Page 43 of The Cursed

“My fucking God,” Iban said, backing away as if I’d slapped him. “You have fucking feelings for that monster?”

“I didn’t say that,” I said, shaking my head as Della’s eyes widened.

“He stabbed you! He has lied to you the entire time you’ve known him! He killed twelve of our witches!” he yelled.

I raised my hands, gesturing with them as I searched for the words to deny the accusation in his glare. “You think I don’t know that?!” I shouted back, ready to tear my hair out. “I know what he’s done!”

“Then how can you have feelings for him?” Iban asked, and the unspoken question hung between us.Why him? Why not me?

“He sees me,” I answered, trying to ignore the hurt look on Iban’s face. “He sees all of me, and he accepts me as I am. Not just who he wants me to be.”

“I see you,” Iban said softly, his voice sad as his hands dropped to his sides.

I smiled, the sadness in my chest easing as I raised my chin. “You don’t even know me.”

Iban squared his shoulders, nodding as his nostrils flared. “You’re right. If you’re capable of loving him, then I don’t know you at all. If you want to get rid of him, this is the only way.”

“Find somebody else,” I said, glancing at the dagger on the table and ignoring the judgment in Iban’s stare.

“Sweetheart,” he said, reaching out to touch my cheek. The gentleness hurt more than his anger would have, as if he could see just how close this would take me to the breaking point. “You’re the only one who can get close enough. You think others haven’t tried to seduce him to find a vulnerability? It's only you.”

I fought back the rising growl in my throat, the twist of my lips that showed that I cared too much. Jonathan climbed out of the messenger bag on the floor, jumping onto my chair, and then pranced across the table to sniff the blade.

He hissed at it, leaping back with an arched spine.

“We can send them back then. I’ll open the seal again,” I said.

“And die in the process? Absolutely not,” Nova argued from her seat.

“There has to be another way!” I screamed, wincing when Jonathan spun and approached the edge of the table, rubbing his cheek against my side.

“There’s not,” Iban said.

“Willow, if you can’t do it, it’s alright. We will find a way to coexist for now, and we can always do this after you’ve had time to think about it,” Della said, her voice hopeful. As much as she’d tried to pretend that the conflict it caused with Juliet wouldn’t tear her in two, I knew it would.

“He can’t stay here, Del. Every day I spend with him is…”

“Another day he spends getting under your skin,” she said, understanding on her face as she grasped the dagger from the case. She twirled it in her hand, standing and approaching from the other side of the table. She stopped beside me, holding the blade on her outstretched palms. “Then you have to make a choice.”

I swallowed, drawing in a deep breath as her cool gaze held mine. My bottom lip trembled with the rage I held in, but I did the only thing I could do if I wanted to do what was right.

I took the knife.

CHAPTER 24

WILLOW

Della and Nova left the library first, leaving Iban to put the books back in their places. The knife rested in an exterior pocket of my messenger bag, carefully angled to avoid Jonathan as I hefted it onto my shoulder. He curled up on the total opposite side of the bag, growling at it as I shifted it.

I didn't bother to say goodbye to Iban as I made my way out the tiny crack between the shelf and the wall where Nova had pushed it open, needing time to process all that had happened.

And what I'd agreed to do but couldn't.

Even knowing it was the right thing to do, I didn't think I'd be able to follow through with killing Gray myself. I shook my head as I walked down the hall toward the stairwell, frantically racking my brain for an alternative. There had to be someone else.

Anyone else.

"Willow, wait!" Iban called, hurrying out of the library behind me. I paused even though I wanted nothing more than to get to the gardens below, to bury my hands in the dirt and feel the earth. I needed the reminder that there was something more to me. That I was allowed to have feelings and thoughts of my own in spite of what the world seemed to think.

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