“No.” I face him once more, hands balled into fists. “This is the task that will save them. The timeline fits. We’ll be married in time to awaken my parents before Nyxia has them sealed in the catacombs. She gave me only two weeks—of which we only have eight days left—and if we fail to break this curse by then, the seelie throne will be in peril. My father will lose his place as king and others will fight to claim what is his.”
“Maybe your father should lose his throne.”
I narrow my eyes to a glare. “Keep your personal opinions of my family to yourself.”
Thorne lifts his chin, eyelids lowering into a squint. I’d think it was due to his poor eyesight without his lenses if it weren’t for how keenly he studies me. He takes one slow step closer. Then another.
I keep my posture straight, even as the space between us shrinks to mere inches. There’s a penetrating quality to his dark irises, as if he’s staring into my very soul. “There’s another reason,” he says, voice barely above a whisper. “Why are youreallyholding so tightly to your betrothal with Monty? And don’t you dare use that fae deception on me. Tell me the truth.”
I hold my ground, my countenance unwavering. “Why should I?”
“I saved your life. Consider it payment.”
A flash of warmth lights my chest. He did save my life. Or, at the very least, he saved me from being grievously injured. And despite his annoying perseverance in trying to get me to end our bargain, I can’t deny that he’s doing it because he cares, at least partially. In some twisted way, he’s come to care for my well-being. Forme. His enemy. Admitting as much has my knees trembling, making me feel even more naked before him than I was inthat one dream. Perhaps it’s that vulnerability that prompts me to speak. “Because it will make my parents proud. If they awaken to find I’ve broken their curse and married the man who will save my family’s reputation, I’ll regain all the respect I lost when I enacted their curse.”
His eyes widen the slightest bit. Then his throat bobs. His hands open and close at his sides as if he’s not sure what to do with them. Finally, they curl into fists and he speaks, his voice a soft yet deep tone that rumbles in the air between us. “You don’t have to do anything to earn their love. You are enough exactly as you are.”
The warmth in my heart grows, but it’s a sharp heat, painful in how violently it clashes against the anger I hold for Thorne, the rage I still feel over what he did. How dare he say something like that! How dare he look at me like he wants to reach for me, touch me, shake my need for my parents’ approval out of my bones. The fact that part of me wants him to sends my fury rising like a tide.
“You don’t understand,” I say through my teeth. “You didn’t see how my parents looked at me when you controlled me. When you made me hold a knife to my father’s throat. You didn’t see the fear in his eyes or the disgust on my mother’s lips, because you were too busy feeling victorious.”
He flinches back as if I slapped him.
“If you understood—”
“I do,” he says. “I do now and I did then. I know exactly what I did, and I know it was despicable. That sin is mine to bear, but it doesn’t negate that the sacrifice you’re trying to make for your family is far greater than they deserve. Your efforts are wasted on them.”
My mouth falls open with a scoff. “You dare talk aboutmyfamily. My sacrifice. My efforts. What about you? You admit your actions were a despicable sin, yet you did them anyway and speak about them as if your regret is vast. Why did you even do it?”
“I did what I was born to do, a plan laid out in the name I was given.”
I throw my hands in the air. “Don’t you see how wrong that is? You say my family doesn’t deserve me, but you weren’t born to be a tool, Thorne. If that’s how your mother saw you, thenshewas wrong.”
Anger flashes in his eyes, in the tightening of his jaw. “Don’t talk about my mother.”
“Then don’t talk about mine.”
He leans in closer, voice rising almost to a shout. “Has it still not registered in your brain that you don’t know your parents as well as you think you do?”
I refuse to be cowed. “Has it still not registered in yours that maybebothour families were corrupt? Cursing someone else’s nextborn. Killing another’s child. Gang wars in the streets. Plotting to enact each other’s curses. Naming your child for the sole reason of hurting someone else someday in the future. None of that is okay!”
My words ring in the silence that follows. Not even I expected to say what I did, but now that I have, I can feel the full truth of it. It sears my soul as much as it soothes, for even the darkest confession can act as a balm. From the depths of that darkness comes a softer truth. One that doesn’t negate what I admitted but settles alongside it.
I put the truth to words. “But none of that matters because I love them,” I say, voice trembling. Tears pool in my eyes. “They may be bad people, but I think they are good people too. Most importantly, they’re my family. There is nothing more important to me than them. It doesn’t matter what they’ve done. I will sacrifice for them. I will marry Monty. Don’t act like you’re better than me. We’re the same, Thorne.”
His breath catches and his expression softens. He takes a step back. Then another. Averting his gaze from mine, he nods. “You’re right. We’re the same.”
Exhaustion weighs down my shoulders. Whether it’s due to my disastrous ride or my argument with Thorne, I know not.
He releases a heavy sigh and stalks away from me, eyes on the ground. I watch him, unsure of what he’s doing or if I’m to follow until he crouches down and retrieves something from the grass—his spectacles. He must have lost them when he saved me.
He places two fingers between his lips and emits a loud whistle. Several moments later, a brown horse trots over one of the small hills. It’s the horse he was riding earlier. What was his name? Periwinkle, I think. The one Thorne had originally wanted me to ride. I now regret not having listened to him.
My gaze slides to Thorne’s back where his wings had sprouted for just a short time. If he saved me in his unseelie form, does that mean he flies faster than a speeding horse? Impressive.
Periwinkle trots the rest of the way to Thorne, and he swings into the saddle with ease. Then, facing me, he extends a hand. My eyes widen as I stare at the space in front of Thorne. A space he clearly intends for me to occupy.
“I…I can’t ride astride. It’s unladylike.”
