Sealed with a Curse

by Cecy Robson

  The music switched from the floor-shaking “In the Ayer” to the soft, aching melody of “Lightning Crashes.” From where I stood, Shayna beamed expectantly at the mountainous Koda. Surprisingly, the smooth wolf dancing so effortlessly moments before glanced down awkwardly at my beautiful sister with the dazzling grin. He froze, his eyes searching hers, but failed to act.

  Shayna carefully slipped his mammoth arms around her slender waist. Koda hesitated briefly before smiling softly and bending forward. Shayna encircled his neck. And just like that, they became one. It was a perfect choreographed moment in time. One that shouldn’t have been so difficult to watch.

  But it was. Regardless of how much I didn’t want it to be.

  I could have come to the club in one of my many slip dresses or in a nice pair of jeans and a sweater. Instead I’d allowed Taran to dress and accessorize me like a ridiculous Barbie doll.

  And it hadn’t made a difference.

  I walked out of the club and into the night.

  And I kept on walking.

  CHAPTER 7

  Damn it.

  The almost full moon gleamed against the dark blue night. Time was running out for Misha…and for Tahoe if the impending bloodlust crisis wasn’t contained. My steps turned slow and cautious at the thought.

  I’d told Emme I’d be out by the water if she needed me. But she didn’t need me. She had a guardian of the earth on her arm. I sent her a quick text letting her know I was going home. I needed to mull over Misha’s proposition.

  My focus remained ahead, away from the noisy street where the upscale clubs along the lake battled it out for the rush of new tourists…in time to see Petro exit one of the five-star restaurants. Two high-priced call girls led him toward his white limo. His eyes widened upon seeing me, and, despite the illumination of the fluorescent streetlights, I could see his face redden.

  I pretended I hadn’t noticed him or his dates. Women likely washed Misha’s feet with their own hair. And there was Petro, master vampire, forced to pay for sex.

  A throng of twenty-somethings, chatting and laughing with excitement, hurried across to where the velvet ropes awaited. Valets turned away perturbed drivers attempting to pull in, claiming the lots had reached maximum capacity. I alone moved against the restless crowd and crossed the street, seeking solace from the increasing madness.

  I shoved my way through a mob of pedestrians, their large numbers spilling out of the crosswalk.

  And that’s when it hit me: the familiar scent of fire, earth, and water crashing over stones. My knees buckled and I almost fell. The wolf from my run stalked toward me, a blond bombshell, with a Victoria Beckham bob, fastened to his arm. She spoke to him, but he didn’t appear to listen. His head snapped up and his eyes widened the moment he saw me. A few anxious tourists circled around him as his pace slowed. The blonde tugged on his arm, her voice garbled as if she were speaking underwater. Yet he failed to acknowledge her, keeping his gaze firmly fixed on mine.

  The blonde’s tugging became more urgent as our steps converged, her muffled voice becoming louder. “Are you listening? What the hell’s wrong with you?”

  Ten more steps. The wolf’s piercing gaze intensified.

  Five more steps. The sounds of the street disappeared.

  One step…

  His brown eyes blazed with fire.

  My neck craned and my body whipped around as we passed, refusing to leave the forceful grip of those eyes.

  I stopped.

  And so did he.

  A couple of drunks bumped into me as I remained cemented in the middle of the street. The wolf stood only a few feet away, but it felt like miles. More people brushed past us, their steps quickening until everyone had cleared the street.

  Everyone but the three of us.

  The blond she-wolf with him glanced openmouthed back and forth between us, her shock swiftly turning to fury. She growled, deep, hard, and deadly. “Mine.”

  My jaw slackened. Yours? Her words pierced me like the sharp edge of a knife. He’s…yours?

  A deafening car horn made me jolt. I was blocking traffic and didn’t even know it. More cars joined in, their angry horns making my sensitive ears burn. In a painful rush, the full cadence of the city overloaded my senses. I stumbled and kept moving. This time I didn’t look back.

  I hustled for five blocks in the torture devices Taran called shoes, shaken by what had just happened.

  Did he do something to me? That didn’t make sense. The wolf appeared just as freaked as I was. Aw, hell. Could I have done something to him?

  I shook my head to clear it and forced the experience from my mind. It doesn’t matter, Celia. He’s not yours to take.

