Fated Curse

by Skye Malone

  Bobby, the tag read.

  Lindy trembled, the shadows stirring at the edge of her mind.

  Keening and chittering noises came from the draugar as they stumbled along the pavement, their heads jerking left then right, as if they couldn’t control their muscles well enough to move their skulls easily. Their foggy, rotting eyes twitched in their sockets, seeming to focus on nothing but spasming wildly all the same. As they passed, one of them thudded a hand rhythmically against the window, the limb swinging from a dislocated joint and leaving smudges on the glass every time it struck.

  Pressing her back harder against the wall, Lindy didn’t dare to breathe. Would they hear her heart pounding? Pick up on the warmth of her body and Wes’s here in the corner? How good was their vision, when their eyes were glazed so milky white?

  In all her childhood, the Order never cared for what it would take to survive the draugar. They were only interested in the nightmarish damage the creatures could wreak.

  The monsters staggered onward, passing beyond the store window. His hands still gripping Lindy, holding her behind him, Wes didn’t move.

  She swallowed hard, silently willing the creatures to keep going, not that it would do much good. For all she knew they were circling the building, making ready to come back again.

  Shivers coursed through her. They wouldn’t. They’d go away.

  God, let them go away.

  The light faded from the sky, gradually drowning the store in abyssal dark, and in the silence, their quiet breaths seemed inordinately loud without the noise of traffic or the hum of an air conditioner to disrupt them. She felt as if she might as well have her eyes closed, so dark were their surroundings, but the lack of sight proved the old wives’ tale true, bringing every other sense into sharp focus.

  The texture of the rough wall behind her. The chill of the winter air on her face. The warmth of Wes’s proximity, like a delicious heater doing strange things to her insides, while his scent surrounded her, stealing away the dust and mothball smell of the thrift store, replacing it with spice and musk that tangled her mind like knotted string, making it hard to think.

  “I can’t hear them anymore,” Wes whispered.

  She inhaled sharply, startled by the sudden sound of his soft words.

  His coat brushed against her as he turned. “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” Her response was quick.

  But he didn’t move.

  The heat inside her grew, pooling low in her middle and somehow stealing command of her muscles. Dammit, he… he needed to go. He needed to step back right now because her body was wanting things that were stupid as hell, and she wasn’t—

  His fingers touched her own, and she clamped her lips shut on a needing whimper, only to hear his breath catch as if he’d picked up on the sound anyway. In the darkness, his weight shifted as he moved ever-so-slightly closer, and the flesh between her legs throbbed in mad, ludicrous hope.

  Gently, he took her cheek, and she squeezed her eyes shut. No, this… this was absurd. This was insanity. Just because her mouth watered to taste him and her clit pulsed with desire, she… she shouldn’t…

  But God, she wanted to.

  His lips brushed hers, and she couldn’t restrain a gasp. Her hand moved like it had a mind of its own, gripping his side, keeping him from moving away.

  A hungry noise escaped him, wild and not remotely human. Everything she should be running from, and somehow, it made her wet as hell instead. He moved forward quickly, pushing her to the wall as his lips crashed into hers, his tongue plundering her mouth. His hands raked into her hair, knocking her knit cap aside and holding her to him, while his body pressed against her own, the hard length of his cock pushing at his winter pants and her midsection alike, making her body beg for more.

  Shoving past his layers of clothes, she slid her hands beneath his pants. As her fingers dug into his ass, holding him to her, he groaned against her lips.

  But this wasn’t enough. She wanted more. Wanted this to happen immediately because God help her, she’d lose her mind if she couldn’t have him in her right now.

  “Fuck me,” she gasped. “Oh God, Wes, fuck me.”

  A desperate sound left him. Instantly, he hefted her up as if she weighed nothing, and her legs wrapped around him on instinct. As he carried her through the darkness, navigating by the sharpness of ulfhednar sight, she ground herself against his hardness, her body screaming for release, and a choked noise of desire left him.

