2

Icould not die. I simply couldn't. I had so many more books to read, and kisses to give, and stargazing to do, and people to meet, and risks worth taking.

And I certainly could not die in the arms of this inconsiderate delinquent who had not only led those filthy, atrocious creatures into my poor Shop but had also forced me through the Celestial Door, an offense no Curiosity had ever committed in the entire Shop's history.

And most certainly, I could not die falling from the sky.

"Stop writhing, damn it, I'm going to drop you!" Apollo shouted over the manic howling of the wind as we plunged through the airspace to what appeared to be our inevitable deaths.

"We are already dropping, you bastard!" I cried.

Below, the clusters of trees enlarged rapidly, and the forestland looked like the yawning mouth of a giant monster, ready to swallow us whole.

Apollo wrapped an arm around my neck and pushed my face into his chest, immobilizing me completely. Blindly, desperately, I fumbled behind his back to open my parasol to create some kind of wind resistance, despite knowing that at this mad velocity, the delicate structure would only break.

"Hold on!" he warned as he brought his other hand around my waist, squeezing me so tightly that I began to fear I would die from asphyxiation before I ever reached land again.

I was unable to see anything with my face buried in his shirt, but I felt the collision with the birch trees. Their long, leafy branches—sharper than a set of claws—scraped over our bodies while furious birds crowed at us for the terrible disturbance, a frenzied symphony of flapping wings and snapping beaks.

For a second, we caught on something—then a fierce rip and crack sounded, and to my utter dismay, we started falling again.

We fell, and fell, and—bam—the ground at last.

"Fuck, that hurt," Apollo groaned. After a moment of painful stillness, he slipped his fingers over the sides of my face and pushed back the wild mess of my hair. "You okay, darling? Is anything broken?"

I was immobile from shock. I could not believe what had just happened.

For the love of the sky, how were we not dead?

I tried to feel my body for broken or dislocated bones, but other than the persistent ringing in my ears, the frenetic pounding of my heart, and a series of muscle spasms from the tremendous fall, I was perfectly intact.

But then, in a nauseating blur, fury and despair overtook me, as fast and hard as our collision with the ground. I straddled Apollo with my thighs and began hitting him however and wherever I could. "You bastard! What did you do? Take me back! Take me back now!"

Apollo, in one fluid, alarmingly deft movement, seized my wrists and thrust me to the side. Before I knew it, he was on top of me, pressing me down on the forest floor with his powerful body and pinning my hands above my head.

"What did you want me to do, huh? Abandon you with the creatures?" he snarled.

"How about not kidnapping me!"

"I didn't kidnap you," Apollo growled. "I saved you."

"You're the reason I needed saving, you lunatic!" Pure, blood-curdling panic gripped me in its claws, and a ragged, tearless sob racked my chest. "How—How are you still alive? I landed on you, and you're completely intact—oh gods, oh gods. I don't even know who you are or what you are, and I'm stranded in the middle of nowhere with you!"

"You're not in the middle of nowhere. You're in the Dragonfly Forest. And I don't know who you are either, darling, but you don't see me screaming at the top of my lungs like a banshee on fire," Apollo retorted, his voice lowering to a rough rasp.

"It's not the same! You fell from the sky and lived. I'm just a nobody from Elora."

"How strange," he mocked. "I've lived twenty-seven years in this world. I've traveled from North to South and seen all kinds of peculiar creatures, yet I've never, not once, met someone who's a nobody."

Oh, the bastard really thought himself clever, didn't he?

I thrashed under him, trying to twist my wrists out of his hold. "Get off me. Get off me now, or you'll wish I was only a banshee."

Apollo lifted off me at once, muttering something obscene under his breath, and went to grab one of his leather sheaths that currently hung from the lower branch of a birch tree. The opal handle of the dagger was illuminated by the long sunbeams that blazed through the boughs and twinkled like a star amid the greenery.

I stood, smoothed down my skirts, whipped back my hair, and walked straight up to him, determined to get some answers. But when he veered, dagger in hand, I regretted the closeness. More so as he leaned over me to pick a leaf off my hair. I tried to keep still, hating to give him the satisfaction of retreat. But it was hard and almost painful not to cower away because, for all I knew, Apollo Stranger was not even human. I could almost see it—the dark creature skulking beneath his pretty skin. Something boundless and wicked and absolutely lethal.

I clenched my jaw. "I demand to know what you are. How are you still breathing after that fall?"

He looked at me like a disheveled demon, with his smoldering lines, ruffled hair, and steely gaze. "Well, darling, ask any girl you know, and they'll be happy to tell you just how resilient heartless men can be."

A handsome Stranger will walk into the Shop today. Do not entrust him with your heart.

I froze, a glacial sense of dread setting deep in my bones.

A man from The Faraway North. A man you couldn't trust with your heart. A man who couldn't be harmed, for a man without a heart could never be broken.

He wasn't Apollo Stranger. He was Apollo Zayra.

