Cursed

by Shawntelle Madison

  My adopted family forced me to take a seat and hovered over me. One of Inna’s in-laws looked me over and nodded with a knowing expression. “The baby has to come out now. No doubt about that.”

  Well, duh.

  A bunch of questions in Russian flew at me, but they spoke too fast for me to catch anything. I was perfectly fine actually, until a stabbing pain forced me to bend over. Yuri took my hand and kissed it over and over again. The gesture was sweet, but futile. Without a demon doula to feed off my pain, this birth would be hell. Pun not intended.

  I’d made arrangements for the best demon doula in London. She was scheduled to arrive two weeks from now.

  “I go get doctor,” Inna said firmly.

  I gave Yuri the don’t-you-dare-unless-you-want-to-die look. Werewolf physicians were glorified veterinarians. My baby was half-werewolf, but I for damn sure wasn’t spitting out pups here.

  One of the hall staff members ushered us to a private room and I sat down on a sofa. As I lay down, Inna pleaded for us to go to the private doctor most of the werewolves used, but I declined.

  What mattered most was my Yuri was with me. Right now I was crushing his hand, but he grimaced and endured it for me. Another wave of pain faulted across my stomach and I was forced to curl up.

  “I’m right here, printsessa,” Yuri said between clenched teeth.

  I was ready to turn his hand into broken bits when a warm palm touched my back and the pain eased a bit. Who was touching me? They smelled sweet. It was one of my sisters.

  “Isabeau...” I whispered. “What are you—”

  “Just hush.”

  “What about the others? Won’t they mock you for doing this?”

  “It doesn’t matter.” She drew in a deep breath. “Nate and I came to an understanding. While I came in here, he took Cristina out for a meal.”

  “Why did he do that?” More pain forced me to pause.

  “She wouldn’t understand why we’re doing this. She’s still young.”

  She’s younger than me by five minutes… How the hell does that make a difference?

  We were quiet for a while. Yuri had left my side to get me a drink. I finally broke the silence. “What epiphany did you have?”

  She bit her lip as if her moment of clarity had been hard to find. “I’ve seen you at your worst, Lilith. Look at you. Your dress is hideous and taped shut. Your shoes are two sizes too big. And your hair! I don’t know whether you woke up like that or if you styled it that way on purpose. You are so sickeningly confident, and every time we look at you we’re ashamed you’re a demon like us.”

  Wow. “Well, fuck, Isa, don’t hold back how you really feel.”

  “I’m not done yet.” She turned to look at Yuri as he hurried back into the room, his arms overflowing with towels. “With all your imperfections, you have more light and love in your life than any of us will ever have. Our beauty is an illusion, but what you have with Yuri is real.”

  I tried not to cry right then and there, but it didn’t stop the tears that flowed. Having all my siblings here would’ve painted the perfect picture, but having one was enough.

  Over the next three hours, my older sister held my hand and comforted me until the baby arrived. The crowd of Lasovskaya werewolves waiting outside the room tried to hurry in the moment my baby gave her first cry. I couldn’t see much with the werewolf ladies crowding me and trying to clean me up. The whole process hadn’t been so bad. I couldn’t wait to do it again. In a hospital though.

  “How is she?” I kept asking.

  One lady looked to another.

  Isabeau had let go of my head and she slumped to the side. Her vibrant black hair had a streak of gray. She still smiled in the baby’s direction.

  I wasn’t smiling though.

  “Somebody needs to freakin’ answer me,” I snapped. “I don’t give a damn if you’re werewolves or goblins. I’m about to go fifth level demonic here.”

  My mother-in-law hurriedly placed the baby in a blanket and handed her to Yuri. He drew his nose along his daughter’s precious forehead, then stopped as if caught off guard. He still walked to me with a grin.

  “Give me Aleksandra.” I held out my arms, ready to see my little lady. Yuri gently placed her into my arms. And, oh, all the pain had been worth it! She was so light. Far lighter than what she’d felt like in my stomach. Her smell was perfect, too. Aleksandra hadn’t been washed properly, but her scent promised sunshine and happy makeup sessions in the future. I’d be putting all the pink clothes I’d bought to good use.

