The Cursed (The Unearthly)

by Laura Thalassa

  “Me.” A woman spoke at my back. I began to turn when I felt a hand grasp my shoulder and something sharp press into my back. “Don’t move unless you want to be gutted.” The feminine voice spoke perfect English.

  Another woman. Two female murder suspects, and both probably foreigners. So what was their M.O. for coming to Romania to kill?

  “What do you want with me?” I asked. I flared my nostrils, trying to breathe in her scent, but I couldn’t smell anything other than expensive perfume.

  “Let my friend go, and maybe I’ll tell you.”

  If I let the woman in front of me go, then it’d be two against one, and I had a knife digging into my back. But I was fast. I could probably outmaneuver them both if I acted now.

  I jerked away from the woman behind me. But not fast enough.

  I choked on air as the blade parted skin. It made a wet, fleshy sound as it was shoved through me.

  A strangled cry left my lips when I looked down. The tip of the knife poked out to the right of my belly button. I literally got friggin’ stabbed in the back.

  “What. The hell.” That’s the moment that I lost it.

  I screamed—more out of anger than pain—spun to face my attacker. She was a slight thing with a sweet face. Not at all what I was expecting from the person who shoved a dagger through my gut. But it didn’t stop me from jumping her ass.

  All that training with Andre surfaced. I threw a right hook, then an uppercut. My movements tugged at my wound, but anger and adrenaline dulled the pain. It would hurt like hell once this was over, but right now I only spared it a passing thought.

  She blocked my punches, moving faster than a normal supernatural should.

  My skin flared brighter. “Stop fighting me,” I said, throwing the siren behind my words.

  The pipsqueak laughed at me. Laughed. “That doesn’t work on me, Proserpine.”

  Couldn’t I come across one bad guy who wasn’t immune to my glamour?

  I kicked out at her, but she jumped away. I frowned. She was moving faster than even Andre. What supernatural could do that?

  “Remove the glamour,” my attacker said to the first woman, who was now pushing herself up on shaky legs. I was so tempted to knock her back down, but I resisted the urge. After all, she was going to lift the glamour.

  I watched her eyes flutter shut and a small smile tilt the corners of her lips.

  The air shifted, and then my attacker stood in front of me. “I’ll be seeing you again soon, consort,” she said.

  Before I could cock back my arm, she’d placed a steadying hand on my back and ripped the dagger from my body.

  I screamed and fell to my knees. She’d sliced the wound open further. I clutched my midsection, rivulets of blood slipping through my fingers.

  That hurt like a mother.

  Chapter 9

  Like a switch being flipped the pain, anger, and adrenaline morphed into power and lust. My skin shined brighter than ever. Only now did I grasp the extent of the siren’s depravity. She loved this. My hands shook at the realization. I really was cursed.

  My stomach felt itchy where the wound was stitching itself back together. Blood dripped from my fingers as I pushed myself to my feet. I swayed, feeling lightheaded from the blood loss. My skin, however, throbbed in pleasure and pain.

  When I glanced up, both women were gone. Escaped.

  Perfect.

  Around me, people were leaving the dance floor, looking confused. An increasing number stared at me, mesmerized by my glowing skin.

  Among the throng of people, I felt one drawing closer. The crowd parted, and Andre stood there, his eyes glittering. Even from here I could tell he was barely containing his rage. One didn’t just glamour the king of vampires. Especially not in his own club.

  Our gazes caught. When his eyes drifted lower, to my bloody abdomen, his expression changed. “Gabrielle.” The alarm in his voice did nothing but excite me further.

  An instant later he was next to me, his hands roving over my body, inspecting me for injuries. I arched into his touch.

  “Who did this to you?” he asked, his anger resurfacing in his voice.

  Instead of answering, I ran my hands through his hair, pressing myself into him.

  His nostrils flared and he tipped my chin back, and his eyes searched my face. He needn’t look so concerned. I was just high on blood and lust.

  My hand moved to his cheek and stroked the rough skin there, uncaring that with the touch I smeared my blood along his jawline. The siren hummed impatiently. Things weren’t progressing fast enough.

  Andre sucked in a breath. “Why are there lipstick marks on your neck?”

  The siren swelled within me, the memory of the woman’s dark nature further arousing my own. My chest heaved. I was losing control completely.

  Unaware of what was going on with me, Andre leaned into my neck. “Smoke and flowers—”

  Not smoke and flowers. Ash and roses.

  My breath came faster and faster. The blood thrummed through my veins, headier than alcohol.

  Andre stilled, and then he took a step back. Then another. “Gabrielle …” he said cautiously, his eyes moving over my glowing skin.

  I ran my hands through my hair and rolled my shoulders back. I dragged my hands down my torso, down, down …

  The entire room seemed to respond. I could feel them like a pulse that lingered outside of me, and with every beat of the strobe light, they crept closer to me. Just like the woman before me, I’d enraptured every single individual here, and I was high off of the power. I wanted them all—their blood, their bodies, their very essence.

  I was gone, gone, gone.

  “Gabrielle.” The voice cut through my lust. I turned and gazed at Andre. He wore a hungry look. Even he was under my spell.

