Broken Curse: A New Adult Urban Fantasy Harem Adventure (The Horned Mage Book 1)

by Liam Lawson

  I didn’t bother hiding my anger as I stalked toward the crowd. One girl behind the two ringleaders held up her phone and momentarily blinded me with a flash as she snapped a picture.

  I bared my teeth. They felt wrong in my mouth. Too large and too sharp. “Get out.”

  Most of the intruders suddenly couldn’t get out of the stairway fast enough, screaming and laughing as they all but tumbled back to the first floor. From the sound of things though they hadn’t actually left the house, and ringleaders one and two were still in the stairway.

  “Damn man,” said ringleader one, the thickset black man. And I say man now because when that I looked more closely at him, it was obvious that he and ringleader two, Mr. Scarecrow, were too old to be teenagers. They had simply looked younger at first glance because of the company they kept.

  “I don’t think you heard me,” I said. “Get out.”

  “Son, don’t be like that,” said Mr. Scarecrow. “It’s a fuckin’ party. I’m Bullet. This is Dicario.”

  I blinked at him. The names sounded familiar but something else had grabbed my attention. “Party?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Our girl Scarlett, she told everyone about it. She’s with us by the way, but we’ll let you fuck her this once since you’re bein’ such a good host.”

  Dicario grinned. “Next time you got to pay for it.”

  I glared at them both. “There is no party. Get the hell out of my house.”

  “Sounds like a party down there,” Bullet said, gesturing back down the stairs.

  Only my anger kept me from cringing at the sounds drifting up to us. “Out.”

  “Shit man, this don’t look like no party I want to be a part of,” Dicario said, scowling and puffing up his chest. “Give us our bitch back and we’ll be off.”

  My eyes narrowed. “Your bitch?”

  He gestured back behind my shoulder at Scarlett. I didn’t look back or take my eyes from him.

  “Yeah, our bitch,” he said. “The one you just nailed to the fucking floor. By the way, you owe us fifty bucks for that pussy.”

  “She stays,” I snarled. “You leave.”

  “All-nighters cost extra,” Bullet said.

  “She is mine. Not yours.”

  Bullet lifted up his shirt to reveal a gun tucked into the waistband over his crotch. One hand reached down to grip it.

  He gave me a laconic grin. “Mr. Colt here says the bitch’s ours.”

  I clenched my fists and magic surged forth in response to my anger, engulfing both of my hands in emerald green flame.

  “Oh shit!” they both swore and jumped back. Dicario tripped and fell backward down the stairs in a tangle of limbs, screaming the whole way down.

  Bullet caught himself before falling but dropped the gun as his hands windmilled about for purchase. The gun hit the floor and went off with a bang, putting a tiny hole in the wall and bouncing down the stairs as well.

  “And I say she’s mine.” I kicked Bullet in the chest and sent him falling after Dicario.

  My ears rang from the gunshot as I stalked down after them. I kicked the gun aside when I stepped near it, knocking the weapon far from either of the intruders’ reach. They were still trying to orient themselves, trying and failing to stagger upright and cradling their injuries. Neither was bleeding so they couldn’t have been in too bad a shape. My hands continued to blaze with the green fire as I approached.

  The teenagers that had invaded my home with them had all suddenly gone very still and the quiet in the house was deafening. In the green light everything looked like a scene out of a horror movie.

  “You’re going to leave now,” I said over their prone forms.

  Nobody moved.

  I don’t know why I started counting, but by the time I reached three almost every one of them was out of the house. Dumb and Dumber were still struggling to their feet but they were looking angry—I could see it in their faces that they were torn between whether or not to try and take me or to run.

  A door somewhere else in the house slammed open and the morons rabbited, maybe afraid I’d summoned reinforcements.

  A second later Soraya ran into the living room and nearly tripped over her own feet as she came to an abrupt halt, eyes fixed on me.

