Page 1 of Cursed (Court of Isles #1)

Chapter 1

I’d always thought my wedding day should feel like a fairy tale.

Apparently, I’d thought wrong.

I twisted the tiny ring on my pointer finger. Not that finger—not the one where my engagement band should be. My engagement band was sitting forlorn on a tray before a lit vanity, a sparkling anchor I was dreading slipping onto my finger.

Simon had picked out a glittering, princess-cut diamond for his proposal with no input from me. The huge rock was encircled by tiny diamonds, on a band of even more tiny diamonds. My engagement ring was a statement piece that others gawked over and complimented, to the point where I’d stopped wearing it completely because I hated the attention.

I told Simon the reason I’d started leaving my ring in the safe at home was because I didn’t want to lose such a valuable piece of jewelry at the hospital. As a recent med student graduate in my first year of residency, I wore gloves often, and I told Simon it was a pain to slide latex gloves over the massive diamond. Simon liked hearing the words “massive diamond” quite a lot; he was very proud of those three carats.

“Allie,” my mother said, startling me out of my dismal wedding day thoughts. “Are you ready to go?”

I turned to my mother, a slight woman built on Nicoise salads and New York City pollution, held together with a tasteful dose of Botox. My eyes smarted with tears.

“Mom—” I pleaded. “I don’t think I’m ready.”

“I thought you agreed to take this shabby ring off.” My mother reached for my hand, ignoring my reply. She frowned at the tiny ring I wore on my pointer finger. “The blue does not match your theme.”

The ring on my pointer finger that I’d been fumbling with was the only personal item I’d selected for today. I hadn’t chosen the cake or the flowers or even my gown, but this ring—an unassuming silver band with tiny spires, a little circlet inlaid with miniscule blue gems—felt like a buoy. A tiny life vest keeping me afloat in an angry sea.

“No,” I said sharply, retracting my hand from her grasp. “I like this ring.”

“Allie, it’s cheap and tacky.”

“Please, it’s my something old.”

My mother’s gaze shot toward my face. I could count the number of times I’d told my mother “no” on one hand. One finger, more like. I’d been a rule follower my whole life. But I refused to compromise on this.

“Allie—”

“It’s not up for debate,” I said. “It’s my wedding.”

“I’ll never understand why you like that old thing.” My mother moved behind me and started to fritter around with my curls. “It’s something a psychic on the Jersey Shore would wear.”

I disagreed, but I didn’t say so aloud. My opinion wasn’t generally welcome from my parents, so I’d stopped giving it freely ages ago.

Even if I had wanted to argue, there were no words to describe why I liked this ring with the peculiar, ocean-blue gems embedded at the ends of the tines. It resembled a tiny crown encircling my finger. I’d found it when I turned eighteen, tucked away and forgotten in a shoebox in the back of my closet that I was certain my mother had never seen.

When I’d first put it on, it was as if something had snapped into place. A tiny sense of comfort had flooded my stomach that suggested, on some level, I’d found something uniquely me . It felt enchanting and sweet and meaningful, a little secret I could hold dear. Wearing it gave me a new confidence that trailed behind me, barely discernable, like the scent of jasmine and roses and saltwater. I hadn’t taken it off since .

My mother tsked again as she glanced at my ring. Aside from that one piece of jewelry, everything else about today was perfect in her eyes. She had worked hard to make my wedding exquisite, and she had succeeded.

My hair was perfect. Painfully perfect, with clips digging into my scalp so hard it gave me a headache. My dress was perfect. So perfect, it cinched my waist so tightly I could hardly breathe. My shoes were perfect. So perfect they were a size too small and pained my toes.

My comfort didn’t matter today, or really any day. As the only daughter to two rich New York socialites, I was their only hope for a matrimonial parade fit for Page Six. My mother had ensured today would be a ceremony her friends would be talking about for weeks.

“It’s almost time.” My father sauntered into the room.

Dr. Wells was over six feet tall. He was broad-shouldered and had a presence to him. He took up almost as much space physically as he did with his ego. He was a world-renowned surgeon, and he acted like it. My father was disappointed I hadn’t chosen to follow in his elite footsteps. I’d chosen to practice family medicine, and that didn’t garner nearly enough esteem in his eyes.

“Allie, you’ve forgotten the most important thing of all!” My mother frowned, then retrieved my engagement band from the vanity.

She held the diamond studded band out to me, and the second it landed in my hand, it felt like a dull paperweight. The only thing keeping me afloat was that little buoy on my other finger, the one that gave me a sense of peace and calmness and hope, like maybe there was something more. Like maybe someday, I’d figure out where I belonged.

Unfortunately, today was not that day. Today was my wedding day, which felt more like I was about to be sacrificed at the altar instead of married there.

