Page 43 of Blood Vows
Until even the thunder fell silent.
17
CURSED WITH LIES
It felt like the world had bowed to us, holding its breath as his lips claimed mine. The rain clung to our skin, running between us in trembling rivulets, tasting of salt and something far sweeter. His mouth moved against mine with a hunger that bordered on ruin, and I met it, powerless to do anything but give myself over to it completely.
His hands slid from my face to my waist, anchoring me against him as if letting go would shatter something sacred. The heat between us ignited where our soaked clothes met, where his fingers pressed, where my breath trembled against his. I could feel his heartbeat, steady, violent, alive, and in that moment, it felt as though it belonged to me.
When he finally tore his lips from mine, it was only to rest his forehead against my own, his breath ragged, his voice nothing more than a whisper against the rain-soaked night.
“Do you feel it?”he asked, as if the answer could change everything.
And I did.
The wild pulse of something ancient, something forbidden, thrummed beneath my skin. It wasn’t just desire. It was recognition.
I opened my eyes and met his, the darkness there glinting like fractured starlight, and for the first time, I understood the danger of loving a creature born of shadow. Because even now, with the storm finally broken and the night holding its silence, I knew the real tempest had only just begun.
But then as profound a moment as it was, it was also when everything else started to invade the perfection. Because I knew the truth. Hitting me in the chest just as violently as the lightning that had lit up the sky moments ago.
He didn’t love me.
Not like I loved him and his brothers.
How could he?How could anyone truly love me?
It was all a lie I was desperate to believe. One born from a curse that had affected not two brothers…but three.
It all made sense now. Why he had been so reluctant, trying to fight the affliction. The spell that the witch must have cast on all of them. He had just held out longer against it than Victor and Talon. Which was why, the second his lips went back to mine, my world tilted when I broke the kiss.
I stumbled back a step, breath ragged, the rain streaming between us like a curtain of glass. His hand reached for me, but I shook my head, pressing trembling fingers to my lips as though I could still taste the truth that neither of us wanted to speak.
“I can’t…We… can’t do this,”I whispered, my voice shaking.
He looked at me then, truly looked, and what I saw there made my chest ache. It wasn’t anger, or even rejection. It was pain. The kind that cut so deep it didn’t need words.
“Why?”he asked softly, though the question trembled with something rawer, darker.
“Tell me, why?” He asked more forcefully this time. But the words caught in my throat. I wanted to lie. I wanted to tell him anything that would make this easier. But the truth clawed its way out anyway.
“Because your brothers think they love me.” The words fell between us like shards of glass. He flinched as if struck, his jaw tightening, his eyes burning in the night. I could barely see through the blur of tears that mixed with the rain.
“They’re out there…Right now, they’re looking for me, terrified of what you might have done. And all you want is revenge…but their sacrifice would be given for lies.” I choked, the accusation breaking a part of me, as it all poured out of me,
“All you want is to use me to get the dagger back…and now you have fallen victim just like they have…you were right, I guess I am the villain after all.” I cried, a sob breaking free making him flinch at the sight. Yet he said nothing, his silence a wound that deepened with every heartbeat.
“I am sorry, but I can’t give you what you want. Because it isn’t real. None of it.”
His gaze sharpened, and his voice was just as cutting.
“What do you mean?” I swallowed hard, the words tumbling out before I could stop them.
“They don’t love me because they chose to. They were cursed into it. The witch… she did something to them. She made them believe I was their Fated. But it’s a lie. All of it is a lie…and now that lie carries on to you… as…as she must have cursed you too.”My voice finally broke, as my body quivered, and the cold had nothing to do with it.
He shook his head slowly, rain dripping from his hair, his expression unreadable.
“No,” he stated firmly, making me cry even harder at his denial.