"You're him, aren't you?" I heaved, my eyes wide in terror. "You're the Prince of Thaloria. You're the Prince of Broken Hearts."

His sardonic little grin turned as bitter as a nightshade. "How nice," he deadpanned. "My reputation precedes me once again."

No one knew exactly how the Prince of Thaloria lost his heart. Some claimed that the gods cursed him because of his unbridled hubris, and others believed that he'd insulted an ancient spirit of love, and so as punishment, she'd taken away his ability to feel it. There was even talk of some witch-made curse, but a mortal couldn't simply curse another mortal. A witch could cast a spell through chants and magical ability, but the recipient had to be willing for the spell to take root. And it was rather absurd that anyone would ever choose to be heartless.

The true story remained a mystery, but everyone in the Asteria Realm knew of the young, handsome royal who roamed from city to city, leaving a bloody trail behind, for he had an insatiable appetite for hearts, as he didn't have one himself.

Apollo reached for me, anticipating that I was about to flee, so I screamed at the top of my lungs, "Get away from me! My heart is not on the menu, you beast!"

Before I could even think about escaping, he grabbed my shoulders and shoved me against the rough trunk of a tree. He clamped one hand down on my mouth as he drew up his dagger with the other. Every muscle in my body froze, and every heartbeat in my chest stuttered as he raised the shiny blade to my throat and leaned closer, crowding me with his body until there was nothing else to see but him.

"Listen to me very carefully, Nepheli," he said in a low, reasonable tone, even though there was absolutely nothing reasonable about any of this. "I understand that you're scared, and I know I messed up coming to your Shop, but you're in the North now, and I'm sure you think this place is all magic and curiosity, but it is also very dangerous. This forest has monsters and fairies and bandits who will do pretty much anything to get their hands on a piece of gold, and unfortunately for you, only one of us can survive from a dagger to the chest. So you're going to be a good girl and keep quiet and do whatever I tell you to do, or I'm going to head on my way and abandon you here to fend for yourself, and believe me,"—he threaded the tip of his dagger under my butterfly pendant, the blade ice-cold against my flushed skin—"Little Miss Butterfly," he sneered, "you do not wish me to do that."

He took his hand off my mouth, and I gasped for breath, my insides buzzing, and my muscles trembling from fear and adrenaline. "You're not going to eat my heart?"

He rolled his eyes at the leafy canopy while sheathing his dagger. He did not move away from me, though, and the proximity of our bodies felt as sharp and detrimental as any other of his hidden weapons. "I do not eat hearts, Nepheli. That's just a nasty rumor."

I met his devious gaze. "Is it also just a nasty rumor that you break the heart of any girl who loves you?"

"Darling," he drawled, tilting his head to the side. "Look at me. What do you think?"

"I think I need to get home before something worse happens to my Shop," I bit out, glaring at him. The mere thought of the havoc the creatures would be wreaking in my poor Shop as we spoke brought tears to my eyes.

My whole life, I had one thing, one lovely, curious, interesting thing, and now it was all just… gone.

"Once we reach the city, I'll help you get home," Apollo claimed, his expression utterly inscrutable.

"I cannot trust you to do that," I growled. "You could do awful things to me."

Apollo raised a brow. "I could. But that doesn't mean you wouldn't like them."

Gods, the arrogance of this man! No wonder the gods cursed him. He was horrid. Absolutely heinous. After all the damage and chaos he'd brought upon my Shop, flirting with me right now had to be unprecedentedly audacious. And not even a halfhearted apology to offer. Nothing!

I swallowed down a curse and bristled between my teeth, "If you mean me no harm, then you will move away from me right now."

He narrowed his eyes, suspicious. "Are you going to scream again and invite the entire Dragonfly to our location?"

I shook my head.

"Use your words, Little Butterfly. Can I trust you to behave, yes or no?"

"Yes," I gritted out. "But can I trust you, Prince of Broken Hearts?"

He stared down at me like I was something he could crush under his boot. "Don't be ridiculous, darling. Of course, you cannot trust me," he said, his tone dry and self-amused. "But you don't have any other choice, do you?"

I looked ahead, at the narrow, verdant path studded with thorny brambles and gnarled trees, the sun pounding on exposed patches along the route—but in the distance, all shadow and inauspicious possibilities.

Suddenly, all those summers I'd spent in the city, locked inside my bedroom with my books and my daydreams instead of going to the countryside with my schoolmates, seemed like a fatal decision. Because Apollo was right. I had no idea how to navigate a forest. I had no idea how to return home by myself. I was left with no choice but to trust him.

"Just to be clear," I warned, "if you do eat my heart, I swear to the gods, I'll come back as a ghost and haunt you for the rest of your wretched life."

"Sounds thrilling," Apollo cooed. "Someone as fascinating as myself surely deserves at least one obsessive stalker."

"I will not be your stalker," I hissed, raising my finger to his nose. "I will be your doom."

Apollo scanned me from head to toe and huffed out a contemptuous little laugh. "Sure you'll be, darling. Sure you'll be."