Chapter 17 Cursed with Lies
CURSED WITH LIES
It felt like the world had bowed to us, holding its breath as his lips claimed mine.
The rain clung to our skin, running between us in trembling rivulets, tasting of salt and something far sweeter.
His mouth moved against mine with a hunger that bordered on ruin, and I met it, powerless to do anything but give myself over to it completely.
His hands slid from my face to my waist, anchoring me against him as if letting go would shatter something sacred.
The heat between us ignited where our soaked clothes met, where his fingers pressed, where my breath trembled against his.
I could feel his heartbeat, steady, violent, alive, and in that moment, it felt as though it belonged to me.
When he finally tore his lips from mine, it was only to rest his forehead against my own, his breath ragged, his voice nothing more than a whisper against the rain-soaked night.
“Do you feel it?” he asked, as if the answer could change everything.
And I did.
The wild pulse of something ancient, something forbidden, thrummed beneath my skin. It wasn’t just desire. It was recognition.
I opened my eyes and met his, the darkness there glinting like fractured starlight, and for the first time, I understood the danger of loving a creature born of shadow. Because even now, with the storm finally broken and the night holding its silence, I knew the real tempest had only just begun.
But then as profound a moment as it was, it was also when everything else started to invade the perfection. Because I knew the truth. Hitting me in the chest just as violently as the lightning that had lit up the sky moments ago.
He didn’t love me.
Not like I loved him and his brothers.
How could he? How could anyone truly love me?
It was all a lie I was desperate to believe. One born from a curse that had affected not two brothers… but three.
It all made sense now. Why he had been so reluctant, trying to fight the affliction. The spell that the witch must have cast on all of them. He had just held out longer against it than Victor and Talon. Which was why, the second his lips went back to mine, my world tilted when I broke the kiss.
I stumbled back a step, breath ragged, the rain streaming between us like a curtain of glass. His hand reached for me, but I shook my head, pressing trembling fingers to my lips as though I could still taste the truth that neither of us wanted to speak.
“I can’t…We… can’t do this,” I whispered, my voice shaking.
He looked at me then, truly looked, and what I saw there made my chest ache. It wasn’t anger, or even rejection. It was pain. The kind that cut so deep it didn’t need words.
“Why?” he asked softly, though the question trembled with something rawer, darker.
“Tell me, why?” He asked more forcefully this time. But the words caught in my throat. I wanted to lie. I wanted to tell him anything that would make this easier. But the truth clawed its way out anyway.
“Because your brothers think they love me.” The words fell between us like shards of glass. He flinched as if struck, his jaw tightening, his eyes burning in the night. I could barely see through the blur of tears that mixed with the rain.
“They’re out there…Right now, they’re looking for me, terrified of what you might have done. And all you want is revenge…but their sacrifice would be given for lies.” I choked, the accusation breaking a part of me, as it all poured out of me,
“All you want is to use me to get the dagger back…and now you have fallen victim just like they have…you were right, I guess I am the villain after all.” I cried, a sob breaking free making him flinch at the sight. Yet he said nothing, his silence a wound that deepened with every heartbeat.
“I am sorry, but I can’t give you what you want. Because it isn’t real. None of it.”
His gaze sharpened, and his voice was just as cutting.
“What do you mean?” I swallowed hard, the words tumbling out before I could stop them.
“They don’t love me because they chose to.
They were cursed into it. The witch… she did something to them.
She made them believe I was their Fated.
But it’s a lie. All of it is a lie…and now that lie carries on to you…
as… as she must have cursed you too.” My voice finally broke, as my body quivered, and the cold had nothing to do with it.
He shook his head slowly, rain dripping from his hair, his expression unreadable.
“No,” he stated firmly, making me cry even harder at his denial.
“Vas… I am sorry… I…”
“No!” he said again, louder this time, his voice carrying over the rain.
“You’re wrong,” he started again, and I frowned through the blur of my tears.
“What… what are you talking about?” He stepped closer, shaking his head as though trying to dispel the words. His hand came up, fingers curling as if he wanted to reach for me but couldn’t trust himself to.
