Page 99 of A Curse for True Love (Once Upon a Broken Heart)

“Let me go!” Jacks thrashed as the guards firmly took hold of his arms and began to drag him away.

Only these weren’t guards. He knew these men. They looked liked Dane and Lysander Valor, Castor’s older brothers. “Let me go! This isn’t your fight.”

Dane, the most hard-headed of Castor’s brothers, might have muttered something, but Jacks couldn’t hear it over the rushing blood in his ears or the cries of Evangeline, who was still tied up on the ground.

“Why aren’t you helping her instead of restraining me?” Jacks yelled.

And that’s when he saw Wolfric.

It was the first time Jacks had seen him since that night in the Valory. Tonight he looked dressed for battle, knives strapped to his arms, swords strapped to his sides, another weapon across his back.

He was talking to Apollo. Jacks waited for Wolfric to run the blackguard through with one of his knives and then pick up Evangeline. But everyone in this cavern seemed to have lost his mind. Instead of stabbing him, Wolfric clapped the prince on his shoulder and handed him a handkerchief. Then he marchedtoward Jacks and his sons without so much as a glance at Evangeline.

“What’s wrong with you?” Jacks bellowed.

Wolfric looked at him grimly and ran a hand over his beard. “I’m sorry, son. But I can’t let you go to her.”

“You can’t stop me,” Jacks roared. He tried to throw Dane and Lysander off his arms, but all the Valors were so much stronger than they should have been.

“She’s his wife,” Wolfric said, as if that somehow made this all right.

“He’s going to sacrifice her to a tree!” Jacks screamed.

Apollo looked half dead. His face was bloody and almost unrecognizable from the beating Jacks had given him. But he was still standing, and now he was holding out his sword.

And Wolfric was still doing nothing. Jacks hadn’t always liked Wolfric Valor, but he’d respected him. He knew Wolfric believed in honor and justice and all the things he spouted about during toasts.

“Is this because I’m a fugitive?” Jacks shouted at Wolfric. “Those stories about me aren’t true. I never erased her memories—Apollo did!”

“I don’t care about any of that,” Wolfric grunted. “I’m doing this because it’s the right thing to do.”

“It’s not and you know that,” cried Jacks.

On the ground, Evangeline was still struggling and crying. Her cheeks were stained with tears as she lifted her head from the ground to meet Jacks’s gaze. Her eyes were shining. Evennow, she looked so sweet. She didn’t speak, but he heard her think,It’s going to be all right.

But it wasn’t all right.

Nothing was going to be all right ever again if Jacks lost her now.

48Evangeline

Evangeline continued to struggle against the shackles binding her wrists. All she needed was one drop of blood. She had to save herself and Jacks—if she didn’t make it out of this, she didn’t want to think about what would happen to him.

This couldn’t be how their story ended.

Evangeline knew that Jacks had told her heroes didn’t get happy endings. But that didn’t mean they were supposed to give them to the villains.

Apollo looked as if he could barely stand after Jacks’s beating. The prince’s nose was broken and bleeding. One of his eyes was swollen shut. But he still managed to hold his sword high above his head.

The blade glinted in the moonlight.

The ground pulsed faster. Tiny pebbles bounced from the ground and hit Evangeline’s cheeks as the tree’s disturbing heartbeat pounded harder than before.Thumpthumpthump.

She held her breath. If Apollo stabbed her and didn’t kill her, she could use the blood to finally get free of the cuffs.

“Little Fox!” Jacks lashed his arms against his captors as he screamed and cursed everyone in the cavern. “Little Fox, I’m sorry.” His tortured voice echoed toward the sky.

The broken sound of it would have made Evangeline cry if she wasn’t already. She wanted to tell him not to be sorry, she wanted to tell him again that it would be all right—but just in case it wasn’t, she called, “I love you!”

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