Cursed

by Shawntelle Madison

  ###

  After a fifteen minute cab ride, we pulled up to rows of brownstones in Brooklyn. As one of Nick’s good friends, I’d been here numerous times. Only on the outside, though. Nick never let anyone inside.

  Since it was past midnight, the sky was still dark and the only light came from light posts peeking through trees. I dreaded the thought of knocking on his door, but I had no choice.

  “Wait while I go see if he’s home,” I said to the others.

  The sidewalk up to his place was quiet. No teens or neighbors walking around. Nobody bothered me as I opened the door and headed for Nick’s apartment on the first floor. Before I touched the knocker, I hesitated. Random thoughts of what I’d say went through my head:“Hey, Nick. Gawd, I fucked up and need help!”

  “You got a great body. Want to see my body…I have in the car?”

  “Yo, Nick! We were out partying and we’re getting some coffee. Wanna join us?”

  I settled for the last response—it had sanity written all over it.

  It took a little while for someone to answer the door after I knocked on it, but eventually it creaked open. A slice of light stabbed the darkened hallway and I looked up to see a pale man dressed in black. Even this late at night, Nick had on what he always wore to group therapy: a black trench coat and shiny black shoes. With black hair and dark eyes, he projected a goth-vibe, but when he spoke a quiet serenity flowed through his voice.

  “Heidi?” His smile showed his skepticism was front and center. “What are you doing here?”

  My mouth dropped open and whatever I’d planned to tell him got sucked away like Michael’s essence down Lilith’s throat. My gaze darted into his home and he angled himself to block my view. One peek and I knew why he didn’t let anyone inside. Beyond the doorway, all I could see was junk. I’d be the first to admit I wasn’t the cleanest roommate. I dropped shit and left it where it fell most of the time. But there was so much my brain couldn’t wrap around how someone could live like that. My single glimpse had seared the room into my mind: wands, teapots, a desk covered in papers, an overflowing coat rack. Hardly any place to stand. During therapy, Nick had admitted he had trouble throwing things away, but he’d never said he literally didn’t toss stuff. That he was a hoarder. I shrugged. We all had things we dealt with.

  “Umm, we’re having a girls night out and w-we wanted to know if you wanted to come hang out?” Wasn’t there something else I was supposed to say? Something about coffee?

  Nick slipped out into the hallway and shut the door behind him. “What’s this really about? One, you rarely stutter. Two, guys like me don’t do ladies night out.”

  I sighed and gestured for him to follow me. We made our way back to the cab waiting outside. Abby propped up Michael. The muse acted as a barrier between the forlorn succubus and her unconscious date.

  Each step I took toward the cab was painful. Especially with the rainbow of emotions that crossed Nick’s face: curiosity, surprise, anger, and then disappointment. He reached into the cab, touched Michael’s forehead, and then turned to me. “What’s going on here?”

  Abby and I looked at Lilith.

  “I’m sorry!” she squeaked. “Can you just get in the cab or what?”

  Nick shook his head while he got into the backseat next to Michael. The poor man’s head flopped forward. Before his upper body followed, Nick used his arm to push him back. The white wizard flashed me a look: Damn it, Heidi.

  I slid into the front seat, telling the driver to head to the nearest late-night diner, a place off Nassau Avenue where we could figure things out.

  Fifteen minutes later, we all sat in an over-sized booth. Michael, with a blank expression on his face, mouth open wide, was leaning on Nick, while the rest of us picked at our food. The temptation to toss one of my tiny square-shaped hash browns into his mouth was strong.

  I wasn’t surprised Nick didn’t want to eat. He was too busy healing Michael. Based on the stupor the human was in, it could be a while.

  “How about you three tell me what’s going on,” Nick said.

  Abby told him about the bet. I talked about the club, and finally, Lilith admitted she fucked up and hurt Michael.

  “He even said he’d keep my phone number, too,” Lilith added sadly.

  “Thank goodness you two checked on her. If you hadn’t, he’d be dead right now,” Nick said firmly. “You need to control yourself, Lilith. No matter where you are.” Nick was often one of the therapy group members she tried to cop a feel on.

