Page 9 of Cursed (Court of Isles #1)

Chapter 9

I could tell by his pace, by the set of his broad shoulders, by the tension evident in his form—Silas was angry.

To his credit, he didn’t utter a word. He didn’t need to. I could feel his frustration trailing behind him like a deadly perfume.

“Silas—” I finally said.

“What were you thinking ?” His voice, though quiet, contained a hidden roar. “Wandering about at night. You came to the wards with me. You saw what the curse did to Irina, to the siren. You should know better.”

“I couldn’t sleep,” I said. “I wanted to go for a walk. It’s not illegal.”

Silas shoved his hands into his pockets. We crossed over the bridge, and I glanced at the koi fish flitting by below. I’d bring up my concerns about my possibly-infected finned-friends later. I was on thin ice with Silas as it was, and I didn’t feel like adding fuel to the flames licking between us.

We didn’t speak again until we got home .

“You could have been kidnapped.” Silas paused once we were outside of Wisteria Cottage. He leaned his large figure against the massive stone wall that surrounded the exterior border of the property. “You could have been killed. Tortured. Touched by the curse.”

“I wasn’t,” I said.

“By the skin of your teeth,” he said. “And Lily’s quick thinking.”

I thought it better not to mention the bit about Hettie and The Twist.

“You don’t understand, do you?” Silas rose from the wall and turned so I was between him and the stones. One of his arms came out over my shoulder so that his massive figure caged me in. “You are our only hope. Why are you making it so difficult to protect you?”

“Silas,” I said gently, evenly, firmly. More serious than I had ever been in my entire life. “I’m not here to make things easy for you. I am not here to be your plaything or your game piece. I am here to make a difference.”

“Let me help you. I want to be there for you.”

“You can help me,” I said. “On my terms.”

Silas’s breath was minty, sharp. His scent was moonlight and pine. Dark and bright, all at once, tinged with nature. His eyes were deep pools staring into mine.

“I have been kept in a cage my entire life.” My jaw trembled as I whispered the truth I’d kept locked away for too long. “I will not be put back into one, no matter what.”

“Alessia,” he said, his voice clear water in a lulling stream—cool and shocking and sharp. “I am not locking you in a cage.”

“But—”

Something flared in Silas’s eyes. “I’m the one who gave you the key to escape.”

I sucked in a sharp breath.

“They kept you in a gilded cage, they kept you trapped like a beautiful, wild animal,” Silas said. “And I broke you out of there.”

“But—”

“I would never clip your wings.” His murmur was angry and harsh. “I would never confine you to a box.”

I shook my head, trembling from the closeness of him.

“You are a precious thing to me, in so many ways.” A hint of apology tinged Silas’s words softer, pleading, desperate. “You are beautiful just the way you are, and I will never try to change you or control you.”

My body was shaking. I wished I could touch him, hold onto him for support. I could feel how much he meant those words. I could feel it ringing through my body, and I wanted to reciprocate the strength of his emotions in the only way I could.

“But, dammit, you are making it hard to keep you alive.” Silas tipped my chin upward. “I will let you go. Again and again, I will set you free and wish for you to return, but I will never hold you against your will.”

Silas dipped his head, almost reverent, like he wanted to brush a kiss to my lips. I wanted him to; I wanted his touch more than anything. Those centimeters between us were excruciating.

“On that note.” Silas pulled back slightly, rose even taller. “I hear you’ve been telling people that I kidnapped you.”

“I haven’t been telling anyone that,” I said. Then I revised. “Not lately. I might have mentioned it to Millie.”

“Well, rumors are snaking through The Isle that I kidnapped you.”

“You’re not a kidnapper,” I said.

“I wouldn’t go that far.” Silas’s eyes twinkled devilishly. “I only said that I didn’t kidnap you .”

My breath hitched in my throat. This man before me was such a mess of danger and excitement and passion. There was an allure to him that was easy to see. If only I could figure out what it meant for me, and why being around him seemed to scramble my decision-making abilities.

“Are you saying you’ve kidnapped other women?”

“I wouldn’t limit it to women.” Silas brushed my chin with his thumb. “You’re the first beautiful woman I’ve been tempted to take against her will.”

