Page 54 of Thunder's Reckoning

“Yeah,” he murmured, his eyes never leaving mine. “I gotta get back to work. I’ll be back come mornin’. Hunter is keepin’ watch outside so don’t get spooked if you see him.”

I reached for the door. Before I opened it, his voice stopped me cold.

“I meant every damn word tonight, Sable.”

***

THE WEIGHT OFit followed me, heavier than the silence.

I shut the bedroom door behind me gently, the kids still asleep, the house wrapped in that kind of stillness most people would call peaceful.

But peace was a sound I didn’t trust.

Not when silence had been the sharpest weapon in Gabrial’s arsenal.

I leaned against the door, arms wound tight across my chest, trying to breathe through the storm Zeke had stirred in me. He hadn’t done anything wrong—not really—but wanting to believe him scared me more than anything else had in a long time.

Gabrial used to be soft at first, too, gentle with his words and touches. I closed my eyes willing the memories away, but they came anyway.

He made me wear white that night.

Not ivory or cream—white.Like snow, like purity, like something he owned and didn’t want anyone else to even breathe close.

The dress dragged along the marble floors of the compound’s great hall, the hem snagging on the sharp corners. I hadn’tchosen it. Gabrial had it laid out on the bed with a note in his handwriting:Put it on. Fix your hair the way I like.

I always fixed it the way he liked.

There was a dinner planned. A gathering at The Children of the Flame compound. His “faithful” had come to listen, to praise, to obey, and I was expected to be there, silent and lovely, a symbol of his vision. But not a person. Never that.

“You’re not to speak tonight,” he said, just before the doors opened. “If anyone speaks to you, look at me. I’ll decide if they deserve your voice.”

I nodded because I had no choice.

The guards bowed their heads when they walked past me. They were trained—trained to keep their eyes low, their words few. No one was allowed to look directly at me unless Gabrial gave permission. He said my face washis, my presence a privilege no one else had earned.

But one man slipped.

He was new. Barely old enough to shave. He looked up as we passed, just for a second.

Gabrial noticed.

That night, after the others had gone, he poured himself a drink with the kind of slow, terrifying calm that always came before the storm. I stood by the fireplace, the dress still clinging to my skin like a noose. He didn't say a word for a long time.

Then he set the glass down. Walked over.

“Did you enjoy the attention?” he asked quietly, brushing his knuckles down my cheek like a lover, except it wasn’t affection. It was possession.

“No,” I whispered.

“Then why’d you let him look at you?” His voice didn’t rise, but his hand did, closing around my jaw hard enough to still my breath. “You think I didn’t see it? Youbaskedin it.”

“I didn’t—” I tried to explain, but he squeezed tighter.

“You aremine,” he said, eyes gleaming with something that looked like love but burned like hatred. “Everything you are belongs to me. There is no part of you the world gets to share.”

I couldn’t cry. Not then. Not in front of him.

I just nodded and apologized and waited until he was done convincing me how lucky I was to be protected by a love so fierce it bled.