The Cursed (League of the Black Swan)

by Alyssa Day

  Luke laughed a little. “It sounds so overly dramatic today, doesn’t it? He promised the child to the forces of darkness. Sounds like a cheesy horror movie. But everything about it was deadly serious. The only way I could ever keep from becoming soulless and damned would be by constant vigilance. Constant demonstration of my commitment to help others, instead of harm them. To be selfless instead of selfish. In other words, I would survive this life with my soul only if I could become the exact opposite of everything the Borgias represented.”

  He pulled her into his lap, embraced her tightly, and rested his cheek on the top of her head. When he began his story again, she could feel the vibrations of his words rumble in his chest, as if the horrible truth had been trapped in his heart and was clawing to break free.

  “He wanted to return the pain, didn’t he? A child for a child?” Rio said, shivering. It all made a certain horrible sense, especially when viewed from the twisted perspective of a madman.

  “The Borgias didn’t care about me at all, of course,” he said flatly. “My mother had tried to visit me in the early years, but her family forbade it as soon as they caught on. They continued to fund my existence, probably to buy my adoptive family’s silence, but any personal oversight disappeared.”

  He laughed, but it was a hideous, grating sound. “I suppose I’m lucky. It would have been easy enough for them to make me disappear, like they usually did with unwanted problems.”

  Rio almost couldn’t believe what she was hearing, but she knew it had to be the truth. History was full of powerful dynasties amassing wealth and accomplishment through horrible, ruthless, bloodthirsty means. It made her glad, for just a minute, to be a lowly bike messenger.

  Luke was quiet for a while, but she had a few questions. He needed to finish the story, clean out the poison that had infected his soul for so long.

  “How did he find you? If they hid you with this adoptive family? How did he know where you were?”

  “Bribing servants was easy enough, especially for a man with a personal vendetta. That’s the worst part of it, you see,” Luke said, in a monotone that frightened her a little. Maybe he’d reached and gone beyond the limit of what he could dredge up for one day.

  “Luke, wait—”

  But he ignored her feeble attempt to stop him.

  “The Borgias had needed a way to get the poison into the family, hadn’t they? Only someone the family trusted would have been able to get that close, back in those days.”

  Luke’s hands convulsively tightened on Rio’s body, and she had a horrible premonition of what he was going to say next.

  “Oh, no,” she whispered.

  “Oh, yes. The man who cursed me was my own father and—worse—he knew it.”

  Rio held him in her arms until the storm passed. He didn’t weep or sob or scream or cry, although she would have done all of those things. His big body simply shook as if he stood, alone and unprotected, in a gale-force wind, while harsh choking noises ripped up from his throat.

  “You’re not alone. You’ll never be alone again,” she said, over and over, while she held him. “I’m here. I promise I’m here.”

  He couldn’t cry or wouldn’t cry, but then again he’d had centuries for the tears to have been burned out of him. Rio was only approaching her first quarter century, and she had plenty of tears left. By the time he calmed down, his shoulder and side were soaking wet from her tears.

  “Aren’t you ready to run away from me yet?” He took her shoulders and stared into her eyes.

  “Never,” she said, trying to smile.

  He captured her mouth, then, and kissed her as if he were drowning in her.

  “I need you, Rio,” he whispered. “I’ve always needed you, even before I met you.”

  “Tell me all about that,” she invited, gently biting his neck and then placing soothing kisses where her teeth had been.

  He shuddered and pulled her closer. “Enough talking.”

  She agreed wholeheartedly, so she put her arms around his neck and pulled him to her and then raised her head for his kiss, wanting so badly to burn away any remnants of his pain with her touch.

  He happily complied, diving into the job with the same dedication he brought to everything in his life. She sighed with relief and pleasure. If kissing was its own form of magic, Luke was a master practitioner. His tongue delved into her mouth, dancing with hers, teasing and taunting and seducing.

