Chapter 30
Azalea
“Wait, so your curse is to get me to fall in love with you without me discovering the truth of the curse?” I know this is the fourth or fifth variation of me asking the same question, but I somehow still can’t wrap my head around it.
“That’s it.” Braxton slumps in his chair, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“And I’ll forget all of this when I fall asleep?” I can already feel the wariness seeping into my bones as I pace back and forth in Braxton’s room. I couldn’t sit on his ridiculously comfortable bed anymore, as I felt my eyes begging me to let them close if only for a moment.
“Correct, and you will think it’s your first day in the castle again, as will the entirety of the staff.” Braxton huffs.
“The staff is under the same spell?” My head feels like it’s going to explode from trying to take in too much information at once.
“That’s what I said,” he grumbles.
I glare at him. “Well, did you ever consider being nice to me?” I bellow, throwing my hands in the air.
“No,” Braxton scoffs. “Shockingly, that thought never occurred to me.” His words are soaked in sarcasm.
“You could’ve fooled me,” I snark, curling my lip.
I watch a muscle twitch in his jaw, and I can tell he is actively clamping down on saying whatever retort popped into his mind. I ask the next question gnawing at me before he has time to change the subject or piss me off enough that I storm away.
“So the castle, this castle, it was our home?” I have the faintest memories of exploring the castle with him when I first visited the land. In all of my memories, it looks the same yet so different.
Braxton nods. “Dianthus found herself quite clever for binding us to a location filled with loving memories I would want to escape and you would have no recollection of.”
“What kind of memories?”
“They’ll come back to you soon enough, but you can pretty much point at anything in the castle, and, one way or another, it’ll remind me of what we used to be.”
“Anything?”
Braxton nods. His expression is bored as he picks at the underside of his nails, but I know he’s masking his true emotions.
For once, I can see past his facade and realize how hard this actually is for him.
My chest aches at the thought of what he’s had to endure, and then my heart seizes for myself: for the life I lost and never truly got back.
Instead, I live in a lie I have no choice but to believe is the truth.
“I can see you’re struggling with what to ask about, so I’ll give an example,” Braxton offers with a flourish of his hand. “Do you ever wonder why we always eat dinner together?”
“That’s because of me?”
A ghost of a smile passes Braxton’s lips as his eyes cloud, falling deeper into the memory.
“When I first started my royal duties, when my father fell ill, I began spending a lot of nights in my study trying to learn everything. One night, we got into an argument about how you were unhappy with how I hadn’t been present.
That night, I didn’t come to dinner because I was still mad about our fight.
You sought me out later and let me know exactly how you felt about that decision.
I asked you how I could make it up to you, honestly hoping it would lead to my head being between your thighs.
” My cheeks heat at his words, and his smile broadens at my reaction.
“But instead,” he continues, “you made me promise you that no matter what we had going on or how mad we were at each other, that we would always stop and have dinner together. I promised you that you would never find yourself alone at our dining table again.”
I didn’t know my heart could hurt so deeply from something I didn’t remember.
I never thought about why Braxton had my meals brought to me for breakfast and lunch, but now I wonder if it’s because it’s too painful for him to endure three hate-filled meals with me every day.
Somehow, I realize, it must have been even more agonizing for him to break the promise he made me, and my heart cracks a little more.
“So you’re telling me, everything in this castle that I’ve ever questioned or hasn’t made sense to me all has a reason. It all has something to do with us? With our past?”
“Everything,” he confirms with conviction.
“The oversized chairs in your study,” I test, finding myself both terrified and painfully curious about the answer.
“We had those custom-made. They’re big enough to comfortably but closely fit two people on them. Whenever I had to work late, we would retire to my study so that we could sit together while you read and I worked.”
My eyes mist.
“The forget-me-nots around the castle?”
“You always believed that flowers held more power than people believed in them. I guess I hoped that by planting them it would remind you to not forget… me. So I make sure to deliver a fresh batch to you every morning. They also happen to be your favorite flower.”
My hand jumps to my mouth to hold in the sob that wants so desperately to break free.
This truth is more devastating than the lie I’ve been forced to live in.
When I look back at him, I see the hint of the tattoo on his chest peeking through his cream-colored shirt.
Part of me knows I shouldn’t ask, that I’m only going to keep hurting myself, but I have to know.
“Your tattoos?” I whisper the question, still too afraid of the truth tied to it.
Braxton’s lips lift once again, but the expression on his face is the furthest thing from happy.
He pulls his shirt over his head, so that I’m staring at his bare chest again.
I hope he can’t hear the small, surprised gasp that passes through my lips as I take in the muscles defining his torso.
I know by his mirth-filled expression that he appreciates my ogling.
