Page 94 of A Curse for True Love (Once Upon a Broken Heart)

Jacks looked murderous for a second. Then just as quickly, he shook off her words. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you died. And if you die again, I cannot bring you back.”

“So you’d rather live without me?”

“I’d rather you live.”

“I am living, Jacks, and I am not going to die anytime soon.” Evangeline closed her eyes and then she kissed him.

It was a kiss like a prayer, quiet, almost pleading, made of tremulous lips and nervous fingers. It felt like reaching out in the dark, hoping to find a light.

Jacks’s lips were slightly sweet and metallic, like apples and bloody tears as he whispered against her mouth, “You shouldn’t have done that, Little Fox.”

“It’s too late now.” She wrapped her hands around his neck, drawing him closer as she parted her lips. Slowly the tip of Jacks’s tongue slipped inside.

It was a gentler kiss than she would have imagined. Less of a fever dream and more of a secret, a whispered dangerous thing that might escape if he was too reckless. His hands were careful as they moved to her jacket. One by one, with gentle flicks of his fingers, Jacks undid the buttons.

Evangeline’s legs forgot how to work and her lungs forgot how to breathe as he slid off the jacket and let it fall to the ground.

She’d been wrong before. Her life hadn’t been full of moments leading to the Valory Arch. Every moment of everything had brought her to this place. It had taken all the heartbreak,all the almost love and the wrong love, to know that this love was true love.

Glass shattered. He’d dropped the jar—and as soon as he did, the kiss took on new life. It felt like stars colliding and worlds ending. Everything was dizzying and spinning. He kissed her harder. She held him tighter, fingers bruising on the back of his neck before slipping into his soft hair.

Evangeline never wanted to pull away. But she was starting to feel light-headed. Her eyes were closed. But she could see stars.

“Little Fox—” Jacks’s panicked voice broke the kiss.

I’m all right,she said, or she tried to say. Evangeline couldn’t quite get out the words. Her head was spinning too fast. The stars were spinning, too. Little constellations behind her eyes.

Her legs gave out.

“No!” Jacks cried.

Then Evangeline felt his arms catching her as she fell. She tried to stand, tried to move, but her head would not stop spinning.

“No!” Jacks screamed. “Not again!”

He dropped to the ground with Evangeline in his lap. She could feel his chest shaking as he held her.

Jacks—she thought his name. She couldn’t speak quite yet, but she could open her eyes again. The stars had left them and now the world was slowly coming back to focus. First the sky, all indigo and violet. Next, she saw the tree, all glowing and gold.

Then there was Jacks.

He looked angelic and anguished. His beautiful face wasdrained of color. Tracks of blood fell from his eyes down his pale cheeks.

“Don’t cry, my love.” She carefully wiped his tears with her fingers. “I’m all right.”

She gave him a wobbly smile.

His eyes went wide and as blue as a clear sky after a storm.

“How is this…” he trailed off.

It was a little endearing to watch. His sulky mouth gently parted as he seemed to forget how to speak.

“I already told you. You are the love of my life. You are mine, Jacks of the Hollow. And you’re not going to be the end of me.”

“But you were dying.”

“No,” she said, a little embarrassed. “I just forgot to breathe.”

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