Page 8 of Once Charmed, Twice Cursed
“What’re you asking me?” he whispers.
“To...” I gulp down the raw burn scalding my throat. Now or never. Fortuna help me. “...touch me.”
His brows pinch and his eyes slam closed. When he opens them again, his expression suggests I’ve just rammed a knife into his gut.
“Curses,” he says. “You know I can’t.”
“You can.”
“No. Ican’t. For so many reasons. One being that I made your brother a promise, before I even met you. I swore I’d never touch you, no matter what happened. It was the only way Brendan would bring a Null home to meet a Charm, and I’ve made sure he’s never regretted trusting me.”
My brother’s name slinks through the shadowy office like an intruder. “It’s not his decision, though,” I say. “It’s mine. My Mark. To keep or give away as I choose.”
A reluctant heat creeps into Weston’s gaze, tempering the hard line of his jaw. On the surface, we’re discussing him tending to my injury. But this conversation is actually about something else.
“I know. But...” His voice dips. “Brendan isn’t the only person I promised. I promisedmyself. I swore I’d never take your magic. Even if, in some moment of misguided charity, you actually offered it to me.”
Something inside my chest splinters and breaks. This isn’t charity. It’s something bigger. Something deep and wide andright.
Except I’m the only one who recognizes that, apparently.
“I’m not worthy of it.” Weston’s voice hardens as he stepsback. He pulls at the linen strips that encase his hands. They fall away, exposing swollen, battered knuckles. Bruises and scrapes mar the tanned expanse of his chest. “I mean, look at me. I’m no one. Nothing. Cursed.”
I take him in, certain I’ve never seen anything more magnificent. Because under that topography of muscle and bone beats the heart of a gentleman—an eternally angry one, maybe, but a man of honor. And behind those golden eyes spins a mind that soaks up numbers just as readily as words.
Weston is...everything. The complete package. Every last thing I’ve ever wanted, all in one place.
“I don’t think of you as cursed,” I say.
His brows crook. “You should. You have to. Because it’s the reason I can’t let you waste yourself on me. Don’t you understand? I have nothing to give. Fortuna made sure I can only take. Especially when it comes to you.”
A sting pricks my eyes. I shake my arm, displaying the bloodied splinter. Weston’s eyes follow the motion reluctantly.
“Will you just touch me?” I say, half-choked. “Please?”
Then none of this will matter. The circumstances of our births will cease to mean anything. All he has to do is reach out.
Pain carves lines across his brow. “Why? Why would you even ask me that?”
“Because. I...” The truth burbles in my throat, then snags on my tongue.I love you. I want to be your wife.
“Do you pity me?” he says. “Is that what this is about?”
“No, I... It’s...” Frustration locks my teeth together. I can’t say it. Why can’t I say it? “Just let me give you this.”
He scans me, then turns away, his jaw tensing, his shoulders drawn up.
“No,” he says, and walks out, leaving me to clean and bandage my injury on my own.
Or one of them, at least.
The scar he’s just carved into my heart won’t heal any time soon.
Chapter Four
That night, after I cry myself to sleep, I dream of the woman in the market. The one I met when I was eleven.
My dream plays out exactly the way it happened.
