Dance with Death
Book Three of the Curse Breakers Series
Becca Vincenza
Copyright
ISBN-10: 9781686984617
Copyright © 2019 Becca Vincenza
Cover: Covers by Christian
Editing: Girl With the Red Pen
Proof Reading: Andrea Rivera
All rights reserved. The book may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
The books are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author‘s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Epilogue
A Special Tease
Books by Becca Vincenza
CURSE BREAKERS SERIES
Art of Death
Secrets of the Dead
HEXED SERIES
Hexed Hearts
Hunter’s Heart
THE REBIRTH SERIES
Damaged
Healed
Burned
Stolen
MERCENARIES FOR HIRE
Freelance
Hired
Contracted
Authorized
Dedication
To Chex-Mix the snack that gets me through the workday
Acknowledgements
I want to always first thank my support system, who probably get annoyed with me but still get me through the hard times. This crew knows who they are because I apologize constantly to them about bugging them.
Thank you so very much to my editor who helped me whip this book into space – Stacy you are amazing! And I apologize for not letting you edit this portion.
Thank you to the readers who have been with me since the very first book ever, and those who have been with me since the beginning of this series! I love this series so much and I hope it continues to entertain you all.
Enough thank yous because those who work with me know I probably thank them a hundred times over – and if I don’t it’s only because I forgot.
Chapter 1
Panting heavily, my lungs burned with exhaustion. My chest heaved and sweat poured down the back of my neck. My arms ached with fatigue. Pretty sure this is how I was going to die. The pounding in my chest made me rethink a lot of choices I’d made up to this point in my life. Pain radiated up the back of my legs, and soon after, I went flying.
Smack.
Grunting, I blinked as I stared up at the ceiling. As I was aching and groaning from pain, Indigo’s stupidly handsome face appeared above me.
“Quicker.”
“Quicker,” I mocked, annoyed.
“Rowan,” Indigo chastised as he offered a hand to me. I gripped his hand, and he helped me off the floor.
“I know. I’m focusing at the task at hand.”
“No, you’re not.”
As much as the argument sat on the tip of my tongue, he wasn’t wrong. My thoughts were scattered with thoughts of my twin. Abel was dutiful, calling every other day to keep me updated. He missed only once before, but after that, he didn’t miss our next scheduled day.
“Abel hasn’t called,” I admitted.
“No excuse.” Indigo whacked his staff into my side, careful not to hit my ribs. He had informed me that I needed to become well-versed in multiple weapons. When I disagreed and told him I was plenty good at handling my kodachi blades, he laughed at me. Laughed at me. I could have sliced him.
“Fuuucc-ddgee.” I side-eyed Indigo, not trusting he wouldn’t hit me for swearing. He’d done it before. Dick. In training, we don’t swear. In training, we don’t argue. In training, we don’t get distracted. Had I known training with Indigo would be like this, I would have listened to my parents and kept up my own training.
“Rowan, we’ve gone over this. If you want to be part of the team, you have to be up to par.”
“Does that mean I can’t worry about my brother?” I asked with a raised brow.
Indigo dragged his hands over his face, exasperated with me. Admittedly, I’d been testing his patience for the last half hour of our session. Cornelius flat-out refused to train me after a week of messing with him.
“Rowan, we’ve been over this.”
I released an exhausted breath. “I know, drop the emotions when fighting.”
“You have to. A calculated fighter doesn’t make as many mistakes as a passionate one.”
Indigo took up his stance again and waited for me to join him. I stepped over, holding my staff between my hands. Indigo had commissioned one crafted of onyx for me but wouldn’t let me take it out of the gym until I became an expert with it.
“Again,” Indigo barked, slamming the end of his staff onto the gym floor.
The sound echoed around the room. While it refocused me on our training, it also reminded me of the massive space around us. The apartment building Cornelius and Indigo lived in had a massive gym on the basement level for which only--surprise, surprise--Cornelius and Indigo had the door code. Both refused to give it to me, telling me that to use it, I needed to go downstairs with one of them.
A smack on the back of my calf dropped me down to a knee. Mock growling, I rubbed out the cramp that knotted in my muscles. Indigo appeared in front of me, his eyes flashing with his wolf as he took a step backwards.
“Get out.” Indigo’s jaw was clenched tight.
Breathing out slowly, I stood. I collapsed my staff. It was specially made, making it easy to slip into a pocket or purse. I was excited about the idea of having another portable weapon, even though I couldn’t take it with me. I hoped Indigo would be distracted enough that I could slip out with it.
Willow and I had taken up residence in the apartment next to Indigo and Cornelius, and the overbearing males drove us to the absolute brink. Willow’s newfound freedom had been cut short at a young age, and she wanted more of it. Not that I could blame her. Finally, we were in the big city without the impending threat of world-ending problems looming over our heads.
