Page 4 of Illusory

“I couldn’t watch him die, Gabriel. Not again.” Noteveragain.

“Of course, heaven forbid it. That would be far too morbid an ask,” sneered Dominic, drawing my attention back over to him. “Be it far better to martyr yourself and leave the rest of us to deal with the fallout of losingyouinstead,” he ridiculed, his own voice sounding more annoyed with me than anything else.

“That isn’t what I was trying to do.”

“And yet it’s precisely what you did,” he retorted, a vicious accusatory glint in his eye.

“I was trying to save his life.”

“By availing yourself to the Order?” he scoffed. “Have you learned nothing from the past?”

“Yes. As a matter of fact, Ihave.”

“Oh? Pray tell.”

I flicked my chin up, not even needing to think about it. “I’ve learned that I’d rather die a thousand fiery deaths in the depths of Hell than to ever be forced to live through losing someone I love again.”

Pain etched across his face for the slightest of seconds, barely detectable had I not been staring so hard, before an icy, indifferent look shifted into its place, chilling his eyes from the inside out. “How exceptionally foolish of you,” hesaid bitingly as he picked up his glass from the side table and brought it to his lips.

“Maybe,” I agreed, unaffected by his cutting words. “But I would have done the same for you.”

The glass froze momentarily, hanging in the air somewhere between his mouth and the wooden end table beside him. His lips parted as if he meant to respond to me, something sarcastic and underhanded no doubt, but absolutely nothing came out.

Apparently, I’d managed to render Dominic Huntington speechless.

“And the same goes for you,” I added pointedly, turning to Gabriel. I may not have loved himromanticallythe way I loved Trace and Dominic, but I still loved him with the whole of my heart and would do just about anything to save his life if it ever came down to it.

Gabriel’s face contorted, seemingly horrified that I’d say such a thing let alone mean it. Tugging at the collar of his shirt, he dropped his head with a shake as if to chase away the sentimental words before they had a chance to break into his barricaded little heart and make themselves a home there. “As much as I hate to admit it, Dominic is right, however tactless he may be about it,” he said, shooting Dominic a coruscating look. “The Order has proven repeatedly that they can’t be trusted, especially when it comes to their intentions withyou. You should never have gone to them, Jemma. Not for anything.”

“I know that, but I had no other choice.”

As far as I was concerned, it wasn’t a choice at all. It was theonlyoption. Gabriel knew as well as I did that we’d had nothing else to go on. No alternatives. No backup plans. No hope. Doing nothing meant leaving Trace to die and we both knew I could never do that.

My war-torn eyes shifted back to my soulmate who was quietly listening to the exchange. “Maybe I was wrong and stupid for what I did, but I couldn’t just watch you die, Trace. Not when there was a way to bring you back.”

Trace looked away briefly, his brows banked together and hanging low over his eyes as he tried to put the pieces together in his mind. “So, are you telling me the Order had me Turned?” he asked, looking more confused than ever. Probably because he knew more than anyone how the Order felt about Revenants.

“No.” I watched as the muscle in his jaw twitched in irritation. “They never had any intention of helping me save your life, but I only found that outaftermy Alt came back to warn me about what was going to happen. That William was setting me up all along.”

“So, who—wait a minute. Did you just say yourAlt came back?” he asked, his eyes thinning with incredulity.

“Apparently, I have Reaper abilities in the future.” I shrugged it off because that was the least of my worries at the moment. “She—myAlttold me you were already dead on her Timeline. That there was no way to bring you back or to stop what was coming. Not unless we Turned you. So…that’s what we did.”

He cursed under his breath as he dragged his hands through his ebony hair again, struggling to absorb it all.

I couldn’t imagine what he was thinking in that moment. What he was thinking aboutme. Would he ever understand why it had to be done? Why there had never truly ever been another option—not when I was faced with the possibility of his death. Would he ever be able to forgive me for it? For the role I played in doing this to him?

When he finally looked back up again, his confusion and disgust had been replaced with something else. Somethingthat could only be described as unfiltered homicidal rage. “Alright. So, which one of you two bloodsucking assholes did it, huh?” he asked, his hardened gaze bouncing between the two brothers. He wanted someone to pay for this and clearly, he’d set his sights on the most logical suspects.

“You’re not my type, Romeo, but perhaps if you had askedreallynicely,” answered Dominic, smirking pompously as I resisted the urge to chuck the whiskey bottle at his head for making this worse than it needed to be.

“Neither one of us were present,” explained Gabriel and then glared over at his brother, a silent plea for him to shut the hell up for once.

“You really expect me to believe that? The two of you follow her everywhere she goes like a couple of lost pound dogs. There’s no way she did this without your help.”

“I resent that assertion,” complained Dominic.

“It’s true. They weren’t involved,” I said, drawing his sharp, furious eyes back to me. “My Alt came back with some Rev I’d never seen before. She vanquished her just as soon as she was done turning you. You’re not…sired to anyone,” I added, hoping that would give him some solace among the mountain of madness I’d just shoveled at him.

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