  Her body yearned toward his. She could feel the heat and delicious anticipation already beginning to build in the form of a flush on her skin and an insistent thrumming ache deep within her. She wanted to touch and taste; she wanted to go slow and revel in the music of the song they created between them. She wanted to make him forget that he’d ever been sad, or abandoned, or cursed.

  “I can’t believe you’re here,” Luke admitted, raising himself on one elbow and looking down at her. “You feel like a dream of beauty I once had. When I woke, I was so bereft at the loss that my cheeks were wet from tears.”

  The words struck her with the power of a promise, and she cherished them and loved that he’d been so open with her.

  “Big, tough wizard crying like a baby,” he said, mocking himself, and she knew he wasn’t only referring to the remembered dream. “Real romantic, right?”

  She traced her finger over the curve of his sculpted lips and shushed him. “Maybe the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard.”

  A thought occurred to her, though, and she laughed. “Except for ‘You were hurting, and I wanted to help, but I didn’t know how, so I blew something up.’”

  His face flushed, and she fell back on the pillow, laughing even harder. “You just blushed! After days of making me blush every time I turn around, I finally did it to you!”

  “Maybe I can make you blush again,” he murmured.

  He traced the curve of her bra with his fingers, so gently that she shivered under his touch. “You are so beautiful. I can’t believe I can touch your lovely porcelain skin and you won’t shatter under my rough handling.”

  “Sometimes I like your rough handling,” she admitted shyly.

  “Sometimes I want to cherish you,” he said.

  With a thousand touches and kisses, they delighted in each other; and she gradually discarded her clothes and shed her inhibitions in the soft light of the afternoon sun that lit the room from the edges of the heavy window blinds.

  “I love touching you,” she confessed, reaching out to stroke the silky trail of hair that traveled down his abdomen to his erection, which was very hard and happy to see her, judging by the way it seemed to strain to reach her. “Maybe this part of you loves it when I touch you, too.”

  “All of me loves it when you touch me,” he said hoarsely.

  She followed words with action and gently stroked the long velvety length of him, and he moaned as if in pain. She’d learned better by then, though, and she recognized the sound as proof that his control was near to shattering.

  “Love me now,” she whispered. “I want to feel you inside me.”

  He immediately rolled over on his back and pulled her on top of him, surprising her, and kissed her for a long, luxurious time, stroking her back and arms and bottom with his big hands.

  “Let’s take this slowly,” he said. “Why don’t you set the pace? I want to see you riding me.”

  Heat intensified in her nerve endings at the idea, and she moved her legs to straddle him, then lifted her hips so she could place his erection exactly where she wanted and needed it. She slowly, ever so slowly, slid down the hard length of him, and let her head fall back as she gasped with pure, liquid sensation. His strong hands on her hips didn’t let her rhythm falter, and together they found the pace that was almost certainly guaranteed to drive her completely insane.

  For a while, she knew nothing but the feel of him, as a sensation like starlight rushed into her from their joining, sparkling and sizzling throughout her body and focusing intensely on her most sensitive pla
ces. Time slowed to a stop and nothing existed but the vast, unimaginable pleasure of having him rock into her, over and over, until she was dizzy with desire and need.

  “Faster,” she panted, when his long, sure strokes were forcing her to hover right on the edge of the explosion she knew was coming.

  “No.” He held her in place with one hand on her hip, and then he raised his head and captured her breast with his mouth. A jolt of sensual bliss seared through her, and she bucked against him, desperate to feel him even deeper inside her.

  “Now,” she ordered. “More. Now.”

  “No,” he said again, but this time he reached between their bodies and stroked her just exactly where she needed it, and she didn’t need to wait for him because she was flying into the stars, shaking and pulsing around him, clenching his hardness with her feminine muscles, which only made her shatter apart even more.

  “I’m coming now,” she announced, breathlessly and needlessly, and he laughed, the sound so full of joy and masculine triumph that it made her come even harder.

  “I know,” he said, and then he rolled over, still inside her, and unleashed the frenzied power that he’d been holding back.

