A Cursed Heart (Myths of Airren, #2)

by Jenny Hickman

Choosing a husband was like selecting the weapon for your execution: your life was forfeit either way.

If I didn’t spend so much time outside, the freckles would’ve faded. But if I didn’t spend so much time outside, I would’ve faded as well.

What is wrong with young men these days?” Everything. That was the problem.

Women were pawns in a game of wealth and power. And yet without us, there would be no men.

What a woman wanted played no part in what she received. Still, I owed it to myself to try.

Act like a lady. Bow and scrape and do as I was told. Keep my thoughts and opinions and feelings to myself. I was good at “being a lady.” Perhaps too good.

If only five pieces of silver were enough to purchase an honorable man.

Whispers weren’t for truths.

Whispers were for lies.

rumors were like whispers, hard to hear and not to be believed.

beautiful but also too heavy.

Perhaps that was why I loved them so much. They were like me. Pretty on the outside but with a heart too heavy for happiness.

Love wasn’t something you wished for. Love, if it existed, found you. And if love was meant to find me, surely it would be strong enough to wheedle its way into my heart

Worry. Worry. Worry. That’s all I ever did.

Not only did they lord themselves over us, they made all the rules in their own favor.

I deserved better.

Rían. I heard his name on the wind. In the rain. In the utter silence in the dead of night. Rían. Rían. Rían.

I was no longer a child listening to tales with a child’s fear. I was a woman who had lived. Who’d had twenty years to make up my own mind. To learn that anyone could be evil just as anyone could be good.

I wasn’t content. I was resigned.

He was like a flame, beautiful and enticing. But flames scalded and burned. And a woman in my position couldn’t afford to be reduced to ash.

True love from the storybooks was patient and kind. It weathered storms. It wasn’t hurtful or selfish. It didn’t use you and cast you aside.

I wanted to do more. Wanted to be more.

“I’d let you choose, Aveen. Choose how I unravel you.”

He tasted like saltwater and hysteria. Bad decisions and destiny. And magic.

All I wanted was a shack and some flowers.

“Ohhh, violent Aveen. Welcome back, my dear. I’ve missed you. Grab your cloak, my little viper. We’re leaving.”

“Will I unravel you now or wait until you finish that tart?”

“It means you are beautiful.”

“You are perfect. You are all that is right and good in this world.”

“You blurred those lines the moment you said you missed me.”

when you touch me, something ignites, and I burn,”

“I burn for you just as you burn for me.”

For the longest time, I had been hiding too. Beneath lies of contentment and complacency. Beneath makeup and dresses and nods and smiles. I may not look any different than I had back in Graystones. But I felt different.

I was going to save my prince.

“I can literally open the earth with a flick of my wrist, and you’re turned on by a bit of feckin’ putty?”

“That’s it. I’m asking for a new soulmate. You’re defective.”

We woke at dawn’s first light, making love to the sound of the sea. Neither of us speaking, letting our bodies tell our truths.

a monster wasn’t born a monster.

A monster was made.