Page 118 of Cursed Lifeline

“Why do you deny your soul what it really wants.”

She sucks in a sharp breath and refuses to meet my eye.

We’ve danced around her past for close to a hundred years. If we’re going to be faced with traveling back to reality soon, it’s only fair I know about her demons like she so effortlessly uncovered mine the first night she brought me here.

“It doesn’t matter,” she says, whipping away a tear.

“It does matter,” I insist. “Anything that makes you cry absolutely fucking matters, Evangeline.”

She releases a sad chuckle and wipes away another fallen tear.

I wait for her to respond. Eventually, she shrugs. “It doesn’t matter because there is nothing anyone can do about it now.”

“What does that mean?”

Closing her eyes, she takes a deep breath and turns my way.

“I was married once.”

Startled, my eyes widen, and she laughs, “Not what you were expecting me to say, was it?”

I shake my head no and wait for her to elaborate.

Turning back to the forest below the cave, she says, “He was amazing. The man of my dreams. Hesaidall the right thingsdidall the right things. He was perfect. Until one day, he wasn’t.”

Again, she retreats into silence. Taking her shoulders, I force her to turn my way. She averts her gaze and looks down at her feet. Gently, I place my finger under her chin and force her gaze up to meet mine.

“No one is perfect, princess,” I insist. “Mortal or immortal, stick around one long enough, and they’re bound to fuck up.”

Laughing, she swats away another fallen tear and confesses, “Oberon liked to take his imperfections out on me at night. When the world was asleep, and no one could hear, he’d raise hell and sacrifice me on a brutal altar for his sick, twisted, narcissistic pleasure.”

“He hurt you?” I demand.

Evangeline gives me a sad nod. “Repeatedly.”

I swear I see red.

My heart may not be bound to the princess, but that doesn’t mean I love her any less after she sacrificed her life to help me find a cure.

“I’ll kill him,” I hiss, turning hot on my heels and starting to pace.

“He’s already dead,” says, causing me to stop and stare at her in disbelief, needing more answers.

I open my mouth to demand just that when she beats me to it.

“I killed him,” she grins sadly. After a moment a sorrowful chuckle falls past her lips. “When no one else in my tribe would stand up to him when I was forced to endure his endless torture night after night, I killed him,” she starts to laugh manically.

She raises her hands in front of her and stares at her palms in horror.

“With these two hands,” she chuckles. Eyes wide, her laugh builds until she is slightly shaking with hysteria. Her eyes flash to mine and her face hardens, “And I'd do it again if any man ever turned out to be just like him.”

Alfred, my mind instantly warns.

“Is that why you keep the watcher at arm’s length?”

She drops her palms and wraps her arms across her chest. Looking off in the distance, she refuses to answer my question.

“Not all men are the same, Evangeline,” I say.

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