  He drove into her so hard and so fast that her body reacted violently, coming and coming in an unending wave of orgasm that blew through her defenses and any sense of self-restraint, and she screamed his name while he pounded into her.

  “Lucian, yes, oh please yes, more oh more oh,” and then any pretense at coherency dissolved as he thrust one final time and came deep inside her, and the feel of his big body shuddering in her arms tipped her even further into the tornado of sensation.

  “I will never be able to get enough of you,” he said, low and fierce, and then he rolled onto his side and, pulling her close, immediately fell asleep.

  Rio smiled, knowing he was exhausted from the emotional catharsis and then the amazing lovemaking, but then she caught herself falling asleep, so she glanced at the clock on the bedside table.

  “Luke, it’s almost time. The potion will be ready in about an hour, and we need to get it to the Silver Palace. Plus, I’m starving. We kind of skipped the eating part of lunch,” she said, grinning.

  He pulled her to him and kissed her again—thoroughly, lingeringly, and with the promise of forever. For some reason, she was suddenly afraid. Too much had happened too fast, and she, who had spent her lifetime avoiding attachments, had fallen so hard and so fast for Luke, but it didn’t seem real.

  It seemed impossible.

  CHAPTER 22

  The pounding on the office door was their first clue. This was no polite and gentle knock. This was a thunderous demand that they open the door right now or else. Rio glanced at Luke in alarm and saw that he was rolling up his sleeves, his hands already glowing with the familiar blue fire.

  “Somebody wants to get blasted,” he said calmly. “I happen to be in a particularly good mood and had no immediate plans to blow anything up. I’m always glad to change that.”

  The pounding came again, and the heavy metal door actually shook in its frame.

  “If that’s another Grendel, I’m going to scream. I am sick to death of Grendels and their venom, and all the problems they cause,” Rio said, but then she grinned at Luke. “Maybe we could get Dr. Black to declaw them. It’s inhumane for cats, but I’d be willing to make an exception for Grendels.”

  The pounding stopped, but almost simultaneously Rio’s cell phone started to ring.

  “Unknown number,” she told Luke. “Huh.”

  She answered it. “Hello?”

  “This is Chance Roberts. As I suspect you know, I am standing outside Oliver’s office. If one of you doesn’t open the door in the next five seconds, I’m going to have the contingent of demon war guards who are with me rip the door off its hinges,” he said in a level tone. “Do you understand this? Or do I need to speak to Oliver directly?”

  She glared at her phone and then at the door.

  “It’s Chance Roberts,” she told Luke. “He’s the one doing all of the pounding. Also, he apparently thinks I’m an idiot.

  “I don’t know, Mr. Roberts. I’m not very bright. You might want to rephrase that, using one-syllable words,” she said into the phone. “Me dumb bicycle messenger.”

  Luke started laughing, and then he waved a hand at the door, and it flew open. “Oh, Roberts. You are in trouble.”

  Roberts, wearing another fancy suit and a beautiful long coat that made Rio drool with envy, stood at the doorway.

  “Is some magical booby trap going to explode in my face if I step over this threshold?”

  “Try it and see,” Luke taunted.

  Rio rolled her eyes at Luke and then glared at Roberts. “What exactly do you want?”

  A deep rumbling voice sounded from behind Roberts, and Rio stepped closer to the door to peek out. Wow. So this was the demon war guard, the stuff of legend and nightmare. She’d heard they didn’t venture outside Demon Rift, but apparently that had been wrong. Or else they were making a special exception, and she had the feeling it had something to do with her.

  “I’m not paranoid. Everybody really is out to get me,” she said, and then she started laughing and backed away from the door. “Let him in, Luke. We should find out what this is about.”

  Luke sighed, but he gestured to Roberts to come in. “You have five minutes. We have someplace we need to be.”

  “This is more important,” Roberts declared, arrogant as ever.

