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He should’ve known she was dangerous. As soon as he saw her, praying to him, he should’ve known.
Her bright rose-gold hair had been a warning sign. But as a Fate, warnings had never deterred him. As a matter of fact, it had scared him slightly, just how intrigued he felt instead.
Foxes were stitched onto her dress.
They danced to the movement of her body. Taunting him. Mocking him.
Her last name. Fox.
All a joke from the Story Curse itself—undoubtedly so. Maybe, Fate was in on it too; Jacks was almost certain.
Warning bells rang in his head and instead of heeding them, Jacks found them amusing.
How couldn’t he? He wholeheartedly believed he had the upper hand. A scheme had devised itself and little poor Evangeline would be at the center of it.
He’d ignored a minuscule pang of guilt. Everything was falling into place as it had been written. He shouldn’t have felt anything. Especially for a girl that looked as if she had walked straight out from a fairy tale; one of those overly ridiculous and sappy stories.
(He ignored the thought of how those stories seemed to fit her perfectly.)
If anyone had told Jacks, the Prince of Hearts, that he was going to spend every waking moment drowning in Evangeline’s essence, he would’ve laughed. Maybe stabbed said person as well.
He was not a masochist.
(Not yet.)
So, focused on his true motive, he set in motion his plan. But he underestimated his Little Fox. He underestimated her courage to fight for what she believed was right, her kindness to those undeserving of it, her ability to piece the puzzles of an unforgiving plot.
Oh she was dangerous.
Jacks should’ve been careful. He should’ve intimidated her, threatened her even more. Yes, he needed her willing blood, that much was true. But there had been many solutions to that problem; instead he chose to play the kindness game.
He’d allowed himself to fall into peril. He was to blame.
He believed playing the human part was to convince her. That was absurd.
The Fate was aware of how constantly she wore her heart on her sleeve. Aware of her eyes that constantly shone with immense empathy and sympathy towards others, even when they had done nothing of merit. It had annoyed him endlessly. The world had not been devised for pure-hearted people like her.
He would know.
Inside that pretty little head of hers, Evangeline believed he could be redeemed. She believed that he could feel human emotions on the same level as she did.
Jacks warned her Fates didn’t feel the same way. Yet, he never told her that when they do feel, it’s intense. It was better to let her believe that he could feel like she did, if it meant he could convince her to find the stones.
But the Prince of Hearts plans have never worked in his favor. Somehow, they've always worked against him.
His plans had failed in the Meridian Empire and now they had begun to fail him in the North. Evangeline’s humanity was rubbing off on him, cracking the ice in his cold heart. It began to unbury a long lost part of him that ironically, was part of her favorite tale. Her ability to soften him added on to his frustrations.
Why had he held her when she had been poisoned to cry herself to death? Because Ariel told him to?
Why had he held her hand when those humans had been close to being bitten by vampires?
Why had he taken that damn bite for her? From her ridiculous ex-lover, nonetheless.
Because he needed her for the arch. She needed to find the stones.
A mantra he repeated to himself every day. He had the upper hand. Not her.
Even so, he desperately seeked Castor’s help when she was injured by her fool of a husband. He followed her like crazy after she left the underground castle, his heart almost jumping out of his chest when he found her hiding from Apollo.
He jumped off a cliff with her in his arms. Her body trembling against his as he held her as close as possible.
The powerful ocean had fought to separate them but he never once let go. A promise had been made and he swore to himself he would not break it.
“I will not let you die.”
No, he would not let Evangeline Fox die. (He did.)
Her gray eyes had watched him in wonder, in something else that he did not allow himself to indulge. Her pink-gold hair (that had meant caution once, had now become endearing—to his displeasure) was glued to her face and he’d fought hard to not brush it away.
She was danger personified. Yes. But he was beginning to like the danger. Her. The way the danger would blush at his words, the way the danger gazed at him, how the danger felt against him, soft and warm.
Jacks should’ve known he was diving in treacherous waters. Evangeline had poisoned him. And it terrified him, deep down to his bones, how it seemed that she was also the antidote.
He could not tell, for the life of him, if her hair and last name were still warnings. He’d been lured in and Fate knows, he never stopped falling off that cliff.
The Prince of Hearts refused to admit it. No.
But it had become harder. The apples weren’t enough.
He comforted her after she murdered the other key. He comforted her when she was being lashed to death. For a second, Jacks wished it had been him being lashed. He’d been the one who created the whole predicament in the first place. The one who pulled his unknowing Little Fox into his foolish schemes.
He took her to the Hollow. He healed her wounds. He watched her as she explored the place. Her curiosity knew no bounds and it sickened him, just how much it made his feelings deepen.
Once upon a time, he had held the upper hand in their little game. But he embarrassingly lost.
Evangeline Fox captured him in her web, one that she wasn’t even aware existed. Innocently, she managed to conquer him in a way he never believed was possible.
She was the key to the Valory Arch and yet somehow, she also became the key that unlocked his stone heart. Little by little, she made a home inside of it. And instead of evicting her, he allowed her presence to take residence.
And when her soft hands touched his skin as she tended to his wound, despite his protests, Jacks swore he had died.
Why couldn’t he allow himself to feel just once? Why couldn’t he just allow himself to indulge in her touch and presence?
