The Cursed

by Alyssa Day

  He shook his head. “Will blood tell, and if so, which blood?”

  Rio knew a rhetorical question when she heard one. Words alone would never convince him of anything, but she squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. “I know I sound stupid. I know we have no reason to trust each other. But if I really am your sister, then you need to know that I’m going to do everything I can to be on your side.”

  The carriage tilted as it started its descent, and the moment was over, but Rio could tell by the way Chance kept staring at her that she’d given him something to think about.

  A thought crossed her mind, and she grinned. “Now all my girlfriends will want to meet my brother.”

  He laughed, and she could tell that she’d surprised it out of him.

  “Does this mean that I also get to approve or disapprove of your boyfriends?” He leaned forward. “Because I must tell you that I am not a fan of your current choice.”

  She shrugged and tried to ignore the pain that sliced through her at the thought. She also tried to ignore the hot bundle of nerves jumping around in her stomach now that they were about to land. “That depends. Are you my big brother or my little brother?”

  Chance looked down and pretended to brush a speck of dust off of his impeccably clean pants. When he looked up again, his mask of arrogance was back in place.

  “I’m your older brother. My mother died many years before my father disappeared with his Fae . . . mistress.”

  She could tell he’d been about to use a different word—a far more derogatory word—but he’d changed it at the last minute for her sake. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or not. She knew the demons had no love for the Fae, and she had no idea how the royal family or the ruling council were going to feel about meeting a half-Fae, half-demon potential heiress to the thrones of both realms.

  The world tilted sideways and started to go black, and she realized with some surprise that she was on the verge of fainting. None of this could possibly be happening to her. Not to the little unwanted orphan girl who’d been on her own, scrambling to survive, since she was fifteen years old.

  Absolutely not; no way, nohow was this happening to her.

  “We are here,” Chance announced, as the carriage bumped to a gentle landing.

  Holy crap, this is happening to me.

  Someone outside opened the carriage door, and then Chance stepped out and held out a hand to help her down. She almost stumbled and was glad he was there to catch her when she got her first view of Demon Rift.

  It was absolutely spectacular.

  She didn’t know what she’d been expecting, but the reality was nothing like anything that her imagination might have conjured. The city was made of pale blue marble veined with gold, and it was so beautiful it looked like a Renaissance master painter had designed it.

  She must have sighed or gasped or made some kind of sound, because Chance gave her a wry look. “Not the fire-blasted, postapocalyptic landscape you were expecting? You humans have an interesting prejudice against the word demon.”

  Realization at what he’d just said dawned and then struck both of them as funny at the same time.

  “Isn’t the whole reason I’m here because you want to tell me that I’m not human at all?” Rio finally said, wiping her eyes.

  “Damn. I can’t use my best ‘you humans’ lines with you,” he said at the same time.

  So as it turned out, two of the royal heirs to the Demon Rift throne and ruling council were laughing together like fools when the official welcoming procession met them at the gates of the palace. From the wide-eyed stares and frantic whispers that quickly surrounded them, Rio had the feeling that nothing had made Chance laugh so hard or so openly in a very long time.

  A man dressed in a very formal and fancy blue-and-white uniform, carrying a long, slender horn, blew out a note and then held it for so long that Rio started to wonder if he didn’t have actual lungs. Just when she was getting a little worried about his health, he let the note trail away.

  “Welcome to your home, El’andille na Kythelion na Demon Rift,” the herald said in a booming voice, disproving the no-lungs theory. He bowed low to her and then moved aside so a group of elder demons who’d been standing just behind him could approach.

  Rio knew she was probably breaking all kinds of protocol, but in that exact minute, she didn’t care. She spun around to face Chance and tightly grabbed him by both hands.

  “I have a name? I didn’t think to even ask you about that,” she said, laughing and crying all at once. She could taste the salt of her tears as they ran down her face and into her mouth, but she couldn’t help it. She had a name.

