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“That’s why Jesse is so paranoid,” I muttered. “He only wants virgins and has to marry and mark them all.”
“He’s an idiot. He has none of his great-grandfather’s savvy and all his bad blood. Nothing will save that lineage now.”
I shook my head, trying to make sense of what I was learning.
“Gabriel cursed you,” I said slowly. “He wasn’t a shifter?”
“He was a very powerful fae—the most powerful at the time.” I could hear the admiration that Atlas had once held for his old associate. “But he refused to put his business before his lust, and he resented me for warning him.”
I frowned. It sounded like there was more to the story than Atlas was telling me, but I didn’t pry. I was relieved he was letting me in as much as he was.
“He worried about what I would do to his heirs, his offspring, and those who came after,” Atlas recalled, his expression taking on a faraway look. “And so, he put a spell upon me, forbidding me from killing any of his descendants. But he went even further and prevented me from ever taking anyone that his descendants claimed as their own.”
I felt as though I’d been punched in the gut. “What?!”
He nodded. “Jesse is Gabriel’s last descendant. If I kill him or take what is his, my empire and all attached to it will crumble,” he went on. “What Gabriel really wanted was me dead, but because I was immortal, and he didn’t know what strange, unknown weakness might claim me as it had him, it was the best he could do. Every immortal has a weakness—something that can kill them—but most of us don’t know our weakness until it’s too late. And so, since Gabriel couldn’t kill me, he created the curse. His only son had been born to a human, you see, and he was terrified I would kill the boy.”
“Why didn’t you?!” I demanded. “End it all then and there? If you couldn’t do it, why not hire someone else to do it?”
Atlas shrugged sheepishly. “The curse. If I order the kill, I am still responsible. I may have just pushed my luck again by injuring Jesse tonight.”
“Again?” I repeated. “When was the first time?”
He smirked lightly. “I wanted to take something that was his. Have you forgotten already?”
I blushed furiously, now understanding why Atlas wouldn’t act on his primal impulses and claim me like I wanted him to. Technically, I belonged to Jesse, although it wasn’t my choice.
“What about this last fight?” I asked, recalling the small scuffle they had gotten into, the one which had left me wondering why he hadn’t done more damage to the tiger shifter in the first place. “You look like you’re still doing okay. Maybe the curse isn’t a problem anymore.”
I nodded around the magnificent house. “There was a fire at the Golden Halcyon,” he sighed. “The day after we….”
I paled. “B-but that could have been anything!” I protested weakly.
“It could have been,” he agreed. “But it wasn’t. It was a result of the curse.”
Our eyes locked across the couch, and my pulse quickened.
“Tell me about your father,” he said, and I tensed, the moment between us fading.
I turned away.
“What about him? I told you how he killed our mother, and he’s the reason that Dahlia is the way she is.”
“Do you love him?”
My smile faded. “What?”
“Your father. Do you have an attachment to him? I know that he’s blood.”
“Eugene?” I choked, dumbfounded that he would ask. “Absolutely not! After what he did to my mother? What he did to us? He sold us like cattle! He murdered our mother! I wish he were dead!”
Atlas nodded thoughtfully.
“Good,” he said, and a shiver ran through me.
“Good?”
He nodded again.
