You just happened to have clothing in my size lying about, of course, I’d murmured.
I bought them for you only,baggiana, he had replied, sounding as close to outraged as I’d ever heard him.
And I had melted all over him before I’d had a chance to try any of them on.
Unsurprisingly, everything he’d chosen fit me perfectly, because Jovi paid attention to details. He’d assembled an elegant collection of very few, but very sophisticated, pieces and had told me with a frown that it was only temporary.
By that point I hadn’t wanted to ask if he’d meant it would be temporary because I would be dying soon.
I’d suspected he wouldn’t like it if I had asked.
Now I found the presence of the clothes comforting. Or maybe it was just that they shared a wardrobe with his. I hugged my arms around my own middle and tried to make sense of what I’d seen and heard.
The truth was, lovely clothes or not, I had an unpleasant pit in my stomach.
Because it seemed to me that Jovi had gone off with his horrible cousin much too easily, and I couldn’t think why he would do that.
I’d spent hours in my burrow asking myself why he would surrender himself so easily.
And the only conclusion I’d reached made me shake.
This was a man with a death wish. Hadn’t I told him so myself?
This was a man who would, I was absolutely certain, sacrifice himself to save me without a second thought. A man who would protect me with everything he had, even if it was his final act.
That asshole.
I wanted him to come back so I could kill him myself.
I wantedhim, not some noble act that would leave me alone in this life without him.
When only he knew me, and where I came from, and what it meant to grow up in this dark and terrible world.
When he’d finally showed me his heart.
I wantedhim.
Too many scenes played out in my head and they all made me sick. I knew exactly what men like his family were capable of. I knew what they thought was fun. What they considered a reasonable response to disloyalty.
I didn’t want to think about such things. I didn’t want to picture them happening to Jovi—or to me, if they found me after they dealt with him. But I stood in this bedroom we shared, here in this ruined old house, this graveyard of despair and loss.
I was surrounded by his ghosts and he knew their names, but all I knew was that they all died horribly. That it was likely I would, too. That all the beauty of this house couldn’t change the fact that the ghost stories told about it were right.
It was haunted. This island was haunted. And anyone who ventured near this life was tainted and ruined, and marked for their own bad end.
Though not all of them walked into that end as calmly as Jovi had.
I found myself wandering through the creaky old house the way I had that first day. I didn’t turn on any lights, still too aware that there could be eyes on me, but the moon was bright enough outside to light my way. I traced my fingers over the bare walls. I stood and watched the moonlight dance across the halls.
It was so tempting to imagine that the ghosts here were Jovi, and if I loved him enough, I could free them and him and me in turn.
I didn’t know if I was relieved or embarrassed to finally admit that little tidbit to myself. So obvious. Soimmediate.
And probably very, very stupid, too.
Eventually I made it down into his kitchen, chased by all the images in my head that I didn’t want to see. All the things that could be happening to himright now.
I felt my knees give out beneath me and had to clutch at the counter to keep myself from sagging straight down to the floor.
