I fell in love with a villainess

Rain lashed the cliffs, turning the cult's robes to sludge and the world to a watercolor of gray. Evangeline stood amid the chaos, her dagger slick with blood she didn't recognize, her mind a hollowed-out husk.

Who am I fighting?

Cultists swarmed, coral masks cracked and snarling. A man with thorns for veins fought beside her—gold-eyed, monstrous, familiar. She didn't know him, but her body did. Muscle memory pivoted her to block a blade aimed at his back.

"Why do I trust you?" she shouted over the storm.

The man wrenched a root through a cultist's chest. His voice was wildfire and ruin. "You shouldn't."

Jack felt the thorns gnawing at his bones.

Every kill fed them. Every drop of blood spilled by his hands made the scar on his chest bloom brighter, Seraphine's whispers louder. "She'll betray you. They all do."

But Evangeline—his Evangeline, even if she wasn't anymore—still fought at his side. Her memories were gone, but her body remembered their rhythm. She spun into his guard, her elbow brushing his ribs, her blade finishing the cultist he'd maimed.

A perfect, brutal dance.

"You're a fool," Seraphine hissed.

Maybe.

The false Liran found them at the cliff's edge.

He emerged from the mist, roses spilling from his sleeves, his face a flawless replica of the boy Evangeline had mourned. "Eva," he cooed, "you look tired."

She froze, dagger half-raised. "Liran?"

Jack's thorns lashed out, but the figure dissolved into petals, reappearing behind her. "He's not real," Jack growled. "It's a trick."

"Is it?" The false Liran pressed a withered doll into Evangeline's hand—charred, one-eyed, hers. "Remember the fire? The roses in my throat? You let me die."

Evangeline staggered. The doll trembled in her grip. "I… I didn't—"

"You did." The cultist's voice sweetened, venomous. "But Mother Seraphine offers mercy. Kill the monster, and I live."

Jack's thorns recoiled. "She'll choose him," Seraphine whispered. "She always does."

The storm stilled.

Evangeline turned to Jack, her eyes a tempest. He saw the calculation in her gaze—the Viper weighing lives. His hands shook, the thorns begging to defend, to kill, but he forced them still.

"Do it," he said softly. "If it's you, I don't mind."

Her dagger flashed.

And plunged into the false Liran's heart.

"I don't know you," she said, voice raw. "But I don't kill for ghosts."

The cultist crumpled, petals rotting to ash. From the smoke emerged Seraphine, her true form a symphony of thorns and fury. "Sentiment will ruin you, daughter of venom."

Jack's control snapped.

The cliffside erupted, roots spearing through cultists, tangling Seraphine in a cage of brambles. Evangeline grabbed his arm, her touch a brand. "Enough! You'll bring the cliff down!"

He halted, breath ragged. Seraphine laughed, even as the thorns drew blood.

"Run, little ones. But the garden is patient. It will have its vessel."

The sea swallowed her words.

In the hollow of a shipwreck, Evangeline staunched Jack's bleeding palm—a self-inflicted wound, clawed open to halt the thorns' rampage. Her hands were steady, her gaze distant.

"Why did you spare me?" he asked.

She tied the bandage too tight. "I don't know you. But I know what it's like to be… unmade."

He flinched.

Her fingers lingered. "You looked at me like I was a prayer. What were we?"

Everything. "Strangers," he lied.

She stood, rain plastering her hair to her face. "Liar."

That night, Seraphine came to Evangeline in a dream.

"The boy is a lie," she crooned, cradling Liran's doll. "But I can give you truth. His heart for your brother's."

Evangeline woke with a gasp, Jack's dagger in her hand.

He slept nearby, the scar on his chest glowing faintly, his face softened by shadows.

She pressed the blade to his pulse.

"Do it," Seraphine urged.

The dagger trembled.

Chapter 12 End.