  Still holding Chance’s hand, she turned to face the people who claimed to be part of her family.

  Her family.

  “Say it again, please, sir. Tell me my name.”

  The herald blinked and looked to Chance and then back at the others for permission, but when first a few, and then all of them, nodded and some even smiled a little, the demon gave a self-conscious tug to his shirt and stood even straighter.

  “Your name, my lady, is El’andille na Kythelion na Demon Rift, and you are most welcome here.” He bowed again, even more elegantly than before.

  “El’andille,” Rio whispered. “My name is El’andille, and I have a brother.”

  The oldest demon she’d ever seen, whose beard trailed down all the way to his finely worked gold-and-silver belt, cleared his throat and harrumphed a little bit, and then he tilted his head and shot an incredulous look over Rio’s shoulder at Chance, who shrugged.

  “I know,” Chance said. “She has that effect on people.”

  Rio had no idea what they were talking about, but she didn’t waste time worrying about it. She stepped forward, finally releasing Chance’s hand, and then she offered her most formal bow and hoped the demon etiquette book she’d read wasn’t too outdated.

  “Thank you for this welcome. I’d love a tour. I want to see everything.”

  “El’andille na Kythelion na Demon Rift, would you care for refreshments before we begin our tour?” The old man gestured, and the crowd parted to make room for them to enter the palace. “We have a lovely batch of ale just up from the brewery.”

  “I’d love that,” Rio said, thinking privately that she was probably going to be very much in need of a tall glass of ale before too much longer. “And please call me Rio.”

  “Rio, then, for now,” the old demon rumbled. “We have many gifts for you, young one, to welcome you back to your home.”

  Welcome her back? Had she ever been there in the first place? If so, why had she been kicked out? Who’d put her in that orphanage? What were her parents’ names? Rio had so many questions careening around her mind that she was making herself dizzy and not a little nauseated.

  If they wanted her now, why hadn’t they wanted her then?

  “She doesn’t like gifts,” Chance called out. “She already warned me not to give her any.”

  Rio froze, not wanting to cause an international incident by refusing a gift from the person she was starting to be sure was the demon king.

  “Ah, I only meant I didn’t want any gifts from you. Or any money. Definitely no money, or—what did you say? Accounts? Yes, no accounts,” she said, sure she was babbling like an idiot.

  “You already bicker like siblings,” the demon king said, his beard quivering a little.

  She almost thought he was trying not to laugh, but that couldn’t be possible. She’d heard too much about the grand and dour demon king to believe that he could have a sense of humor. Or maybe she was wrong about who he was, but she was too intimidated to ask, just yet.

  “Do demon siblings bicker?” she asked, instead.

  “Just like any other children,” the old man said, nodding sagely. “Bicker, fight, and cut each others’ limbs off in the annual challenge games. We are no different from the humans or the Fae.”

  Rio swallowed and hoped she wasn’t turning pale.
Cut each others’ limbs off. Just like in the convent, really. Food fights, leg amputation; it was all in a day’s fun.

  No difference at all.

  It was probably perfectly safe for Rio to be alone and unprotected in a place where her own brother might have hacked off her arm or leg if she’d grown up here. No worries. No problem.

  Luke was going to kill her. Heck, for that matter, Clarice was going to kill her.

  “I think I’d really love to have that ale now,” she said, flashing her best don’t-chop-my-leg-off smile.

  “Perfect,” the demon who might or might not be the king said, beaming. “And then we will tour the fighting ring.”

  Oh, goody.

  CHAPTER 24

  Luke watched Elisabeth drink every single drop of the elixir before he finally pronounced himself satisfied. He left the little girl happily romping with Kit, who was playing puppy and enjoying belly rubs while she was at it, and gestured to Merelith to follow him out of the child’s silver-and-pink room.

  He advanced on the Fae the minute she closed the door behind her.