  We finished our meals and made a bit of small talk. Rather hard with the situation at hand.

  “This is going to take a while. You ladies head on home.” Nick eyed Lilith. “Straight home.”

  We all nodded. We’d gotten into enough trouble for the evening.

  “You two go ahead. I’ll pay for the bill,” I said to them.

  Abby and Lilith headed out while I fished some bills out of my pocket. I stole a glance at Michael and noticed his face was less pale. A good sign.

  “Heidi?” Nick asked.

  I glanced up. “Hmmm?”

  Nick was quiet for a bit. Almost lost in his own thoughts.

  “You didn’t see anything, did you?” he asked with a twinkle in his eyes. “Back at my place?”

  I grinned. He was my friend and I owed him one. “Nope.” I took a final swig of water and left. With the bill paid and Nick minding Michael, I joined the others on the street corner.

  “That was quite a night,” I mumbled.

  “Not the kind I wanted,” Lilith said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “At least you got a date out of it,” I said.

  “That wasn’t date!” Abby said with a snort. “I’m headed home now before you get the idea in your head that you won. C’mon, Lilith.”

  “Yes, it was,” I called to her as they retreated. “It had a kiss and a dance. I even saw her feel on his butt.”

  “Was that before or after she nibbled on him?”

  “Oh, those are the smaller details. Don’t think about those.”

  “You lost, Heidi,” she yelled.

  I grumbled a curse.

  “See you on the beach tomorrow morning,” she called from down the street.

  The End

  Chapter 1

  Reader’s Note: This story takes place after Compelled (Coveted #3).

  Sexy lady tip number one: Once an hour dab a hint of lipstick on your upper lip to make yourself feel like a billion bucks. I puckered my lips and smiled at the mirror. Whoops, I got some lipstick on my teeth.

  “Looking foxy, Miss Lilith,” I said after I wiped off the excess lipstick. “Sexy succubus alert.”

  I love the color red. Red represents sex. Passion. According to the department store sales lady at Passazh, the hip shopping mall in downtown St. Petersburg, girls in their twenties wore this fire engine red color all the time. I made a clawing motion in the air. Rawr! A fireman would have to put out this fire.

  A brief painful tug in my lower abdomen made me grimace.

  Almost forgot I was knocked up. I guess a fireman had already slid down my pole. I giggled and rubbed my extended belly. Just a few more weeks to go until Yuri’s pretty little succubus made her grand appearance.

  My hot pink dress Yuri had bought for me sat on our double bed a few feet from our tiny bathroom. We didn’t have much in this two-bedroom apartment, but we had love in abundance. A warm feeling coursed over me as I gazed at an ultrasound photo from a month ago. We didn’t have long to wait to meet our baby girl.

  As I put on my dress, or should I say I wiggled into it with a bunch of grunting, my excitement grew. After much poking and prodding, I managed to manipulate—I mean convince—Yuri we needed a baby shower. According to my mother-in-law, having a celebration before the baby’s arrival is considered bad luck. I was an American though and I wanted the experience.

  “You need help, sladkiyaja?” Yuri yelled out from the living room. He called me honey in Russian whenever he t
hought I needed help. How sweet.

  “I got it,” I sing-songed with my arms in the air and my dress covering my face. I’d unzipped the damn dress, but the end of the zipper had still gotten caught on my bra. I yanked hard.

  Rip!

  Well, sex-on-a-stick. I had a hole in the front now, and the zipper in the back was broken too. Nothing I couldn’t fix with some safety pins and zebra print duct tape. The last dress got some snazzy stripes that way. A bunch of humans had stared at me, but they were probably jealous of my keen fashion sense. A hater is gonna hate. I snagged the duct tape and got to work.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to help you?” Yuri called again. “We need to get to the hall before your family gets there.”

  Ugh, my damn demonic family. Any fun I’d found in taping the back of my dress shut faded at the thought of seeing them. When Yuri’s mother had suggested planning everything for me, I got so excited. I mean, who the hell wanted a bunch of attractive incubi and succubi coming to your party and taking all your attention away?

