promises in the heat of passion, but cold and afraid when reality sets in. I never should have trusted you.”
He stands, securing his staff beneath his arm as he crosses the courtyard to me. “I don’t know what else to do.”
“So you’re going to marry Imogen just to keep your precious wolf form,” I say with a sneer. He has the nerve to look confused, brows knitting together, but I continue on before he can interrupt. “I get it, Elliot. I really do. You value your unseelie form more than anything else. To you, it means freedom. I know that. But you didn’t have to lead me on. You didn’t have to tell me lies to get me into bed—”
“I didn’t lie,” he says through his teeth. “I’m incapable of it. Even if I were, I’d never lie to you.”
I fix him with a seething glare. “So long as I live, I am yours. Do you remember saying that?”
“I meant it. Gemma, you have no idea how much I meant that and still do. I only wish—”
“What? That I could be your mistress? That you could lock me in a cave and only come visit me when you’re bored of being a wolf? Or perhaps crawl into my bed after you perform your husbandly duties with Imogen? Well, that’s not going to happen, I promise you.” Each word that tumbles from my lips is another lash upon my heart, another gaping wound left bleeding in its wake.
“That’s not what I’m trying to say.” He advances a step closer, but I retreat back.
“Let me out of the bargain,” I say, teeth bared. “I did my part, but I’m done and I’ll participate in it no longer. You can finish our scheme all on your own. I don’t want your money or your thanks or to ever see your face again. Just let me out so I can forget the last month of my life ever happened.” My words dissolve into gasping sobs, but I swallow them down. Angry tears stream down my face, tears I wish I could hide from him.
Pain twists his face as he watches me unravel before him. Then his expression turns hard, a sudden realization dawning in his eyes. His voice comes out cold, flat. “You’re right. This is the only way, isn’t it? That we part now so you can forget about me.”
“Can it be done? Can the bargain be dissolved?”
He nods, eyes closed.
“Then do it.”
He stands trembling in silence for a few moments, then opens his eyes. Another flicker of pain contorts his expression, but again he steels it. “Gemma Bellefleur, I release you from our bargain. I consider it served and severed.”
There’s no rush of magic, no mysterious tingle. Nothing to denote a fae bargain has been dissolved. Or perhaps I’m just too numb to care.
Without a second thought, I turn on my heel and stride down the path.
“Gemma,” comes Elliot’s quavering voice.
I glance over my shoulder to see the plea in his eyes, but what it’s begging of me, I don’t know, and it does nothing to soften my heart. Instead, it fuels my rage. I wish I had a way to hurt him, to make him feel the pain he’s inflicted upon me. But all I have are my words. Filling my voice with all the venom poisoning my heart, I say, “Fuck you, Elliot. I hope you and Imogen rot in hell.”
37
My next days pass in solitude and silence. My bedroom at Father’s townhouse feels like a tomb and my presence in it is weighted in defeat. I try not to count the days nor the petals I know are falling in the courtyard of a certain manor on Whitespruce Lane. I try not to compare my cramped yet elegant bedroom to the spacious one I spent the last month in, nor the one I spent a single, pleasurable night in. Feigning illness, I take all meals in my room, refuse all visitors, survive Father’s triumphant glares and Nina’s pitying glances when I’m forced to be in their presence.
Despite all my best efforts to forget, when a week goes by, I know the exact tally of petals that have fallen and approximately how many remain. If my previous estimates were correct, then tomorrow is the final day before the curse is set to claim Elliot Rochester.
“I wish it would take him,” I mutter without feeling as I lay reclined in bed, my eyes scanning the pages of a book. I can