The Cursed Prince: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Fated by Magic) (Volume 1)

by Taylor Fray

  “Here it comes—the first wave of energy will finish the separation process that the potion began.”

  Morgan watched as the Tragas emitted a shrieking bolt of energy into Zak. It was like he was being struck by a stream of white-hot lightning. Then the screams came. Morgan covered her mouth to keep herself from crying out. Zak went on screaming like a torture victim from the Middle Ages. Spittle flew from his mouth as he gritted to steal some of the pain away.

  “Stop!” Morgan cried out. “It’s too much.”

  Ivalia calmly looked over at her. “You are not familiar with Shifters yet. You do not know how much punishment their bodies can take. Zak is strong, even for a Shifter. He can handle it.” Morgan looked on in shock. “The first wave of pain is almost over.”

  Moments after, the white current mellowed to a whisper of energy grazing Zak’s chest. His screams died down. His body rattled and poured with sweat.

  “Zak! Zak, are you alright?” Morgan said as she ran to him. Ivalia snatched her wrist.

  “Are you crazy? If the containment field does not tear you apart the Tragas machine could scorch you to death.”

  Morgan looked back and forth as if wanting to go to him regardless of the consequences. Then her mind raced to understand what Ivalia said. “Containment field?”

  “Yes,” she said. “It is so that none of the unstable energies we are using can escape and possibly destroy this entire building, along with us.”

  Morgan’s eyes scanned the space in front of her, trying to spot this containment field. Indeed, now she realized that there were wisps of light in the air around Zak like a sphere. They were subtle, like the shimmers of light that run through a pool underwater.

  “I’m fine,” Zak grunted. “Go on. Finish it. Once and for all, take the Rage, take that beast out of me.”

  “Very well.” Ivalia blinked, her lips tightened. Even her cool demeanor was giving way to a very human nervousness. She seemed to gather her courage. “Let us make history, Zak. You are paving the way for many others. It will be a gift not only for yourself, but for your entire people.” She studied the monitor, double-checking information, and pressed enter once again. “The extraction is beginning.”

  The Tragas began humming once more. However this time the humming turned into a high-pitched squeal. Morgan looked on in astonishment as a faint red light began emanating from Zak’s chest. It formed a smoky trail and began growing more intense as it was sucked up and into the Tragas machine. Zak grunted in pain, the torture beginning once more. Zak’s screaming made her heart wrench.

  As Morgan saw the red energy, the Red Rage, was being sucked out from Zak’s chest, she couldn’t help but smile, despite the pain of seeing him suffer. “It’s working. It’s working isn’t it?”

  Ivalia stood. “Yes. Yes the Red Rage is being drawn out from him. I was not sure. I honestly was not sure it would work. But there it is.” Small chuckles of disbelief mixed with joy resounded from both women. “That red energy is the source of his curse. It is already 35, no 36%, complete.

  As the red light began to grow more intense it strained Zak further. His entire body was trembling. Every muscle in his body was rippling to contain the pain. His back arched, his toes curled, his nails dug into his fists until they bled. His face was lined with excruciating pain. Veins swelled until they were about to burst.

  “53%... 54%”” Ivalia called out, eagerly studying the monitor.

  “You’re almost there. You’re almost there, Zak!” Morgan cheered him on. Her heart burst with hope. The only experience that compared was running her last track meet in college. A fluttering up of desire in the heart, that sweet ache of wanting to win, of wanting to push oneself to the limit, to create a memory that could never be taken away from her. Now she felt that same longing, but for Zak to win his own struggle. She never could have imagined that wishing triumph for someone else could be so much more exhilarating, so much more enrapturing than to push for oneself. And now, she heard Ivalia calling higher and higher numbers, each one bringing him closer. Finally she felt that Zak was reaching that last stretch of a great race, the race of a lifetime, where one gives oneself over to some miraculous force that propels the body, that seems to pick up where the body can no longer give, and carry it all by itself as if by wings.

  All Morgan could do now was smile, smile and go breathless as she watched Zak give one last push.

  He gave a roar like ripping curtains, like lightning snapping a ship in half. He lost himself in an utter, primal, scream. And the red trail of energy stopped flowing. The last wisp of it flowed into the Tragas machine. The machine went on spilling its white energy with nowhere to connect, like a writhing live wire.

