“The curse will be broken,” I whisper. “You’ll be free to love.”
“I don’t care about love if I can’t love you.” He closes the gap between us and takes my face in his hands. “You’re who I want, Selah. You.”
Tears well in my eyes. Because I want him, too. So badly, I feel like I might suffocate beneath the weight of it. But what choice do I have? The endhas come for me, just like it comes for all of us eventually.
“If death is my fate,” I say, “it’s not without choice. Either I die by the curse, or I die by destroying it.” I cover his hands with mine. A tear catches on his thumb. “I choose to destroy it.”
He lets go.
He turns away.
With a guttural shout of rage, he kicks the bench so hard, it splinters. “You’re not the only one who learned something today,” he says. “She called it aconsumingcurse. It needs to feed on someone bound to it through love. And that someone doesn’t have to be you.”
Before I can process his words, he’s gone—storming toward the manor like a man on a mission. And I’m left dumbstruck, blinking through the confusion. Because surely, it can’t be him. I’m the one with the mark. But then I think of my mother, who outlived Simon Vandenberg by decades.
My thoughts lurch to the scorch mark.
The curse needs to feed, and Jude just looked like a man determined to offer himself up as a meal.
Panic surges.
I sprint after him, but he’s already on the portico, disappearing through the doors. I stumble in the dark, reach the stone steps, and bang the brass knocker.
The doors fly open.
Rafe stands on the other side.
I don’t wait for a smirk or a snide innuendo. “Please,” I gasp. “I need to talk to him.”
He leans against the doorframe and folds his arms. “I don’t think he wants to talk to you.”
My panic spikes.
Aconsumingcurse.
It needs to feed.
Isn’t that what it’s been doing—feeding on my warmth, on my life? What if Jude finds a way to turn its appetite to him? What if he’s upstairs feeding it now?
I grab onto Rafe’s arm. “In order to get Seraphina back, you need Jude’s blood.”
His expression glints with something dark and inscrutable.
“Surely he needs to bealivewhen he gives it.”
Rafe narrows his eyes. “Are you telling me his plans have changed?”
“He thinks there’s another way to save me. One that doesn’t involve opening the tomb. A way that would—” My voice catches. I swallow a shaky breath. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”
I want him to reassure me.
Yes, he understands.
No, he won’t let it happen.
I want him to give me his word.
I want his word to mean something.