“I feel so lucky.”

He barked a short laugh.

“Why are you telling me this?” I asked. “I’m telling you that I believe you’re a good man, and you’re trying to convince me otherwise.”

A shadow crossed Silas’s face. “I think it’s important to remind you that I’m not who you think I am. For both our sakes.”

“I’ll make my own conclusions, please and thank-you,” I said. “I know you’re a Hunter. I know you want to keep me alive to break this curse. I know you care so much about this island and the people on it in a way that means you’d do anything for them.”

My breath hitched as I paused.

“I know you would’ve kidnapped me if I didn’t come with you willingly,” I said in a rush, “but you already knew that I would. You don’t ask questions you don’t know the answer to.”

Silas took deep breaths, his chest heaving as if this moment affected him as much as it was affecting me.

“How did you know I would come with you?” I asked, turning the question on him.

“Because I’m devilishly handsome, and you couldn’t resist my boyish charm?”

I rolled my eyes.

“Because,” Silas said, waiting until I met his gaze. “Though we’d only just met, a part of me feels like I’ve known you forever. There is a part of me that is connected to you in ways that I can’t explain.”

“Why not?”

“Not yet,” he amended. “It’s not the right time. Trust me, I have been seeking you my whole life.”

“No pressure.”

Silas nudged my chin up with his thumb. I looked into his eyes. “You defied all my expectations. You are more wonderful than what was promised, more beautiful than I could’ve imagined.”

“This.” My breath felt caught in my throat. “Don’t do this.”

“What?” Silas blinked and backed away, like I’d told him to get his hands off me. “What did I do?”

“You go back and forth between being distant and growly and protective, and then you do this.” I waved my hands like a maniac. “You say such lovely things. It plays with my emotions, and then I don’t know what to make of you. If I’m just a pawn in your plans, then leave the personal aspect out of things.”

I yearned for him to swat away my worries like a pesky fly. It would be so easy for him, so within his reach to extend a hand and cup my jawline, pressing his lips to mine. He could convince me in seconds that he was swept up in this whirlwind too.

It’d assuage all my fears; I’d know that I meant more to him than a strategic piece on a chessboard. But he didn’t .

Silas merely brushed his hands together, like he’d mixed up a birthday cake and was dusting errant flecks of flour onto his pants. Like he was physically brushing away any sign that I meant more to him than a chess piece.

It was all the confirmation I needed. Silas was just protecting his queen. I was the queen in this game, the powerful chess piece who could do things others couldn’t. I was pretty sure he was dead wrong.

“You’re right.” Silas took a step back.

I blinked. It hadn’t been the strategic move I’d been expecting. I’d expected him to grab me, pull me flush to his body, convince me with a kiss that stole my breath that there was more to this. That on some celestial level, we were meant for one another. That he felt the same things I was feeling.

Silas sounded tortured as he said, “I’m taking you home tomorrow.”

I blinked again. My whole body froze. Ice slithered through my veins.

“Home?” I managed. “What do you mean?”

Silas licked his lips, a glimmer of approval in his eyes at my reply, before that, too, was extinguished by a harder darkness.

“I’m taking you back to New York,” Silas said. “I’ll return you to your previous life. ”

I felt like I couldn’t breathe. My chest was constricting. I gasped, “Why?”

“I promised you one thing.” Silas’s voice was hard and unforgiving. “I’d never keep you unwillingly, never lock you in a cage—even one as beautiful as this island—without your full consent. There are rumors I kidnapped you to be here.”

“I didn’t—”

“You’ve said it yourself,” Silas said. “Even if I didn’t kidnap you technically, I would have. I would’ve taken you selfishly, because you are the piece of this universal puzzle that can save us all.”

“That’s what you want to believe.”

“I don’t want you here because of guilt or fear or manipulation. There’s a real possibility you could die here. I can’t ask you to die for a cause that you don’t believe in.”

My breath was coming out in gulps.

“I will return you to your previous life for twelve hours.” There was no emotion in Silas’s eyes, and that hurt worse than his words. “You’ll be able to interact with the people you love freely.”

