Page 85 of Malice

She grins, pressing our foreheads together. “Yes. I kissed you. And you kissed me. And it broke the curse.”

I pry her fingers loose and put as much distance between us as I can. “That’s impossible.”

Aurora laughs, giddy. “Why do you doubt it? The mark is gone. I feel—” She takes a long, deep breath in. “Incredible. Lighter than I’ve ever felt in my entire life. Because of you.”

“Not because of me.”

“Why not?”

“Because”—my chest tightens—“because my magic can only accomplish wickedness. I’m part Vila. I don’t break curses.” I cross my arms, choking on the bitterness of my next words. “I make them.”

Aurora pads across the rugs. Glass crunches under her feet. A frigid wind snakes through the jagged holes in the windows, billowing the curtains.

“Maybe the curse breaking has nothing to do with your magic,” she whispers along my jawline, “and everything to do with this.”

Her lips meet mine and that same jolt of lightning forks through me. I want to wrap my arms around her and never let go. Lose myself in the honey taste of her mouth and the addictive scent of her skin. But this is madness. I push her back.

Aurora traces circles over the place where her mark used to be. “You know, I always wondered about thetrue lovestipulation of the curse.” She picks up a candlestick. A handful of pins. “Even before I lost my sisters, I would read about the queens who ruled before us. They had one thing in common: terrible marriages.”

When I think of Tarkin and Mariel, I’m hardly surprised.

“It confused me. After all, it was the Etherians who softened the original death curse. Theirs is light magic. If true love could break the curse, why couldn’t it last? Had the Vila’s magic somehow soured that love even after the curse was broken?”

The back of my neck prickles.

“But then, as I grew older and watched my parents, I realized that it wasn’t the light Fae or the Vila who were to blame for the love lost between the royal couples. It was the humans themselves. Briar is an isolated realm. Consumed with our own importance and wealth—that’s what undermined the marriages of the other queens. Not some magical force outside their control.” She relights the candle. “Once I figured that out, I stopped fearing my own death. Instead, I was afraid that Iwouldfind my true love. And that I would have to watch that love corrupt and re-form into something ugly. That’s why I insisted on breaking the curse myself and ruling alone.” She pauses. Holds my gaze. “But tonight that fear is gone.”

I can hardly breathe around my desire to believe what she says. The distance between us hums, both too much and not enough.

“Do you trust me?” Aurora asks.

“Yes,” my heart answers for me.

“Then you’ll stay with me. Rule beside me?”

“Rule?” I hold on to her bedpost to steady myself. I’d barely begun to imagine myself as her actual true love, let alone ruler of Briar.

“Princesses always marry those who break their curse, don’t they?”

“They marry dukes and earls and princes,” I correct. “Who then become kings. And you said you didn’t want to marry.”

Aurora raises an eyebrow. “Well, I wish to marry you. Two queens of Briar. What could be better?”

A hundred thousand things. Even if I did accept her offer, the rest of Briar would revolt against me. I’d be dragged out and burned alive. Aurora has no idea what she’s asking. There’s never been a queen like me—never could be one.

But her lips land on mine before I can argue. “You said you trusted me.”

And I do. Enough to drown myself in that depthless, forget-me-not gaze, in the taste of summer berries on her lips, and never look back. Like a fool, I nod.

“Good.” She threads her fingers through mine. “Come with me.”

Does she mean to tell her parents tonight? This moment? My blood turns to ice water and I balk as she tries to drag me away. “We’re not—we can’t.”

She waves away my worry, guessing my thoughts. “Not now, no. But they’ll be coming to check on me soon. I’m surprised they haven’t already, with all that racket. And I don’t want them to find us yet.”

Findus.My heart thumps.

“Tonight”—she pulls me close, whispers in my ear—“is only ours.”