  “He did it! It’s gone!” Morgan yelled.

  Ivalia shook her head in confusion. “88%, 88%… Why has it stopped?”

  Morgan looked back at him, feeling foolish, eager to help him finish that last stretch. “Zak? Zak, you’re almost there. You’re at 88%!”

  Zak’s chest was rising and falling with his slow breath. He was silent save for a rumbling growl that was building in his chest. Something about his face, seemed distant, withdrawn. This was not like the growl that had drawn Morgan to him with an irresistible craving. This was a growl of sheer anger, sheer rage building in him.

  “Zak, are you alright? … Talk to us,” Morgan said. “What’s going on? What are you feeling?”

  His fangs grew slowly, maliciously. Red bloomed in his eyes. His voice swelled, as if he was possessed by a demon. “I let them die…” he growled.

  Ivalia’s hands flickered on the keyboard, frantically studying what was happening. “I don’t understand. The process it… stopped entirely.”

  Zak seemed to focus on the Tragas machine, craning his neck up like he was speaking to it. “I let her die…” he growled. With a jolt of the machine, the red current began running once more, but back into Zak. The glowing red stream poured into his mouth, like he had an unquenchable, demonic thirst.

  “No, it’s reversing!” Morgan yelled.

  The Tragas began humming louder and louder—VZZZZZZ—like a car being pushed to its absolute limit. The cloud of red energy began swirling all around Zak’s body. He seemed to soak it in like a sponge, screaming out as the Red Rage seeped in through his pores.

  “…Emily!” Zak belted at the top of his lungs. “EMILYYYY!!!” His voice crashed against the walls of the room like a storm.

  “Zak! Zak, don’t think about that! Come back to us!” Morgan tried to get a response. None came. All she got back was a threatening growl, a piercing shriek of a caged animal. Emily, it was his wife’s name. He was reliving that trauma. Morgan knew that this had been the triggering event that released his curse. He struggled against the metal restraints, his head twisting and snapping against the metal surface. With loud bangs he dented the metal table with his skull. “He’s going to hurt himself!” Morgan yelled to Ivalia.

  “That is not what worries me,” Ivalia said without looking up from her frantic work on the computer.

  Zak’s skin began taking on a red color, like there was hot lava coursing through his veins. Snap! One of the metal restraints shattered as he pulled his arm free. In a second, he pried the other restraint off of his arm. Soon he was kicking out of the restraints on his legs.

  Zak was completely free.

  “I’m aborting!” Ivalia smashed keys as he pounced on the Tragas machine. “No! Stop!” she pleaded in vain. Screws and wires, fiberglass and steel began spilling all around as Zak tore the machine apart like a tiger mauling a deer. He was gripping it now like a frenzied drunkard, drinking the red energy from it to the last spark.

  “Zak! Stop!” Morgan yelled. But Zak was far, far away now. In his place was a beast consumed with his curse. “Zak, please!” Morgan walked right up to the edge of the containment field. She pushed her hand right up to it, inches away, so close that she could feel the flicker of strange, supernatural electricity licking at her palm.

&nbs
p; “Morgan! Get away from there! He could break through!”

  Morgan didn’t listen. Zak wouldn’t hurt her—she knew he wouldn’t. With one last tearing swipe, the Tragas machine burst in a flash. Morgan covered her eyes and recoiled at the explosion. The red energy swirled within the sphere of the containment field, like food coloring dropped into water. Then it all began coalescing around Zak and was slowly absorbed back into his body. He seemed to even inhale it, desperately consuming it like a drug. He was hunched over, heaving with rage, his body beginning to sprout red fur.

  “Zak!” Morgan called out, tears building in her eyes. Zak looked straight at her, his face utterly savage. “Zak… I know you can—ah!” Morgan screamed as in a blur of motion Zak pounced at her only to be stopped by the containment field between them. He smacked against it with a crackle of electricity and a loud BANG! like a violent car crash.

  “I’m reinforcing the field—get away from there!” Ivalia stuttered as she flicked some controls.