“This one,” he points to the numbers scrawled over his right peck, “is the date of the day we got married.” Next, he points to the small bouquet of flowers on the back of his right bicep.
“This one I actually got a few months before the curse happened. It was our way of saying we would never forget each other. You were going to get a matching one on your arm.”
“Why didn’t I get mine?” I watch as his face morphs into a look of worry, but just as quickly as it appears, it’s gone.
“You planned to get it later, and obviously, later didn’t come.”
He clears his throat, and I can’t help but feel the creeping sense that he isn’t telling me the whole truth. I want to press on the matter, but he continues before I’m able.
“And this last one,” he turns and bares his back to me.
My eyes study the intricate swirls and patterns of the design spreading across the upper left side of his back and over his shoulder.
I’ve never gotten to see this tattoo in its entirety before, only the small fragments I’m able to catch that swirl up his neck before disappearing into his hairline. “You designed this.”
I balk. “I designed it?”
“It was a custom in Minem.”
The memory slams into me. It feels like my brain is being ripped apart with a white hot poker, and I cry out, clutching at the sides of my head.
I feel Braxton’s strong arms around me. It isn’t until the searing pain fully subsides and the memory returns to me in its entirety that I realize I’ve curled myself into Braxton, my body effortlessly molding into his.
The subtle scent of leather and musk washes over me, and for the first time that I can remember, it smells like home. I want to cling to it. To him.
“I remember,” I croak, not aware of how loud I must have been screaming.
My throat feels like it was shredded from the sound.
“I drew that for you to act as a symbol of our marriage and unity. Most people from my homeland get them embroidered into quilts or something they will keep in their home together, but you…” My voice trails off, and I smile at the memory.
“I said that was boring,” he finishes for me as if completing my sentences is a completely normal occurrence for us, and I realize at one point, it was.
“I declared that if you wanted to keep the design with you, you would have to keep me with you, so I got it tattooed on my back the night of our wedding.”
Despite myself and the gravity of what was uncovered to me, I laugh. “We were so drunk.”
“You were drunk,” Braxton counters, his voice sounding lighter than I’ve ever heard it. “I was completely sober.”
I shake my head at him. “Liar,” I tease and lean back out of his embrace.
A chill washes over my skin and seeps into my bones when I notice I’m still wrapped in his arms. Gently, I push him away from me and step back.
Shrugging off my rejection, he sticks his hands in his pockets and returns to his chair across the room.
A sudden pang reverberates through my chest, and I can’t stop myself from asking my next question.
“Why did you stop trying to make me fall in love with you?”
He grows serious before responding. “I never stopped.”
I give him a disbelieving look, and his seriousness makes way for an emotion I’m all too familiar with: frustration. “I tried.” His voice is so low I almost don’t hear him. “I really fucking tried, Wildflower.”
The intensity in his eyes makes my heart stutter.
“It’s not your fault, but you don’t know the torment of trying to get you to fall in love with me over and over again for years, decades even, only to consistently fall short.
Of having to face the truth that you hate me, and having to accept the fact that I earned your hate more than I ever deserved your love.
” His hands shake at his side, and he wrings them together to hide it.
“It’s enough to turn any man into a monster. ”
I want to stop my next words from flying out of my mouth, but I can’t. Sometimes my tongue is too quick for my own good. “Clearly you didn’t try hard enough.”
Bolting to his feet, he stalks towards me, closing the gap between us in a few short strides. I straighten my spine as he towers over me and lift my chin so that my eyes bore into his with the same animosity that his skewer me with.
I watch his throat work before he says his next words. “I tried over and over and over again, but dammit, you are loyal to a fault.”
Gripping my waist, he pulls me closer to him. A few strands of my hair fall in front of my eyes. More gently than I’ve ever experienced him to be, he uses one of his hands to brush them back out of my face and behind my ear. Our eyes clash— a mixture of longing and loathing.
“You know what the worst part is?”
I study his face, suddenly able to notice the years of despair that have carved themselves into his skin. My answer comes out soft but firm. “No.”
“All those memories you have of your beloved fiancé… that’s me.
That’s us before this curse claimed us. The most painful part of all of this is knowing that you remember everything and long for it the same as I do.
You just don’t realize that all of those memories are with me.
You don’t remember… me.” He nearly chokes on his confession, the torment in his eyes breaking past my defenses and seeping into the marrow of my bones.
It’s then that I realize that a part of me is aching for him. I’m yearning for him. I’m desperate for the connection that is trying to flood my memories. In this moment, I need his love more than I need air.
He takes a step away from me, and my hand reaches out and grips his on instinct, keeping them locked on my waist.
“Then help me to.” I plead.
“What?”
“Help me to remember you.” I take a deep breath, closing any distance lingering between us. “Kiss me.”