  Yuri motioned for me to look her over.

  “Won’t she get cold?” I asked.

  “No, werewolves stay warm.” He wasn’t looking me in the eye.

  I carefully unswaddled my baby. Her arms seemed so fragile. Her skin was pink. So perfect. And her legs...

  I stopped cold when I looked between my baby’s legs.

  His legs.

  Isabeau peered at him. “I thought you were having a girl.”

  “I did, too,” I mumbled. Every ultrasound, okay the two I had at the human hospital to make sure I wasn’t carrying multiples showed me a hamburger (girl parts) and not peas and a carrot (boy parts). My baby didn’t even have a baby carrot. His manly bits were micro. Not the best way for an incubus to start out, but like me, he’d be perfect in his own way.

  “Aleksandra…Aleksandr is beautiful,” I said with certainty. “More than that. He’s gorgeous.”

  Isabeau nodded. “If he’s as confident as his mother, he’ll make a great incubus and werewolf.”

  I kissed my little prince’s forehead, certain that I’d never make my child feel inadequate. Aleksandr had been conceived with love and he would be loved forever more.

  I’d deal with all the pink clothes I had another day.

  The End

  Chapter 1

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

  “Okay, either someone brought a sack lunch straight from hell or our janitor necromancer has a dead minion who followed him to work,” I snapped.

  I scanned the expansive flea market, moving from one face in the crowd to the next. Not a single one of my four co-workers said a word. Just another early morning at The Bend of the River Flea Market, also known as The Bends to the locals in South Toms River, New Jersey. The human shoppers browsing our wares didn’t know about the supernatural world or the mystical objects that were sold on these shelves.

  “It doesn’t smell that bad, Natalya,” a blonde next to me said.

  I threw Erica Holden a raised eyebrow. As a werewolf like me, her nose worked just as well as mine did. Maybe the cloud of designer perfume around her kept the funk at bay, but I could damn well smell it. And it stank to high heaven.

  Saturday mornings never fared well for me. At eight-thirty A.M., we had a sizable crowd hungry to rifle through the latest shipments to The Bends. My boss Bill should’ve been here complaining about the stench and ordering us to handle it. Naturally, the goblin was nowhere to be seen.

  Looks like I got to have all the fun. As usual.

  Since I couldn’t trust the cleanliness habits of my fellow employees, I followed the one thing I could: my nose, which led me through a set of wooden doors into the business office.

  If I found one of the janitor’s zombie minions shuffling around the desks, he wasn’t going to get an invite to the company picnic this year.

  The back office was empty. No Bill either.

  Maybe my boss was hiding somewhere. Didn’t matter, I was on the hunt. Everything in the office was as I’d left it after the workday ended yesterday. The stack of invoices was in a perfect pile, the chairs arranged perfectly behind the desks. Even the merchandise we needed to prep for sale stood at attention.

  Except for the old beige steamer trunk on the floor.

  Other than the foul stench emanating from it, the faded trunk was a thing of beauty with polished brass hinges and intricate clamps. The edges were sligh
tly marred from where perhaps a dockworker from the past had knocked it about. Under the fog of death, the saltiness of the sea still lingered.

  I circled the luggage, noticing strange carvings along the back. They were so tiny the human eye would’ve assumed they were scratches and nicks. Nothing else seemed amiss.

  Until that sucker shifted to the right. I peered over the side to look at the front again. Something poked out. A large finger, with a sharp talon and black and blue spots mottling the skin, tore a fist-sized hole through the leather near the seam. A four-fingered hand emerged.

  What in the hell?

  The necrotic fingers flexed along the edge, perhaps attempting to create a bigger hole. My nose twitched from the horrific scent. I hadn’t smelled anything that bad since my aunt Vera tossed out six-month-old cabbage that somehow hid in the back of her basement refrigerator.

  I took a step back.

