Chapter 45 Azalea
Azalea
When we got to his room, Braxton immediately ran me a bath, where I meticulously scrubbed every droplet of blood off of my skin until it turned pink.
I honestly wasn’t sure what was mine, what was Braxton’s, and what was Gravesley.
Was any of it mine? After I emerged from his bath chamber, he gave me my privacy to change into his shirt, which he laid out for me on the bed.
Now, Braxton and I are lying together in his bed. I asked him if he was going to be a gentleman and let me have the bed to myself, and he let me know exactly what he thought of that idea by climbing in right beside me after he washed himself and changed his clothes.
We’ve more or less stayed like that since.
Both of us refuse to sleep on the floor, and neither of us are anywhere close to being able to fall asleep.
Braxton has been abusing his bottom lip between his teeth for at least five minutes now, and whatever thought he was wrestling with, he finally seems to concede to.
Letting out a heavy sigh, he rolls over and reaches into the small table next to his bed.
“I want you to have this.”
He holds up his hand, and I see an absolutely beautiful necklace dangling from his fingertips. I can’t help but look at it distrustingly.
“Is this your way of trying to bribe me to sleep with you?”
“Clearly, I didn’t need to bribe you to want to sleep with me, or have you already forgotten about the library?” He flashes me a teasing grin, and I scowl at him.
“It must not have been that memorable.” I shrug with nonchalance.
“Your multiple orgasms tell me otherwise.”
My cheeks flame, and I reach for the necklace to keep from having to come up with a retort to his painfully true remark.
It’s a lariat necklace that has a delicate gold chain. There’s one large rose quartz stone where the junction of the chains of the necklace meets, and a second slightly smaller rose quartz stone dangling at the very bottom of the necklace.
“It’s beautiful,” I say, still unsure of why he would be gifting this to me.
“Let me put it on you.”
“Why are you giving this to me?” I need to know before I let him clasp it around my neck.
Braxton sighs. “Can’t you just accept a gift?”
I snort. “Not from you.”
“What if I told you there truly isn’t a motive on my end. I just thought you would get more use out of it than I would.”
I search his expression, looking for any hint of deception, but I come up empty.
“Fine,” I give in, and slowly push myself to sit up.
Braxton props himself up to better reach me before unclasping the hook on the back of the necklace, and it isn’t long before I feel the weight of the cool metal pressing against my skin.
The pads of my fingers slide up and down the necklace, running over the smooth stones which harshly contrast the jagged chain. I slowly lay back down and face Braxton again.
I can see his eyes growing heavy, and I decide to ask him one of the questions that has been eating at me since I first found out he was cursed.
“Why would you invite the witch’s magic into your home? What could have possibly been so bad?”
“Who said I—”
“I read about it.” I cut him off, stopping him from being able to deflect. “In order to create a magical deal, both participants need to willingly invite the magic in. It keeps mages from being able to just throw a curse upon people.”
I’ve been thinking about this a lot and how whatever his curse is, it has to be closely tied to me, because I never invited any magic in. Meaning whatever his deal was, it somehow roped me in with it, and it was able to do so without my consent.
From my readings and understandings, that has only been possible when any participant has been brought in who is unable to give consent, like a small child who can’t speak for themselves yet, or if someone were near death and unconscious.
Neither of those options make sense for me.
I was healthy and vibrant when Braxton came and snatched me from my home.
At least, I think I was. The more I try to remember that day the fuzzier it seems to become.
Braxton releases a strangled sigh, and I already know his answer.
“You can’t tell me, can you?”
“Not yet.” He pauses, and I know he has more to say, so I wait patiently as he turns his head away from me to look at the ceiling. “But I can tell you it was worth it. Every stab wound. Every day, stuck in this castle. Every ‘I hate you’ was worth it.”
I brand his words into my mind. I can’t explain it, but I know they would mean more to me if I had the full context of what’s happening to us.
When I finally uncover the answers to all of these secrets, I want to remember these exact words he said because maybe then I won’t hate him for keeping things from me.
In my heart of hearts, I don’t want to hate Braxton anymore.
I’m starting to understand that no matter how twisted things are for me, they’ve been worse for him.
Regardless of these discoveries, my objective has not faltered. I plan to break this skyforsaken curse and find out every truth he’s kept from me, if it’s the last thing that I do.