  “No, it isn’t,” Rio said hotly “There’s a sick little girl’s life at stake for us. What do you have to say that could possibly be more important than that?”

  Roberts took a moment to frame his reply, and Luke jumped into the silence.

  “I heard you were thinking of partnering up with Dalriata. Guess that’s not happening anymore, huh?” Luke grinned and carefully put the precious vial in the inside pocket of his jacket.

  “How did you—never mind. The king and the Demon Rift governing council would like to speak to you, Rio.”

  Rio stumbled back a step and caught herself against the desk, as the invisible pieces of the puzzle surrounding her all but swirled through the air, buffeting her but leaving her no closer to understanding.

  “The king and council can go fuck themselves,” Luke snarled. “She’s not going anywhere near that place with you.”

  “So that’s what you are,” Rio said slowly, solving at least one part of the mystery. “You’re a demon. You’re too smart, too rich, and too powerful to be acting like a little messenger boy for them, unless you have something at stake. And nobody who’s not a demon has anything at stake in this business. There are plenty of demons in Bordertown. Why do you hide it?”

  Chance’s face had gone a little pale beneath his tan. “I’m not hiding it any longer. I knew associating myself with this task would put the connection between me and Demon Rift into too many minds, but I had no choice. After all, who else would they ask but me? I am, after all, uniquely suited to the job.”

  “I don’t think so,” Rio said, pointing to the doorway where three of the demon war guards stood at attention. “If you were uniquely suited to this job, as you call it, of inviting me to visit, then you wouldn’t have needed your bully boys out there to help you do it, would you?”

  “He’s afraid of me,” Luke said smugly.

  She noticed his hands were still glowing with flames, like he was trying to hold himself back from blasting Chance and everyone who had come with him.

  Chance glared at Luke, and Rio noticed that the demon’s eyes had lightened to a pale yellow. “There is nothing about you that frightens me, you pathetic excuse for a cut-rate magician,” he snarled.

  Luke strode forward until the two were right up in each other’s faces. Rio expected the chest pounding to start any minute.

  “Then why’d you have to bring your babysitters?” Luke demanded. “Seems like overkill to face down a cut-rate magician, Chancy.”

  Chance, finall
y losing either his patience or his self-control, shoved Luke back with a hard shot to the shoulder.

  “That’s Prince Chance to you, and the war guards aren’t for me,” the demon said from between clenched teeth. “They’re for her.”

  He pointed at Rio, and she felt the bottom drop out of her stomach. Something in the tone of his voice, or maybe she’d even heard a stray thought, suddenly terrified her. She was more afraid than she’d ever been in her life of what he was about to say. She started to back away, wondering where she could run, and how far and how fast, but just then a streak of red shot past her and landed in front of Roberts, snarling.

  It was Kit, and yet somehow it wasn’t. The little fox had grown to four or five times her normal size. She was huge—the size of a mountain lion or maybe a bushy-tailed Great Dane. She still looked like a fox, if there had ever been a fox with such long, sharp teeth.

  Roberts froze, and Rio could have sworn that he sniffed the air once before an expression of understanding crossed his face, and he bowed, ever so slightly, to Kit.

  “Please tell the Yokai that I have no intention of harming you,” he said to Rio. “I only want to get to know you and invite you to visit my home.”

  Roberts smiled, and it almost looked sincere. “After all, you are my sister.”

  Luke watched, unable to move fast enough to catch her, as Rio slid down the side of the desk until her butt hit the floor, and then sat there, bent over, sucking in gulps of air. Kit backed up, still snarling at Chance, until she was standing right next to Rio.

  “I’m going to break you into little pieces with my bare hands for daring to show up and spout such a load of bullshit. There is no way that even a microscopic amount of Rio’s DNA came from Demon Rift,” he snarled at Roberts.

  He started toward Rio and her suddenly overgrown fox, but she held up a hand and shook her head. “I’m fine. I just need a minute.”

  Kit apparently agreed, because she quit growling, sat down, and licked the side of Rio’s face.