“What are you doing here?” Her lips twisted with displeasure.
“I just saved your friend’s life,” Chaos replied sharply.
And was it just Evangeline’s imagination, or did he puff out his chest? Until that moment, she’d still been thinking of him as Chaos. But now as he sat up taller, with his cape rakishly tossed over one shoulder, she could see him as Castor Valor, the cocky young prince of the Magnificent North.
“Well, I’m here now, so—” LaLa waved a hand toward the forest.
“Did you just dismiss me?” Castor asked.
“I tried,” LaLa said. She was the smallest in stature of the three, and yet there was something about the way she glared at Castor that gave the impression of her looking down upon him. “Don’t you have virgin blood to drink or something?”
“Virgin blood?” Castor smiled one of those devastating vampire smiles as he shoved a hand through his hair in very devil-may-care fashion. “What kind of stories have you been reading about me?”
“I don’t read any stories about you,” LaLa huffed, but Evangeline swore there was a deeper color on her cheeks.
“So it’s just a coincidence that you’re quoting one of them?”
“I know you drink blood,” she said.
Castor’s gaze turned heated. I’d like to drink your blood, it seemed to say.
And suddenly everything felt a little hotter than it should have been. LaLa did not seem to like Castor, but Evangeline surmised that the vampire felt quite differently about her.
“I think we’re getting off topic,” Evangeline interjected before the vampire took a bite out of LaLa. “Jacks is in trouble.”
LaLa immediately looked away from Castor.
Evangeline quickly explained to LaLa what the vampire had told her about Aurora and Jacks’s heart.
“I can’t believe I used to think Jacks was the smart one.” Once again, LaLa glared at Castor. “Why didn’t you stop him?”
“I tried.”
“Pfft,” LaLa said. “Clearly you didn’t try hard enough.”
“This isn’t Castor’s fault,” Evangeline said, but neither of them was paying attention to her.
“Have you ever successfully stopped Jacks?” asked Castor.
LaLa raised her chin imperiously. “I once stabbed him with a butter knife.”
“I remember that butter knife fiasco,” Evangeline said. “It caused a great mess. Speaking of messes—what are we going to do about Jacks’s heart?”
“I say we kidnap Aurora and torture her until she tells us where it is,” said LaLa.
“I’m not letting you torture my sister,” Castor interrupted.
“Your sister is a monster!”
Castor’s nostrils flared. “We are all monsters.” With a growl, he shoved away from the tree he’d been leaning against.
For a second, Evangeline thought he might cross the spring as well and finally sink his teeth into LaLa. The tension had returned, tightening his jaw and his shoulders. Then slowly he took a step back.
“I’m not asking you to forgive her for what she caused to happen to your family,” Castor said quietly. “But you don’t need to hurt her. She was locked in the Valory for hundreds of years; she’s already suffered enough for her crime. If you want to hurt her for this, just find the heart and return it to Jacks. That will be torture enough for her.”
Castor turned to leave.
“Where are you going?” LaLa called.
“The sun is going to rise soon. I need to leave, but I’ve already told Evangeline where she has to go.”
And with that, Chaos vanished into the night.
Chapter 37
Apollo
The tent was empty.
Evangeline was gone.
At a glance, it looked as if there’d been a struggle. Everything was a mess—trunks of clothes were toppled. Pillows were slashed. The table lay tipped over in a riot of spilled wine and spattered food. Berries had been stomped into the ground next to meat now smeared with dirt.
“Guards!” Apollo bellowed, calling forth two soldiers who had been outside.
It was clear from the moment they looked into the tent that they hadn’t heard any commotion. There’d been no battle, no kidnapping—just as Apollo had feared.
Evangeline had left willingly—and left this scene to throw him off the trail.
Which could mean only one thing.
She remembered.
“I want my wife found,” Apollo said. “Bring her back to me, by whatever means necessary.”
Chapter 38
Evangeline
I would still prefer to personally torture Aurora,” said LaLa as she walked beside Evangeline on the path that would take them to the Hollow. The sun was slowly starting to rise, casting warm morning light on all the droplets of dew clinging to the grass that lined their path.
“I think I’d like to torture her as well,” said Evangeline. But it was mostly because saying something—anything—took her mind off the fact that Jacks was without a heart, and when he got it back, it might not be the same heart.
LaLa was a good distraction, suggesting setting Aurora’s hair on fire, pulling out her fingernails, and other things Evangeline couldn’t even bring herself to repeat.
“I just want to kiss him,” Evangeline said softly. “And . . . I don’t want to die.”
Before last night, she had never truly believed Jacks would kill her. The night they’d spent together at the crypt—she’d been afraid he would bite her and turn into a vampire, but she’d never been afraid she would die by his lips.
Until now.
LaLa turned to her then, with a particularly gentle smile. “I hope that someday you do get to kiss Jacks in front of Aurora. That would be the best sort of torture.”
“But I thought you believed Jacks’s kiss would kill me?”
LaLa shrugged. “What can I say? Revenge makes me hopeful.”
A few feet later they reached the sign that read: Welcome to the Hollow!
A little dragon dozed atop it, snoring tiny adorable sparks.
With a pang, Evangeline thought about the night that she and Jacks had spent here together.
Then she thought about how the Cursed Forest had brought Jacks back to the Hollow.
Could it be that the best day of Jacks’s life had been the one he’d spent with Evangeline there? It felt like an awful lot to hope for, yet just the idea reignited some of the light in Evangeline. Maybe Jacks didn’t want a happily ever after, but she still refused to believe he didn’t want her. Although who knew what he would want once Aurora changed his heart?
“We should be close,” LaLa said. “If I remember correctly, Aurora had an evil lair hidden at the base of a tree. Her family always vacationed at the Hollow. I remember trying to play with her the first few years, but she always wanted to chase the boys.”
LaLa directed Evangeline off the path through a forest full of trees and velvet-capped mushrooms that went all the way up to their knees and thighs. There were more sleeping dragons atop them, filling the air with sparks of golden light. Then the mushrooms stopped and for several feet the ground was bare—no mushrooms, no grasses, not even a broken twig. There was just a large circle of untouched dirt, surrounding a tree with a carving in the center of a wolf wearing a flower crown.