“You’re wrong,” he said again, his voice lower now, rough and trembling with conviction.
“I know because I am not cursed.” I let my face fall, my gaze lowering to his wet booted feet and my soaking wet socks, caked in mud.
“You don’t understand…this isn’t real for you,” I said, but when I felt his fingers grip my chin, I lifted my head as he applied pressure.
“Is it real for you?” he asked, his voice soft in its vulnerability. And I couldn’t stand it any longer as I pulled myself from him, walking away.
“I asked you a question, Nessa, is it real for you?” his tone was hard and desperate for my answer. One I didn’t want to give, because it was just too cruel, this fucked up fate of mine! To let me fall in love with three men who were only ever cursed into loving me in return.
Which is when my anger erupted. My hands came up at the same time I faced him.
“Of course, it was! Is that what you want to hear me say? That I have fallen in love with three brothers that I know will one day wake up and realize it was all a lie! That you will get to go on with your lives, leaving me as a hollow shell after you have all stripped me of everything! Do you think I will ever be whole again after knowing that this is what love really is!? That this is what it feels like to love you?” His eyes closed as he raised his head to the sky, as if begging the heavens to wash away his sins of the curse with the rain.
“Say it again,” he said, shocking me.
“What?” I uttered as I blinked at him, confusion and disbelief tangling inside me.
He closed the distance between us in a single step, the storm swirling around him like it bent to his will. His hand came to the back of my neck, cold and unyielding as he pulled me toward him, his breath mingling with mine.
“I am not cursed,” he whispered fiercely, his eyes burning with a truth that terrified me.
“And neither are they.” My lips parted, a protest rising, but he cut through it with words that felt like a spell.
“You are not just theirs, Nessa…” he said, his voice dark and reverent.
“You’re also mine.” I froze, my breath catching as the lightning came back, as if sealing the claim. It lit his face, giving strength to the undeniable truth.
“You belong to me,” he said, the words low and trembling with the force of something ancient and powerful.
“Just as you belong to them. You belong to us all.” The thunder crashed above us, the world spinning beneath the weight of his confession. And though every part of me wanted to run, another part…deeper, older, and far less rational…couldn’t move at all.
Because somewhere inside me, something knew.
Something that had always known.
The world tilted again, only this time it wasn’t because of his words. It was because they broke me.
The truth of them sank deep, shattering everything I thought I understood. The air left my lungs in a sob that tore itself free before I could stop it, my body trembling as the rain continued to pour down on us.
He reached for me, but I shook my head, the tears hot against the cold rain.
“No… No, this can’t be real…. None of this can be real.
” I whispered, choking on the word. But it was.
I could feel it. The bond that pulsed like a second heartbeat beneath my skin.
The same one I had tried so hard to deny.
I took a step back, my knees weakening beneath the weight of it all.
My vision blurred, and I barely felt it when my legs finally gave way.
Before I could hit the ground, his arms were around me.
Strong and steady, he caught me as though he’d been waiting for that exact moment. His grip was firm, one arm beneath my knees, the other cradling my back. Now holding me as if I were something precious he was terrified of breaking.
I wanted to fight him, to push him away, to tell him I hated him for confusing me even more than the world already had. But I couldn’t.
I couldn’t even find my voice.
So, I let him carry me.
The rain beat against us as he moved through the storm, his long strides steady and determined. The sound of it on the gravel path and the hiss of the wind through the trees filled the silence between us. But it wasn’t an empty silence. It was heavy, full of everything unsaid.
My tears mingled with the rain, and I didn’t know anymore which drops belonged to me and which to the storm.
The witch had lied.
She had lied to me, twisted the truth until I believed the worst of them. The brothers hadn’t been cursed into loving me. They had loved me because they chose to. Because something deep within them recognized something within me.
And now Vas…
He wasn’t cursed either.
He wasn’t under any spell, and yet he felt it too…that impossible pull that tied us all together, the one that made no sense and terrified me more than anything else.