  The thought alone made me slow down. But what had I expected? Someone that striking would never know a lonely night.

  I slipped off Taran’s deadly interpretation of footwear and called a cab. The cold sidewalk alleviated the aching of my swollen feet, but it was no match for the sense of longing the wolf had caused. I paused and lifted my hair, willing myself to calm, and hoping the brisk night air would whisk away the evening’s frustrations.

  It didn’t work. As much as I dreamed of seeing him again, I never imagined it would be on the arm of another female. Disappointment beat shock into submission.

  When the cab arrived almost forty minutes later, I crept into it, disturbed by the unusual ache gnawing at my chest.

  “Where to, lady?” the cabbie asked.

  “Dollar Point.”

  The portly cabbie adjusted his baseball cap, but didn’t bother to turn around. Most of the hair he had left hung from his ears. “Sixty bucks,” Prince Charming muttered. He jumped when he caught my scowl in the rearview mirror. “I have to charge more when I cross the state line!”

  “It’s less than twelve miles away.”

  “I don’t make the rules, lady. I’m just trying to put bread on the table.”

  I slumped in my seat. “Fine.”

  Sixty bucks for a sixteen-minute ride in a car that reeked of stale cigarettes and armpit. I rolled down the window for some fresh air and debated whether to return to The Hole—not for my sisters, they were fine—but to get another glimpse of those steamy baby browns. I abandoned the idea. His girlfriend wouldn’t be happy. Not that I blamed her. If he were mine, and some girl tried to—

  The metallic scent of blood burned through my nose.

  “Stop the car!”

  “What?”

  I shoved my feet back into Taran’s death traps. “Stop the car now!”

  The cabbie pulled to the side. I bolted out before he finished parking. “Hey, wait. You have to pay!”

  I raced toward the scent of death and spilled blood saturating an alleyway between a hair salon and a bookstore. Taran’s shoes dug into my tender feet like white-hot needles, but I didn’t stop, propelled by the need to investigate the dread plaguing the starlit night.

  But when I stumbled into the alley, my pace slowed to a crawl.

  There wasn’t a body there.

  There were two.

  Both women. Both young. Both with clothes splattered with their own blood. Their broken bodies lay near a Dumpster, amid a scattered field of discarded newspaper and tabloid magazines.

  I wished fang marks had pierced their necks. Fang marks would have been welcome. Instead chunks of serrated flesh hollowed through to the vertebra, like a hungry dog had chewed down to the bone.

  Except it hadn’t been a dog.

  Their bodies were nothing more than sunken shells of gray shriveled skin over bone and withered muscle, drained of the blood that once nourished their organs and allowed them to breathe, laugh…live.

  One of the women, a dark brunette, rested with hips twisted in the opposite direction from her torso, her eyes wide with blatant terror and pain. She probably would have screamed. But you needed a throat and vocal cords to scream. She had neither, just portions of mutilated flesh.

  My heart stopped when I caught sight of the petite ho
ney blonde with long wavy hair. Jesus. She could have been my Emme.

  Heavy footsteps echoed behind me. I whipped around, growling.

  The cabbie stumbled to a halt, falling to his knees and panting heavily. His stark white face traveled from my protruding fangs to the dead women at my feet. He staggered backward. “Don’t hurt me….I didn’t see anything. I-I-I didn’t see anything.”

  I retracted my claws and scary teeth. “I’m not going to hurt—”

  The cabbie shook his head feverishly. “I didn’t see anything!” He stumbled to his feet, slamming into a garbage can in his haste to get away. Large empty bottles of hair product bounced and rolled onto the concrete behind the terrified cabbie. His heavy legs pumped until he skidded around the dark corner and disappeared.

  I reached for my phone and just stared at it, unsure who to call. An infected vampire was on the loose. More people would die. Bren would race down here to be with me, but then what would we do? Calling the police seemed appropriate…if I were dealing with any run-of-the-mill psycho serial killer.

  Shit.

  My fingers swept across my touch screen, searching for Misha’s phone number. In my haste, I continued to hit the wrong contact. Twice I dialed my manager at work. Yeah, like Maureen would charge to the rescue. I took a breath to steady my thundering heart and finally pushed the right button.

