by Rachel Shane
Table of Contents
DEDICATION
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CURSEBOUND BLURB
CURSEBOUND - CHAPTER ONE
Other titles by Rachel Shane
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
GRAVEBOUND
Copyright © 2016 Rachel Shane
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electrical or mechanical means including photocopying, recording, or information storage or retrieval without permission in writing from the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by Rachel Shane
Interior design and layout by Rachel Shane
Graphical elements from Freepik.com
DEDICATION
To the Romance Binders
You ladies are my safe space and the inspiration for this book! Thank you.
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CHAPTER ONE
DELILAH
With a wave of her palm, Delilah York’s chic law office descended into darkness. Curtains zoomed closed without strings to pull them, overhead lights winked out of existence, and a chill settled throughout the room like a winter fog. The candles that had seemed like staged knick-knacks worthy of a centerfold in an interior decorating magazine suddenly flickered on, their flames dancing in the dim light. Magic crackled in the air, an electric sizzle that made her skin tingle.
She heaved the large dorm-style hot pot she kept in her closet and set it on her desk, pushing aside a stack of legal papers to make room.
“What are—” Her client Lindsey Marbury cleared her throat to stop her voice from shaking. “What are you going to do?” Lindsey ran her finger lovingly over a simple black picture frame, tracing the too-large chin of the balding man captured inside.
“Break the contract with a counter-potion.” Delilah sprinkled a ring of salt around her client’s chair, the particles sifting through her fingers in a way that felt more like home than her actual home did. It had taken Delilah days of deconstructing the legal jargon to figure out a spell that would break the magical contract binding Lindsey to the man in the photo via a love potion she drank a few weeks ago. Lindsey came to Delilah desperate to break the spell but also reluctant to end it thanks to, well, being imprisoned by her false love for Creepo Supreme.
“Good.” Lindsey let out a relieved breath. She hugged the frame close to her chest. “Wait! No! I don’t want to break it.”
Delilah’s jaw clenched. “That’s the love potion talking.” She had seen it all before: the possession, the infatuation, the hesitation. This spell in particular had a strong hold on Lindsey. The diamond on her finger sparkled in the glow of a candle. She’d been engaged to someone else before she met Double Chin. Now she was engaged to him.
Getting engaged against your free will set feminism back about, oh, five hundred years.
Delilah dumped rosewater into the pot along with myrrh resin and black mustard seed. Even though she’d been practicing now for years, it still felt odd to be finalizing contracts with something other than a signature. When she went to law school to become a divorce lawyer, this wasn’t exactly what she had in mind when it came to breaking people up. But in her third year, a class appeared on her schedule she hadn’t signed up for called Bindings and Entanglements. The registrar’s office couldn’t help her drop the class—literally. Every time they removed it, it came back with a vengeance, appearing bolder and in larger font on her printed schedule. Delilah’s friends thought it was a practical joke. But she sensed something deeper, a compulsion that begged her to attend. So she showed up the first day and found once she entered the room, she couldn’t leave. She was bound to it.
And so began her first test of the class: breaking the magical binding spell keeping the students in the classroom.
It turned out Delilah was a natural witch and the professors noticed her powers—and law skills. Using a combination of legal jargon and a spell written in ancient Latin she found in the classroom library, Delilah was the first to break the magical loophole. She could have left right there and never come back.
Instead, she found her calling.
Now, Delilah ran a divorce firm by day for those not magically inclined and a magical firm…also by day. Some clients she freed by helping them get rid of their pond scum exes, keeping their house and kids in the process. And others she freed simply by giving them back the freedom stolen from them thanks to a spell or a curse.
“I changed my mind.” Lindsey leaped to her feet, shuffling toward the salt ring at a speed worthy of marathon runners. She lifted her foot to step over the circle—and slammed into an invisible barrier that knocked her backward. She stumbled until she fell back into the chair and wrapped her arms around her chest, picture frame secured against her heart. “I—I love him.” Tears streamed down her face, smearing her mascara.
Delilah’s stomach twisted as she dropped burnt ashes from palm leaves into the pot. This happened a lot. Sometimes the clients would be dragged in by concerned relatives horrified by their behavior. Sometimes clients horrified by their own behavior would come to her during a rare moment of clarity. The stronger the spell, the stronger the opposition she faced. Delilah found it best to continue to brew the potion and then offer it to the client, letting it be their choice whether they drank it or not.
So Delilah continued working. She plucked more herbs from her stash and ignored Lindsey’s desperate pleas to stop. Even if they made her wince.
Even if they made her want to wrap her arms around her client and squeeze the pain away.
But she had to do this the hard way. Or, well, the hard way with a little soft coaxing.
