Page 65 of Once Charmed, Twice Cursed
“What do you mean? He’s been back for weeks.” My brother spits red, then scrambles gracelessly to his feet. “Him and Mom both. They came home when you went missing. Of course they did.”
He says it like it’s obvious, and yet...it isn’t. Not to me. I never once considered that my father might show up here. I barely suspected my brother would.
“We’ve been looking for this place, all this time,” Brendancontinues. “I mean, wethoughtWeston might be the one who’d taken you. We hoped. But...” His mouth curls into a sneer as he surveys his best friend. “We thought he’d watch over you. Notdefileyou.”
Weston takes another jerky step backward, his shoulders curving as if to ward off Brendan’s accusation.
“Stop!” I screech. “Don’t you say another word to him, unless it’s to thank him. He didn’t defile me, he saved me. And he only took my Mark because I asked him to. It was my choice.”
Brendan’s eyes flash. “His, too. Don’t pretend he didn’t know what he was doing. What he was stealing from you.”
Weston’s fists go slack at his sides. All the fight leaves him.
For a moment, no one moves. In the silence, my father slips from his saddle and makes his way over to me.
I shrink back from every oncoming step. I always imagined my parents’ homecoming as a happy affair—they’d gone off to tour the continent, leaving Brendan with one objective: find me a suitable husband before they came home.
Now he’s failed them. So have I, but by an order of magnitude more.
When my father reaches me, he crushes me in a hug. Shock holds me motionless for a moment before I raise my arms. But he’s already thrusting me away again, gripping me by the shoulders, pointing a grief-stricken look at the space between my collarbones. “You’re okay,” he says. “But not whole.”
My mouth twists. I tug against his grip.
He holds me in place without much effort. “The Null boy did this to you?”
“No,” I insist. “I mean, yes, technically, but only because I asked him to.”
Weston tips his face to the sky, his hands pressed to his eyes as if he can’t bear to look at any of us. My blood screams. I canfeelhim slipping away from me. I can see it happening.
“We’re taking you home,” my father says.
“No, I?—”
“He desecrated you.” My father raises his voice, the words clearly intended for Weston, even though he’s looking at me. “We allowed this Null into our home. We trusted him, and he disrespected our family.”
“No!” I swat at him until he releases my shoulders. “I love him. I’m going to marry him. He saved my life. I’d be dead right now if not for him, or at least married to Alverton, and?—”
“And you’d have your Mark!” my father cuts in. “You’d still be you!”
I recoil, my blood stilling inside my veins. “Iamstill me,” I whisper.
But my father’s words cut deep, down to some secret, boarded-up place, where I’ve stored up all the memories, the expectations, the endless tea parties my mother used to throw. She would give me a sweet before her friends arrived and tell me to interrupt her later. When I inevitably did, she’d hoist me onto her knee, putting my Mark at eye level, and wait for some happy little accident to occur. Minnie might arrive with more tea bags just as the last was lifted from the pot, or a curl would fall from my mother’s bun in a single, stylish corkscrew, and she’d laugh and detail the many delights of having a Charm in the house.
Now I’ve taken that pride of hers and stabbed it dead. I’ll never again be the person she preened over.
My hand cinches around the base of my throat, trying to ease the sudden ache there.
“Get on the horse,” my father says.
I look to Weston. He’s on his knees in the grass now, his spine curled, his body folded, his beautiful strength nowhere to be found.
Brendan spits at him and wipes at his bloodied nose again. “Were you ever really my friend? Or was this about you the whole time? About using Bria to break your curse?”
Weston doesn’t react, but the barb lands. I can’t say how I know, except that his stillness is horrible, as if he’s been shot full of arrows and is just waiting to die.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbles.
“Fuck you,” Brendan replies.
