He laughed, loud but brittle. “Nothing has been safe since the moment I laid eyes on you. And yet I don’t want to look away.”
He kissed her then.
For a moment, she forgot how to breathe—she forgot how to kiss. But Apollo was patient. His lips moved reverently across her mouth, soft brushes over her lips until she began to relax and lean in.
She’d kissed him before, but never like this. When Apollo had been under Jacks’s spell, his kisses were like fever dreams, hot and hungry, as if he wanted to taste more than just her mouth. This kiss was more like an invitation to dance.
And Apollo was a very good dancer. Slowly, his hand slid into her hair, tilting her head as she parted her lips. Butterflies moved inside her, and she wrapped her arms around the back of his neck.
He smiled against her mouth.
“You don’t know how much I’ve wanted this.” He took her lip between his teeth, kissed her again and then bit down, rough enough to draw blood.
“Sorry,” he murmured.
“No—it’s good.” It reminded her of Jacks. But she pushed that thought away. She nipped Apollo back. He grinned again and kissed her harder as his hands worked off her golden cloak.
Her breathing hitched as the garment fell away.
She knew this was a bad idea, but Apollo felt so good. Each touch felt as if he worshipped her. Once her cloak was gone, he started to undo the ribbons at her chest as he pressed her back against the bed. “Tell me if I go too fast.”
He kissed her gently, once on the lips, then on the jaw, trailing warm kisses down her neck as his hands grabbed her breasts and then her throat.
Instantly, her eyes flashed open.
“I’m sorry,” Apollo rasped. This time, he didn’t follow it with a kiss.
The terror inside her grew wings as his eyes turned from brown to red and his hands began to squeeze.
43
Evangeline turned into a thousand pieces of panic. She kicked Apollo between the legs, but he was too heavy on top of her for her kicks to be effective. She was pinned to the bed by his body.
She tried to scream as his fingers crushed painfully against her windpipe.
Then he was choking, too—sputtering and coughing and losing his grip thanks to the mirror curse.
Evangeline could barely breathe, but as Apollo pulled away, she managed to grab the jar with the mirth stone and crawl out from under him.
Clumsily, she rolled off the bed. Everything was a blur. The dark room spun, candles flaring and smoking all at once. She was wheezing, stumbling on her legs. But somehow, she remembered the lever next to the bed.
She pulled on it with all her might. A cage immediately crashed down around Apollo. Bars clanked loudly into place, imprisoning him.
With a growl, he grabbed the bars. His face was feral, eyes still glowing red, but his words were a plea. “I’m sorry, Evangeline. I really don’t want to hurt you!”
“I know.” She staggered back. Into—
Jacks.
Veins pulsed in his neck; murder flared in his eyes as he glared at Apollo.
“Go,” he ordered Evangeline.
“You can’t hurt him,” she panted, and she tugged on Jacks’s shirt to get him to leave. “If you hurt him, it also hurts me. Remember?”
Jacks groaned something like, “Someday I will kill him.” He put an arm around Evangeline.
“Get your hands off my wife!” Apollo cried.
Jacks pulled her closer and urged her toward the door.
Evangeline felt horribly torn. She couldn’t go back to Apollo—not when he was like this—but leaving with Jacks felt like a different sort of agony. He was always there to rescue her, and then he always left.
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.
She could feel his heart pound against her chest as he carried her into the room next door to hers. It was a mess. There were apples and cores all over the desk. The sheets on the bed were thrashed. The fire was burning more than just logs. Clearly, she wasn’t the only one upset after they’d returned from the Hollow.