Just once. (He’s always been a liar; just once could never be enough. Not for him.)
He took her in his arms and asked her to stay, to pretend with him. Only for one night.
What had this Little Fox done to the intimidating Prince of Hearts?
Pink. He was drowning in it. The intriguing pink of her hair. The enthralling pink blush on her cheeks. The pink of her tantalizing lips.
Lips so tempting, they haunted him every waking hour. Only in his darkest dreams did he dare satiate his hunger for them. Anger and hurt at his curse bubbled to the surface.
Kissing her would be her downfall. It surely would be his.
“I’m yours.”
His heart had warmed beyond his control. Those two words had been enough.
For once, Jacks had been chosen. He’d needed to hear her say it out loud and she did. Someone chose him. Evangeline chose him.
Him.
He didn’t know if he should’ve laughed or cried. A vile joke that Fate and the Story Curse placed on him, once again.
How was it possible that the one girl he so desperately wished he could have was not his true love?
There had only been one girl who survived his kiss. Only one had not died in his arms.
And it was not Evangeline.
Evangeline was not his true love.
As much as he wished she were. A painful ache had blossomed in his heart, and in that moment he despised it, for having the audacity to ever feel again.
How sick. But perhaps, it’s what he deserved for all the centuries of pain he caused.
The cruel punishment didn’t end then, no, it continued the next morning. When Evangeline insisted that everything between them had been caused by the mirth stone.
By a dumb piece of rock.
But it’s what she believed and who was he to persuade her otherwise. It was time to face reality. It was time for him to come to terms with the plan he crafted. And he found he couldn’t care about going back to Donatella.
No, he wasn’t able to care at all, when Evangeline was all he could breathe. Five senses on his body and all five yearned for her.
Despite his longing, he was not good for her. He didn’t deserve her. He knew that. His traitorous heart knew that.
Evangeline Fox was kind and forgiving. The epitome of sunshine and love. She was a hopeless romantic at heart, he knew that much. Evangeline deserved someone who could love her the way she wanted, the way she dreamed about. Someone who could kiss her and not be the death of her.
Jacks was not going to be the one to take that chance away from her.
If protecting her meant letting her go, so be it. If loving her meant letting her go and be happy with someone else, he would painfully allow it.
She believed they had been influenced by a mere stone and if that idea kept her safe, then he would play the fool. Even as his heart battled his mind with the belief that she felt the same way he had.
He had always been hyper-aware of the way she trembled around him. How her breath would hitch each time he grazed her skin—accidentally. The way her eyes would always betray her words. Her tempting blush, that would spread from her face to the tip of her ears all the way down to her neck. All his doing.
It had been mutual but this was the end.
And despite knowing that, his heart still twisted sharply in his chest when her expression had contorted into pure hurt. Her eyes reflected a storm of emotions.
“I want to return to the moment I met Donatella.”
“I want to erase every moment you and I have spent together.”
“Since then, every girl I’ve kissed has died, except for one. And you are not that girl.”
Jacks couldn’t say goodbye.
He couldn’t because he knew that one more word from her lips would’ve broken him.
The power she held over him was terrifying. It scared him how much he ached to be near her.
And so, it wasn’t surprising at all when he found himself following after her and Castor. A deep and strange feeling had settled in him. Goosebumps had appeared on his skin as he approached the Valory Arch. The feeling intensifying, the sense that something was terribly wrong made him break out in a run. The pull and push of the tether connecting them had gone silent.
Silence.
If falling in love with Evangeline felt like drowning, her slowly dying in his arms felt like burning.
Every inch of him burned as if he were on fire. Every part of him groaned in excruciating pain, and just maybe, he hoped somebody would take mercy and actually set him on fire. Because, even then, the pain of burning could never compare to the agonizing torture of losing Evangeline.
In his arms, the warmth rapidly drained from her body. Cold and limp. Two words that should have never been associated with her.
Too late. He was too late.
Because he’d been a coward. Because he’d been afraid of the ‘what if’. Because all he had wanted was to keep her safe.
Evangeline Fox was dangerous.
He should've known since the moment he first saw her. Or perhaps, Jacks already knew and chose to simply ignore it, because deep down the idea of her danger captivated him. Enticed him.
Now, the only thing Jacks can do is hold her body tightly against his.
Just as he did when she couldn’t stop crying, just as he did when they jumped into freezing waters, just as he did when she cried over the guilt of murdering someone, just as he did when he brought her to the Hollow, just as he did when they pretended for one night.
He—with no doubt—believes it’s another cruel punishment for all the hurt he inflicted on others, including her. A direct consequence of his ill-conceived plan. For all he put her through. For all he said.
He wants to take back all the lies he dared utter from his lips. He wants to apologize, for her to open her eyes one last time. He just wants to hear her voice, to hear her laugh, to hear her stutter as he teases her.
Jacks stopped believing in happy endings long ago, but in his heart, she deserved one.
Evangeline was supposed to have had a Happily Ever After. This wasn't how it was supposed to end.
He cries. He shouts. He begs. He pleads. He whispers.
All in vain. She’s not coming back.
Pink continues to turn red. So red. It doesn’t stop. And he knows, he’ll never be the same.