  “Rio is your niece? Elisabeth’s cousin? And you didn’t bother to mention any of this? What kind of heartless monster are you?”

  If possible, Merelith’s face turned even paler than it normally was. “You learned the truth?”

  It was the kind of nonanswer that Fae aristocrats normally got away with, and it pissed him off even more.

  “Don’t play with me,” he said savagely. “You’ve been dropping all of those heavy-handed hints, but we hadn’t quite pulled it together, until the heir to the Demon Rift throne dropped by to say hello to his sister.”

  “No!”

  Luke continued, his voice a slashing weapon. “Chance Roberts just stole Rio away from me and flew her in a big-ass chariot over to Demon Rift, but he was kind enough to leave a dozen or so of his war guards to occupy my time.”

  Merelith stumbled back a step. “No! She cannot—they cannot have her. I will not allow it. I owe her mother that much.”

  Luke sneered at her.

  “Save it,” he advised. “I know exactly how deep your family sentiment runs, after seeing what you’ve done to Rio over the past few days. The only reason you want to get your hands on her is that nobody knows what kind of powers she’s going to have. A hybrid of demon royal family and Fae royal family? She could be the most powerful being that any of the three realms have ever seen.”

  “Or the two sides could cancel each other out, and she might have no powers at all,” Merelith snapped, but it was clear that she didn’t believe it.

  “I’m going after her, and when I find her, you’re going to give us both some answers.”

  Luke strode to the center of the damn fleur-de-lis, and then he called to the Shadows.

  “Kit,” he shouted, and Kit came running out of Elisabeth’s room.

  “It will be El’andille’s birthday at midnight tomorrow night, and then we will all have our answers,” Merelith said, her hair floating on the waves of her magic as she grew angrier. “But know this, wizard. Winter’s Edge will not allow Demon Rift to have her. No matter what happens at midnight on her birthday, the unlocked potential she carries is too dangerous for us to allow it to be used against us.”

  Luke snarled and took a step toward her, his hands itching to throttle the arrogance off her face. She pointed one slender finger at him, and he was suddenly enclosed in an impermeable shield that consisted entirely of her magic.

  “Do you think you can threaten me here, in the seat of my power?” Her voice rose in intensity until it thundered at him from all corners of the room. “She will join us, or she will die. If she remains in Demon Rift until the hour of her birth, we will march on the demon realm and declare war. Are you sure you want to get in the middle of that, little wizard?”

  Before he could answer or counter with his own magic, no matter how futile that might be, Merelith twirled one finger in the air and the Shadows came at her call, hovering near him and Kit.

  She laughed at his surprise, and her laughter hurt his ears. Kit, at his side, whined and ducked her head. “Yes, I know a few of your tricks,” Merelith said.

  Elisabeth picked that moment to wander into the room, and her aunt immediately dropped the terrifying glamour and suddenly became nothing more than a concerned aunt. She wrapped her arms around the girl and pulled her close.

  “Good-bye, Mr. Oliver. Good-bye, Kit,” Elisabeth said, waving, and he was forced to smile and wave back, so as not to scare her. “Thank you for my medicine.”

  “Run along to your room, dear, and I will send for some juice,” Merelith said, and Elisabeth waved again and then dutifully left the room.

  As soon as the door had closed behind her, Merelith dropped her pretense.

  “Remember what I have said, Lucian Olivieri. I owe you a debt for what you have done for Elisabeth, and I will endeavor to repay it, but I will not forfeit my claim on my sister Berylan’s lost daughter or her potential powers.”

  With that, she pushed, and the Shadows took Luke and Kit and hurtled them through space. When he stepped out of the vortex at the entrance to Demon Rift, he realized that at least he now had the answer to two questions about Rio’s past. He knew her mother’s name, and he knew Rio’s birth name.

  El’andille. It was lovely, but he liked Rio better. Rio was his. El’andille belonged to the royal intrigue, in all of its deadly, backstabbing, deceitful glory, of two different courts.