  Morgan scurried away as Zak kept smashing at the field, punching at it like it was another beast in his path. Each time he struck it, ripples of crackling electricity ran through it. He was utterly lost, had no sense of who Morgan was, who he was, where he was. Morgan looked on with a strange pity, knowing that somewhere inside that beast, Zak felt as helpless as she did.

  Ivalia hit a quick command on the computer, then ran to Morgan. She grabbed her by the arm and began running toward the stairs.

  “We can’t leave him!”

  “We have to. I set the containment field to collapse on him.”

  “What?”

  “He’ll survive it, but we won’t. Now we need to get out of here!”

  “No! How do you know he won’t die?”

  “Look at him! Him surviving is not my only concern right now! Now come, we only have a few seconds!” Ivalia practically had to drag Morgan up the metal stairs and out of the basement.

  “Zak!” she screamed, looking back at him flailing in his prison. Ivalia pushed her through the door and shut it behind them. She grabbed ahold of Morgan, turned the corner and braced herself.

  Even through the door, even shutting their eyes, as the containment field collapsed in on itself it let out a burst of light so strong that it lit up the parlor above the basement and shook the house like a sonic boom had just blasted through it.

  Morgan’s heart sank as she felt the force of the blast. “Zak! No… he can’t. He can’t…”

  After moments of silence, Ivalia crept to the door. With a creek she lifted its latch and peered through, Morgan eagerly looking over her shoulder. It was utter darkness down in the basement. With no regard for her safety, Morgan shoved Ivalia out of the way and stomped down the darkened stairs.

  “Zak! Zak!”

  “Stop!” Ivalia followed after, trying to talk sense into her. With no success.

  The emergency backup lights in the basement flickered just enough that Morgan could make out the utter destruction that the collapsing field had caused. The walls were scorched black, rubble and metal were strewn everywhere, the concrete floor was shattered like glass.

  Morgan spotted Zak’s body amid some debris. Her heart twisted as she walked to him, and when she saw his bloodied limbs, she recoiled, and she screamed.

  13

  Even Shifters had a breaking point, and Zak had gone past it. The strain on his body from having various magical energies running through him, from having the Rage brought out of him almost entirely and then to have it be sucked back in, to have a class C containment field collapse in on him, it was enough to kill even the toughest of Shifters. He certainly would have been dead, had it not happened within the quarters of a literal witch doctor, one of the few people in the entire world who knew how to treat a mangled Shifter, who knew how to nurse them from the brink of death. A strong Shifter’s healing factor worked at a phenomenal rate, healing their bodies dozens of times faster than a human. So it was telling that Zak had been unconscious and being nursed for two days and three nights now.

  Morgan looked down with gaunt eyes at his bandaged body, holding a vial of orange potion. Ivalia had instructed her to give Zak the potion every two hours. It gave her hope that he swallowed when she pried his lips open and poured the liquid into his mouth. She felt pain as well. Every time Morgan thought about what this meant for Zak’s future, what it meant for their future… she pushed those thoughts away. All that mattered now was that he live.

  She finished pouring the last of the vial into his mouth. With utter patience, she dabbed a few drops of the oily liquid from his lips. “Zak… you’re going to get better,” she said, tempering the anguish at seeing him this way. “You’re Zak of the 13 Moons. You’ve lived through a lot more than this. You still have a lot to do in this world. You have a family and a clan, and me…” She didn’t know about that last part, at least whether he would want her in his life. For her, it made no difference. He had lost control because of the procedure. He had been in that life and death struggle with Albhanz and he hadn’t frenzied. They had been in plenty of danger, and he hadn’t lost control. They could still be together. She wasn’t afraid of him. But she knew he wouldn’t see it that way. She knew that after this, he would want to get away from her as fast as possible, that he would not risk having that beast awaken, by any chance, while she was in his life. He would hold her to her promise.

  She held his hand in hers. Despite what she knew, feeling its warmth made her hope that he would be alright. Life was warm, flowing blood was warm, hope was warm. Surprise lit up her face as she felt a slight pressure from his fingers. She felt him squeezing her hand. Her laughter was broken with pants of disbelief as he opened his eyes.

  “Zak. Zak…” was all she could say as tears streamed down her cheeks. She resisted the urge to embrace him and kiss him all over. She never imagined she could think of his body as frail, but sickness and injury had a way of reaching even the strongest of beings.