She knelt in front of Lindsey. “I’m going to need this now, okay? I’ll give it right back.” Delilah offered Lindsey her most sympathetic smile as she pried the frame from Lindsey’s hands. Lindsey whimpered and desperately clawed at it, but Delilah scrambled away at a fast clip. Power surged through her fingers, and her eyes fluttered closed for a moment to savor the sensation as she wrapped the man’s face with black ribbon. “I bind thee away from Lindsey Marbury.” Delilah repeated that line as she worked each loop of ribbon around the frame until the entire image was obscured. “Harm no more. Balance restore. I hereby cast out this charm.” She repeated the chant several times while visualizing the man departing from Lindsey’s life without so much as a goodbye.
Energy crackled within Delilah, soaring with a whoosh through every atom in her body. The rush felt exhilarating, a pure euphoria that made her gasp. Power drained out of her pores and seeped into the rib
bon until Delilah collapsed to the ground, panting. The amazing high gave way to the lowest of lows, and her temples pounded with the loss of magic.
This must be how drug addicts felt during withdrawal. Or sex addicts.
Lindsey rocked back and forth as tears streamed down her face. Delilah may have blocked Ugly Chin from Lindsey, but Lindsey was still lovesick for him until Delilah could break the second half of the spell.
With shaky arms, Delilah pushed herself to her feet, wobbling in her stilettos. The counter-potion bubbled, releasing the sweet scent of berry laced with sage into the air. Delilah’s mouth moved over the incantation she’d lifted from one of her Law Spell books. “Per provision nine A in amendment twenty four, this spell acts as the termination to any legal binding contract.” She tipped the bubbling liquid into a highball glass and presented it to Lindsey. “Take a sip. That’s all you need.” The potion would eat away at the effects of the love spell while the words Delilah spoke would dissolve the hold Asshat had on Lindsey.
Lindsey clutched the glass in shaking palms and slowly lifted it to her lips. Her body jerked and she twisted her head in revulsion like a little kid refusing mashed peas. She fought against it, the glass rattling, until finally her willpower won out against the magical power. Just as she tilted the glass to her lips—
The front door to Delilah’s office flew open. Lindsey’s fingers spread open and the high ball fell to the floor. Glass shattered, shards and rose-scented liquid shooting across the hardwood floor. In a whoosh, the lights popped on, the candles snuffed out, and the potion gurgling on the hot pot evaporated into thin air. The hot pot itself now held a teakettle instead of a cauldron, which whistled in announcement. Even the salt ring seeped into an ornate swirl pattern etched into the floor.
Delilah bolted to her full height, her shoulders squared in defense. The threat raised the hair on her arms. The instant shift back to reality was a defense spell put in place like an alarm that activated whenever someone non-magical entered. She cursed under her breath—and not the magical kind. She hated when her client sessions were interrupted.
A strange man stood in the doorway, breathing hard as if even entering the room proved difficult to him. Sweat beaded down his forehead, and he glanced up at her with urgent, pleading eyes.
A grimace tightened Delilah’s lips. Not this again. Men were always barging into her office needing quick fixes to their long-lasting problems. Though rarely men this sexy. This better be worth interrupting a client.
Lindsey opened her mouth to scream, but nothing came out thanks to the protection spell. Her voice was silenced to prevent her from revealing the truth to the stranger.
“Sorry, sorry!” Delilah’s assistant, Avery, rushed in behind the stranger, smoothing down her low-cut top. Her outfit was barely passable at the casinos nearby, let alone a law office, and Delilah cringed. Avery refused to wear anything decent so Delilah always converted Avery’s revealing outfit into a chic suit with a flick of her palm. But the glamor had vanished and so did Avery’s suit along with it. “He just burst in. I couldn’t stop him.”
The man winced, squeezing his eyes shut and gritting his teeth. “It’s an emergency,” he choked out.
Sure it was. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “Are you in desperate need of…a divorce?” She tilted her head at him, taking in the jeans slung low on his hips. The tight fitting t-shirt that showed off his abs. The sunlight that streamed through the window highlighted the chiseled cheekbones carving his gorgeous face. Dark hair fell into his eyes and he pushed it back with slender dirt-caked fingers before gripping the doorjamb as if it was the only thing keeping him in place. “Nah,” she corrected herself. “You look like you need an annulment.”
He shook his head and flung up his hand. “I’m not married.”
True enough, no ring encircled his finger and there were no telltale tan lines.
She nodded to herself at her correct guess. If he wasn’t magically inclined and wasn’t in need of legal aide, then Delilah couldn’t do anything for him.
Lindsey let out a whimper that made Delilah’s jaw clamp tight. “In that case, I’m afraid I can’t—”
“Please.” The stranger’s face crunched in strain. “It’s a matter of life or death.” Every word seemed to be a struggle to leave his lips, as though he had to dislodge them one by one.
“Then this is a matter for the police, not a divorce lawyer.” Delilah picked up the receiver from her desk phone, ready to call 911.
The guy lifted up his shirt in lieu of argument, revealing rock hard abs…and dirt stains caked onto his muscles. A large scrape sliced across his stomach, the gash still bleeding. “I tried to bury myself alive last night. Against my will. I—I think I’m cursed.”
