“No,” I said coldly.
I held his gaze and stroked my thumb over the middle of the damp spot Ifound on Sloane’s underwear. She jolted, nearly knocking over her drink. To steady herself, shegripped my arms.
“You sneaky son of a bitch,” she hissed. Her knee was now pressed firmly against my balls.
“Either you and I go upstairs now, or I shadow you for the rest of the night,” I warned.
“You devious bastard.”
“Decide.”
“Fine,” she said with a careless shrug. “I’ll fuck your brains out for onenight only. But don’t think this means anything.”

"Out of curiosity, what did she do this time that aggravated you?" Emry asked, his eyes dancing behind his half-moon spectacles.
"She got fingerprints on my desk", I said testily.

“You should go,” he said suddenly.
“Why? Don’t you like having me here in this very nice office?”
I wandered over to his desk. It was a huge pane of glass with sharp corners, empty except for a keyboard, mouse, and two monitors.
I wondered if he liked order or just hated chaos. I trailed my fingers along the beveled edge, knowing full well I was leaving smudges.
“You seem upset,” I said, pausing and locking eyes withhim. “Want to talk about it?” I offered before hopping up to perch on the glass surface. His gaze darkened dangerously, and he took a few steps in my direction before stopping. My heart rate kicked up.

But I knew better. Sloane didn't offer warmth. She promised third-degree burns.

“Come on, bro. I’m curious. Also, I, uh, really have to pee, so if you don’t distract me right now all I’m going to think about is how much I have to pee.”
“You know, sometimes I wish I could remove the part of my brain that stores the things you say to me.

Is this joy?
I think it might kill me.
“Aaron?”
“Yes, love?”
She takes my face in her hands and kisses me, kisses me with a love so deep it releases my brain from its prison. My heart starts beating violently.

Spoiler(cliquez pour révéler)

“Ella,” I say. “You’re going to be my wife.”

“What are you saying?” I whisper.
“I love you, Ella. I love you more th—”
“Wow. You two seriously couldn’t wait until we got back to base, huh? You couldn’t spare my eyes?”
The sound of Kenji’s voice pulls me suddenly, abruptly out of my head. I turn too quickly, awkwardly disengaging from Aaron’s body.
Aaron, on the other hand, goes suddenly white.
Kenji throws a thin airplane pillow at him. “You’re welcome,” he says.
Aaron chucks the pillow back without a word, his eyes burning in Kenji’s direction. He seems both shocked and angry, and he leans forward in his seat, his elbows balanced on his knees, the heels of his hands pressed against his eyes.
“You are a plague upon my life, Kishimoto.”
“I said you’re welcome.”

“Do you know how hard it was for me to tell you that? Do you have any idea—” I hear her sharp, angry huff. “Will you at least look at me when I’m talking to you?”
“Can’t.”
“What?” She sounds startled. “What do you mean you can’t?”
“Can’t look at you.”
She hesitates. “Why not?”
“Too pretty.”
She laughs, but angrily, like she might punch me in the face.

Maybe it sounds weird to say, but I know I could love the shit out of someone. I feel it, in my heart. This capacity to love. To be romantic and passionate. Like it’s a superpower I have. A gift, even.

And I’ve got no one to share it with.

Everyone thinks I’m a joke.

“I deserve this,” he said. “I probably deserve a lot worse. But this is not the day to kill me. I’m trying very hard to keep you alive.”
Jacks grabbed her arms again and flipped her over, trapping her beneath his body. 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 rememberi t or not, I’m your monster, Evangeline.”

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. If Jacks made her remember that he was the one she should have wanted to kiss. She wouldn’t be safe anymore.
She wouldn’t even be alive.

“Wake up, Princess.” Jacks tossed a leather vest at her sleeping form.
Evangeline squinted and rubbed her tired eyes as she pulled the garment away. She hadn’t clearly seen him yet. But in the past, she wouldn’t have had to see him. She would have known his voice or sensed his presence even before he spoke, and he’d have seen her body react. Her cheeks would have gone red or she might have shivered and then pretended that there was
a draft. That it wasn’t him.
She was better off not knowing him. But he was enough of a bastard to hate that she’d forgotten

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.
It wasn’t an obsession.
One visit wasn’t an obsession.
Jacks just needed to make sure she was still alive.