  Another set of fingers crept through the gap the first hand had formed. Now I had two escapees. The first hand snaked out of the hole, revealing a long gray arm, the skin flaky and scaly. Together, they reached about until one of the hands found the lock along the front.

  Then the trunk shook with a hard thump.

  A third hand came out to join the first two. Were they attached to one body, or did I have multiple foes to face?

  Hell to the no.

  With a gentle push—this stuff wasn’t mine—I tipped over the trunk onto its side.

  “Get back in there!” I grunted.

  Another thump from inside the trunk knocked me on my ass. The concrete floor in this room wasn’t forgiving.

  The trunk jerked to the left on the floor. I plucked the fire extinguisher off the far wall, ready to kick some ass.

  Now, to be honest, this wasn’t the first magical mishap to go down at The Bends. Most problems though came from backfiring fairy wands to jock-itch-inducing jewelry.

  Cruise trunks containing monsters trying to break out was madness at a whole new level. Poised over the gray arm, ready to knock that puppy back in, I bent back to do the yo-heave-ho when the customer service bell rang.

  Under most circumstances—pretty much all of them—I scrambled like a werewolf caught butt-naked in human-form at dawn.

  Today, I had no choice but to ignore it. Damn it all to hell, I wasn’t the only warm-body working here.

  Mid-swing that annoying shrill filled the air again.

  Anxiety shot up my spine and smacked the back of my head.

  Ignore it, Nat.

  I hit the arm hard with the fire extinguisher, and the luggage jumped. The second hand swung at me, hard and fast, but I dodged with a jump to the right. My shift to the right pushed me toward the third hand, which slammed me against the wall. Office supplies on shelving rained down on me. More work for me to do, huh?

  A growl formed in my chest. The wolf within urged me into a full-out fight. No more obsessive-compulsive tendencies for the day. No more high heels. To hell with my clean blouse and pencil skirt. I advanced on the trunk, grabbing the fire extinguisher on the way.

  The shrill ring of the buzzer entered my haze.

  Don’t answer it. Time to get medieval on the monster in the box.

  Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

  I stormed out of the back office, fire extinguisher in hand, ready to knock out whoever thought it was fun idea to do an Irish Line Dance on the button, only to find a group of gaping nuns and a wide-eyed Erica.

  “Oh, Jesus,” I whispered. I hid what I held behind my back.

  “Indeed, Miss Stravinsky,” one sister, the shortest, chirped.

  Erica plastered her charm on high with her debutante grin. “The Sisters of Divine Grace wanted the antique cross that came in two weeks ago.”

  Ugh. If there was a hell for goblins, Bill had a first-class ticket. That antique cross was actually a broken T-shaped torture device from the Spanish Inquisition. “And?” I managed. The need to be polite was pivotal here. If you crossed the “SDG,” as they were known in South Toms River, their gang-like mentality would mean ruin and dirty looks during the Christmas season.

  “We’d like the cross loaded into our truck please,” the woman said, her smile crisp and unwelcoming.

  “Of course—” A loud crash from the back office made everyone look with concern behind me, but I didn’t miss a beat. “—we’ll have a staff member load it up for you once we process payment.”

  The sound of glass breaking forced my jaw shut so tight the back of my teeth sang. “Will that be cash, check, or charge?”

  “Is there a problem?” one of the nuns asked. Fear blossomed in the sweat of the tallest one who peered at me with suspicion.

  One of the clerks, a fire witch who was checking out customers at the registers, gave me the look. The should-I-stop-what-I’m-doing-and-make-a run-for-it look? I wouldn’t be hearing a Braveheart rallying cry from her anytime soon.

  “I need to see about a trunk,” I said as I backed away. “Ms. Holden will assist you with payment while I make sure our staff prepares your cross. It will be a lovely addition to Sunday Mass, I’m sure.”

  The moment the sisters turned around, I hightailed it to the back office. What was left of it.

  One desk was toppled to its side, the supplies on top scattered across the floor. The new panes of glass we planned to use to replace a broken display case window had been shattered to glittery bits. And finally the coup de grâce, that stinky escapee had smashed the box of week-old donuts Bill had left out for his employees. The painfully dry strawberry jelly donuts had bled their gooey centers all over the place like fallen victims.