  But it was my turn to be enraptured. My soulmate. No one else stoked the fire in me like he did. I wanted to consume him; I wanted him to be a part of the inferno that was eating me up from the inside out.

  “If you’re going to do something stupid, at least do it to me,” he grated out. His chest heaved as he spoke, like it took a terrible amount of effort to say even that.

  Somewhere at the back of my mind, I knew my response to his words should’ve been different. Sarcastic. Instead my entire body throbbed for him, the press of my fangs against my gums almost painful. My humanity was a distant thing.

  I closed the distance between the two of us and wrapped my arms around his neck. I rubbed my body against his, and I heard him make a guttural noise, somewhere between a growl and a groan. It made my skin shine even brighter than before.

  He closed his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said, even as his arms closed around me.

  “I’m not,” the siren sang. “Now open your eyes and do to me what you’ve wanted to do since we met.”

  That was all the encouragement I needed to give him. His eyes went molten; a look of longing flared deep within them. I caught a brief flash of fang and then he leaned down and kissed me.

  Our mouths moved against each other urgently. His tongue parted my lips and stroked the inside of my mouth. I moaned against him and clutched him tighter. More. I wanted this and so much more.

  His hands moved against my skin, pulling me closer, caressing exposed skin. I ran my own fingers over the thin fabric of his shirt, feeling the hard muscle beneath. Distantly I realized that I was getting my blood all over us.

  Andre nipped at the tender flesh of my lower lip. I felt a prick of pain and I moaned as he drew a small bit of blood from it.

  The crowd pressed in on us still, so Andre lifted me into his arms and carried me to the back of the club and up a flight of stairs. Our lips stayed locked the entire time. I moved against him suggestively, my body demanding that this go further.<
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  Andre kicked open a door and led me into another one of his VIP rooms before slamming the door shut again. He set me down on a couch and draped himself over me.

  His movements were jerky as he caressed me. There was something about them that made me pause. My shimmering skin dimmed. It only seemed to make his movements more halting.

  Finally I pulled back, my earlier rush starting to ebb.

  “Thank God,” Andre gasped, leaning his forehead against mine.

  “What?” I panted, the last of the glow leaving my skin.

  His arms tightened around me. “I was worried that the first time we’d sleep together it was going to be under your compulsion.”

  “Under my … ?” I felt my nausea rise, and I covered my mouth. “I was forcing you …” I couldn’t finish the sentence. The idea that I had just now tried—very aggressively—to get in Andre’s pants was embarrassing enough. Add to that, that I’d used glamour on him—I’d taken away his power of choice. Had we slept together, it wouldn’t have been consensual.

  Andre’s brow furrowed. “No,” he said, shaking me gently. “I know what you’re thinking. And it’s just not true. You commanded me to do to you everything I’d wanted to do since we first met. You ordered me to have full control of the situation.” Andre’s nostrils flared and a tremor moved through his body. The crease between his brows deepened. “Do you know how incredibly stupid that was?”

  I glanced away, my jaw working. He was adding insult to injury.

  He gently cupped my chin and turned my face so that I had to look at him. “Don’t ever give me that kind of power, Gabrielle. There are so many, many things that I’d—” His voice cut off and he shook his head. When he looked at me again, his face was pained. “I don’t want your first time to be in some sleazy club while neither of us is fully in control of ourselves.”

  I swallowed and rubbed the palms of my hands against my eyes. When I pulled them away, I realized that smeared, sticky blood still coated them. Suddenly, my personal problems were only one of several extremely screwed up things that had happened this evening.

  Beyond the room I heard a distant door bang open and the music stop. Shouts bubbled up from downstairs and I groaned.

  Just when the evening couldn’t get worse, help showed up like a late period.

  Yippee.

  I started to push myself off the couch when Andre placed a hand on my shoulder and gently pushed me back down.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  He shifted his body lower, so that the wide expanse of his torso pressed between my legs. I blushed, which, considering what we were about to do five seconds ago, was ridiculous.

  “Checking your injury,” he murmured. He pulled back the sliced edges of my dress, and his fingers deftly moved over my skin. “The wound is almost completely healed,” he said, his breath fanning out against my stomach. He glanced up. “What happened?”

  “I got shanked.”

  His lips twitched. “I can see that.”

  I filled him in on everything that had happened today, from the second murder to the events that took place downstairs while he’d been glamoured.

  When I was finished, he pressed a kiss to my stomach. “I will find the people who did this to you,” he whispered against my skin, “and when I do, I will kill them. Slowly.”

  A small shiver ran through my body at the menace in his voice.

  “You’re going to have to get in line.”

  Languidly he pushed his torso up until his face hovered over mine, and he slid a hand behind my head. “My bloodthirsty queen,” he said affectionately, smiling down at me, “I should’ve known my soulmate wouldn’t be some simpering damsel in distress.”

  Queen. My heart skipped at the name. Then his words sunk in, reminding me of something I hadn’t mentioned. “I wanted to drink her blood,” I whispered. I bit my lip.

  Andre stilled above me. “That’s … only natural, given your nature,” he said. “But that does mean that we’ll need to feed together, and soon.”