But I don’t love them! my mind screeched. I was mildly fond of my parents, in the sort of obligatory way it felt like a good daughter should be. Simon—well, I’d always been ready to take or leave Simon, but I was more than ready to leave him at this point .

“Silas.” My hands reached for him. I grasped frantically at his tree-trunk arms, my fingernails digging into his skin. He didn’t flinch. “I don’t want to go back. Please. Don’t send me back.”

“I need you to go back.” Silas’s words sounded choked, but he cleared his throat, and his voice returned to granite. “I need you to make this choice before we can move forward with anything.”

“You mean the curse?”

“Sure.”

I shook my head. None of this was making any sense. “I’m telling you that I don’t want to go back. I’ve already made that choice. If you want me to make an announcement that you didn’t kidnap me, I’m happy to put up a bulletin. Do a public speech. Send carrier pigeons.”

A shadow of a smile curved Silas’s lips. “It’s not that simple.”

“How is it not simple?” I asked. “If I ever decide I’ve had enough of this enchanted island business, you just do that little time-and-space-yank thing that defies all laws of gravity and physics and science and—”

“Magic.”

“Magic,” I confirmed. “Yes, you do magic. Plop me right back in Manhattan.”

Silas gave a hesitant shake of his head. “I don’t think it’s going to play out that way for you.”

My heart thumped. “You think I’ m going to die.”

“No, no .” Fear arced through Silas’s eyes. “That’s not what I meant. I will do everything in my power to keep you alive. Chances are if you die, I’ll be dead too.”

“How very Romeo of you.”

A soft snort from him. “It’s my belief that if we break this curse, you will find yourself tied here forever. In a tangle of bindings that will be impossible to shed.”

I frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“You need to go back to New York and your old life one final time. If you choose to live your life with Simon—” Silas visibly recoiled. “Or even just live out your life as a mortal, it’s not too late. We can wipe this from your memory, and you can go on. You can practice as a doctor, have your children, live in your house.”

A few days ago, this very thought sounded quite pleasant to me. Not thrilling, but expected and welcome. Now, it gave me hives.

“You’d wipe my mind?”

“Not all of it,” Silas said. “Just anything with magic.”

“Including you?”

“Yes.” He didn’t look into my eyes.

“No,” I whispered. It was all I could manage.

“We need to go back regardless,” Silas finally said. “We need to get medication for Eloise. While we’re back, you will be placed into your former life. I’ve already spoken to MAGIC, Inc. about it. If at the end of twelve hours you choose to stay, they will perform a painless memory wipe, and you will be transported back to your wedding day. You will have the chance to do it all over, to resume where you left off without ever knowing this place existed.” He paused. “And me.”

I was already shaking my head. It wasn’t what I wanted, and he had to know that.

“It’s incredibly complex magic to turn back time, which is why I needed approval first,” Silas said. “They’re only allowing it because I’m cashing in a big favor.”

“What if I choose not to stay?”

“If you choose to return to The Isle, you will forfeit any chance of returning to normal human life. No turning back time, no do-overs with Simon, no magically reappearing into your old life some six months later when you get bored here.”

“I don’t think I could get bored here.”

“If you return to us, it could be dangerous and deadly. We will work to break the curse, and I will stop at nothing until that is done—with you by my side, if you agree willingly.”

I bit down on my lower lip. “Til death do us part?”

“Something like that,” Silas said gruffly.

“Why are you doing this?” I whispered.

He ran a hand over his forehead. “I brought you here the first time because I saw you as a tool to break the curse. I wasn’t considering... you . The actual person behind the power. I was wrong to do that, and I’m sorry.”

“It’s different now?”

Those words seemed hard for him to find.

Eventually, Silas said, “Now I see you. ”

“Okay.” I threw up my hands. “If this is what it takes to convince you I’m all in, let’s do it.”

“At dawn,” he said. “You must rest now.”

“Silas.” I looked up at him, touched a hand to his cheek. If I was going to forget him tomorrow; if I was going to die breaking a curse; if I was going to lose my memory to magic, I needed him to know one thing. “I don’t care what you say. I will never forget you.”