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I darted my eyes away.
“I was the cost,” I muttered. “Valeria wanted me, and I agreed that we could be together as long as she cured Mathilda.”
“And did she?”
I nodded, more guilt washing through me as I looked away from Rachel’s intuitive stare.
“But?” she pressed. “What happened? Did you back out?”
“No… not technically.”
I sighed, dredging up those months when I had committed myself to Valeria, enduring the boring sex and meaningless endearments until I thought I would lose my mind.
“What happened?”
“She was a fae,” I explained. “She knew what was really in my heart, and she quickly came to see that even though I stayed with her, I didn’t care for her. Despite what she had done for Mathilda, I didn’t even like her, but a part of me was concerned that she would undo her healing.”
“It doesn’t work like that,” Rachel told me.
“I know that now, but then, I was a newly formed Original of twenty-five. I barely knew my ass from my head. None of us did. Our powers were very new, and we had no one to go to for advice.”
I sat forward and rubbed my temples.
“Valeria gave me an out, although I don’t think she was expecting me to take it,” I went on, eager to get it all off my chest now. “I could either stay with her, or she would let me go, but I couldn’t fall in love with anyone else for two thousand years. The specifics of the curse are that I cannot commit myself romantically to anyone else. I don’t fully understand it; the words she used were so ambiguous. It was so stupid. At that time, we didn’t even know that we were immortal.”
I grimaced, again thinking of how young and foolish I’d been. Time meant something so different back then, and a lifetime with Valeria had seemed insurmountable, lying in bed with her, possibly fathering her children. The choice had seemed simple to a demon who had no interest in love. At least not back then.
“You chose the latter,” Rachel concluded for me.
“I did,” I replied. “But it gets worse. I often wonder if the curse is the reason Elijah was taken. I didn’t love him romantically, but he was someone I cared for like a brother.”
“And Mathilda?” Rachel asked. “What happened to your sister?”
Biting on my lower lip, I shrugged.
“The same thing that happens to all mortals eventually,” I muttered. “She recovered from her wounds, and honestly, she never did quite ever look at me the same way again, but she was saved from my hand that time.”
Rachel didn’t speak for a moment, the wheels of her head turning as she studied me.
“And what happened to Valeria?” she asked.
“She’s dead. She died more than a thousand years ago. I don’t know how to break the curse, but I can only imagine it would have to be someone from her bloodline,” I told her, feeling relieved that someone finally knew my secret.
“The curse is running out,” she informed me. “How much longer?”
“Twenty years,” I sighed. “So there is no way I can have Briar and her child here. Do you understand?”
“There’s always a way to break a curse, Ash,” Rachel said flatly.
I rolled my eyes. “You think I haven’t considered that?” I snapped. “I’ve been trying to hunt down the Ambrose bloodline, but it’s impossible at this point.”
“Nothing is impossible,” Rachel retorted, standing. “I wish you’d come to me sooner.”
Hopefully, I eyed her. “You know how to trace them?”
She shook her head, crushing my small twinge of faith.
“No. But I am a fae, and I have resources, too. Let me see if I can’t do some research of my own.”
