Page 20 of Once Charmed, Twice Cursed
Low flames crackle behind him. I’m glad I can’t really see him. It’s easier to confess to a shadow. “Because,” I say. “People have always treated me like I’m...this.” I wave to indicate my Mark, trusting he’ll know what I mean. If anyone will, it’s him.
“But everyone worships you,” he says slowly.
“No.” I scoff. “They worship the tattoo. They worship what it means. What it can give them.”
He swivels to his task again, but I get the sense that he’s thinking. Hard.
My heartbeat swells to occupy the quiet. I have no idea why I just told him that, but having done so unspools something kept tightly caged within my ribs.
Jack feeds the fire until the glow brightens. I relax against the pillows and watch him work, lulled by the shift of muscle beneath fabric. Once the flames gain a foothold, he rises.
“I think I get it.” His words are tinged with something like bitterness. “But for me, people treating me like my Mark has always come as a relief. It’s...easier like that. Better not to have to push people away. Because I’m not always very good at it. Clearly.”
My breath catches. “That sounds lonely.” More accurately, it’s cruel.
“What you’re describing does, too.” He runs a hand alonghis jaw. “I’ve never stopped to think that all that adoration might seem...artificial.”
A spark suffuses me.Artificial. That’s the perfect word. Nothing about my life is organic, or natural. It’s predetermined. Shaped by hands that aren’t my own.
“There’s more to it, too,” I say. “Sometimes, I wonder what being Marked has done to me. What kind of person you become when life just hands everything over, without a fight.”
The fire backlights him, obscuring his expression, but something in his stance shifts. “Probably the opposite kind of person you become when life refuses to give you a single thing you want.”
Silence settles, but it doesn’t feel awkward. It’s dark and velvety, stuffed with meaning and stitched up with threads of kinship.
At least, that’s how it feels to me. Because while Jack and I technically occupy opposite poles of luck’s spectrum, I sense in his answer a ghost of the same powerlessness that lives in me.
Neither of us asked for this. Neither of us has any say.
At the thought, my fingers sneak to my lips. They feel swollen. Beautifully bruised.
Jack clears his throat and scrubs at the back of his neck. “I’d better not stand here all night,” he says, clipped. “I should give your magic a chance to work. Do you need anything?”
My chest clenches at the thought of him bedding down in the woods. But I know he can’t stay here, not if he wants his friend to recover. “I don’t suppose you have any milk?”
“Milk?”
A blush stains my cheeks. “I know. I’m a grown woman,and it’s weird. But I’ve loved milk ever since I was a kid. I still have a glass every night. I swear it helps me sleep.”
A beat passes. “I didn’t say it was weird. And there’s some in the coldbox. Outside.”
I blink. That’s...lucky.
“I just figured you’d need more than that. Isn’t there anything else?”
“No. I’m pretty low maintenance.”
His eyes wander over my lavish wedding dress, and my blush kicks up a notch.
“Despite appearances,” I add.
He nods and makes for the door, but I can’t quite bear for him to leave me alone. Not yet.
“You’re a good kisser,” I blurt. “Phenomenal, actually. That was?—”
He stiffens as if shot. “Goodnight, Bria,” he chokes out.
Before I can say more, he wrenches open the door and disappears into the night.