  Feed on human blood. I grimaced. “How romantic,” I said, my voice breaking. It was really beginning to happen—my gradual transformation into a vampire. It would eventually end with my death.

  It was all too much.

  “Come here,” Andre said. He scooped me up and pressed me against his chest. Only then did I realize I was trembling.

  “It’s all going to be okay,” he whispered into my hair.

  Rather than calming me, his words caused my shoulders to shake and my trembling to increase. I leaned my head against his chest and let out a shuddering breath.

  “Shhh,” he murmured, running a hand over my hair. “I’ve got you. It’s going to be okay.” I nodded against him.

  We stayed like that for a while, Andre talking soothingly to me, sometimes in English, sometimes in Romanian, sometimes in Spanish. And it worked. My breathing gradually evened out and my shaking subsided.

  Eventually he pressed his lips against my temple. “We need to go down,” he said. “I can hear the officers asking about you.”

  I nodded and extricated myself from his embrace. Almost immediately my body ached from his absence. As Andre stood, I eyed him. My blood had stained his button down and the skin of his forearms, where the sleeves had been rolled back.

  “I got my blood all over you,” I stated.

  He grinned, and it was pure male smugness. “I don’t exactly mind.”

  When I shot him a confused look, he explained. “This is what vampires would consider evidence of a good lay.”

  My eyes widened and my mouth parted. Suddenly the room felt too small and too hot. Andre’s grin got a little slyer when he noticed how flustered I’d become.

  I shook my head to clear it of my current thoughts. “What about the other vampires?” I’d sort of blown my cover at this point.

  The smile dropped from Andre’s face and his voice took on a steely edge. “I will worry about them.”

  Andre slung an arm protectively over my shoulders and moved his other to rest on my stomach where I’d recently been stabbed. We left the room like that and headed downstairs.

  When we reached the main area of the club, the crowd was back to normal, meaning that they weren’t mindlessly dancing or trying to get near me.

  I chewed on the inside of my cheek as guilt gnawed at me. I’d been no better than that woman; I’d glamoured the room right after she’d let them go. Because of the circumstances, I probably wouldn’t get charged for the unsanctioned use of it, but the memory of how I’d acted still made me feel unclean.

  Caleb was the first to spot me. He pushed his way past a group of officers and enveloped me in a hug, knocking away Andre’s hands. “Jesus, Gabrielle, I thought they took you.” He must not have seen Andre whisk me away after the two women left.

  Caleb stepped back and only then did he register the blood that drenched my dress and smeared across my skin. “Holy shit! What happened?”

  I sighed. This was going to be a long night.

  Chapter 10

  It took me two hours to finally make it back to the inn. By that time Andre had returned to his trial, and every fiber of my tired, achy body missed his presence. It seemed stupid to stay away from him when we were both in the same city. Especially now that other vampires knew I was here.

  I suppressed a shudder at the thought. Getting sucked into the coven’s archaic justice system was the last thing I wanted at the moment.

  I muttered goodnight to Caleb in the hallway outside my room before stumbling inside. As soon as I closed the door behind me, I made a beeline for my bed. I collapsed onto it, clutching my pillow to me. I think I moaned a little.

  “Oh I see how it is—the bed gets a moan, but you ignore your BBF.”

  I shrieke
d at the voice and flipped onto my back, pillow clutched to my chest. At the sound, Oliver who stood in the middle of the room, screamed as well.

  He clutched his heart, gasping. “Oh my God, Sabertooth, don’t do that to me,” he said. “You scream like a banshee.”

  “I—I don’t do that?” I stuttered. “How about you don’t do that!” Oliver is in my room. Oliver, who I’d left back on the Isle of Man.

  The door to my room banged open and a shirtless Caleb rushed in. “Gabrielle, are you … ?” His voice died away when he saw Oliver.

  Oliver turned and stared, awestruck, at Caleb’s muscles. “Oh my,” he murmured. “This image is definitely going into the spank bank.”

  I groaned. So. Not. What. I. Needed. “Oliver, stop eye-raping the beejezus out of my partner.”

  “But he’s so tasty-looking,” Oliver said.

  “I’m the vampire. Not you.”

  “Please tell me you’ve had a nibble,” Oliver said.

  I saw Caleb’s hands twitch, and I’d bet my savings that he wanted to cover himself. Welcome to my world.

  “Oliver, what are you doing here?” Caleb asked, stepping into the room.

  Oliver gave him a look like it should be obvious. “Visiting Gabrielle. Duh.”

  I rubbed my eyes. “I must be dreaming,” I said, sitting up. “There’s no way you’re really here.”

  “Nope, you’re definitely not dreaming.”

  “This is some horrible nightmare,” I insisted.

  Oliver sashayed over to me and pinched my arm. Hard.

  “Ow!” I yelped, swatting his hand away.

  “See?” he said, “Not dreaming.” His eyes strayed back to Caleb, who now leaned against the wall, looking sleepy and amused. Oliver tilted his head. “Then again …” He took a step forward, a nefarious little smile on his face.

  Caleb’s eyes widened and he held up his hands. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Don’t even think of trying anything, fairy.”