The Ballad of Never After (Once Upon a Broken Heart, #2)

by Stephanie Garber

Happy endings can be caught, but they are difficult to hold on to. They are dreams that want to escape the night. They are treasure with wings. They are wild, feral, reckless things that need to be constantly chased, or they will certainly run away.

“I hurt everyone, Little Fox. But you have to be alive to hate me.” His eyes iced over. “I do not want you dead, and I’ll kill anyone who tries.”

Jacks’s chest was heaving, his clothes were soaked, his hair was a mess across his face—yet in that moment, Evangeline knew he would carry her through more than just freezing waters. He would pull her through fire if he had to, haul her from the clutches of war, from falling cities and breaking worlds.

She used to think love was like a house. Once it was built, a person got to live in it forever. But now she wondered if love was more like a war with new foes constantly appearing and battles creeping up. Winning at love was less about succeeding in a battle and more about continuing to fight, to choose the person you loved as the one you were willing to die for, over and over.

“It hurts, Jacks.” “I know, love. I’m going to take you somewhere safe.”

“I mean … it’s just one night,” he said softly. “In the morning, you can forget it. You can go back to pretending you don’t like me, and I can pretend that I don’t care. But for tonight, let me pretend you’re mine.”

And it struck her how intimate words could be, how they could be spoken only once, for only one person, and they would never be heard again, they would disappear like a moment, gone almost as soon as you realized they were there.

She meant to say, For tonight, I’m yours, but all that came out was “I’m yours.”

When Jacks wanted something, it was with an intensity that could break worlds and build kingdoms. That was the energy pouring off him now, as if he wanted to destroy her and make her his queen all at once.