What did that mean for us now? For me?
How could I ever hope to understand a bond that defied reason, that bound me to three men who shared the same blood and the same darkness?
And what did it mean for the future, if the lies I’d believed were the only thing keeping me safe from the truth?
The sky had quieted by the time we reached the manor again, though the wind still tugged at the doors as he pushed them open.
The great hall was dark, the sconces burned low, and the flicker of firelight from deeper within the house threw long, shifting shadows across the walls.
He didn’t speak as he carried me through the corridors. His steps were silent but sure, his breath steady against the crown of my head. The warmth of him seeped through my soaked clothes, and despite everything, I found myself leaning into him, too tired and too lost to fight it anymore.
When I finally realised where he was taking me, my heart twisted.
The library.
The one place in this house that felt almost untouched by the darkness. The one place where we could pretend, even for a moment, that there was still light left in either of us.
It felt like ours.
Our secret place where we could both hide from the world this time, and I was no longer a child hiding there alone.
He crossed the threshold and stopped in front of the fire that still burned low in the hearth, its glow soft and golden against the deep mahogany of the shelves. He lowered me gently into one of the high-backed chairs, his touch careful, lingering for a heartbeat longer than it should have.
The crackle of the fire was the only sound between us.
I looked up at him, his hair still dripping, his clothes clinging to him. His face was no longer one I found frightening, even in the light of the fire. If anything, he was now even more breathtaking.
Neither of us spoke.
There was nothing left to say.
Not yet.
The silence stretched between us, long and uncertain, broken only by the gentle crackle of the fire. My clothes clung to my skin, heavy with rain, and the chill was beginning to sink deep into my bones.
Without a word, Vas turned and reached for the throw draped over one of the library chairs. The movement was quiet and deliberate, like he needed something to do with his hands. He stepped back toward me, the firelight painting his face in shades of gold and shadow.
“Here,” he murmured, his voice low, roughened by something that wasn’t quite calm.
He crouched before me, unfolding the blanket, and for a moment, I couldn’t breathe.
He was so close I could see the droplets of rain still caught in his hair, glinting like diamonds under the soft light.
He wrapped the throw gently around my shoulders, tucking it close with a care that felt too intimate for the silence that surrounded us.
Then his hands found my hair.
He rubbed the fabric softly through it, drying the soaked strands, his touch careful, almost reverent.
I closed my eyes, letting out a trembling breath, trying to make sense of the quiet between us.
The warmth of the fire and the steady rhythm of his movements lulled me into a fragile calm, though beneath it, my mind spun in endless circles.
When I finally spoke, my voice came out small, breaking the silence that felt like it might shatter from the weight of what had passed between us.
“How can you know for certain?” I had to know. I had to hear it, like I knew there was more he wasn’t yet saying. He let his head hang for a moment before it rose, and he confessed,
“I didn’t know she was going to lie to you about a curse.” I gasped, my hand going to my trembling lips. He looked pained by my reaction but went on to explain regardless.
“The witch, she works for me. All I wanted was the dagger, but once she found you, she knew that fate had just handed her a means of getting it for me. She also knew how to play on your insecurities to ensure your compliance.” I swallowed hard and forced myself to ask,
“And you… What was your plan for me?” I asked, my voice was steadier than I felt.
He stood slowly, the movement was almost predatory.
In one smooth motion, he shrugged off his long black jacket and tossed it over the back of a nearby chair.
My breath caught. Without it, he somehow looked larger, broader, every line of muscle defined beneath the dark fabric of his shirt, the wet material clinging to him like a second skin.
“Not what happened,” he answered firmly, his voice low, unyielding.
“Then what happened instead?” I dared to ask, the words trembling on the edge of fear and fascination.
He turned to face me fully then, his expression unreadable, shadows flickering in the depths of his eyes. And though part of me wished I hadn’t asked, the other part, the one that was braver and reckless, knew he wasn’t done with his confessions.
Not when he lowered to one knee in front of me and told me…
“I fell in love with my prisoner.”