I gathered up the dress my mother had ordered custom from a designer whose name I couldn’t pronounce. She placed a bouquet of flowers in my arms, an expensive arrangement of exotic flowers, neatly tucked together into a wrap.

I’d wanted a whimsical bouquet of sunflowers and daisies and draping greenery, but my mother had declared my choice “too messy” and decided to go a different route with the wedding planner. She didn’t bother consulting me. From that day forward, I’d kept all my opinions about my wedding to myself. It was clear that today was not about me.

I shuffled in heels too high, and a dress too puffy, and jewels too expensive, to the back of the church. I was to marry my fiancé in one of the oldest churches in New York. I hadn’t had any say in the stuffy location, or the guest list either.

The only thing my mother had allowed me to choose—willingly, unlike my ring—was the elegant tiara situated on top of my cascade of curls. The smallest of crowns, a nod to the ring I loved so dearly, nestled into my whiskey-brown locks. Curls my mother had requested I get highlighted for the ceremony to better match her blonde head. That way, the photographs would look more uniform when we stood next to each other.

As I took my place behind the closed doors at the rear of the church, my mother studied me, her lips pursed as she looked me up and down.

“That will do,” she said finally. “Though I really wish you’d take off that stupid ring.”

My eyes watered. Tears smarted, fighting to break loose, but I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. I’d thought for a moment that my mother’s pursed lips might turn into a small, grudging smile, and she’d break down and tell me I looked beautiful. Or maybe, she’d ask me if I was happy. Or better yet, she’d tell me to run far, far away.

But she simply gave a succinct nod and strode on click-clacking heels down to her seat at the front of the church. I turned to my father, but he was too busy peeking through the crack in the door to see which of his friends were in attendance.

“Can you believe the Lamberts are missing this?” My father turned to me and shook his head like I should be well and truly miffed about an old buddy from his fraternity missing my wedding. “Vacationing in Mallorca. Like that’s an excuse. We’ve had this on the calendar for nearly two years.”

Two achingly long years. Two years I’d debated running but had never mustered the confidence. Two years I’d suffered at the hands of stylists and dieticians and party planners.

I could only nod and wish. Wish, wish, wish things were different.

But they wouldn’t be, and things would never change. At least marrying Simon would put me in good social standing and let me pursue my passion, which was helping people. Maybe someday I’d find joy in our future children; I did love children, and maybe that would be enough to sustain our marriage.

I was pretty sure my own parents didn’t love one another, and they made things work well enough. They tolerated each other, living totally separate lives under one roof. My father made money, and my mother spent it. I was starting to wonder if it made me greedy to yearn for more. I’d lived a privileged life to be sure. Could I really ask to find true love too? Wishing for more felt like I was pushing my luck.

I looked into my father’s eyes, hoping he’d see the helplessness in my own. I wished on every star, a real Hail Mary of a wish, hoping he’d recognize my reluctance to go through with this wedding. That maybe, somewhere deep within his heart, he’d recognize his only daughter’s needs for once.

Maybe Dr. Wells would offer to whisk me away to somewhere safe, somewhere I could cry and be alone and figure out what I wanted—what I needed —because somehow, this didn’t feel like it.

Or maybe that was the job of the best friend I didn’t have. Of course I didn’t have a best friend because I’d spent my whole life under my parents’ thumb, every move scrutinized, every acquaintance evaluated the second they walked through the door.

Then Simon had taken over control of my life, micromanaging my relationships so closely that even the few, flimsy friendships I had managed to garner in medical school had slowly drifted away. Little life rafts that hadn’t been strong enough to save me from these raging storms.

The bridal march began, achingly sweet music by a live string quartet flown in from Croatia. My heart began to beat, to race. My ring finger felt heavy, dripping with unwanted diamonds—a shackle that would bind me to this life forever.

“I suppose this is it,” my father said, as if he was preparing himself for surgery, and not walking his daughter down the aisle. “He’s a good man for you, Allie.”

I swallowed around the massive lump in my throat and nodded. Ever practical, Dr. Wells .

The doors opened, and the church glowed with light pouring through the stained-glass windows. The ceilings felt as if they were vaulted into the heavens, the room cavernous and magnificent and otherworldly.

I barely remembered my feet moving, pulling me through a sea of faces I didn’t recognize. Was there anybody I loved here? I suppose I loved my parents, in the way that the Wells family loved one another—practically, and without emotion, and just a little stilted and stiff.

And Simon. I was supposed to love Simon, too.

I reached the finale of the endlessly long aisle and stood before my husband-to-be. I tried to muster up butterflies and excitement and really, anything that wasn’t utter and complete dread. I was not successful, not one tiny iota.

“Allie.” Simon gave me a taut smile. “Nice to see you.”

Nice to see you, I echoed in my head, mystified at his choice in greeting.

Not— You look beautiful.

Not— I am madly, breathlessly in love with you.

