I fell in love with a villainess

When Jack woke, the world was made of glass.

Colors bled at the edges—violet, gray, the bruised purple of a twilight he couldn't place. Seraphine's voice coiled around him, syrupy and slow. "She's taking you to the one who ruins everything," she whispered. "But you already knew that, didn't you?"

He tried to move, but his limbs were liquid. Shadows pooled beneath him, reflecting a sky choked with thorns. A figure loomed in the distance—Evangeline, her silhouette warped and rippling as if seen through water. She cradled him against her chest, her heartbeat a frantic drum against his ear.

"Stay awake," she was saying, though her voice sounded leagues away. "Stay with me."

The glass shattered.

Evangeline rode like death itself was snapping at her heels.

Jack slumped against her, his breath shallow, his skin fever-hot. The locket's chain had fused to his chest, the metal searing a rose-shaped brand over his heart. Black veins spiderwebbed from it, pulsing in time with the hoofbeats. She'd wrapped him in her cloak, but the cold leeching from his body seeped into her bones.

Faster.

The healer's grove lay in the Withering Vale, a poisoned stretch of land where the trees wept acid and the ground swallowed light. Evangeline had sworn never to return here—not after the healer had laughed in her face years ago, denying her plea to save a brother long turned to dust. But Jack's weight against her, his fading warmth, carved through pride like a scalpel.

The cottage appeared at dusk, its walls woven from briars and bleached skulls. A lantern hung above the door, its flame green and hissing. Evangeline dismounted, Jack limp in her arms, and kicked the door open.

"Lira," she snarled.

The healer stood at a stone table, grinding black petals in a mortar. Her hair was shorn to the scalp, her face a patchwork of scars and gold ink. She didn't look up. "You're interrupting."

"Heal him."

Lira sniffed the air. "Ah. The thorns' chew toy. Why bother? He's halfway to a corpse."

Evangeline laid Jack on the table, her dagger pressed to Lira's throat. "Heal. Him."

The healer smiled, her teeth filed to points. "Or what? You'll kill me? Then who'll save your pet?" She flicked the dagger aside and leaned over Jack, her fingers probing the locket. "The covenant's broken, but the garden's still hungry. It wants its due."

"What does that mean?"

"It means," Lira said, prying the locket free with a sickening snap, "he's a door. And doors can be opened." She tossed the locket into the fire, where it shrieked like a living thing. "The venom's in his blood. To purge it, I need a trade."

Evangeline's jaw tightened. "Name it."

Lira's gaze sharpened. "A memory. The one you buried deepest."

Jack floated in a fever-dream.

Seraphine paced around him, her gown trailing ash. "You should've let her die in the crypt. Now you'll both pay."

"Why do you hate her?" he rasped.

"Hate?" She laughed. "I envy her. She has what I lost—a will unbroken. But the thorns will devour that too. They always do."

The dream twisted. He stood in a sunlit garden, younger Evangeline kneeling in the dirt, her hands bloody from thorns. A boy lay beside her, his face pale, roses blooming from his lips.

"Liran, please—" young Evangeline begged. "Don't leave me."

The boy coughed petals. "Burn them, Eva. Burn it all…"

Jack reached for her, but the memory dissolved into smoke.

Evangeline gripped the edge of the stone table, Lira's hands clamped over her temples. The healer's magic was a parasite, slithering into her mind, tearing open vaults she'd sealed decades ago.

Liran's laughter. The roses in his throat. Father's rage. "You let him die. You're no daughter of mine."

She choked on the memory, on the stench of sickroom lilies and her brother's last, rattling breath. Lira's voice slithered through the pain: "Deeper."

Mother's portrait, slashed to ribbons. Evangeline, age ten, hiding a dagger under her pillow. The first time she drew blood—a stableboy who'd mocked Liran's grave.

"Good," Father had said, wiping her hands clean. "Now you understand."

Lira ripped further.

Jack, unconscious in her arms. The way his pulse fluttered, like a bird she'd crush if she held too tight.

"Enough!" Evangeline wrenched free, blood trickling from her nose. "Take the memory and heal him."

Lira licked her lips, her eyes alight with stolen pain. "As you wish."

The cure was a worm.

Lira pressed it to Jack's chest, the creature burrowing into his flesh with a wet squelch. He arched, gasping, as the black veins retracted, the fever breaking in a sweat-soaked rush. Evangeline gripped his hand, her gloves stripped off, her skin against his for the first time.

"Breathe," she ordered. "Breathe."

He did.

They left at dawn. Lira stood in the doorway, carving a rose into her forearm. "A warning, Viper—the thorns don't forgive. They'll come for him. For you."

Evangeline mounted her horse, Jack swaying behind her, his arms looped around her waist. "Let them try."

Jack slept as they rode, his forehead pressed to her back. The Withering Vale gave way to rolling hills, the air sweet with clover. He stirred once, his voice slurry with exhaustion. "Eva…?"

She stiffened. No one had called her that since Liran. "What?"

"Your hands. They're shaking."

She stared ahead, her throat tight. "Ride faster."

That night, as Jack slept by the fire, Evangeline examined the healed wound on his chest. The scar was a rose in full bloom, its petals edged in gold.

Just like Seraphine's pendant.

She tucked the blanket around him, her fingers lingering. The healer's warning coiled in her gut.

They'll come for him.

Let them.

Chapter 8 End.