So he was in the right place after all.
CHAPTER TWO
COLE
Cole Tiernan pulled at his collar as he waited for the sexy attorney to deem him insane. To kick him out once and for all.
To condemn him to death.
“What kind of curse?” Her voice softened. She smoothed her long dark hair out of her eyes as she studied at him, incredulous. Even her receptionist glared at him as if he had ruined everyone’s day by barging in here.
Cole opened his mouth to speak, but then clamped it shut. Only a self-deprecating laugh managed to escape. He couldn’t tell her what kind of curse. It would sound ridiculous. But even as he stood there, in a closed door behind another closed door, separated by nearly thirty miles from a plot of dirt carved into the damp earth, he could barely resist its sweet call. He imagined crawling inside and sinking his shoulder blades against the cold dirt. His eyes would close and he’d savor the heavy weight of silt burying him six feet beneath the surface. Cole yearned for the darkness that would come when he swallowed his last breath.
He nearly turned and ran out the door rather than confessing the absurdity. But Cole knew if he lost his grip on the doorjamb and allowed his heels to spin in place, they’d carry him thirty miles to Heady Lane Cemetery and he wouldn’t be able to stop himself. It had taken gargantuan effort and all the willpower he had stored in his body just to get to her office.
The words scraped against his raw throat as he forced them out. “There’s a grave that calls to me like a Siren’s song. All I want to do is crawl inside it.”
Avery scoffed. “Sounds like he needs a shrink instead.”
The lawyer—Delilah York, according to the business card stuffed in his back pocket—widened her eyes at her assistant. But then she sucked in a knowing breath that indicated she knew exactly what was going on. She ambled toward Cole, her face softening. “In case Avery’s right, there’s a suicide prevention—”
“I’m not suicidal!” Cole yelled, forcing Delilah to scramble backward.
Behind her, the client who had been sitting in a chair dropped to her knees and dipped her hand into the puddle of liquid coating the floor. She sucked the wetness off her finger, and then stood up, blinking against a daze. A look of disgust crossed her face when she glanced at a picture frame bound in black ribbon.
“Thank you,” the client told Delilah.
Delilah visibly relaxed as she watched the client. “Avery will get you all checked out.” She cleared her throat and the blond receptionist tore her glare away from Cole.
Avery pulled Delilah aside and whispered under her breath, but not low enough that Cole couldn’t hear. “He sounds insane. I don’t think we should help him. He looks like he might attack you as soon as I leave you alone.”
Great, she thought Cole was violent and about to lash out. Just what he needed. Another person he’d unintentionally wronged.
Delilah snapped her hand away from her assistant. “That’s for me to decide. Now please, see Lindsey out.”
Lindsey and Avery squeezed past Cole into the main entrance, Avery knocking hard into his shoulder on the way out.
Once the door shut behind them, Delilah’s brows furrowed. “Sorry about that. My assistant’s
usually very accommodating. I don’t know why she said that.”
“Because she doesn’t believe me.” Cole squeezed his hands into tight fists. “But I swear—I didn’t feel this way yesterday. I woke up in the middle of a grave and all I want to do is go back there. I don’t need a shrink. I’ve already seen one.”
In fact, the psychiatrist had seemed ready to commit him to a mental ward—and Cole almost drove there himself. But he called up his sister to let her know what was going on, fully expecting her to pack his bags for the mental institution. Thank God she believed every word of his story and even googled until she came across a witch doctor. An actual witch doctor. As in, someone who cured magical sicknesses. That person examined him with scrying tools rather than medical ones—which was perhaps scarier than being told he was mentally unstable. Dr. Anderson diagnosed Cole as cursed, not sick, and handed him Delilah’s card.
Cole slammed the card on Delilah’s desk. “Dr. Anderson referred me.”
Delilah bit her lip, and Cole got the sense that Dr. Anderson sent far too many people her way. She opened her mouth to speak, her brow pinching, and Cole’s stomach lurched. She was about to let him down gently. He’d seen that same look in several of the poker tournament organizers’ faces when they turned him down for a spot thanks to flaking on past entry fees.
Cole reached into his pocket and pulled out the big guns. Or in this case, big cash. Well, the promise of it anyway. He plunked two red poker chips on the table in front of her.
Delilah blinked at the red circles. “If no one can make Bitcoins happen, I’m certainly not accepting poker chips as payment.”
Cole rolled his eyes. “It’s all I have right now, but I’ll turn it into more. Name your fee. I’ll get it for you.”
The key to being a poker ace was never giving away your bluff. A cocky smile curled on Cole’s lips as if he had all the tools to get her whatever she wanted. And even though he’d run this scam on countless others, made them think he was going to turn pennies into cold hard cash before he swindled them and walked away with whatever they had, Cole didn’t intend to pull one over on Delilah. If she could save his life, he’d make good on his promise. Somehow.