Not— I cannot wait to marry you.

No, all I got was a “Nice to see you,” like we were two acquaintances passing in the subway. In line for coffee. Waiting at a crosswalk for a green light.

“How do I look?” Simon added, giving me a little smile and eyebrow waggle. Along with a temper, he’d always had a healthy dose of narcissism .

“You look very nice, Simon,” I said hoarsely, and indeed, it wasn’t a lie.

Simon was tall like my father, broad-shouldered and intense with his cold blue eyes. A divorce attorney at one of New York’s most ruthless law firms run by his very own father. Nepotism at its finest. But could I say anything, when I’d followed in my own father’s footsteps at Harvard and beyond?

My belly swirled with guilt. Choosing family medicine was a small act of defiance on my part, a way to try and steer my own ship, but it wasn’t enough. When I broke it all down, wasn’t I just like Simon?

The thought made me ill.

As the officiant began the ceremony, I found myself growing more and more lightheaded with every word spoken. I wanted water, a drink of ice water, or I feared I’d faint. Was I having a heart attack? I was in a room full of doctors—somebody should be able to resuscitate me if I keeled over. Could one flatline from complete and utter desperation?

I was starting to think the answer was Maybe.

I vaguely heard the officiant say, “If anyone has any objections to this wedding, speak now or forever hold your peace.”

I looked out bleakly at the gathered crowd and knew that nobody would come to my rescue. I was alone in this life. I’d always known that, and I’d come to terms with it a long time ago. The only person who could save me was myself, and I wasn’t brave enough to try.

I looked into Simon’s eyes. I blinked, a long, hard blink, as tears trembled, and eventually skittered down my cheeks. Rebellious tears, giving away my deepest emotions. The only saving grace was the fact that nobody in this room knew me well enough to know they were tears of absolute despair, and not tears of joy.

Then I took a deep breath, and I felt something shift. A tiny something, a little tug. Like someone had taken the earth and given it a little shake in their hands, just to rattle things up. I kept my eyes shut, because I didn’t want time to continue.

I wished for time to stop. I wished harder than I’d wished for anything, and I wished I could vanish. Get swallowed up by a crack in the floorboards and emerge somewhere else on the other side of the globe, maybe India or Japan or the Maldives if I were lucky.

I kept my eyes closed so tightly, wishing, wishing, wishing...

And then I heard a voice murmur my name. A voice of darkness and passion and danger and heart, smooth as a calm lake, so crystal clear and sure. A voice that came from before me, but one that didn’t belong to my fiancé.

“Open your eyes,” that tempting voice murmured.

I followed his instructions, and something shifted as I took in the sight before me. I felt a jolt, a real tremor, as if an earthquake had rattled the tectonic plates beneath my feet. I stared blankly into the eyes of a man who was not my husband.

I stood before this beautiful man in my wedding dress, my lips parted in shock, as I drank him in. For reasons I’d never be able to explain, being here with a stranger felt more right than the way I’d felt moments before standing in front of Simon.

Simon! I’d forgotten about Simon.

As I glanced out at the crowd, everyone had frozen. My mother was mid-dab of tissue to her eye. Simon’s nephew was mid-pick of his nose. And Simon—Simon had been moved to the side like a discarded cardboard cutout, a Fabio version of himself that one might find at a romance bookstore, stashed in a storeroom.

Even the realization that time seemed frozen was nothing compared to the way I felt when my eyes met this strange man’s gaze again. Unlike Simon’s glacier blue eyes, this man possessed deep, molasses eyes, a bewitching depth to their rich amber shade. A brown like layers and layers of bark on a tree, an age and wisdom behind them as if he’d been alive for centuries, older than the oldest of redwoods.

“Alessia,” the man said for the first time, using my real name.

It was the only name I loved, the name I preferred, the name that nobody else used. My parents had never liked it, declaring it strange and offbeat, a bit weird and not in a good way. Someone had once told my mother it was beautiful, and she’d tried calling me by it for a while. But the name had sounded odd, garbled coming out of her lips, like she was talking around a mouthful of marbles.

But coming from this man’s mouth, my name sounded like a melody. A song, a hymn that he’d written just for me—a string of notes that promised everything Simon didn’t. Joy and love and hope. Danger and adventure and passion. My belly leapt with anticipation.

“Who are you?” I whispered. “What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything.” He gestured toward the church. “This was all you.”

“I don’t understand.”

When he turned back to me, a smile toyed playfully on his full lips. “They call me Silas.”

“Silas—”

But he interrupted me with a quick shake of his head. Then Silas opened his mouth to speak, but he fell silent before he could utter a word. His eyes had flicked to the dainty tiara on my head, barely visible beneath the curls. His breath hitched, and then he did the strangest thing. He inclined his head, ever so slightly, acknowledging me with the slightest of bows.

