He paused, cocking a questionable brow. “Then what is it?” he asked, his gaze bouncing around my face. Seconds passed, and the color of his eyes spiraled into darkness as it dawned on his expression.
Then utter ruin flashed across his face. “Oh god, you’re in love with him.”
His eyes slammed closed and he pinched the bridge of his nose.
“You fucking love him,” he repeated.
He was trying to calm himself, but he was breathing harder, his jaw grinding.
Then he turned and flipped up the table behind him, throwing it back against the bookcase. I flinched when he turned around. “How could you be in love with him? You’re fated to be with me, Adora! To even fall for anyone else is not possible.”
“Please calm down,” I whispered.
Cyrus sat on the couch, dropping his head into his hands. “You’re in love with another man.” He looked up at me, water rimming his jet-black lashes. “What am I supposed to do with this?”
I took a deep, shaky breath. “Cyrus, I have to tell you something.”
“What?” His eyes flicked between mine. “What is it, Adora?”
I had to tell him. He had the right to know. It was the right thing to do.
Out of all the lies I’d told, I couldn’t hide this from Cyrus.
“I’m married to him. Clarence bound us last night.”
“You’re his wife?” he asked, and I bit my lip, nodding, afraid of how he was going to respond. Would he grab me by the nape of my neck and force me to face Augustine to confess what I’d done? Would he drag me to the Wicker Man himself? Would he betray me to honor the Order and the coven?
“So let me get this straight,” he said, his hand shaking as he pointed at me. “The only person in this entire world who is meant for me, who is my everything, is not only married to another man, but she has put me in a position where I have to have sex with another man’s wife.” He shook his head, a bright blue tear slipping from his black-rimmed eye. “Adora, you not only took away my chance of ever becoming a husband to someone, to be rightfully bound to someone, you also just destroyed the respectable man I’ve tried so hard to become.”
“Cyrus, I—”
“No, I want to know something. While you were busy fucking him, and falling in love with him, and marrying him, and I was busy building a life for us, did it ever occur to you how selfish this was? Did you ever once think about what this would do to me?”
I couldn’t speak. I didn’t know what to say. Because I didn’t regret what I’d done. I couldn’t be sorry for something I would do again and again. But in the end, it still hurt in my chest to see him like this.
My love for Stone was causing Cyrus so much pain.
“Did he know about me?” he asked.
“Not until the announcement,” I said, and he was shaking his head, like he regretted asking and didn’t want to know the answer. “Cyrus, we were already in too deep by then.”
“How am I supposed to fuck you in two hours when I can’t even stand the sight of you right now?” Cyrus stood up, swiping his arm across a side table, a lamp crashing to the floor. “Fuck!”
My eyes slammed closed.
Cyrus threw his head back. “I’m such a fool,” he scraped out through emotion. “I’ve been eating out of the palm of your hand, and this whole time you were with another man.” He swiped a palm down his face and looked at me. “You should go back to the manor and take a shower; clean yourself up and get ready.”
“Are you nervous?”Fable asked me.
Ivy, understandably, didn’t want to come.
“I mean, we’re talking about sex here. You’ve had sex plenty of times. But in a few minutes, everyone will be watching and I just can’t—”
“You are not helping,” I groaned, head down, twisting the satin tie of my robe around my finger. I hadn’t been able to look at myself in the mirror. “The only thing I’m nervous about is the light. Not just from the sex magic, but the finneuma light. The one that touches the sky. If it appears, it means what the book says is true.” That Cyrus was truly my match.
Fable’s brows snapped together. “So, we don’t want the light.”
“No, we don’t want the light.”
