Page 80 of Fake Fae-Ancée

The lump in my throat grew thicker. Now, my brain yelled. This was my cue say it. I should open my damn mouth and spit out the words, "I didn't sign. I’m still your wife."

Instead this came out, "I can’t give you heirs."

Yuri froze, staring at me.

"…what?"

Horrified, I realized that my speech center kept rolling — keeping the one, smaller thing to myself, and the big one, the one I'd never told him, or anyone, picking that one stupid moment to tumble out of my mouth.

"There’s no way you could get me pregnant. I’m physically incapable. I'm broken. You married a broken thing. And that's why you should be glad you're finally getting rid of me and finding yourself someone better, you know, a real woman."

My voice rang out across the room. Yuri winced, eyes wide.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

I gathered the hideous silken sheet around me and moved a bit away from him, screwing up my face. Where did that sickening pain in my chest come from?

"Okay, you really wanna know?" I said, "Before my loving parents ran off to Otherland, back when I was five, they cursed their only child — me. At first they thought they could take me along with them. Or they at least planned to. But surprise, surprise, Dark-Fae-DNA is not wanted in the realm of pure Fae. That's why they had me magically neutralized. They put some spell on me to make sure I would never reproduce or whatever."

I tried to sound normal. Detached. Like I didn't care that my parents had to cripple me before they left me behind. Aunt Gytha had told me all this when I got to the age when children started asking certain questions.

"You don't have to worry about any of that," she had said, stubbing out one of her long, white lady cigarettes in her silver ashtray. "You'll never have any damaged offspring. The only good thing your parents ever did was making sure this curse ends with you."

Yuri stared at me, face unmoving.

"Your noble family can breathe a sigh of relief." My throat was so tight it hurt. "I won't taint your blood line either."

Great. I shouldn't have started. He didn't need to know any of my pathetic self-pity crap. We would part as soon as all this was over anyway. There was no use in telling him. And now I was sitting here like an idiot and the water was running out of my eyes like they were leaking.

Like it meant anything.

Like I was really sad about it. I had never been sad. No sense crying over things you couldn't change.

I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand and turned, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed. Time to get out of here. My clothes lay tattered somewhere in the training room, but maybe I could find another one of Yuri's gigantic T-shirts to crawl into. And maybe I could even make it back to my room without running into the butler, who of course would know immediately what was going on...

"Hey, now wait a minute."

A massive hand on my shoulder pulled me back into the pillows. I was too weak to resist.

Man, I hated being weak so, so much!

"You can't just hurl this at me and then disappear." Yuri looked down at me. His expression was unreadable. As if he didn't know whether to be angry or shocked.

"I guess I can't," I muttered, blinking more tears away.

"I wish you'd told me."

"Yeah, sorry." I closed my eyes and sighed. Apparently all my filters were off now, I still wouldn't stop talking. "I should have told you. I should have spared you from marrying me. That was a shitty idea anyway. Not just because of that."

"That's not what I mean," Yuri growled.

"But that's the point." The laugh that escaped me was far too sad and far too bitter. "I lied to you. Because I was selfish. Because I loved you so much. Because I was afraid you would leave me if you knew. And then all this crap happened and you were suddenly gone and then you were making out with this woman..."

"I wasn’t!"

"Whatever..." Another sigh. The red-hot anger that usually flared up in me whenever I thought about Yuri kissing that woman — wasn’t there anymore. Only silence and that throbbing pang in my chest. "I thought I deserved it, you know? For not telling you the truth. You ditching me for someone better seemed only fitting..."

Yuri looked at me, face contorted, dark eyes gleaming.

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