"If I have to."
"And if the chains aren't enough? You broke yours. What makes you think I won't find a way through mine?"
"Because I'll be there. Every night. Between you and the door." He pulled her hand to his chest and held it over his heart. "I failed six women. I won't fail you."
She wanted to believe him. She wanted to believe that love and stubbornness and an alpha's protective fury would be enough to keep the curse at bay. But the key-shape was still burning in her palm, and the brides were still whispering at the edges of her consciousness, and forty breaths was a long way from the fifteen it had taken a week ago.
She didn't tell him any of that. Instead, she closed the six inches of space between them and pressed her body against his,her head tucked beneath his chin, her injured hand still resting over his heart.
He wrapped his arms around her. Not too tight. Just enough.
"Teach me something tomorrow," she said into his chest. "Something new. Navigation, sailing, anything. I need things to fill my mind during the day so the door has less room to work at night."
"Whatever you want."
"And stay with me. In the bed. Not six inches away. Here."
His arms tightened.
"As you wish.”
She closed her eyes and listened to his steady heartbeat. Forty breaths. Tomorrow night, it might be fifty.
The curse was tempting her. Daring her to find a solution that wouldn’t end in her death. She was running out of time.
Chapter Twelve
JEANNE
She cornered him in the navigation room.
It was the small cabin behind the helm where the charts were stored, the one he disappeared into when he needed to think. She'd learned his hiding places over the weeks aboard, the way she'd learned the rhythm of the tides and the names of the sails. The navigation room was where he went when his wolf was pushing too hard and he needed to drown instinct in mathematics.
He was bent over a chart when she entered, compass in hand, plotting a course she suspected he didn't actually need to plot. He looked up when the door closed behind her, and something in her expression must have told him this wasn't a social visit because he set the compass down and straightened.
"What's in the forbidden room, Anatole?"
"We've discussed this."
"No. You've given me pieces. Fragments. You told me there's a curse, and the brides died, and the room calls to omegas. Gris told me about Morvenna. You told me about Marguerite, about the secret marriage, about how long each bride lasted before the room took her." She planted her hands on the chart table between them. "But you have never told me what is actually inside that room. What I would see if I opened the door. How the omegas actually die."
"Knowing won't help you resist it."
"Not knowing is making it worse. The dreams fill in the blanks with whatever the curse thinks will pull me hardest. Last night I dreamed the room held Marc's body. The night before, it showed me my mother, alive and waiting for me." Her voice was steady, but the effort of keeping it that way cost her. "The curse is using my imagination against me. I'd rather face the truth."