  At the sight of her, my cock leapt to attention. She wasn’t dressed provocatively or anything. She wore the same hoodie and baggie blue jeans as always. But I knew how hot her body was underneath those baggy clothes and my cock apparently understood that.

  My fresh erection made me pause. Since when did I get hard again so soon after coming? I mean, I’m a young guy and I recover fast, but not that fast. For that matter, when did I start conjuring green fire?

  I stared down at my still burning hands as Soraya began to shriek. “Damn it, Caleb, put some clothes on loco white boy!”

  Awareness that I was, in fact, naked, returned with a vengeance. The flames died and I covered my junk with my hands even as Soraya covered her face. Not well I noted, as she was peaking between her fingers.

  “What the hell is going on?” she demanded, deliberately looking away from me. “Why were you on fire and why are you naked?”

  My blue jeans flew down the stairs, hitting me square in the face and tangling on my antlers. I pulled them free, nearly ripping them on one of my prongs, and stepped into them, face burning.

  “Who’s here with you?” Soraya demanded. “You know what, screw that—start with the other questions.”

  “Um, I broke my curse,” I said haltingly. “I think.”

  “You think?” She stormed over and jabbed in the chest with a finger. “You think? Do you have any idea how dangerous that was to do by yourself?”

  “Um, not really? I mean, I kind of figured it was bad when I felt myself about to burn out, but it all sort of worked out.”

  Soraya’s finger hadn’t left my chest and her eyes were affixed to my body rather than meeting my gaze. “You idiot.” Her eyes snapped up to me as she grinned and stepped in closer. “I’m so happy for—”

  She cut off as movement at the top of the stairs caught her eye. “Who was that?”

  I looked up at the top of the stairs but didn’t see anything.

  “Will whoever’s up there quit being a creeper and get out here,” she shouted.

  The anger on her face turned to shock as Scarlett showed herself. At some point she’d managed to pull her pants back up, but her bra was gone and she had to clutch the remnants of her t-shirt closed over her chest so that she wasn’t flashing us. Her shoulders hunched as she made her way down the stairs, not looking at either one of us.

  “Who hurt you?” Soraya demanded, rushing to her stepsister’s side. “Are you alright?”

  Slowly, Scarlett nodded.

  Soraya took a step back, comprehension dawning in her eyes as she looked from me to her stepsister and back. “You with her? You with him? No. Hell no.”

  “Soraya,” I started to say but she cut me off.

  “You both stink of sex!”

  Scarlett cringed and I felt myself flinch back.

  “You with Scarlett,” she said, hurt dripping from every word. “You with…my baby sister.”

  “Stepsister,” Scarlett muttered.

  Soraya spun around and slapped her.

  Scarlett rocked back her eyes wide with shock. She opened her mouth ,but Soraya was in her face.

  “Say something!” she screamed. “You got something to say? Say something—give me an excuse. Any fucking excuse.” She devolved into rapidfire Spanish for a good minute before finally switching back to English. “And give me my damn phone back!”

  Scarlett tentatively reached into her jeans pocket, withdrew a familiar looking phone, and handed it over to Soraya. Her presence at my house suddenly made a lot more sense. She must have stolen Soraya’s phone back at the restaurant, read my text, and thought I was hosting a college party or something. Then she’d gone and told all of her friends.

  Then I’d had crazy magic-
induced sex with her in front of all of them.

  Shit.

  “Come one,” Soraya snapped at Scarlett, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her toward the exit.

  “Soraya,” I said, moving after her.

  She came to a stop and pointed a finger at me, glaring back with tears beading in the corners of her eyes. “Don’t. Don’t you touch me. Don’t you even speak to me.”

  I stood rooted to the spot as my best friend dragged her stepsister from the house and left me utterly and completely alone among the wreckage. I brought a face to my hand and rubbed my eyes through their lids. What the fuck had just happened?