  There was no trunk, but a disgusting trail of grayish goo went from the center of the room to the busted-out double dock doors.

  Cinnamon, the telltale sign of spellcaster magic, briefly passed through my nostrils as I got closer to where the trunk had sat. Fear pulsed through me. Something magical had left this place.

  From behind me, the doors to the main floor opened.

  “So Nat—” Erica stopped cold. “What happened here?”

  I pointed toward what was left of the dock doors. “I think our merchandise just made a run for it.”

  Chapter 2

  After five hundred dollars’ worth of haunted merchandise slithered away, the morning didn’t go as well.

  “We need to close the store and go after it,” I said.

  “We should wait for Bill,” Erica said firmly. All the while, the expression on her face was stern, but her blue-green-eyed gaze was planted to the ground. I snuck a quick glance at her. She was perfect in so many ways. Compared to my dark brown hair, her blonde curls shined like she was in a shampoo commercial with flawless lighting. Even with a back straightened in frustration and her head turned away from mine, she was still painfully pretty. After nearly six months, I had to remind myself we fought on a starry New Year’s Eve night for the ranking of alpha female and I was the one who had won. I was the one who’d snatched her dreams away. All her aspirations for an arranged marriage with the love of my life, Thorn Grantham, came to an end when I won the right to lead the pack.

  The topic of he-who-shall-not-be-named, never came up during her training as assistant manager, nor as we worked day-to-day together. It was simple in my opinion: Erica loved power and that power came with the position of alpha female. If she truly loved him, nothing I would’ve done that night would’ve come between them. As a werewolf who barely scratched her back the right way, I made a horrible alpha female and my leadership skills were quite lacking.

  Which made moments like this one a bit awkward.

  “We can’t let whatever escaped the trunk to roam the countryside.” I took a step toward her. “If that thing is recorded on someone’s phone or the public catches wind of it, we’re gonna have a lot more than Bill rubbing our fur the wrong way. When magical problems arise in New York City, the magical community sends warlocks to take out the trash.” I drove my point home. “Would you like to know what warlocks do to people like u
s? Would you like to know how they use us for their dark magic?”

  Erica stiffened. Her mouth briefly opened, but she sealed her lips just as quickly.

  “Would you like a bunch of spellcasters sniffing our butts?” I asked again.

  Erica didn’t dare look me in the face, but her crossed arms and stiff upper lip told me she didn’t want to be involved in matters involving the magical world.

  “Unlike you,” she bit out, “I’m not equipped to handle this. I’m not a werewolf spellcaster.”

  So there it was.

  Werewolves didn’t do magic. According to the Code, or the rules governing werewolf behavior, we didn’t dally in magic like witches, warlocks, and wizards. There was a reason for this though, and I had disobeyed such rules to save my mate’s life.

  “You must think I’m tossing around magic like it’s nobody’s business.” I held in a laugh. “It doesn’t work like that, sweetheart. Spellcasting requires a currency I’m not willing to pay.” Nor would I ever pay it if I wanted to stay with my husband. “So you and I are going outside and somehow, someway, we’re dragging that thing back in here and putting a for sale sign on it.”

  Her jaw twitched. “Fine.”

  She went to the overturned desk. I almost groaned when she reached inside the drawer for her purse. What good would that do? Then I smiled. Erica plucked a .45 from her expensive beige handbag and placed the gun into an ankle holster on her leg.

  So the woman who brought expensive sushi for her lunches was packing heat? How plucky of her. And daring as well. The Code of conduct for werewolves also forbade us from using guns.

  She saw my confused expression and blurted, “I have a Prada handbag. You can never be too careful in a neighborhood like this one.”

  I snorted. “Yeah, we’re overrun with tourists with fanny packs and old ladies with antique fetishes. The danger is crazy real.”

  Except with that thing out there, it actually was.

  Instead of closing the store, I put the college student in charge and not the chain-smoking fire witch who set the counter on fire a few months ago.