, then another, her voice shaking but determined, “I’ve always had it,” she said, “since I was a child. I didn’t choose it. It’s just…there. It always has been.”
He stared at her, uncomprehending. “You’ve been practicing—?”
Her gaze met his, and for the first time, she didn’t flinch. “Yes.”
The word landed between them like a blade.
She swallowed hard. “I learned to hide it. Theodore knew; he told me to stop when we were teenagers. I told him I had. But I never could. Not completely. It’s part of me, Dominic.”
The sound of her saying his name broke something in him.
He turned away sharply, pacing toward the desk. His breath came harder now, shallow with disbelief and anger. “You mean to tell me you’ve been using witchcraft, practicing it, while living among my people, under my protection, this entire time?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
He slammed his hand against the desk, the sound cracking through the room, “And you didn’tthinkto tell me?”
She flinched. “Would you have listened?”
The question stung because the answer came too easily.
Dominic’s hands curled into fists. “You lied to me,” he said, his voice rough, “you lied to the pack. To everyone who’s ever trusted you.”
“I didn’t lie,” she said fiercely, tears streaming down her face, “I just…didn’t tell you. Because if I had, you would have cast me out before you even—”
“Before I what?” he snapped, turning on her. “Before I made you my mate?”
The wordmatecame out like a curse.
Layla’s breath hitched.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke. The air between them was charged, pulsing with fury and grief.
Her voice, when it came, was barely a whisper. “I never wanted to lie to you. I never wanted you to find out like this.”
He stared at her, his expression unreadable, the fury cooling into something darker, heavier. “Since you were a child,” he repeated slowly, almost to himself, “you’ve been doing this since you werea child.”
Layla nodded, tears glinting on her lashes. “Yes.”
The word seemed to echo in the silence that followed.
Dominic didn’t speak. Didn’t move. The air between them grew heavy enough to choke on.
Outside, the sea crashed against the rocks, the sound distant but relentless, a rhythm that matched the pounding in his chest.
He turned back toward the window, gripping the edge of the desk so tightly his knuckles whitened.
Layla stood motionless behind him, waiting for the storm to break.
For a long time, there was only silence.
“I never meant to hurt anyone,” she said, her voice impossibly small, “the only reason I kept at it as long as I did, the only reason I…” she choked on the words. Tears were streaming down her face now. Every instinct in him told him to reach out to her, to take her into his arms.
