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What I actually wanted was to punch him.
Rafael twitched. “Stop talking,” he seethed at the courtier.
“And, oh, how you encourage it,” the other man blazed on.
Rafael squirmed and shifted, the muscles in his neck and jaw flexing. I wrapped one hand tentatively around Rafael’s arm. He jerked away. My heart flared with pain.
Sinsorias laughed, his eyes bulging with false pity. “Stop the charade, Romero. You cannot deny you still want to kill her.”
My lungs froze inside my ribs, and I couldn’t breathe.
“Silence,” hissed Rafael.
Ignoring him, the sunken-eyed Sinsorias stepped into my space, his glowing threads and skeletal face sending shivers of disgust down my arms. “Did you know, little mortal, that he brought you here for one purpose, to pour his misery and pain on you until you break?”
I choked on my next breath. The world was shrinking around me, crushing and smothering.
“You should feel honored. He chose you as his perfect lamb, the one to take away his curse.”
I stepped away from Sinsorias, from his flashing wicked smile and sparkling purple suit. Tree-like bodies blocked my escape. Rafael stared at me, but I couldn’t look at him. Instead, I blinked at the creatures closing in around us. Their faces were unfamiliar, but their anger was as plain as the moon above.
“Cursed beast,” one snarled.
“Weak,” another spat.
“Magicless,” hissed a dryad with moss growing down his neck.
A squat brownie with a beard shouted, “Even the sun’s forsaken him.”
My eyes finally cut to Rafael. His brother, the Sun Sovereign, was the one who’d cursed Rafael. Sun forsaken, indeed.
Memories I couldn’t shake tumbled over the accusations, muddling my brain. His hand on my back, his leg beneath my own, his face so close.
“Ah, ah,” tsked Sinsorias. “Try to flee, but you won’t get far. The hounds draw nigh.”
A branch-like hand pushed me back toward the man I’d married. He’d made me vow to take his curses and his blessings.
Stars, he had married me so I’d take his curse.
My head began to shake. Words rose and died in my clogged throat. I wanted to fall to the ground, and I nearly did, but Zara’s face popped into my mind, and I straightened my spine. I thought of all the men she’d snubbed since she came of age, all the lovesick bachelors to whom she’d so easily offered a cold shoulder.
Lifting my chin, I fixed indifferent eyes on Rafael, urging myself to hate him. My arms and legs ached. Betrayal burned deep within my chest, raced in my veins, and echoed in my ears.
Rafael stepped toward me, his eyes desperate and fierce.
“Do not touch me,” I said through tight lips. Although his touch was all I could remember.
All of his affection, every time he’d saved me—it was all fake, all part of a master plan. I closed my eyes, unable to stand the agonized look on his handsome face. I couldn’t pin down an actual lie he’d told me, but everything about him was a lie, like a mask—I’d never seen the real Rafael until tonight.
Sinsorias clapped and my eyes popped open. “Now, shall we? The Sun Sovereign is still expecting you two at his coronation ball, and it is unwise to anger the man who holds the power of the sun.”
Rafael stepped directly in front of Sinsorias so their faces nearly touched. “You don’t have your whistle anymore. You cannot force us to go with you.”
I scoffed at the word us. He’d destroyed whatever there might have been of us. Of course, he’d never intended for us to enter a real relationship. Only me, falling in love alone, then falling to my death.
The courtier curled his lip. “Be that as it may, thief, we should leave before the hounds arrive. You don’t want them to bring your bride to the king. There wouldn’t be much left when she arrived.”
Blankly, I followed Sinsorias to where the horses stood at the edge of the clearing. I mounted without anyone’s help and sat staring dumbly at the bobbing globes of light.
