35
Elliot’s expression is murderous by the time I’m done speaking. “Marry her,” he says through his teeth. “I have to…marry her?”
“Yes,” I say, forcing myself to keep my composure.
His fingers clench into fists as he meets my eyes. “In all our scheming, you never once mentioned I’d have tomarrythe girl. You said she’d break the curse and I’d never have to see her again.”
“I didn’t think you would have to.” I try to come off apologetic, but instead, I sound as empty as I feel.
“Do you know what this means? She wants vows that will keep me from abandoning her. If I do this, I won’t just be married by contract alone. As a fae, I’ll be bound by the promises I state. I’ll be tied to this human for life.”
The way he sayshumansends a spike of annoyance through me, cutting through my apathy like thorns. I cross my arms and pop a hip to the side. “I’m sorry. I know marrying a human is the last thing you want.”
“Marryingheris the last thing I want! You know this, and yet…you orchestrated it.”
I throw my hands in the air. “What else would you have me do, Elliot? If I could have fulfilled our scheme any other way, I would have, but you’re running out of time. I did the best I could. She wouldn’t be convinced otherwise, no matter what I said.”
He looks away, running a hand over his face, and leans back in his chair. The anger seeps out of him, dragging his shoulders down. “You’re right. It isn’t your fault.”
I wring my hands, then pin them at my sides. “So…you’ll marry her?” My stomach turns, my heart twisting, screaming in my chest.
His gaze slowly slides to mine, a pained look in his eyes. “You think I should?”
“I think you should do whatever breaks your curse, Elliot. This is the best chance you have or are likely ever going to get. That is, unless you break it yourself, but you’ve already said you won’t.”
He glances away from me, shifting awkwardly in his seat. “And you are all right with this?” The question is so quiet, it takes me a moment to comprehend it.
“Why should I not be all right?”
His eyes return to mine, and he opens his mouth only to snap it shut. “I don’t know. No, I don’t know what I was thinking.” Shaking his head, he stands and begins to walk away.
I stalk after him, mind reeling. “Elliot, why should I not be all right? This is what you want. This is what you’ve been working for.”
He rounds on me. “No, it isn’t. Not if it means marrying that wretched girl.”
“You were so desperate before, willing to coerce and trick anyone into breaking your curse. Now you’ve finally found someone who’s willing to do it. Yes, she’s coercing you right back, but why let that stop you? Surely, you can use that clever fae deception to work around marriage vows.”
“No. I can’t do it.”
“Why?”
“Because it feels like a betrayal.”
“Against who?”
“Against my heart.” His words hang in the air between us, silencing me. There’s pleading in his eyes. “How can you not see, Gemma?”
My body trembles from head to toe, a lump rising in my throat. “See what?”
“How can you not see what you do to me? You make me feel the way books do. Things I never had to feel as a wolf. Things I’ve only begun to feel since I met you.” A look of desperate longing conflicts with the agony written in his expression.
“I don’t understand. What is it you feel now that you couldn’t before?”
He sighs. “The unseelie fae don’t experience emotions the same way the seelie do. I told you how most unseelie have passions and instincts rather than deep emotion.”
I nod, remembering the conversation we had the last time we were in the library.
“When I was first forced into this seelie form, I began to feel certain things for the first time. Horrible things. Guilt and regret. Every vengeful human death I’d caused no longer felt like a triumph but a sin. That’s why I’ve resented this human body so much, why I’ve tried to punish it and rob it of comfort. Why I’ve felt so vile and hideous. When you came into my life, these pains only began to grow, and they grow deeper the more and more I get to know you.”