  Not that I couldn’t hold my own.

  I admired my handiwork and slipped on some pearl earrings. Yuri entered the bedroom, and my frown faded away. When he saw me, his eyes brightened.

  “What’s my printsessa doing?” His round form shuffled across the room.

  “Getting all dolled up for my prince.” I’d spent the past hour applying my makeup. Now I had to do the final touches. Like cramming my sausage-like feet into my boots.

  Yuri kneeled in front of me and helped me get them on. I’m so lucky to have found him. I rubbed the shiny spot on his balding head. He had four brown hairs that stubbornly pointed right, but to me he was perfect. My werewolf fiancé had come into my life at a time when I was so lonely. Far too lonely for my kind.

  A single phone call from Russia changed my life. During that first international collect call, I had no idea I was talking to the man who’d love me forever. Fifteen hundred dollars in phone bills later, I took a flight to Russia and haven’t been back to NYC since. Why go back when I had a good thing here?

  “Are you hungry?” he asked with a warm smile.

  “I ate last week.” It was really two months ago, but technically he didn’t need to know that.

  My need to drain people of their lifeforce through sex wasn’t a subject we often discussed. From the very beginning, Yuri knew my dark nature. He let the matter go—just like he gave into most of my demands: that he have a job, take better care of himself, and stand up like a man. Sitting at home and calling his grandmother back in America for cash wasn’t going to help us save up for an apartment of our own. Right now we lived with Yuri’s mother Inna.

  He kissed the top of my hand. “I do all this traveling with the band so you can eat, but you don’t come with me anymore.” He touched my belly and the baby shifted. She knew her papa already.

  I’ve almost killed before—just one guy by accident who was so drunk I had to pay someone to check him for alcohol poisoning. In order to feed I traveled with Yuri’s folk music band. Keyword did. My belly looked like Yuri’s now so I didn’t feel like watching my man knock out unsuspecting dudes so his fiancée could slurp their souls away.

  I sighed. Had turning into a mother softened me up?

  I hope not. A hot tamale like me still had siren written all over her.

  Twenty minutes later, we got to the hall. The place my mother-in-law had picked in south St. Petersburg was fabulous. Russia had such a classic architectural style I loved compared to New York.

  Some walls in the small room had water damage spots here and there, but the wallpaper was a lovely yellow brocade. My adopted werewolf family had placed bright pink streamers on the walls and the five tables in the center of the room had lavender-colored lily centerpieces. As expected our family had beaten us here and nearly everyone beamed to see I’d arrived.

  Except for three people who continued to sit at a table in the back. One man, dressed in a freshly pressed Armani suit, and two women in designer dresses glanced my way with indifference. My heart dropped.

  There went admiring the room.

  I told Yuri not to invite anyone from my family, but he’d gone over my head—like any good husband—and he’d unknowingly had invited three powerful sex demons to my baby shower.

  Chapter 2

  Before I found Yuri I’d lived an anxious and lonely life in New York City. From one day to another I worked a high-paying job most folks wished they had, and yet, no one wanted me.

  Three of the reasons I couldn’t find prey in NYC stood before me. After I’d said hello to everyone, Inna had taken my hand and dragged me over there to greet them. Apparently, I had to be nice to the ones who’d left expensive gifts on the table near the far wall.

  In broken English she hissed, “I shook big box and it sound expensive.”

  If I hadn’t approached my family, I might’ve made it through this afternoon without worrying about them. Before my brother spoke, I stood there for a bit.

  “Looks like you got in the family way, little sister,” Nathaniel said first. “You’re a rare one, just like mother.” No hellos. As the eldest child of quintuplets, by eight minutes, Nate was considered the golden child among us. He was intelligent, witty, and able to charm the skirt off any woman, but he was also an asshole with no filter.

  I will admit though that what he said is true. Nine out of ten succubi don’t reproduce. We used the semen of men we drained to impregnate female humans. (Quite gross I know…) Like our mother, I had been born with a human’s womb.