When Silas raised his head, his gaze was fiery and impassioned .

“You look beautiful.” Silas’s voice was a whisper between worlds, as if he were nothing but a figment of my deepest desires. “If I may?”

I could only nod as he extended a hand toward me, toward the pins aching and straining against my scalp. He pulled the largest of pins free, then another, until my hair tumbled down my shoulders in waves.

“You were hiding your crown.” Silas studied me with an intensity that told me he really saw me. Me . “That’s better.”

“It’s not a crown,” I said. “It’s—” Then I stopped myself as reality hit me. “Why is everyone frozen? Did I have a heart attack? Am I dead? Are you my guardian angel, leading me to the light?”

“Oh, Alessia.” His voice was full of dark humor as he leaned toward me, smelling of mint and fresh air and possibility. “I’m no angel.”

I blinked. “You haven’t told me what—or who—you are.”

“There’ll be time for that later.” The slightest of smiles appeared on his face. “Please come with me. We need you.”

“I don’t know you,” I argued. “That’s crazy.”

We both waited a beat.

Then, in a small voice, I asked, “Where? ”

“To the place where you’ve always belonged.” Silas scanned the church. “We need to move fast. Father Time won’t allow this to continue for much longer.”

“Father—” I stumbled over my words. “Sorry, what?”

“We need you. I need you,” Silas said. “Take my hand and come with me. I’ll ask you politely one more time, but then—”

“I can’t!” I blurted. “I’m getting married.”

“Are you in love?” Silas’s voice was a dirt road, dry and dusty, well-worn and familiar. “Are you happy here?”

These were the inquiries I’d been desperate to hear. But they came to me as gifts from a stranger, not in whispered confidence from loved ones. I’d wanted my father or my mother or Simon, or anyone else really, to ask about me. Yet it was Silas who knew what I needed more than everyone in my life—a complete and utter stranger.

“What if I say yes?” I asked. “What if I tell you I’m in love and happy?”

“You won’t,” Silas said simply.

“But—”

“If you don’t agree to come willingly, Alessia, I will bring you anyway.”

“You would kidnap me?”

“Don’t you want to be taken away from here?” Silas asked. “Isn’t that what you wished for?”

“How could you know that? ”

“You are powerful beyond your wildest dreams. I have been searching for you for a long, long time. You don’t belong here.”

“But—”

“Only a woman as powerful as you, with desires as strong as yours, could have stopped time. You’ve created this opportunity for yourself. Do not squander it.”

“Oh really?” I said dryly. “Or else you’ll kidnap me?”

“Yes,” Silas said again.

We waited for what felt like an eternity.

“I’d prefer you make the choice yourself.” Silas squinted at me, the slightest hint of amusement glittering in those dark gems. “Kidnapping beautiful women isn’t as exciting as it sounds. It’s quite a lot of red tape.”

I couldn’t help it. I snorted a laugh. In my ten-thousand-dollar gown, in my thousand-dollar blow-out, in my manicured nails and my hundred thousand dollar engagement ring.

“Where are we going?” I asked him. I didn’t mean it as agreement, though it sure sounded that way. My words were traitorous.

Silas reached his hands toward me. He was tall, taller even than my father. All big muscle and cut physique, dressed in a black suit, a black shirt—all black, from his hair to his shoes. The most dangerously beautiful man I’d ever seen .

His lips quirked up, his eyes flicked once again to my tiara. “I am taking you home, Alessia.”

I let my fingers rest on his, and my whole universe trembled. Silas felt it too, I could see it in the way his eyes widened. He breathed in a sharp gasp as if someone had plunged a dagger between his ribs. He bent forward like he couldn’t process oxygen.

I stepped closer, rested a hand on his shoulder, tilted his head up so I could look into his eyes.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Fine.” Silas averted his eyes. “It’s time to go.”

Indeed, as I straightened, I heard things. All sorts of things. Sounds I hadn’t realized had stopped altogether. A rustle in the pews. A cough from a guest. Simon’s grunt of surprise.

Simon!

I’d forgotten all about Simon again. Simon straightened—obviously becoming unfrozen—then glanced at me and Silas standing together at the altar. His eyes narrowed, and he didn’t pause even for a second to ask a question. His ever-present temper flared, and he lunged for Silas as if to throttle him.

Silas raised a hand without turning—without so much as batting an eye. His hand glowed a shade of white light I’d never seen before, and Simon flew backwards. He crashed through the largest stained-glass windows on the Upper East Side and out into the dirty gutters of Manhattan.

More urgently, Silas pleaded with me—his gaze begging—as he put both of his hands on mine. “Come with me.”

“How?” I murmured, as the rest of the congregation finally started to move.

I could sense men rushing toward us as they realized what had happened to Simon.

“Trust me,” Silas pleaded.

I closed my eyes, and I wished one more time.