Page 9 of Coerced

“Hey, guys! Look what I found!” Gigi had wandered over to a display case against the opposite wall. “Wow! These curators are quick. The plaque tells the whole story.”

I came to a quick stop when I saw three silver necklaces arranged on a bed of black velvet. In my old life, I may have thought they were simply ancient Roman coin pendants. I knew better now.

Last fall, Reilly Argaud had used two of these enthrallment amulets, one on Aspen Abernathy, who’d killed herself in October, and the other on Travis Peale, whom Kerry had freed shortly after Aspen’s death.

The third one had been meant for me.

I remembered the day Reilly trapped me in the dojo, beat me nearly unconscious, and came within a hair’s breadth of getting the necklace around my neck. Fortunately, Kerry intervened before that could happen. He’d half-killed Reilly, and I admit there were days when I wished Hank and the boys would have let him finish the job, especially once the trial started in December.

I could still feel the sharp stares of the legists boring into me as I testified. I’d managed to answer their questions without faltering by locking eyes with Kerry and pretending I was talking with him.

No one had asked Kerry to testify. Because he’d been possessed by a demon, he waspersona non gratain most of the nephilim world. The legists had even been suspicious ofmytestimony because I dated him. When I’d realized that, the fury had burned the fear and anxiety out of me.

Kerry had accepted it with a shrug.

“I tried to tell you, angel. My word ain’t worth squat.”

Reilly’s accomplice, Whit Anderson, had confessed to everything. That, Travis’ testimony, and a mountain of other corroborating evidence were enough to convict Reilly on charges of enthrallment, intended enthrallment, and consorting with the Diabolical. The court sentenced him to twenty years in the Council’s gulag, an underground prison on a frozen island in the Arctic Ocean.

I wasn’t sorry for him.

Whit had received the Mark of Cain and been expelled from the Sanctuary for the same amount of time - and that punishmentdidbother me. I didn’t know what the Mark was until I’d asked and Kerry had explained it hid a nephilim’s Divine half.

“That sounds like a death sentence!” I’d said, horrified to think of Whit out in the world without his power.

Kerry had given me that blank look of his, the one that said he couldn’t understand why I even cared.

“Angel, nothing Diabolical will so much aslookat someone with the Mark. Neither will anything Divine, but when do angels look at us, anyway? Until it fades, Anderson will be as safe as any human. And it doesn’t wipe your mind or anything. He’ll still have the knowledge of what the Diabolical is and can do, and that makes the odds even enough.Tooeven, if you ask me.”

Then he’d started to grumble about how both Whit and Reilly’s sentences were a slap on the wrist. I couldn’t agree, but I hadn’t argued. We were never going to see eye-to-eye when it came to mercy and justice.

Glancing at the necklaces again, I took a deep breath. They were only objects. They couldn’t hurt me. And it was my choice to dwell on memories or to move forward.

“Gemma?” Kerry rumbled in my ear.

I swung my gaze up to meet his blue eyes, and my breath caught in my throat.

He knows.He knows it hurts me to see these, and he hurts because I do.

Which, in itself, was an amazing thing. After ten years in the domain of darkness, you’d think he would have been reduced to either a mindless killing machine or an emotionless shell. He was broken - no one could deny that - but not ruined. Someone who was damaged beyond repair could never care about another person, and certainly not as deeply as he did.

“I’m okay, Kerry. Really.”

He stared at me for another moment, then raised our joined hands. He bent his head and brushed his lips over my knuckles, his eyes never leaving mine, and my heart stalled.

Most people at the Sanctuary feared him. Others were disgusted by his past and taint. Some longed to manipulate him to further their own agendas. A few envied his immense power and hated him for what they themselves lacked. And everyone, even those of us who accepted him, knew he was dangerous.

Yet he was kind to his friends and brave and willing to learn about anything. His drawings were so exquisite, they could hold their own in any art museum. When he laughed, you could see the boy he should have been had fate been kinder, and when he looked at me…

When he looked at me, it was like I was a rare and precious treasure.

Me.

A treasure.

One he’d never dreamed to have for his own and half-feared someone would steal from him at any moment. Since I felt the same way about him, I figured he must be as awed and confused as I was about this bond between us.

At least, Ihopedhe was.

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