Page 193 of Making Choices

“After the weddin’ on Saturday, we needa consummate the union in front of handpicked Trinity witnesses. That’s the ritual they were talkin’ about earlier.” Slash doesn’t blink as he flays me alive with the facts I’ve been demanding all day. “The covenants demand a blood pact. That means we needa have a baby before our first anniversary or they’ll void the union and take out Venom as payback.” As I try to make sense of what he’s sayin, Slash tells me, “Gabriel spoke to the old country and, in light of your troubles—” A glimmer of empathy breaks through his blank façade as he alludes to my miscarriage and the fertility issues Alex caused. Slash quickly schools his expression to add. “—they’ve given our union an extra year to bear a blood bond if need be.”

“Carter...” I reach for him as he finishes speaking and steps away from me. “This isn’t what I agreed to. This isn’t for... us.”

“I know, duchess.” The level of loathing in Slash’s voice makes my head spin as he tells me, “This’s not my doin’... it’s part’a the deal he cut with the Trinity to save you from Hugh.”

Bile rises in my throat.

I clap my palm over my mouth.

My knees buckle as I realise that I’ve been setup to fail.

If I give Slash a baby, Zeke will never forgive us. If I don’t, the penalty for my failure is Zeke’s death and a forced marriage to Hugh. The Trinity has created the double-deal from hell. No matter what, they win and I lose. I’m going to destroy Zeke and Slash’s bond. Ruin their chance to rule the Shamrocks together. Bring down the club we’re fighting to save when it splinters around them.

As I battle through the death of my dreams, Slash abandons me.

“Carter!” I scream as he strides down the aisle I walked up mere minutes ago. “Slash! This isn’t fair.”

When my vision fades and the sound of my pounding heart steals my ability to think, I stumble on jelly legs after Slash. A few steps in, the heel of my stiletto catches in a crack in the concrete floor. I flail my arms, desperate to keep my balance, as my husband strides away from me without a backward glance.

My knees hit the hard floor.

I don’t feel a thing. Because half of my heart just walked out the same door the other half was dragged through yesterday.

39

SLASH

“This is from Venom,” Gabriel tells me as he stops me outside of the main entrance to the church where I’m marrying my duchess for a second time. He curls my fingers over the bracelet I allow him to drop into my palm. I use my other hand to rub my tight chest. “He made it a year ago—got me to grab it from the farm when I went to organise things. It was goin’ to be his weddin’ gift to her.”

Curious, I unfurl my fingers to inspect the miniature scalpel and the alien head pendants that hang from the diamond tennis bracelet I watched him design years ago, then discard as imperfect. His careful craftsmanship is obvious, the attention to detail exquisite in quality. This wasn’t a spur of the moment decision. He plotted and planned the charms. Took his time to get them exactly right.

I can imagine him in his tiny workshop, hunched over the gold fill as he wields his jewellery saw, butane torch, and his pliers with precision. When he’s focused, the tip of his tongue pokes out from between his lips. It’s something I always teased him about, especially when we were kids, but I also envied him the hyper-focus. My brain is too busy. Too erratic. Watching Venom find a level of Zen that always felt unattainable to me was oddly calming.

The sight of his designs around Cherub’s neck had the opposite effect.

It upset me.

A visible sign that she belonged to him and not me.

One I’ve battled for as long as I can remember since she’s worn his creations with pride. Until the day she was followed home by the Maddisons. She took his insignia off and never put it back on.

“He noticed she wasn’t wearing the necklace anymore,” Gabriel adds.

“Can you read minds?” I ask as he brings to life the thought I’m having.

He shakes his head. “No.”

“Did he have a message to pass on?”

“No, he just told me to give this to you. Said you’d know what to do with it.”

Since the pendants are too small to contain a tracker, I’m not exactly sure what Venom means by this missive. Knowing him, it’s probably a mind game. Another way to come between me and my duchess while he’s forced to stay away from her. His way of reminding me that he’ll return for her eventually.

“Is everythin’ still set for tonight?” Gabriel inclines his head in response to my terse question. “I hope you know what you’re doin’.”

The look he gives me is lethal, and it kills the final vestiges of doubt I had that he is the infamous Adjudicator. Not once in all the years I’ve known the man have I felt in danger around him. Today, though, threat hangs around Gabriel like smoke. Clinging to him, it lets off a warning scent. Cautions our human instinct for self-preservation that menace lingers nearby. It’s barely perceptible, the change in his demeanour, yet it morphs him from innocuous attorney to predator in the blink of an eye.

I pride myself on fearing little.

---