Page 10 of Cursed Shadows 2

Aleana takes my hands in hers, firm but clammy. “Forge the bond.” Her nerves burn hot but mine are glacier. “You’ll get everything you want. Love, protection, marriage,him. But you need the bond, Nari.”

I sense a sudden shift in the air. It stokes my nerves, loosens a breath from my lips, and I turn to look up the row at the end of the shelves.

Eamon stands there in the shadows, his mouth pinched, eyes creased, and arms folded. If worry had a face, it would be his in this moment.

Eamon knows… Heknew.

But he didn’t want me to know any of this.

I frown at him, feeling the bite of betrayal in my writhing insides.

He reads it so easily.

In a blink, he’s storming down the aisle towards us. His eyes are sharp as they cut to Aleana, who has enough awareness to slink back to her shelf. She knows how greatly she overstepped, and again I think of a possible bargain to keep her silence, I think of her fight with Caius.

I wonder if this is what they talk about,fightabout, at the house in Kithe. Is Aleana the only one to stand up against the males and fight for me, for my second chance, for me to understand all the pieces on the chessboard?

A whispered word I aim up at Eamon, “Why?”

His angular jaw tenses for a moment, then he lowers himself to a crouch at my side. His voice is subdued, keeping his words a secret from anyone lurking in the nearby aisles, “Why did I hide from you the one thing that would fool you into pursuing him? Nari,” he hisses my name with a rush of desperation, a plea for me to understand, “if you go to him, which you are now more tempted than ever to, he will kill you. He can betray his bargain with me, it might not be strong enough to protect you. I don’t… I can’t…” He shakes his head, his golden eyes wet. “Please don’t go to him.”

Tears of my own fill my eyes. “What else can I do?”

“Accept defeat,” he snaps, urgent, and steals my arms in his grip. His face comes closer, the snarl of the dark fae stealing his face. “I am sorry for you, Nari. But you are not the only one who will hurt when his sword pierces your heart.”

“But you’re asking me to give up the one I love—the one I want.Need.”

His fingers dig harder into my arms.

I wince, but his grip doesn’t loosen, his face doesn’t soften. There’s pain in the grimace that his sneer fights off. A battle of pain and anger.

“Is it love that pushes you to him? Do you love him enough that you will die for him? Or is it the Sacrament, or even Taroh that has you on this path, your fear of marriage to him?”

“All of it,” I admit, and it’s the truth. “If I never saw him again, Eamon, every day and night I would have wept for him—for the rest of my life. I never would have stopped yearning. I would have written more, maybe run off to find him when I got that desperate. I never would have stopped.”

Eamon turns his snarl to Aleana, who has a good enough mind to keep quiet. “Stay here,” he growls, then snatches me up from the floor.

He keeps a firm hold on my arm as he drags me through the library. And it’s still strong enough to bruise my flesh when he steers me down a corridor to the servant quarters and pushes me into an alcove—one whose vines remind me of those that feed on noise in my lands.

I realize he’s taken me here because he needs those darker vines to eat up our words—and so no one, no one at all, can overhear us.

“Whatever you decide to do, Nari…”

The lump in his throat bobs.

He drops his head to mine, our foreheads touching, and his hands find my cheeks. Like he’s saying goodbye to me.

I lean into his hold, my oldest friend, my closest friend, a brother and a confidant.

“Listen to me,” he hisses and breaks the tender moment, but keeps his hold on my face. “Whatever you do…do not lie to him.”

Colour drains from my face.

Blankly, I stare up at him.

Eamon adds darkly, “He will know you are lying. He will figure it out, and you won’t survive it. And don’t lie to me,” he adds at my stunned look. “I’ve known for a long time. You are too careless with your words.”

His tone is final, and the look he gives is one that says ‘don’t you dare argue with me’.

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