Of course, vampires were still after me, and another set of vampires were after Willow. But other than that, we didn’t have too many odds stacked against us.
Indigo’s growl cut through the room. “Leave the staff, Rowan.”
Grumbling, I extended the staff again and dropped it, stomping out of the gym before pulling open the thick gym door and letting it slam behind me with a resounding crash. Indigo’s furious howl followed me. Shaking my head, I tried to figure out what happened to the controlled werewolf I used to know. Indigo hadn’t been the same since he arrived back in Kodiak Falls about two months prior. Then again, I wasn’t the same, either.
Abel disappeared for almost three weeks before he resurfaced with information about the secrets my family had kept. He wanted to find a way out of the contract and did everything in his power to postpone what was to come, but the wheels had already been set in motion. I followed his footstep
s after being attacked by other necromancers, erroneously thinking they had taken him.
Abel and I became hot commodities even as babies because I was the first female necromancer born in centuries, the act of which broke a curse on my family and marked us both as Curse Breakers. In our community, Curse Breakers were rare and highly sought after because our powers were amplified after the event, depending on the amount of time the curse had been in effect.
Our powers started to mature on our twenty-first birthday, almost two months ago, even though they weren’t cemented until we completed a sacred ceremony. Since we both fled our hometown after completing it, I’d been in Seattle with Indigo training. Because whatever organization Indigo worked for didn’t have a necromancer on staff, I lucked out and got to train myself.
Speaking of training, I needed to make a trip to a cemetery in the very near future. Abel often reminded me to keep up with my spiritual training in addition to my weapons drills, but my powers were better used physically. Since we arrived here, all I’d concentrated on was physical training with weapons.
During my captivity after being kidnapped by the same vampire coven that was after Willow, I’d somehow managed to control a Master vampire for a limited time. I needed to be able to explore my powers and see what my limitations were.
“Rowan.”
Realizing I’d been walking with no real destination in mind, I blinked and looked up, standing eye-to-eye with Willow on the stairs that led to our apartment. “Hey, Willow.”
She wore a confused expression. “I’ve been calling your name for a while now. Do you realize you’ve been standing on the same step for about five minutes straight?”
“Just lost in my thoughts, I guess.”
“Well, are we still on for tonight’s activities?”
“Yeah.”
It was about time too because after having one of my ghost friends eavesdrop, I discovered that Cornelius and Indigo would be leaving for the evening on another secret mission. That meant Willow and I would finally have time to ourselves without their domineering presence.
Coming into my powers meant I could connect with certain plants and stones, so when Indigo first brought us back here, he offered to take me to a Mystic store that specialized in herbs and stones. There, he insisted on buying me any plants, crystals, or stones that called out to me. As soon as we stepped through the shop’s doors, onyx called to me, along with various pieces of agate. Indigo paid for the onyx and commissioned the staff to be crafted for me, using the agate around the apartment building to ward off spirits.
Willow came with us on the next trip and picked out a ton of plants. She explained that wil-o-wisp lived in forests, and she felt lost throughout the years without them around. After being in servitude to the vampires for who knew how many years, I let her have whatever plants she wanted. Of course, after the first week we lived together, she instructed me not to touch her plants anymore since I almost killed three of them by “helping”.
“What’s going on down there?” Willow asked, leaning over the banister to stare down into the maze of stairwells. The sound of Indigo tearing up the gym echoed up to us, punctuated by booms and grunts.
“You know, the usual,” I said sarcastically. “Werewolves living up to their stereotypes.”
“Don’t be so keen to pass judgment on something you don’t understand. Now move along, both of you,” Nix’s grumbling voice came down behind Willow where she stood clinging to the banister. Startled, she jumped and disappeared out of his way. A werewolf’s brusque voice could be intimidating, especially to someone who hadn’t grown up around them.
Nix’s wolf sat on the surface, barely restrained, and his eyes glowed with a predatory glint. Unlike Willow, instead of feeling the need to look away or do his bidding, all I felt was annoyed. Alphas did not like that. He lifted his lips to show off his sharp canines. I climbed the rest of the stairs and gave him a wide berth.
It hadn’t taken me long to figure out what he was, since I grew up around werewolves and their mannerisms were very familiar. Nix thundered down the stairs, and I could already hear his rumbling growl. Deciding not to get involved, I followed after Willow.
Not surprisingly, Willow had escaped Nix’s wrath by returning to our apartment. With the same layout as the one occupied by Indigo and Cornelius, ours was covered in plants and sprinkled throughout with various sizes of agate and onyx stones. Part of me thought the overkill of wards was simply because Indigo didn’t want me to go out looking for trouble, something I was very well known for in our hometown. But after learning how Abel had a ghost spy scouring the city watching for any vampires associated with the Morris clan, I felt unsafe not being able to contact my ghostly friends.