  “Ivalia! Zak’s awake!” she called out. She stood and walked to the door, not wanting to go too far from Zak. “Ivalia! Zak’s awake!”

  Zak sat on a chair overlooking the rocky forests surrounding Ivalia’s house. It had been two days since he opened his eyes. Ivalia and Morgan had been waiting on him hand and foot, a service they practically had to force on him, his pride being that of a werewolf’s after all. He would have gladly taken the service had he won it through glory in battle, but not out of weak pity. Still, in this he had no say. Ivalia brought out a pitcher of tea and served it to her two guests. Morgan took a cold glass of it as they sat in the backyard. Zak frowned at his glass.

  “Ivalia, this is too much. I ruined your lab. Any other person would have—”

  “For the 10th time, Zak, you do not owe me anything. These things happen. It is part of the scientific process. And anyway, as you said, it is I who failed you once. Now it seems I have failed you twice.”

  Zak sat silent as if he disagreed but didn’t know what else to say. His gaze flickered to Morgan. They hadn’t said their goodbyes yet, but she knew it was coming.

  “Perhaps this will be of great help to discovering a cure in the long run,” Ivalia said as she sat. “I thought I understood the nature of the disease, but it seems I was wrong. My new hypothesis, Zak, is that you have a variation of it. It explains why I was not able to correctly diagnose you in the first place, and why the Tragas machine failed.” Zak looked at her, worried. “But I gathered much data in these last few days. I believe this will give me the foundation to study it properly. If you have a variation of the Red Rage then I can only conclude that there are others like you.”

  Ivalia took one last sip of her drink, then stood to excuse herself. “You will see, someday this disease will only be a memory.” With that, Ivalia walked back inside her house.

  Morgan and Zak lingered in the silence, the sounds of rustling leaves keeping them company.

  The next day, Morgan and Zak stood by the doorway, ready to continue on their jour
ney. They had bags strapped around their shoulders, laden with the essentials to make it back to Grey Home.

  “Thank you, Ivalia,” Morgan said.

  “I wish I had done something to be thanked for.”

  “You did,” Zak said. “You worked to cure me and others, and you saved my life.”

  “Only after I put it at risk in the first place.”

  “I’m the one who destroyed your entire lab.”

  “I will rebuild.”

  Zak only shook his head and gave a melancholy grin. He reached out and grabbed Ivalia’s hand. He squeezed it in farewell.

  “Good fortune and health to both of you. I hope fate will bring us together once more.”

  14

  Pine trees swam across the car window as they drove on. It was the kind of day where blinding sunlight poured over everything like smoke.

  They had driven in silence for some time, and were almost across the Rockies, on the last stretch to Washington, finally, to Grey Home. But what did Grey Home mean now? Now that Zak… now that he wouldn’t be in Morgan’s life anymore. He would be leaving as soon as he got her there. She hadn’t brought the matter up yet. She had been meaning to, but each time she didn’t know how, and she didn’t want to rattle Zak further after he had almost died. She just wished he would talk about it all. Perhaps it would help him.

  She started mouthing words several times, until finally she pushed herself to say something. “You haven’t really talked at all, about how it felt. What happened at Ivalia’s, I mean.”

  He didn’t take his eyes off the road. “All the pain of… many years, came flooding back.”

  Morgan slid her hand along the door handle. She studied his face as his eyes squinted in the sunlight. “You… called Emily’s name. When you lost control.”

  Zak looked over at her. “Emily was the closest thing to happiness I ever knew.” Morgan’s eyes rounded at the sudden sincerity. “I grew up like any other member of my clan, fighting, hunting, people around me dying violent deaths, for the glory of the clan, they said. But Emily changed all that. She was a person who loved ideas, who loved imagination, knowledge, and peace. I like to think that whatever slim amount of civilization I have in me is thanks to her. But then, the Black Hand took her, took her life, and mine along with it.” Morgan looked on, sympathy in her eyes. “Ever since, revenge has been my only solace. I swore I’d track every single one of them down, and kill them one by one, until I had killed them all, or they had killed me. It seems perhaps, that fate is holding me to my own oath, that that would be my life. That is what it will be once again, until the end.”