“I don’t know how to say this, it’s been a secret for so long … I don’t even know how to vocalize it.”
Okay … I was getting more scared by the moment. “Just tell me.” Because I was imagining the worst.He’s already mated and has a kid. He can’t marry me because of what I am. Out with it!I wanted to shake him, but it was clear he needed a moment.
“There’s … there’s a curse over my family,” he breathed, and I frowned. That was not what I was expecting him to say.
“Okay, like how?” Did he turn into an ogre at midnight, because not gonna lie, that would suck.
He chewed his bottom lip. “Sage doesn’t even know this, okay? It’s liketopsecret. I’m only supposed to tell the woman I choose on our wedding night.”
Whoa. The entire atmosphere in the room shifted and everything felt really scary all of a sudden. “Sawyer, just tell me, I’m freaking out.”
He grabbed my hands. “Okay, sorry, I mean, it’s notthatbig of a deal. Just … about a thousand years ago my great-great-great-great grandfather pissed off a Danai witch and she cursed our entire family line.”
I nodded, needing him to get on with what the actual curse was! My mind ran wild with fairy tales I’d heard as a kid. Did he turn into a frog? Would he die on his thirtieth birthday?What?
He swallowed hard. “By my twenty-third birthday, I have to find a wife to marry me who actually loves me for me.”
He breathed out like he had been holding in too much air.
I frowned. “Wait … what? You just have to marry someone that loves you? Okay … that’s easy. Obviously half the school loves you. I mean, twenty-three is a bit young but—”
He nodded. “A millennium ago, that was actually pretty old, but no, Demi, you don’t understand. If I pick the wrong girl and she likes me for my money or status or whatever, then the curse … it kills my entire family line.”
I froze, shaking my head. “Say what now?”
He released his hands and stood, starting to pace the floor. “This is so fucking awkward.”
I stood, hobbling across the space and stepping in front of him. “No it’s fine, I’m just … processing. So,everyonedies if you marry the wrong girl?”
He nodded. “Every Hudson. My mom, my dad, me, Sage, my uncle. They all drop dead as the curse is unleashed and takes out our line forever.”
“Holy fuck,” I gasped. “That’s seriously awful. And it just goes on forever and ever?”
He nodded. “The alpha’s wife is cursed with only being able to have two sons. My uncle, not being the alpha because he was the youngest, was able to have Sage, but…”
Dawning came over me. I’d put on the questionnaire that I wanted twin girls. “Wow, that’s quite a complex curse.” This ancient witch really thought of everything. Two sons, but you—” I paused, seeing sadness in his face.
“I was a twin actually. My brother was a stillborn.” His voice cracked and my heart broke.
“I’m so sorry.” I took his hand as my mind processed everything he was saying. “So this entire selection, it’s all just so that you can keep your family alive?”
He winced. “When you put it that way it sounds bad … but yes, it’s so that I can find at least one girl whotrulyloves me. That’s why I kept Meredith around … she was always a safe bet.”
I growled, suddenly jealous. “Meredith doesn’t love you. She’s obsessed with you. There’s a difference.”
His eyes flashed yellow and he pulled me closer to him. “If I don’t find someone who truly loves me to marry me by the end of next year, then my entire family dies.”
I frowned. “So this is your darkness?”
“What?”
“When we first met, I saw a darkness in your soul, a heaviness you carried. This is it.”
He nodded. “I guess it is.”
“Wait, so you don’t have to love the person back?” The wheels started to turn in my head as I realized why he spoke of Meredith. It was clear he didn’t love her, but if she loved him, then he’d still marry her.
He shook his head. “No. But I don’t just want to be loved, I want to beinlove.”