  Bending swiftly, he laid her on the makeshift bed behind the display cases, and immediately, she reached for him, drawing him down to her. His mouth found hers, one arm bracing him above her, while his free hand worked to tug her pants aside, not moving quickly enough for the irrational need heating her blood.

  Releasing him for the moment, she twisted beneath him, grabbing at her laces and yanking the knots undone. Kicking off the boots, she shoved her pants away, her body throbbing and her impulses screaming to be rid of the fabric, to feel him, to have him in her this minute. The fact they had no protection was irrelevant—wolves couldn’t get a human pregnant anyway, and there weren’t any diseases that jumped species—which meant that even though he was stripping down beside her, pants and coat gone, sweater remaining, neither of them were moving remotely fast enough.

  The scent of him surrounded her. The warmth of him was a banked fire only a few torturous inches away. And she was freezing. Drowning. Desperate for him to return in a way that made rational thought impossible.

  Bitter cold gnawed at her bare legs, but in only a moment Wes snagged the blankets and hauled them over her, enveloping them both in the heavy coverings. In the dark, she reached down, her hand wrapping around his length. Moisture clung to the tip of him, and he groaned as she stroked his silken shaft. Her body throbbed for him as her legs fell to either side and her hips rose in a silent plea.

  Kissing her ravenously for all of a heartbeat, he repositioned himself and guided his cock closer. As his mouth broke from hers, she clamped her lips shut against a moan, her clit aching. But for an eternal moment, he hovered at her slick entrance, not moving to enter her, and through his sweater, she could feel his muscles tense, his body hard as iron and utterly motionless except for his short, rapid breaths.

  What…? Why wasn’t he…?

  A pleading whimper left her and she rocked toward him, and whatever cliff he’d been on, that tiny motion seemed enough to push him over the edge. With a growl like an animal, he impaled her with a spike of pain and pleasure so intermingled, it unraveled her thoughts, leaving only desperate craving. Inch by amazing inch, he drew himself out, only to drive himself deep into her again, over and over as her breasts tingled and her head lay back on the rough pile of blankets, her body lost to mindless need for him to never stop. Please, God, never stop.

  Fighting not to moan too loudly, she slid her hands beneath his sweater and shirt, clutching his back, hanging on for dear life. Covered in a thin layer of sweat, his skin felt at first like hot granite, but then rough textures met her fingertips, gnarled but smooth, strange to the touch.

  But she couldn’t concentrate on it for long. His mouth came back to hers, devouring her while one of his hands slipped beneath her clothing, pushing her bra aside to embrace her breast, massaging it as he drove himself into her. His rough thumb played across her hardened nipple, pinching and rolling it with his fingertips, sending jolts of ecstasy down to her clit like electrical surges.

  With everything she had, she tried to keep from crying out. The monsters were still out there. Who knew what else too. But… God…

  Her breaths came hard and fast. The pain and pleasure and heat pulsing through her was building like a wave, rising higher with his every thrust. And it didn’t matter if she drowned in it. Nothing mattered at all. All she wanted was his amazing body pounding into hers, hitting her so deep inside, she couldn’t think beyond this moment.

  “Harder,” she gasped. “Please. Harder—”

  Wes’s
fingers pinched down hard on her nipple, throwing her over the edge. The orgasm surged through her, obliterating everything in a blinding rush of ecstasy. Her muscles clenched around him, and her hands dug into his back as kaleidoscopic pleasure flooded through her, washing away all but his body and hers in this one white-hot moment. She felt him grip her tightly, and he let out a muffled growl as his own orgasm overtook him. Even as her muscles clutched him, he drove his cock into her desperately, emptying himself into her.

  His motions slowed, his breaths coming in rapid gasps that matched her own. Beneath her ribs, her heart pounded so hard as if to break itself free, and she melted into the pile of blankets, her body sweaty and boneless in the afterglow.

  Of sex.

  With Wes.

