Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
A week passes.
Each morning, I rise early and listen to the woman across the wall. Day by day, her coughing eases, gradually replaced by even breaths that filter through the stone. I spend long hours curled in bed, keeping vigil with a book in hand. While my unseen charge heals, I lose myself in one fantastical world after the next.
Jack, true to his word, mostly stays away. He plunks a bag of food onto the counter each evening, then turns and walks right back out again. Each time, disappointment sits heavy in my gut. I want to invite him to stay. Entice him back to the fireside and ask him to work the tangles from my hair. I want to work the tangles from him .
But fear of discovery keeps my jaw locked tight. According to Jack, the duke’s men venture further into the woods each day.
For as long as he remains distant, I’m protected—if the duke’s lackeys stray too close, they’ll inevitably suffer a snakebite to the ankle, or a tree will fall and bar their way. Something.
But if Jack lingers here, I become vulnerable, and dread swirls in my gut when I imagine being discovered. Being dragged away and chained to a life of lovelessness. Meaninglessness.
Still, after a week of non-stop reading, punctuated by evening glasses of milk, an idle restlessness sets in. I’ve never gone this long without human interaction, and the isolation that felt so freeing a week ago now tips toward the claustrophobic.
I can’t hide here forever, alone. Something has to give.
So, when Jack arrives that night, I throw caution to the wind.
I hold out the hairbrush. He eyes it with skepticism, but ultimately sighs and traipses over to the chair by the fire, tilting it to keep himself ensconced in shadow. He sits and fiddles with his mask until it obscures even more of his face. “Let’s be quick,” he says in that gravelly baritone.
I take my place on the floor between his knees. I chose my flimsiest nightgown tonight, mostly in an effort to entice him, but he seems tragically unaffected. He makes quick, utilitarian strokes with the brush and plaits my hair with a deftness that shocks me.
He must have been holding out on me, that first time. Lingering, whether he meant to or not. Because tonight, he seems almost...harried.
“What’s wrong?”
Jack’s gloved hands still in my hair. “What? Nothing.”
I roll my eyes, even though he can’t see it. “Come on. Something’s bothering you. ”
He’s quiet for a moment. “Why do you say that?”
I lift a shoulder and drop it again. “It’s obvious.”
For long heartbeats, he just breathes. “Okay. Fine. If you really want to know, the duke’s men are getting closer. It’s like they know where to look. Which I realize is just my curse. They’ll go wherever I do, without even realizing it. But that means I had to spend the day running in circles. Leading them away from this place. And it’s tiring. I’m tired.”
My insides squeeze. He has his own reasons for doing this, I know. He needs me here so the mystery woman can heal. And yet I appreciate his efforts more than I can say.
“How’d you know?” he says quietly. “That something was weighing on me?”
“Because.” I hug my knees tighter. “You’re not that hard to read. You’re not half as mysterious as you think.”
He lays the braid against my shoulder, finished now. “Mysterious? I don’t think I’m mysterious at all.”
I can’t help but smile. “Really? Why wear all that black, then? The gloves? The long shirt? The mask?”
He grunts. “Because. I don’t want to touch you by accident. And I happen to like black.”
“But the mask? You do realize it’s unnecessary, right? I’ve already seen your face. I saw it the day you kidnapped me.”
He’s quiet. “Maybe for a second. But I don’t need you picking me out of a line-up, after this is over. With my luck, I’d hang for this.”
My heart falters mid-beat. I may not have known him for long, but bile floods my throat when I picture him dangling from a rope. “I wouldn’t turn you in. Not ever. Not after the favor you’ve done me.”
“A favor.” A sigh bleeds out of him. “Is that what this is? ”
“Yes,” I say emphatically.
“Was your life really so bad?”
“Well, no.” My eyes lock on the flames without really seeing them. “Of course not. It’s just that it wasn’t my own. This stupid Mark is supposed to give me everything, but it’s never actually worked out that way. Mostly, it’s kept me coddled. Pinned under my family’s thumb. It’s wrapped me up in a nice, pretty cage.”
He swallows thickly, and I get the sense he’s gathering his thoughts. “I believe that. I believe you . But being charmed has to be better than being cursed.”
I shift. He’s right, which is precisely why my discontent is so hard to explain. I sound ungrateful. Spoiled.
I am those things, probably.
But I want so badly to be more. I want the chance to grow past all that.
“Not,” Jack says, “that it’s a contest. Because I’ve thought a lot about what you said. About your life being artificial. And it sounds stifling.”
The concession reaches into me and lays a warm hand against my heart. “It feels that way sometimes,” I say softly. “But what’s life like for you? Being a Null?”
He makes a gruff sound of surprise. I wait, giving him room to consider.
It’s a question I never dared to ask Weston. Because, for all that I’ve spent ten years pining for that man, we never existed in easy closeness like this. He always came to visit Brendan, and though he lingered to talk to me in the library, or the hallway, or anywhere, really—wherever I happened to be that day—the interlude never lasted as I wanted it to. Brendan would always tug him away. I’d stick close to them, afterward, mostly to negate Weston’s Mark, but he and I didn’t have many chances to speak candidly like this, alone.