  The phone rang once, twice.

  “Hello?” a sleepy female’s voice purred.

  I hung up.

  Shit. Shit. Shit. And that’s when it hit me. Pack weres, like the ones with my sisters, guarded the earth from mystical evil. My eyes skimmed over the women and their mummified physiques. Oh, yeah. I think this qualifies.

  I hit the speed dial. Come on, come—

  A rush of fury, sweat, and fresh blood swept in from the entranceway.

  And that’s when I knew I was no longer alone.

  “Don’t. Move.” The deep voice sounded more animal than human. But screw him—I moved anyway, crouching with arms and claws out.

  Two weres the size of my refrigerator lurked at the mouth of the alley, their stances wide, blocking my escape. Tears and gashes covered their T-shirts and jeans. Blood and drool caked their chests. They marched toward me, fists clenched, growls low and deep.

  I glanced down at the bodies, no longer certain an infected vamp had feasted.

  I tried to swallow back a growl. It didn’t work. “I don’t want any trouble.”

  “Too late for that, sweetheart. Chris, she’s yours. We’ll cover you.”

  We’ll?

  A wolf leaped over the far brick wall with the fluid ease of an eel in water. Except I’d rather have taken on an eel. Four hundred pounds of pissed-off lupine with midnight black fur stalked toward me baring his razor-sharp fangs.

  He charged. Goddamn it, he was fast.

  But tigers are faster than wolves.

  I pivoted, digging my claws into the nape of his neck and his back. With a grunt, I used the wolf’s momentum to propel him headfirst into the wall. The entire building rumbled, chunks of brick fell like hail, and a crack the size of my wrist split the mortar above his head. He shuddered once and slumped, his head firmly fixed to the building.

  I’d expected more of a fight. And so had his buddies. They exchanged shocked expressions and paused, trying to calculate their next move. I used their momentary confusion to race toward the wall. In a single bound, my hands grasped the ledge of the wall. Before I could throw my legs over, one of the wolves grabbed my ankle. I kicked with my free leg. Agonized howls blasted through the night. I made contact, yet he wouldn’t release his grip. He fell back and took me with him. We landed hard with me on top. My one-hundred-and-ten-pound frame wasn’t enough to knock the wind out of him, but my jabs to his gut were.

  His friend, a redhead, hauled me off, yanking my arm painfully behind my back and dislocating it from my shoulder. I roared and raked my remaining stiletto down his shin, stomping it into his instep. My dominant right arm hung uselessly at my side, but my left connected straight up to his jaw, silencing his pained howls. The second he loosened his hold I shifted.

  My body, clothing, and anyone I took along for the ride dissolved into minute particles, sliding through soil or concrete as easily as sand through a colander. The downside? I couldn’t breathe or see.

  By luck I sprang up as the wolf twisted his back to me, his fists up, his head scanning the alley. I kicked him squarely across the knee. Bone crunched on impact and he fell with a sickening splat. My instep connected with the back of his skull before his buddy with the Mohawk tackled me to the ground. Taran’s shoe remained firmly nailed to his face, perhaps a disturbingly comical sight to some. Not to me. I roared when his weight sent jolts of agony into my shoulder like the rapid bullets from a gun. I shifted down and across the cement floor, my lungs out of breath, screaming for air.

  Thank God I’d moved far enough. I resurfaced on my back and scrambled to my feet. Mohawk growled and swore, furious. My shifting had left him fused to the concrete from the elbows down. He kicked his legs uselessly.

  “Stupid bitch!”

  I kicked him in the face, snapping his jaw. “Watch your mouth.”

  The redhead rebounded unexpectedly and swung at my face. I dropped my head to avoid him, but he managed to graze me. The force from his powerful blow sent me spinning. He came at me again and again, legs and arms swinging like a blizzard of windmills. I dodged and scooted, off balance from the shoe still attached to my foot, my ineffective arm, and the horrid ringing in my ears.

  The redhead’s speed remained quick, but hasty. The moment I saw an opening, I spun and grated my back claws against his stomach. His bowels spilled like overdone spaghetti. I’d barely gasped at the sight when a more dangerous predator blindsided me at full velocity.

