Jacks thought he could not witness anything worse than Evangeline dying in his arms. But this was close. She was on the ground, bound up in front of a tree, and the bastard who stole her memories was leaning in to kiss her. “Get your hands off her, you son of a bitch!”
Jacks ran across the cavern and punched Apollo in the face. Then he punched him again and again. He punched until he stopped feeling his fist, breaking Apollo’s bones. When blood spewed from the prince’s nose, Jacks felt it spray his cheek.
It would have been easier just to stab the bastard in the throat. But Jacks needed to hurt him first.
“I will kill you for this!” Jacks rained down more punches on Apollo’s face.
“Stop him!” someone screamed. Footfalls rushed across the cavern. Then Jacks was being grabbed. He felt large gloved hands on his arms.
He tried to shake them off, tried to use his powers to make them stop. But either he was entirely drained or these guards were somehow more than human.
“Let me go!” Jacks thrashed as the guards firmly took hold of his arms and began to drag him away.
Only these weren’t guards. He knew these men. They looked liked Dane and Lysander Valor, Castor’s older brothers. “Let me go! This isn’t your fight.”
Dane, the most hard-headed of Castor’s brothers, might have muttered something, but Jacks couldn’t hear it over the rushing blood in his ears or the cries of Evangeline, who was still tied up on the ground.
“Why aren’t you helping her instead of restraining me?” Jacks yelled. And that’s when he saw Wolfric.
It was the first time Jacks had seen him since that night in the Valory. Tonight he looked dressed for battle, knives strapped to his arms, swords strapped to his sides, another weapon across his back.
He was talking to Apollo. Jacks waited for Wolfric to run the blackguard through with one of his knives and then pick up Evangeline. But everyone in this cavern seemed to have lost his mind. Instead of stabbing him, Wolfric clapped the prince on his shoulder and handed him a handkerchief. Then he marched toward Jacks and his sons without so much as a glance at Evangeline.
“What’s wrong with you?” Jacks bellowed.
Wolfric looked at him grimly and ran a hand over his beard. “I’m sorry, son. But I can’t let you go to her.”
“You can’t stop me,” Jacks roared. He tried to throw Dane and Lysander off his arms, but all the Valors were so much stronger than they should have been.
“She’s his wife,” Wolfric said, as if that somehow made this all right. “He’s going to sacrifice her to a tree!” Jacks screamed.
Apollo looked half dead. His face was bloody and almost unrecognizable from the beating Jacks had given him. But he was still standing, and now he was holding out his sword.
And Wolfric was still doing nothing. Jacks hadn’t always liked Wolfric Valor, but he’d respected him. He knew Wolfric believed in honor and justice and all the things he spouted about during toasts.
“Is this because I’m a fugitive?” Jacks shouted at Wolfric. “Those stories about me aren’t true. I never erased her memories
—Apollo did!”
“I don’t care about any of that,” Wolfric grunted. “I’m doing this because it’s the right thing to do.”
“It’s not and you know that,” cried Jacks.
On the ground, Evangeline was still struggling and crying. Her cheeks were stained with tears as she lifted her head from the ground to meet Jacks’s gaze. Her eyes were shining. Even now, she looked so sweet. She didn’t speak, but he heard her think, It’s going to be all right.
But it wasn’t all right.
Nothing was going to be all right ever again if Jacks lost her now.