  I placed an outstretched hand on my stomach as if the baby might hear her asshole uncle. “You’re damn right I’m in the family way. My man did it.”

  My peroxide blonde little sister, who was born three minutes after me, guffawed. I hadn’t seen Cristina in so long. She filled her blue Alexander McQueen dress in all the right places. Her light hazel eyes blinked at me with deceptive innocence and her rouged lips slipped into a confident grin. “You call that meal a man?”

  She continued. “I hope you don’t think we’re here to celebrate...” Cristina slid her sharp words deeper into me. “Isabeau and I didn’t want to come until Nathaniel mentioned how well we’d eat in Russia.”

  My older sister Isabeau looked me up and down. She was a doppelgänger of our dark-haired mother. At least the spitting image of Mother before she’d been forced into hiding after seducing a witch’s philandering husband. “If you can find food to eat looking like that, this place must be a buffet,” she said.

  “Or a land full of blind people,” Cristina added.

  “Looking like what?” My fists clenched and my side began to ache. Walking away seemed wise, but I’d done that too many times before. “I’ve hunted and they can all see me thank you very much.” I waved to them. “Now that I’ve said hello, asshole number one, as well as mean bitch one and two can skedaddle on down the street.”

  Without an afterthought, I left them behind.

  Just like I did when I left America.

  Chapter 3

  The chocolate cake, which had no decoration other than a layer of frosting, was brick-hard, and the dark-purple punch had a weird smell with hints of black licorice. But, other than that, the party was going well.

  I ignored my family, by the way.

  Smiling was easy for me now that Yuri took over things. When my fork didn’t go through my serving of cake, Yuri hacked off a bite-size piece. Underneath all that fat, my man is all-muscle.

  When I kept sipping the punch, but not really drinking the ghastly stuff, Yuri fetched me a drink of water.

  After we enjoyed the food, Inna walked up to me. “Time is up and everyone happy. Why don’t we take gifts home and open there?”

  I nodded, but my first thought had been about the baby showers I’d attended in the US. I’d only been to a few for my human co-workers, but in NYC they’d been lavish affairs in Manhattan. Didn’t anyone want to wrap my stomach with toilet paper to guess the number of strip
s, or watch me make obnoxious cooing noises while I admired my baby’s clothes?

  Inna offered me a brief hug. “I make Yuri put gifts in car. You sit and wait.”

  I hid my disappointment. A crowd didn’t matter. I had Yuri and that was all that mattered. From the corner of my eye, I saw the gift table. What would it hurt if I accidentally ripped the wrap off one of them?

  While Inna chatted with Yuri, I hurried over to the table, covert style. Not that I could hide with my waddle, but no one said anything to me as I walked up to the table and poked the largest gift. After one look I had an idea as to who’d brought the silver brocade-covered present: one of my siblings. Cristina drained the lifeforce out of enough sugar daddies to finance fifty baby showers.

  The present’s folded edges were easy to find so I hurriedly peeled back a portion to reveal a box top. Once I got the top off, I had to bite back the lump in the middle of my throat. The box was filled with precious hand-made baby clothes from an exclusive boutique in East Village. The delicate lace and smooth cotton screamed hand-stitched work. Had Cristina or Isabeau personally picked these out?

  At the bottom of the box, I found a note: custom baby clothes picked by sales rep Mindy at Helena’s Boutique.

  I sighed.

  Shouldn’t I have known better? We are sex demons…

  On to the next present. This one was heavy. Inna was coming my way. I had to move faster. I heaved the present up so I could search for a spot to unwrap the gift, but a strange tug in my belly made me pause. A tug and the gush of my water breaking.

  ###

  My poor Yuri flipped out the moment he saw the blackish fluid on the floor. That little demonic detail wasn’t in What to Expect When You’re Expecting.

  The werewolves swarmed me.

  “Now?” Inna asked. Maybe she wasn’t sure what to say in English.

  I’m sure you guessed my American family hadn’t moved an inch.