  She wetted her lips, blinking in the darkness. Holy shit, she… they…

  Her clit tingled, ready for more.

  Inhaling sharply, she shifted position beneath him, and he drew back, hesitating only a moment before pulling out of her. His motion sent a waft of cold air beneath the blankets covering them, and she tensed for a whole new reason, but quickly, he tugged them into place again, wrapping them both back in the warm cocoon.

  For a moment, she couldn’t move. Did she say something? Get up and go? One of them needed to keep watch after all, and even now, she could hear his ragged breaths slowing behind her. Making him stay awake would be cruel, given how he hadn’t slept in two days, but getting up now might promote conversation.

  And damn her if she didn’t have a clue what to say.

  Rolling to her side away from him, she bunched the blankets under her chin, trembling.

  What the hell had she just done?

  10

  Wes

  Wes opened his eyes. Morning. Gods, it was morning. Gray sunlight already poured through the store, lighting on the rough bed of blankets and quilts.

  Which smelled of sex.

  And Lindy.

  And was empty.

  Oh, gods.

  He scrambled to his feet immediately, scanning the store, not giving a damn he was still half-naked. She wasn’t in the bed, which meant she might have already left, and if he’d driven her away—

  In a shadowed corner by the front window, she sat on the floor with her knees hugged to her chest and her knit cap firmly back on her head. She looked at him, her body language and expression radiating tension, and then her eyes flicked down toward his naked lower half.

  “Would you put some clothes on, please?” she asked tightly.

  Embarrassment flooded him, and he bent quickly and pulled on his pants even as the wolf inside him rumbled with confusion. This wasn’t right, not to that beast. She’d opened for him, begged for him, clawed and clung to him as he’d driven himself into her hot depths. The wolf didn’t want clothes. It wanted her back on this bed right now, moaning with pleasure as he worked her incredible body into orgasm after orgasm with everything from his tongue to his cock.

  My mate.

  Wes’s hand stilled on his boot laces. That wasn’t… she wasn’t…

  His heart began to pound. Everything in him was drawn to Lindy, and last night, he’d been too damn tired to resist. He’d tried. Gods help him, he’d tried, but the feeling of her amazing body, the smell of her arousal, and the way she’d moved to take him into her had just… He couldn’t stop. Should have, probably. Definitely, considering the look on her face now. But she’d begged him to have her, and he’d craved her more than there were words to say.

  And now the wolf thought she was his mate.

  He wanted to throw up.

  His mate couldn’t be a human. It didn’t matter that this particular human was a consummate badass or the most alluring thing he’d ever seen. It didn’t matter how much he was intrigued by her, or amazed by her, or how fascinating and intoxicating it’d been to simply get to know her better on the road yesterday.

  Lindy was human. Therefore, he could never have her, no matter what the wolf thought it wanted.

  Damn that creature. Cardinal rule number one, and that bastard was breaking it.

  Wes raked a hand through his hair. Gods, what if he’d bitten her? He didn’t remember doing that, but what if he’d done it all the same? The wolf wanted her, after all. Maybe it wanted her like that. And what about kissing her? Sure, that didn’t break the skin and every study he’d ever read said saliva alone wasn’t enough to force someone to turn—nor was coming inside them during sex, for that matter—but were the experts sure? Really sure? This was her life at stake.

  The wolf inside him whined, straining at his skin. He needed to bring her back over here. Lay with her again and make her moan for him because it craved her.

  Ruthlessly, he smacked the animal down, cursing internally. He’d never put much stock in the myth of wolves knowing their mates when they saw them, and given the fact the damned, rabid beast was pining after a human?

  Yeah, that shot that fantasy straight to hell.

  Holding his hands steady by force of will alone, he finished lacing up his boots and then rose to his feet. His body stiff with tension, he walked back toward her. “You all right?” he asked neutrally.

  She looked up at him. “That can’t happen again.”

  A slight shudder went through him. She was right. He knew she was right. But her voice was like iron, and the wolf inside him whined to hear it. He smacked the creature back a second time.