  My back slammed against the wall and my eyes locked onto the fierce gaze of my opponent. “What are you?” asked the wolf with the smoldering brown eyes.

  CHAPTER 8

  Oh, my God.

  The wolf pressed the weight of his powerful form against mine, his forearm glued to my chest. But the pure intensity of his presence was what held me in place. I didn’t dare shift, move, breathe. My mind froze, unable to concentrate on anything but him.

  The fierceness of his eyes softened as a phenomenal heat surged across the length of his arm and into my body, electrifying my already racing pulse. I shuddered.

  And so did he.

  The wolf abruptly released me. I stumbled, off balance and undeniably freaked out. He reached to catch me, but I staggered away.

  Blood and ash saturated his long-sleeved shirt, and a chunk of fabric hung loose over his bloody right thigh. I swallowed hard, awestruck as the damaged muscle knitted together and re-formed into new pink flesh.

  I staggered back two more steps. He followed, palms out. “Don’t be afraid. I’m not going to hurt you,” he whispered.

  His deep voice hummed with soft reassurance. I wanted to believe him, but his soaked shirt and the attack by his pack cautioned me against it. And yet despite all the danger and my growing trepidation, my tigress settled into a strange sense of calm.

  “What are you doing?” Mohawk screamed. “Kill her!”

  The wolf’s spine straightened as rigid as a steel pole. “Does she smell like a vampire?”

  Mohawk stopped his snarls, but exhaled in short, angry spurts. “No.”

  The wolf continued to watch me. “Then I will not harm her—and neither will you.”

  I didn’t know why he felt obliged to defend me. He didn’t know me. Didn’t he see I could defend myself?

  The wolf let out a breath and extended his hand. “I’m Aric Connor.”

  I gasped softly. Aric was the same wolf who had called Misha. When I stared at his palm like an idiot he slowly dropped it to his side. He eyed me a moment longer before withdrawing. The wolf I’d embedded into the wall stirred and whimpered. The Mohawk guy still anchored to the concrete spat with rage, “Watch your
back, Aric!”

  Aric ignored him and the black wolf, and focused on the redhead. The wolf sat with his legs sprawled, frantically trying to stuff his bowels back into his abdomen. “Tommy. Stop. You need to quiet and focus.”

  Tommy immediately ceased his desperate efforts. His hands shook as moist intestines continued to spill over his arms and through his fingers.

  “Good. Now breathe. Slowly. Become one with your wolf and allow him to heal you.”

  Tommy trembled, but nodded and closed his eyes. Like a reverse tug-of-war, Tommy’s body pulled in his battered insides like a child sucking in long strands of pasta. It was hard to watch and hear. The bile in my stomach rose brutally, but I wouldn’t pry my eyes off my attackers.

  When the last of Tommy’s parts found their way home, a thin transparent film formed over the deep gashes. But unlike Aric’s, the skin would not seal shut. Tommy buckled onto his side, panting and sweating, onto a heap of bloodied newspapers. Aric removed his navy shirt and tied it firmly around the wolf’s lesions, leaving a small gray tee to keep him covered against the brisk night air. He clasped Tommy’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. This will keep your wound closed until you’ve had time to mend.”

  Tommy nodded, curling into a protective ball. Aric left him and took in the scene. He sniffed the air, tracking the small droplets of splattered blood until they morphed into angular streaks along the corpses. He motioned to the honey blonde. “The vamp bit her first. And broke the other’s spine when she tried to flee.”

  “How…how do you know he killed the blonde f-first?” Tommy stammered.

  Aric inhaled deeply. “The blood on her clothes is a full minute drier.”

  Mohawk gasped. “That vamp drained her in under a minute?”

  Aric nodded. “The bloodlust in his system had advanced, making his appetite more voracious.” He leaned over the brunette’s face. “Did you see her teeth? They’re pushed in. He covered her mouth to keep her from screaming while he finished his first meal.”

  Aric circled the women, frowning. He bent and examined their remains. “The bodies are already in rigor.” His scowl deepened as he inhaled. “The bastard didn’t leave them one ounce of blood.” He reached for the cell phone in his back pocket and made a brief call. “It’s Aric. I’ve got two more in an alley near Northwood Boulevard and McCourry. Tommy’s hurt. I’ll need him transported.”