Page 74 of Reign

Callie rolls to her side, her hand sliding over my naked torso, her pinky brushing against my nipple and sending a zing of renewed vigor.

Perhaps if I fuck her again…

“No one,” I answer, but it comes out guttural, unsure.

“You can try to fool me, but you’ll fail.” Callie rises up on her elbow, her long hair flipped over one side and cascading down her arm.

The urge to bury my face in it, throw her on her back, and lose myself in her is almost unbearable.

“I recognized it in your voice,” she continues. “The rawness. The pain. What has Sabine done to you?”

“It wasn’t Sabine.” My answer is out before I can control it.

Callie scrunches her brows. “Then who?” When I don’t answer right away, her forehead smooths. “Your father.”

Her eyes, so liquid they melt into gold when they’re on me, won’t leave my face. I reach up, tucking errant strands behind her ear, then cup her jaw, tracing the line there. “It’s about Emma.”

I’m not sure what makes me say it. Perhaps it’s her undivided attention, or her soft voice, or the simple understanding of what it’s like to live a lie.

“What about her?”

“She’s not really my sister.”

I leave the bomb between us, unwilling to trigger it further by admitting, she’s not my real twin. The idea Emma and I don’t share the same birthday, never mind the same womb, remains so mind-boggling and heart-wrenching, I can’t stand to give it voice.

Callie’s hand curls against my chest, her nails scraping my skin. “Wait, what?”

“My father admitted it to me a few nights ago. Emma was some charity case of my mother’s, an unwanted pregnancy … I don’t know all the details, but I’m starting to think I don’t need to. She’s not my blood. She’s an imposter and doesn’t even know it.”

“My god. Chase.” Callie sits up. “This will kill her. Is this for real?”

I catch Callie’s wrist before she lifts it from my chest. “You’re not telling her. You can’t.”

She jerks her chin to me, her eyes widening. “I can’t keep something like this to myself! She’s my friend, Chase. My best—”

“And I’m her twin.” I cut off, cursing at the easy use of a title that’s not mine anymore. Rising, I catch Callie’s chin between my fingers. “Think of what you’re trying to do. If you admit this to her, you’re right, it will kill her. You won’t have a comrade anymore. Emma will turn into herself, run, escape, fly back to our mother. In essence, she’ll leave you. Us.”

“She’d have every right to. You’re telling me everything she knows is a lie.”

“You know what that’s like.” I level Callie with a look. “As do I. Your plans to take down Sabine will be null and void.”

“I can’t…” Callie shakes her head, then digs her fingers into her hair. “So I use Emma to get Sabine’s binder, squeeze her dry until Sabine’s named for Ivy’s murder and my mother’s, and then I tell her? I’m not going to keep this from Emma until she stops being useful to me. I can’t.”

“What’s more important to you?”

I ask her the question knowing the answer and hate myself for the added knowledge that it’s killing her. All Callie wants is to prove that her mother was a good woman who was wrongfully killed, and Ivy an innocent caught in the crossfire. This additional information about Emma? It’s an aggravating twist, a serrated knife to an already too-deep wound. I know it, and must use it against her.

“What about you? Why don’t you want to tell her?” Callie asks. The sheets have fallen from her chest, her breasts heaving with her aggravated breaths, but I can’t bring myself to admire the sheer beauty of her while so much turmoil surrounds us. I shouldn’t have taken advantage of her in the first place.

But she’s mine, damnit.

“Because she’s my twin,” I say after a beat. “She’ll always be my twin, blood or not. And I can’t rip something like this away from her—rip me from her—when so much hangs in the balance already. She wants Sabine to pay for her sins as much as you do. Wants the Virtues destroyed as desperately as you. To hear this on top of it all … Emma’s been through enough these past few years. I would reduce her to insanity if I told her this without giving her anything in return, like Sabine’s head on a platter.”

Callie takes a breath, her focus shifting to the wall across from us. “But you want to save the Virtues and the Nobles. You don’t want to risk their safety by telling Emma the truth, do you?”

I study her, Callie Ryan, my weakness and my strength. “What would you do if I said my priorities have changed?”

Her stare whips to mine. “Not possible.”

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