“Did you manage to smuggle out the staff?” Willow asked as soon as I stepped inside and closed the door.
“Not tonight. I’ll have to train with it some other time.” I still had my kodachi blades that I kept on my person. Indigo was smart enough not to take those away from me. Cornelius took Willow to the basement gym to train her at different times than me, which meant I didn’t know what weapons she normally trained with. She’d been super secretive about her powers, choosing instead to speak of superficial things.
“Oh, well, are you ready to go?” Willow was perched on the edge of the couch, surrounded by two small trees, practically vibrating with energy.
“Now would probably be the best time. If Indigo’s wolf is all worked up, he’ll need to work off his frustration up until the time they leave for their mission. Have you seen Cornelius around?”
“He stopped me before I got in here. He was headed out, saying something about having to go scout out the place beforehand.”
Cornelius was a giant gargoyle who worked as Indigo’s partner, who also seemed to have taken quite an interest in the little wisp. It wasn’t necessarily a good thing. Willow didn’t seem to notice, and if she did, she didn’t make a fuss about it.
“You ready to go?” Willow asked, buzzing with excitement, her eyes aglow with a faraway blue flame. She’d shown me her powers only once before, but she rarely showed them off.
“Yeah, let’s head out,” I agreed. “I’m getting a little stir crazy.”
“What does that mean?”
I shook my head, amazed at how innocent Willow seemed. “How long were you a slave to the vampires?”
Instantly, Willow got quiet and dropped her shoulders, her long blonde hair cascading down her shoulder and partially covering her face. The little wisp had such an inner light that when we first met, I thought she was a pixie, an overly hyper thing. The second time I met her, she tricked me by asking a witch to put a spell on me and then helping her vampire master kidnap me. Even so, I never blamed her for her actions. After all, she was just as much a prisoner as I was, residing in the cell across from me.
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I cringed at the insensitivity of my question, knowing from personal experience there were some things you just didn’t bring up. I’d briefly skimmed over my horrific experiences when my brother asked, but only the people on Indigo’s team knew about the brand burned into the skin on the back of my neck by the vampire coven who kidnapped me. It was a pain I never wanted to relive.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Don’t worry about it. You want to go?” Though she tried to brush it off, Willow’s cheer sounded like it had been sucked out of her.
“Ever tried ice cream?” I asked.
Instantly, Willow’s eyes, which were already abnormally large, got bigger and brighter with the promise of a sugary apology.
Chapter 2
Watching a cross-eyed wisp lap up an ice cream swirl for the first time was a hilarious, magical experience. The night was warm and the ice cream a perfect treat, especially after working up a sweat with Indigo. Using an app on the phone Indigo bought me, since my old phone was thrown out of a moving car and my burner phone was destroyed by vampires, we located an ice cream store nearby. Willow
pulled the cone away from her lips, and her face twisted with pain.
“Brain freeze?” I guessed.
“How do I make it stop?” she moaned, holding the side of her head.
“Easy, just put your tongue on the roof of your mouth,” I said.
Willow did as I instructed and happily went back to eating her ice cream cone. I preferred a bowl over a cone and eagerly lifted a spoonful to my lips. As I enjoyed my first bite, a person walked by us. Willow’s attention immediately diverted to the person passing by, and her powers flared once again. As soon as they were out of sight, her powers died back down.
“What was that about?”
A sheepish look crossed her features as she answered, “They have a curse on their family. Sometimes my powers just react.”
“You can sense curses too? Can all wisps sense that?”
It shouldn’t have surprised me; after all, Willow was the one who found Abel when the rest of us couldn’t. He left town to try and find a way to save me but ended up being captured by another necromancer family. Willow explained to me that since she had the power to find Curse Breakers, Indigo asked her to search for Abel. But I didn’t realize her powers allowed her to sense people who still had curses on them as well.
“No, it’s a special and rare gift. So is my ability to sense Curse Breakers. Most wisps just lead you to your destiny, as small or big as it can be.”
It was tempting to ask her if she could do the same for me, but I wasn’t ready to find out if my destiny resided with a vampire who was bound and determined to marry me. Balthazar is only in my mind lately because of the threat he poses to me and Abel, I tried to convince myself.
Although no one told me the specifics, Abel’s interference with the contract would have dire consequences for him and possibly my family. Letting Balthazar and his coven believe Abel was still missing was the only way to protect him.
At that moment, a ghost passed me, looking lost and dazed. When I first arrived in the big city, I had a hard time getting a handle on my powers. Without the help of my onyx kodachi blades, I had to practically put my powers on permanent lockdown. Once I returned home, Abel and I completed the sacred ceremony for necromancers. Afterwards, it was like our powers clicked back into place but much stronger than before. I didn’t know about Abel, but I had much better control.
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