  Yes, he definitely liked Rio better.

  He took a deep breath and stared up at the city’s blue marble walls. By now, Rio probably knew her father’s name as well.

  “Hello, guard,” he called out. “My name is Luke Oliver, and this is Kit, and I am here to escort a friend of mine back to Bordertown.”

  A squat, heavy guard trundled out to meet him. “We know who you are, Luke Oliver. Do you begin your campaign for sheriff here?”

  Luke didn’t know whether to smile or blow something up. He’d never been as tired of hearing about anything as he was of hearing about that damn sheriff’s job.

  “I am not running for sheriff,” he said from between his teeth. “I am here for Rio Jones. Or she might have said Rio Green. Or even Rio something else. None of it matters; they’re all names for the same person, and I am here to get her. Right. Now.”

  The demon’s eyebrows beetled together, and he stomped his feet three times in the traditional warning that offense was about to be taken. It was a serious matter, in spite of the comical nature of the gesture. When a demon took offense, somebody was usually lying bloody on the ground soon afterward.

  “I don’t mean to cause insult,” Luke said cautiously.

  He realized it might be a bad idea to cause Rio trouble with her new family on the first day she met them, but his concern for her safety far outweighed his concern for demon family protocol.

  A new guard, who was much bigger than the first one, marched up to them and pounded the butt end of his spear on the ground three times. Again with three times. Luke got the feeling he was soon to be in big trouble here.

  “She does not want to see you,” the newcomer growled. “The princess is occupied, and she ordered us to tell you that she would see you later, and that you are not to enter the palace.”

  Luke didn’t know who looked more surprised; the first demon guard or himself.

  “The princess?” The first guard squeaked a little and stared up at the big guy. “So it’s true then?”

  “Yes. The princess has returned to Demon Rift,” the guard intoned, with a sense of drama that made Luke want to salute him or punch him.

  He was leaning toward punching.

  “I don’t believe you,” Luke challenged the big guy, stepping forward and getting in his face.

  The demon remained calm. “She said you wouldn’t. She said to tell you to watch out for a tree, and that you would understand her meaning, and you would go away.”

  Luke started to tell the two of them
they had no freaking idea what she was talking about, and then a snippet of memory about Rio and movie lines flashed into his mind. It was true, then. She didn’t want to see him. The curse, crouching inside him like a beast waiting for a chance to explode into the world, howled out its fury when a searing wave of pain struck Luke so hard and so fast that it nearly crippled him.

  She didn’t want to see him. Maybe she was even leaving him, forever, now that she had a new family.

  “Believe me now, don’t you?” taunted the demon.

  “Now would be a good time for you to back away from me,” Luke said calmly, his words coated in ice.

  The flames started in his fingertips and then wove their way up his arms, spreading and spreading until blue flame covered his entire body. The guards pulled their weapons, but in their surprise they hadn’t done so quickly enough.

  “I find that I have a need to destroy something, and I’m guessing you would prefer that it not be you,” Luke said. He pointed at the little guardhouse from which the two had come. “Is there anybody left in there?”

  The first demon—the little one—frantically shook his head. “No, it’s only us. You need to leave now.”

  The other demon elbowed the first one, but Luke only vaguely registered it because he was done with them. Instead, he focused the howling pain threatening to crush him into a blast of heat, and he hurled it all at the guardhouse.

  “Ignatio!” He shouted the word of power as he destroyed the building, leaving nothing but a charred piece of ground, and then he turned, slowly and carefully, and walked back into the Shadows.

  It wasn’t until he arrived in the middle of the road in front of his house that he realized that he was alone. Kit had abandoned him, too.

  They’d toured the palace and some of the grounds, and all of it was amazing, but now Rio was tired and starving and very appreciative that they were finally sitting down to eat. She’d filled her plate with so much food that Chance had given her one of his patented sneers, but she didn’t care. She needed fuel.