Page 30 of The Cursed

“I want to hear it from you, not an ancient text that has passed through so many hands and translations, nothing is for certain anymore,” I said, holding his stare.

“You’re hoping it won’t be true,” he said as I spun to face him. It suddenly seemed so important that I felt his gaze on me for this conversation, not seeing it reflected in the mirror.

Mirrors were gateways, and I didn’t want to risk someone sharing the intimacy of this moment centuries from now when my great-granddaughter wandered into my memories.

“I’m not hoping for anything. I just want to understand my husband,” I said, hating the truth in the words. He knew my most profound shame, my darkest secrets, yet I knew so little of his past from him directly.

“I loved my father,” he said, the somber expression on his face reminding me so much of the portrait of Lucifer falling from grace that he kept in his office.His reminder.“I loved him so much that I never wanted to risk anyone turning away from him. The fact that they may not make it to Heaven and feel the warmth of his embrace was unfathomable to me. I wanted to make it so that humans could not choose to sin at all, rather than risk them being condemned.”

I sighed, hating the sympathy I felt. Was it any different than when a parent placed restrictions on their children, until they proved they could make good decisions?

I didn’t know, and I despised that lack of clarity.

“You wanted to strip them of their free will,” I said instead, seeking for him to own up to the actions he knew I would disagree with. I wanted his honesty more than anything, even if it couldn’t change anything about my opinion of the creature he’d become.

“I wanted to do whatever it took to make sure that they never made thewrongchoice,” he corrected, his conviction of those words striking something deep inside of me. His eyes flared as if he understood it as well, the parallels we could draw between what he’d wanted for humans all those years ago, and the situation he’d forced me into now. “It’s different,” he said, shaking his head in frustration.

“Is it? Am I free to make a choice you don’t agree with, then?” I asked, wincing when he took a step back from me. I grabbed onto his forearm, holding him still and forcing him to stay with me for this conversation.

If he could trap me in this relationship, then he could damn fucking well listen to what I had to say about it.

“You can choose anything else you want,anything,as long as you chooseme,” he said, covering my hand on his forearm with his own. His fingers curled around me, gripping more fully than I would have expected.

“That’s not how it works and you know it,” I said, my voice stern yet soft.

“Why not?!” he yelled, pulling back from me. He paced in a circle, his breathing erratic in his anger. The display was so out of character for him that it made me flinch back, but his pained expression when he turned to face me finally had my shoulders dipping, the fight draining out of me. “I have given enough. I havelostenough. I am not going to lose you, too.”

Despite my best intentions, the back of my throat burned. His pain was so palpable, so like my own, that it struck me just how similar we were.

I stepped toward him cautiously, closing the distance until I halted in front of him. Reaching up to cup his face in my hands, I gave him the truth even if I knew it would hurt him. An eternity ofthiswould hurt more.

“Because until you’re willing to let me go, you’ll never really have me. You’ll always wonder if I would stay—if I wouldchooseyou, if given the chance, and not knowing will haunt you for the rest of your days.”

His brow creased, his face twisting as he considered my warning. That sounded like an eternity of absolute misery to me; never being able to trust in anything the man I loved said.

Always waiting for them to leave.

I released his face, about to walk away. He still needed to dress for the evening, and I’d done enough to put him on edge for the night. “I’ll let you get dressed,” I said, the gentleness in my voice surprising even to me. If he was truly like me, he needed some time to gather his thoughts in private.

I headed for the door, pausing when Gray caught my arm gently. I turned my head to look at him over my shoulder, finding his back still mostly close to me. “Would you?” he asked. “Stay? Would you choose me?” he asked, and the vulnerability in that question reminded me of someone so much younger than Lucifer the Morningstar.

“I don’t know. I can’t choose you until you give me the choice,” I said, pushing through my hesitance to answer. I’d wanted to hurt him, wanted to get revenge for what he’d done to me. Except this somehow felt like kicking an injured puppy when he was down. “And you never will.”

I left the room, leaving him to his thoughts. I thought hurting him would make me feel better. Would help me feel like I’d taken a little bit more of my power back.

But I just felt like shit.

* * *

Iwaited for Gray to emerge, keeping the notion of winning his trust in the back of my mind as I approached him and straightened his tie. He’d donned his careful mask all over again, the vulnerability of a few moments ago a thing of the past.

But I saw it in the way he studied me, in the way he considered if there was any truth to my words. Maybe he was without a conscience and what I wanted didn’t matter to him so long as he had what he wanted.

Or maybe I’d struck a nerve.

"What exactly are you expecting from me tonight?" I asked, peering up at him from beneath my lashes in a peace offering. His gaze was intense on mine, as if he saw right through my actions, so I turned to the window to hide them. The lights surrounding the school illuminated the gardens just outside the building, casting eerie shadows over the cemetery in the distance. The bones pressed into my waist, reminding me of their presence as I stared at the witches who'd been buried wrong. The call of that magic was so overwhelming I barely managed to tear my gaze away, looking toward Gray's knowing stare.

"It's okay to answer the call," he said, turning my face to his again. He touched my cheek, cupping it with a gentleness that grounded me against the violence in that magic. It was life and death, the swirl of a storm of two clashing forces.

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