Jack grunts. “It’s...hard to explain. And it’s probably different than you think, because I can deal with the bad things. I’m used to them now. It doesn’t bother me anymore that I can’t sleep through the night because my blanket’s always falling off, or I’ll roll over and sprain my thumb, or a mouse will decide to start chewing on my toe, or?—”
“A mouse?” My hand flies to my mouth. “ Chewed on you? That actually happened?”
A low chuckle rumbles out of him, and I startle. It’s the first time I’ve heard him laugh.
“You sound surprised.”
“I am.” I twist around.
He gazes down, his eyes a faint glint in the darkness. “What, you think my curse leaves me alone at night? Because it doesn’t. It doesn’t leave me alone ever. And that’s the hard part—not that bad things always happen, but that I don’t know what they’ll be. Which direction they’ll come from. It’s like my heart’s always beating a million miles an hour. I’m just…on alert, all the time, waiting to see what Fortuna will come up with next. And that feeling always gets worse when I’m with people. Because then I’m dreading for them, too. Waiting for something to happen and for it to be my fault. And I hate that. I hate being a burden.”
His words slip between my ribs, sharp. Aimed. Is this how Weston feels? Like he’s always on the brink of something disastrous, and he’s just waiting to find out what? Like his mere existence is an inconvenience for everyone else?
It must be.
At the thought, my heart tilts on its axis. I miss him like he’s been carved out of me, yet the fresh flood of longing rearing up in me feels...different tonight. Half of me wants the Null I left behind, while the other half wants to be right here. Because when I look at Jack now, my heartbeat stutters in nearly the same way it did with Weston.
Slowly, carefully, I set the brush aside. I rise up on my knees and brace my forearms on Jack’s legs.
A hiss skates in through his lips. His thighs flex beneath my touch, the muscles cording with tension. The firelight paints his shirt in shades of flickering gold.
“Bria,” he says, hoarse. “What’re you doing?”
“It’s okay,” I whisper. A layer of thick black fabric insulates my skin from his. “We’re not touching. And you don’t have to dread, around me. You don’t have to worry at all. You can just relax for a minute. Be yourself. Let go.”
A pained sound escapes him. His eyes flutter closed.
I wait for what feels like an eon, just...resting against him. Existing with him. I wonder if he ever allows himself this much with anyone else. Judging by his description of his love life, I’d wager not.
Jack’s gloved hand twitches at his side. When he reaches out, I expect him to push me away, but he doesn’t.
His fingers take hold of mine.
I startle. Then stare at the stark contrast—black leather against pale skin. It’s just his hand, and yet this marks the first time since I’ve come here that he’s yielded to me. The first time he’s softened.
He opens his eyes. Goddess, I wish he’d lean forward. Let the firelight catch them so I could find out what color they are .
“You shouldn’t have to live like that,” I murmur. “Like what you just described.”
“I should, though.” He sounds exhausted, suddenly. Defeated. “Fortuna wouldn’t have Marked me unless she had a reason.”
The statement nearly stops my pulse. Does he really believe that? “What? No. That’s not true. At all.” I know because of Weston. Because he did nothing to warrant Fortuna’s disapproval.
“It is,” Jack says.
“It’s not.” My voice rises. “You don’t deserve your triquetra any more than I do mine. You can’t honestly tell me you think I’ve done something to earn this thing.”
“Of course I can.”
I frown.
“All I have to do,” he says, “is look at you to know you’re special. That the goddess chose you for a reason. And if that’s true for you...it must be true for me, too.”
The sentiment settles in my chest like a stone. It’s an enormous thing to say. Especially to a near-stranger. “Jack, that’s...”
But I trail off, because he finally shifts. The firelight touches his eyes, and there’s something about the way he’s looking at me. A wall has come down, and behind it, I glimpse a sprawl of pain and resignation and longing.
One that’s wholly familiar. Because I’ve looked into eyes like this before, peered through onto this very same tangle of repressed feeling. I’ve caught this exact shade of light brown studying me from across a room.
Suspicion feathers along the back of my mind. Which makes no sense, because I saw Jack’s face, on the road that day. And yet.. .
I need to see it again. I need to understand who I’m talking to, how he can draw me into his gravity like this. Because only one other person has ever been able to do that.
I draw a steadying breath, disentangle our hands, and reach for him.
His spine goes rigid. “Don’t.”
It’s a warning, but I don’t relent, and he doesn’t actually do anything to stop me. My fingers graze his mask, the fabric a whisper against my skin.
His lips part on a sharp inhale. I lean in and slide a finger beneath the cloth, tugging it away from his face. But I make sure not to touch him directly. I don’t need to, for this.
“Bria, no.” He sounds broken and terrified.
“Shh,” I say. “It’s okay.”
“It’s—”
A shout echoes outside.
I freeze. Jack’s eyes pop wide. My heart lodges in my throat.
For long moments, we just stare at one another.
Then, after the most fraught silence of my life, he says, “Shit. The duke.”