“I just saved your friend’s life,” Chaos replied sharply.
And was it just Evangeline’s imagination, or did he puff out his chest?
Until that moment, she’d still been thinking of him as Chaos. But now as he sat up taller, with his cape rakishly tossed over one shoulder, she could see him as Castor Valor, the cocky young prince of the Magnificent North.
“Well, I’m here now, so—” LaLa waved a hand toward the forest.
“Did you just dismiss me?” Castor asked.
“I tried,” LaLa said. She was the smallest in stature of the three, and yet there was something about the way she glared at Castor that gave the
impression of her looking down upon him. “Don’t you have virgin blood to drink or something?”
“Virgin blood?” Castor smiled one of those devastating vampire smiles as he shoved a hand through his hair in very devil-may-care fashion. “What kind of stories have you been reading about me?”
“I don’t read any stories about you,” LaLa huffed, but Evangeline swore there was a deeper color on her cheeks.
“So it’s just a coincidence that you’re quoting one of them?”
“I know you drink blood,” she said.
Castor’s gaze turned heated. I’d like to drink your blood, it seemed to say.

He was rough as he took her from the room, only pausing to slam the door behind them before he turned to her again.
“What did he do to you?” Jacks’s jaw tensed when he saw the blood staining her lips.
“I’m fine—I just—” I just need you to hold me. She wasn’t able to say it. She wasn’t even sure she projected the thought.
But then Jacks picked her up. She clung to him and buried her head in his shoulder.
He held her so tightly it hurt, but this pain she didn’t mind. She’d let him crush her, let him break her, just as long as he never let her go. This was what she wanted, and she refused to believe that he didn’t want it, too.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SPOILERRRS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Spoiler(cliquez pour révéler)

She ran her fingers through his soft hair, just once.
He leaned into her hand. “That feels good,” he mumbled. “You feel good, too.” He hooked an arm around her waist and drew her onto the bed.
“Jacks—what are you doing?”
“Just for tonight.” He tightened his arm, holding her even closer, until her chest was pressed against his bare skin.
“You’re injured,” she breathed.
“This makes me feel better.” He spoke against her throat and finished with a lick that made her head begin to spin.
Now would have been a really good time to untangle herself.
His mouth closed over her pulse.
She tried to tell him this was a bad idea, but a soft sigh came out
instead. If his lips felt like this on her neck, she wondered how they’d feel on her lips.
Her eyes closed, and her breath went shallow. She shouldn’t think about Jacks’s lips on hers. And yet she couldn’t help but wonder if maybe she could kiss Jacks here, in the Hollow, in the one place curses couldn’t touch them. The idea was painfully tempting. But even if Jacks’s kiss couldn’t kill her here, that didn’t mean it wouldn’t ruin her in other ways. “We shouldn’t do this,” she said.
“I’m just asking you to stay the night.” His lips left her neck as he
murmured, “You won’t even remember.”
Evangeline tensed in his arms. “What do you mean, I won’t
remember?”
“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.”
She melted at the word mine. For a dizzying second, she couldn’t think.
She couldn’t bring herself to pull away, and yet she couldn’t tell him she would stay.
“If it’s easier, you can pretend, too,” he whispered. “You can pretend that I’m still Jacks of the Hollow and that you want to be mine.” His mouth pressed against her throat once more and slowly traced a blissful line up her neck, to her ear. Then his teeth nipped her earlobe.

She looked up at his unreadable eyes as he lowered her into the bed. “Do you still think of me as just a tool?”
Jacks frowned. “I try not to think of you at all.”

But he didn’t say a word about it. He just went on to carefully clean her wounds, wiping them with cool, damp cloths. It stung
every time the cloth touched a gash. But then his fingers were soothing her by grazing the uninjured side of her ribs, sometimes with his knuckles, other times with his fingertips, and it was all she could do not to gasp.
“You’re good at this,” she murmured. “Do you often travel with girls who’ve been flayed?
This earned her a soft laugh. “No.” Then quietly, as he ran a cloth along her lower back, just below the dip in her waist, “Would you be jealous if I did?”
I’m not a jealous person was what Evangeline intended to say, but instead the words “Of course” came out.
Jacks laughed, louder this time.
Embarrassment surged through her. “That’s not what I meant to say.”
“It’s all right. I’d probably kill another man if I found him with you like this.”

