Page 69 of Incipient

“Really? And I can pick anything I want?”

“Anything,” he said and then rubbed his jaw. “Just don’t put me in tights.”

“Well there goes all my ideas,” I complained and threw my hands in the air.

He shook his head as he tried to hide his smile. “So, it’s a date?”

“It’s a date,” I agreed without giving myself any time to think about it. The more I thought about the things, the less time I’d spend with him and that was the opposite of what I wanted to do.

Smiling victoriously, he reached down and pulled his phone out of his pants pocket and then handed me my own clothes, which had been strung all around the room. As he busied himself reading his text message, I retrieved my own phone from my jacket pocket and checked my notifications. There was a new message from William, the Senior Magister:

Come to Temple ASAP. We have news on the Horsemen.

My back straightened. I couldn’t tell if it was good news or bad news from his vague text, though if history were any indicator of future endeavors, chances were it would be crap news as usual.

Trace cursed under his breath and my gaze snapped to his. Had he gotten the same text as me?

“What’s wrong?” I asked, hoping it was unrelated. It was hard to speak openly with William when we were hiding so many pieces of information from Trace. Something I was feeling worse and worse about with each passing moment.

“Nikki wants to see me.”

Ice-cold panic clawed its bony fingers down my spine as my face lost all color.

“She says it’s important.” His jaw muscle ticked in irritation. “I’m trying to get out of it, but she’s not giving up.”

I was pretty fucking positive that I knew what she wanted to talk to him about since the last time I’d seen her she seemed hell-bent on passing that baby off on Trace.

Would she really be stupid enough to risk Trace’s memories like this? She knew damn well that the slightest stressor could cause the wall around his memories to implode. Would she actually risk his life just to tell him something she knew deep down inside was a lie in the hopes of getting him back in her life?

Of course, she would! This is psychopathic, Trace-obsessed, dark-magic-yielding Nikki we were talking about. She’d already proven time after time that her delusion knew no bounds.

But maybe pregnancy had softened her…made her more nurturing and maternal?

Or maybe it just brought out more of her crazy…

I was seriously spiring.

Pushing my panic away, I tried to reason with myself remain calm. I’d made it clear to her that the Council was not going to let this baby be born and she’d even seen the Horseman with her own eyes. Surely that had to be enough to make her think twice. Nobody in their right mind would be stupid enough to believe they were carrying an innocenthumanbaby when the entire supernatural world was gunning for them.

Except maybe Nikki…

“Just ignore her,” I said, doing my best to keep the fear out of my voice. “You don’t have to go just because she texted.”

“Yeah, I guess.” He thought about it for a moment and then shook his head. “But I probablyshouldgo.”

“Why?” I shrieked.

“She needs to know that me and her are over, for good, and it’s better I do it in person.”

“Is it?” I shrugged nonchalantly even though I was freaking out inside. “Texting seems fine to me.”

Trace studied me for a moment and then cracked a smile. “You’re not worried about me seeing her, are you? Because you don’t need to be, Jemma. I’m not interested in Nikki.”

That was true. He’d had plenty of chances to re-hookup with Nikki—before, during, and after my arrival in Hollow Hills but he never bothered. Something that would have been a clear message toliterallyanyone else, but not Nikki. Nope. That moron was holding out hope until the cows came home.

But that wasn’t why I was dreading this meetup.

“I just think she’s going to read too much into it. Knowing Nikki, she’ll probably convince herself that you wanted to do it in person just to see her again. She’s seriously crazy like that.” I mean, I wasn’t lying and there really wasn’t a nicer way to put it. Nikki was cray-cray and that was well before her pregnancy hormones kicked in.

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