A Curse for True Love (Once Upon a Broken Heart, #3)

by Stephanie Garber

Then it hit her, not a feeling but a thought—a sharp, fragmented one. She had something important to tell someone.

And once again, she was struck with the inescapable feeling that among everything she’d forgotten was one thing more important than all the rest, more important than anything. There was something absolutely vital she needed to tell someone.

Evangeline read it aloud. “The Greatest Love Story Ever Told: The True and Unabridged History of Evangeline Fox and the Prince of Hearts.”

“I know that story,” Evangeline said. “It’s my favorite…” Or it always had been. As she said the words now, they didn’t feel quite so true.

She was the moth and Jacks was still the flame.

“I do understand, and I hope you understand that as long as you treat me like an untrustworthy captive, I will act like one instead of like your wife.”

Jacks had always considered himself more of a sadist than a masochist. He enjoyed inflicting pain, not receiving it. And yet he

couldn’t bring himself to leave the shadows of Evangeline’s bedroom.

The dying fire smoldered in the hearth. He considered setting the room ablaze just so

that he’d have a reason to pick her up and carry her out, to save her one last time, before he left her for good.

“You have no sense of self-preservation.” Archer took another angry step. “If someone labeled a bottle poison, you would drink it. You take warnings as invitations. You can’t seem to stay away from all the things that will hurt you.” Like me.

He still looked furious and feral. There was blood on his hands, and his eyes were shot through with it as well. Yet she’d never wanted anyone more.

But the blood left behind looked something awful—she probably looked awful as well. “You could never look awful,” he said faintly.

He seemed uncharacteristically nervous as he reached toward her cheek. He slowly took an errant pink strand of hair between his fingers and tucked it behind her ear. He was so careful, his fingers didn’t even brush her skin, but he looked as if he wanted to.

There was a different kind of pain tightening his jaw and making the muscles in his neck pulse as he stood there, holding her gaze as if he wished he could be holding her

instead, crushing her to him like he had ...

It was hard enough to stand there across from him, not touching in a way that almost felt more intimate than touching. It looked as if it was taking all his strength not to reach out and graze her fingers with his. As if one brush of their skin might set off a riot of sparks or blow out every light in the hall. She waited for him to walk away. But Archer didn’t move.

If Jacks stayed, if he stormed in the room and used his powers to make Apollo watch as Jacks told Evangeline that she wasn’t nothing to him. That she was everything. That he’d turned back time to keep her alive, and he would make the same choice

again.

Castor was his oldest friend, so Jacks didn’t want to hate him, but when he looked at him, he could still see his teeth in Evangeline’s throat as he ripped her life away. Castor had no idea that version of their history even existed. It wasn’t entirely fair to judge him for it.

imagined how much blood would be shed. One of the reasons Jacks had allowed himself to be turned into a Fate was so that Castor

wouldn’t be alone.

“I’m just trying to look out for you,” Jacks said. “You finally have the helm off and your family back. I don’t want to see you destroy this chance.”

He tried to be gentle, he tried not to hurt her. But he needed her to understand before he let her go. “Yes, I am a murderer. I enjoy hurting people. I like blood. I like pain. I am a monster, but whether you remember it or not, I’m your monster, Evangeline.” Her breath caught.

He couldn’t tell if she was finally remembering. But he was selfish enough to hope that she was.

“Please, Little Fox, remember.”

the pleading, broken look in his quicksilver blue eyes.

She remembered.

The story of Evangeline and Jacks. And it was a beautiful story, her new favorite story.

She hated that she’d forgotten it. That it had been lost and Apollo had tried to rewrite it, to tell her that Jacks was the villain.

“What about those self-defense lessons you told me about? Did Jacks teach you anything, or was it just an excuse to put his hands around you?” LaLa waggled her brows. Evangeline’s cheeks turned very warm. “He taught me a few things … but mostly it was a lot of his arms around me.”

“I’m not giving up on Jacks,” Evangeline said.

“Or,” Evangeline offered, “I could kiss Jacks, and he could finally see that he is not going to kill me.”

I am Jacks’s true love. I believe it with the same confidence that I believe that water fills the oceans and morning follows the night. I believe it with all my heart and soul. And there has to be some sort of magic in that.”

I know my attempt to save Jacks could end in a fiery explosion, but I’d rather go up in flames with him than watch while he burns.”

“I just want to kiss him,” Evangeline said softly. “And … I don’t want to die.”

If Jacks was telling her not to look for him, then he was thinking about her. There was still hope.

“I love you, Jacks.” He closed his eyes as she said the word love.

“I used to wonder if fate was real,” she said gently. “I used to fear it meant that I had no real choices. Then I secretly hoped fate was real and that you and I were fated, that by some miraculous chance I was your true love. But now I don’t care if fate is real—because I don’t need it to decide for me. I don’t need it to make this choice. I’ve made my decision, Jacks. It’s you. It will always be you, until the end of time. And I’ll fight fate or anyone else who tries to tear us apart—including you. You are my choice. You are my love. You are mine. And you are not going to be the end of me, Jacks.”

Evangeline closed her eyes and then she kissed him.

“Don’t cry, my love.” She carefully wiped his tears with her fingers. “I’m all right.”

“I already told you. You are the love of my life. You are mine, Jacks of the Hollow. And you’re not going to be the end of me.”

“I love you,” he said simply.

“Little Fox, I’m sorry.” His tortured voice echoed toward the sky. The broken sound of it would have made Evangeline cry if she wasn’t already. She wanted to tell him not to be sorry, she wanted to tell him again that it would be all right—but just in case it wasn’t, she called, “I love you!”

A dimple appeared just below a cut on his cheek. “We can go wherever you want, Little Fox.”

The curse really did hope the two of them would find happily ever after. It wasn’t entirely sure if the not-quite-human-boy deserved it, but the girl with the rose-gold hair definitely did.

“I still have one question,” she said.

It watched as the not-quite-human-boy raised an offended brow. “You only have one?” “No—I actually have far more.” She worried her lip between her white teeth. Something shifted in the not-quite-human’s eyes; he looked as if he wanted to take her lip between his teeth as well. “You can ask me whatever you want, Little Fox.” “Splendid!” Her mouth turned up into a sweet smile. “Tell me about the apples.” “Next question.”