“You told me you wouldn’t kill anyone.”
“No,” he said. “You told me I wouldn’t kill anyone. I told you that was a terrible plan.”
“But you didn’t need to kill her,” Evangeline argued.
“What do you know about what I need?” Jacks’s long fingers grazed the slit of her skirt.
She swallowed a gasp. The touch had to be an accident.
He flashed a dimple as his fingers moved under the fabric, stroking her bare thigh as he gently parted the slit in her skirt.
This definitely wasn’t an accident.
The tips of his fingers were soft, deceptively gentle, as they traveled higher and … higher. She told herself to pull away—this was Jacks and he was evil—his hand was definitely doing wicked things. But the racing of her heart didn’t feel like fear just then. The rush of her blood and the tingling of her skin felt good. He felt good. His touch was clearly making her delusional.
Evangeline really needed to push him away. But she grabbed his shirt instead, fisting the fabric in her hands.
He smiled, only it wasn’t kind. It was like the wicked end of a fairytale, all sharp teeth that glinted under the torchlight. This was a mistake. A dangerous mistake. She reminded herself he’d just been touching another girl. But it was hard to care when he knew exactly how to touch her. How to make her feel like she was the one he’d wanted all this time.
His other hand slowly reached for her hip and hitched it up over his. Her breath caught in her throat.
“Still think you know what I need?” He pressed in closer, lips nearly grazing her jaw and sending a shiver over her skin as he whispered, “I’m not a human, Evangeline. And I’m not your friend, or your husband, or your lover.”
“I never said you were,” she breathed.
“Then don’t try to make me act like it. It doesn’t end well.” The fingers under her skirt turned rough and something vicious flashed in his eyes. Enough to make her finally feel a spike of fear. “This doesn’t end well.” His fingers pressed harder.
Evangeline gasped, and at last she pushed him away. “There is no this— I’m married.”
Jacks ran his finger over the smirk playing on his lips. “You keep saying that, Little Fox, as if it’s something I should care about.”
A heartbeat later, he was gone.

“So, this is what you do when I’m not around?”
Evangeline felt the sudden urge to hide inside her wardrobe, but she tamped it down as she turned and met his gaze with a smile of her own.
“You think about what I do when you’re not around?”
“Careful, Little Fox.” He took a step forward. “You sound rather excited by the idea.”
“I’m not, I assure you,” she said, wishing she didn’t sound so breathless.
“I merely like the thought that I torment you as much as you torment me.”
Jacks flashed one of his dimples, making him look deceptively
charming. “So you’re the one who thinks about what I do when you’re not around?”
“Only because I know you’re up to no good.”
“No good.” He laughed as he said the words. “I would hope you know by now that I’m up to far worse than just ‘no good.’” Jacks slid his arm through hers.

“You’re staring.”
“I was just wondering why you always carry apples.”
Jacks chuckled under his breath. “Trust me, Little Fox, you’re better off not knowing.”
He took a slow bite of the fruit, eyes darkening as they slowly slid from her lips to her neck, following the exposed line of it down to her clavicle and then to her breasts. Her breathing felt heavy as Jacks’s gaze lingered on the intricate cords that wrapped around her chest, tracing the golden lines with his eyes in a way that made the braided ropes feel as if they were being tightened, as if his cool fingers were pulling them more tautly around her, until it was a little difficult to breathe.
“You started it with your stare,” he murmured

Her vision blurred and when it finally returned, the entire card room was out of focus, except for Jacks. For the rest of her life, whenever she thought about heartbreak, she would see the way he looked at her.

"I'm the villain, even in my own story. Nut you were supposed to play a different role." Misery filled his eyes. "You were supposed to be my true love. You were supposed to want me, not him. You were supposed to be as obsessed with me as I am with you."

"If I do this, if I sever this connection, will I still be you true love?"
"Why would you care?" Jacks's lips thinned as if he couldn't wait to be rid of her, but the look in his eyes said he wanted to devour her. "I imagine after today you won't be kissing me again."
"Just answer the question, Jacks."
In a flash, he wrapped his cool hands around her shaking one and dragged the dagger lower, creating a line of pink skin as he moved it to the center of his chest. "I don't know if you're my true love, Donatella. All I know is that I want you to be."

Before, he could feel her emotions, but now she could feel his. Even though he'd taken both her pain and her sorrow, that wasn't what he was feeling now. He felt desire. Desperation. Lust. Obsession. He wanted her. She was all he wanted. All he thought about. She felt it in the way the kiss began to shift from reckless and hungry to languorous and savoring, as if he's considered this for a very long time and now he was acting out all the things he's imagined.