Page 56 of A Curse for True Love (Once Upon a Broken Heart)

“What are you doing?” Jacks demanded.

“I thought you were doing this!”

“You think I’d tie us up with flowers?” He scowled as a little pink bud burst into a blossom.

“It must be this place,” he muttered.

It was then Evangeline noticed that they were no longer in the back room of the curiosity shop.

The confusion of crates was gone, and the shop had been transformed into a lovely cottage—or perhaps this peculiar place was an inn? The brightly lit entryway where Evangeline stood with Jacks looked a little too large for a family’s cottage. There were at least four stories of rooms above them, full of doors with curious carvings on them, depicting things like rabbits wearing crowns, hearts inside glass cloches, and mermaids wearing seashell necklaces.

She felt instantly foolish for not immediately noticing, for being unable to see beyond Jacks.

Directly across from her was a rounded door, and beside it was the most wonderfully irregular clock. It was brightly painted with gleaming jeweled pendulums, and instead of hours, the clock had names of food and drink. Things likeDumplings & Meat, Fish Stew, Mystery Stew, Toast and Tea, Porridge, Ale, Beer, Mead, Wine Cider, Honey Pie, Brambleberry Crisp, Forest Cakes.

“Welcome to the Hollow,” Jacks said softly.

Evangeline whirled on him. Or she tried to. Whirling wasn’t exactly possible with the rope of flowers binding their arms. “You can’t just tie people up and whisk them to wherever you want them.”

“I wouldn’t need to, if you would just remember.” His voice was still quiet, but it was a dangerous sort of quiet, one that gave his words a bite.

Evangeline told herself not to care. But instead she felt compelled to argue. “You don’t think I’mtryingto remember?”

“Clearly not hard enough,” Jacks said coldly. “Do you even want your memories back?”

“All I’ve been doing is trying to get them back!”

“If you believe that, then either you’re lying to yourself or you’ve forgotten how to really try.” His eyes burned as they met hers; it was a fire like anger. But she could see hurt as well. It came in threads of silver that moved through the blue of his eyes like cracks. “I’ve seen you try before. I’ve seen you want something more than anything else in the entire world. I’ve seen what you’re willing to do. How far you were willing to go. You haven’t even come close to that now.”

Jacks ground his jaw as he stared at her. He looked angry and exasperated. He reached up, as if to run his free hand through his hair, but then he wrapped it around the back of her neck and dropped his forehead to hers.

His skin was cold, but the contact made her go hot all over. The hand at her neck slid into her hair and her entire body wentboneless. He held her to him, fingers gentle and firm as they dug into her scalp.

This was so wrong, wanting the man who’d tied her to him and done countless other unspeakable things. But all she could think was that she wanted him to do even more.

He was like poisoned fairy fruit—one bite ruined a person for anything else. But she hadn’t even bitten him, nor was she going to. There could be no biting. She didn’t even know why she was thinking about biting.

She tried to pull away, but Jacks held tight, knotting her hair in his fist and keeping his forehead pressed to hers. “Please, Little Fox, remember.”

The name did something to her.

Little Fox.

Little Fox.

Little Fox.

Two simple words. Only they did not feel simple at all. They felt like falling. They felt like hope. They felt like the most important words in the world. The words made her blood rush and her head spin until once again it was only her and Jacks. Nothing existed except for the press of his cool forehead, the feel of his strong hand tangling in her hair, and the pleading, broken look in his quicksilver blue eyes.

The combination of it all shuffled her insides like a deck of cards, until all the feelings she’d tried to shove away were back on top.

She wanted to trust him. She wanted to believe him when he said the Handsome Stranger he’d just stabbed wasn’t really dead. She wanted to think that the murderous stories she’d been told about him were all lies.

She wantedhim.

It didn’t matter that moments ago, he’d told her he enjoyed blood and hurt and pain. Those things were on the bottom of the deck. And she didn’t want to reshuffle.

Evangeline could have come up with reasons to justify this, reasons that went beyond just hearing a nickname.

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