  And nodded.

  Echoing the motion tightly, she dropped her gaze from him and then climbed to her feet. Stepping back to give her room, he gritted his teeth against the tremor that shot through him as she passed, the air carrying her delicious scent in her wake. The whole shop smelled either of her or sex or both, and he didn’t dare move toward her as she crouched beside the bed and rolled up several blankets to strap to the top of her backpack, for fear of what the wolf inside him wanted to do.

  The beast whined, protesting that if not sex, at least he could bring her food for the morning or find her even more warm things to wear.

  He turned away, heading for his own bag near the window. Food he could do, and not because the wolf wanted it, but because it was basic, and important, and she damn well needed to—

  Lindy was already heading for the back door. “You coming?”

  The ice in her tone was like a lock clicking shut against anything between them. Not that there was anything, nor could there ever be. As of yesterday, the best he could’ve hoped for would have been something resembling distant friendship, given that she was human.

  But his wolf was a traitor, and insane besides, and even if by some miracle Wes hadn’t bitten her, last night had still fucked everything up five ways from Sunday, so now…

  Stabbing down the treacherous ache in his chest that had no right to be there, he shoved the can of food back into his bag. Best to just get going. Minneapolis was still a long ways off, and they could eat on the way.

  In silence and barely looking at Lindy, he walked past her toward the rear of the shop. Pushing aside his rudimentary alarm system from the night before, he cautiously tugged the metal door open and peered outside, scanning the terrain for any hint of a threat. The early morning light through the dense clouds cast the world in gray, with all the soft shadows just thick enough to make him worry they would disguise movement. Beyond the back of the strip mall, small houses and trees dotted the next road, each building seeming ominous for how still they were. He’d avoided the houses last night out of concern someone inside would have a gun, but the morning revealed an eerie quality to their stillness that somehow made him doubt anyone or anything was left alive inside.

  His eyes caught on a streak of brownish-red, and he froze for a heartbeat. Wariness prickling through him, he eased from the doorway and down along the length of the strip mall.

  Beyond a tree, a small white house stood, a symbol scrawled on its pale blue door.

  His heart began to pound harder as he scanned the other homes. A few were nothing but scattered rubble and
charred frames randomly placed among their still-standing neighbors, as if the houses had blown up rather than simply burned to the ground. But on every building that remained, there were more brownish-red symbols that had been lost to darkness the night before, now marking every front door he could see.

  “Shit,” Lindy whispered behind him. He threw a look over his shoulder to find her staring at the symbols too.

  Marks of the Order.

  Anger boiled in him. Not the Order. Not originally. Once upon a time, those had been sigils and runes belonging to ulfhednar history, marks meaning everything from the sun to the gods to all manner of things. They’d been good symbols, peaceful symbols from ancient ulfhednar faith, used the world-round by his people.

  Instead of marks stolen by a group who had no right to them, who twisted them into signs of hate and terror, and claimed those signs from ulfhednar history represented the Order’s vision of a “purified” world—one in which all his people were dead.

  And now those bastards were painting them in blood everywhere they went. The Order had scattered the marks across Mariposa after the city burned, and the gods only knew what they planned for them. Twisted or not, folks who used seidr said those symbols had power, and given what he’d seen of seidr thus far, he was inclined to believe it. But as for what these symbols were going to be used for…

  Wes glanced around. He and Lindy were closer to the right side of the strip mall than the left, and houses surrounded them on all sides. Though his instincts demanded they find cover, there was no telling what wandering into the thick of houses painted with those runes would do. But if the two of them reached the main road, they might be able to find a vehicle and get the hell out this place.

  The sooner the better.

  He crept forward, moving as fast as silence would allow. Beyond the corner of the strip mall, an expanse of empty parking lot waited, enclosed on two sides by shops and sheltered from the road by some kind of family restaurant up ahead. The terrain around them was mostly flat, with trees and a few more houses, and almost no cover at all.