  Chapter Five

  Two days later I was back in Dr. Hardin’s class and hating the world. I’d lost count of the texts and calls I’d made to Soraya. She hadn’t returned a single one of them and after a full day of not hearing back I’d grown so frustrated that I’d accidentally set my bed on fire. So now I smelled like smoke and so did my bedroom and I had no money to buy new blankets because I’d spent it all breaking the damn curse. I’d gone from being all but unable to cast spells to accidentally casting fire magic with a stray thought. Before that would have sounded almost like getting superpowers but living with the reality of it was it was fucking up my life. As evidenced by my current circumstances.

  I still had no freaking idea what had possessed me to have sex with Scarlett like that. It was as if my magic had been awakened and it had an agenda of its own—like my affinities were self-aware or something. Which was stupid and terrifying. Regardless, I definitely had an affinity for fire and, I was willing to go out on a limb, for sex. That was two affinities that I figured every frat boy on campus would kill to have. Not that they were doing me any good.

  My roommates had not been amused to come home and find the downstairs trashed but they’d gotten over it quickly—it wasn’t like they hadn’t done worse in our time living together. A gentle reminder of that and they’d backed the hell off. Or maybe that had something to do with my new teeth. They had grown sharper since the curse broke, almost like fangs. I’d bitten my tongue three times and was still tasting blood. Even more frightening though was how much I enjoyed that taste.

  My mood seemed to be rolling off of me like a miasma because everyone was giving me space in class. Nobody sat near me. Not even Soraya when she finally walked in.

  She walked through the door and I sat up straight in my chair, eyes riveted on her. She had to have seen me—I’m hard to notice what with my big ass antlers—but she never even looked at me. Instead she took a seat on the opposite side of the room just as Professor Hardin and Lilian She walked in. The Professor was in full on lecture mode when he entered and that prevented me from getting up and walking straight over to her desk to confront my maybe-former-best-friend.

  Sure, I had admittedly fucked up, but I hated this. I hated even more that she was totally in the right.

  I was so fixated in my frustration that I almost missed the professor stop his lecture to look at me. I met his eyes and held them. This was something else new that I’d discovered about myself. Whereas before I would have looked away and maybe shrunk down a little in my seat, now I met every look thrown my way until the looker looked away or something came up. Like they were challenging me, and I was incapable of backing down.

  I’d begun to realize that I’d been a bit of a pushover before. Maybe it had to do with my curse. Now that I could actually use my magic, I had a newfound sense of confidence. Or maybe it was the new aggression I’d been feeling roiling beneath my breastbone and simmering beneath my skin. Whatever the cause of the change was, there was no denying that before I’d been willing to roll over much more readily. Now…now I was feeling empowered and it had so much more to do with attitude than with magic.

  Professor Hardin seemed to realize that he was locked in a staring contest with me and he cleared his throat and broke the lock. He was careful about it though. When he looked away, I didn’t get the sense that it was because he couldn’t hold my gaze, but rather that he was dismissing me to focus on something bigger. It made me bare my newly sharpened teeth.

  Lilian had been watching the entire exchange and now she was simply watching me. She was trying, and failing, to school her face into a neutral expression but there was a fascination in her eyes that she couldn’t disguise. Had that been there before or was it still another side effect of my curse breaking? There was no way to tell right now.

  Soraya might know but, again, she wasn’t talking to me.

  I tried my hardest not to brood throughout the entire class like some moody rock star and I think that I mostly succeeded. In part because my mood picked up as the class went on. My wondering about Lilian made me wonder if any of the other girls in class were looking at me different and then it was as if my awareness had peaked out. I caught girls glancing at me when they thought I wasn’t looking and blushing when they realized I’d seen them. It was more than a bit of an ego boost. I had a half decent chance of taking any one of them out for drinks later—if I’d had money to pay for drinks that was. And if there hadn’t already been a girl that I wanted to be with.

  Unfortunately, Soraya steadfastly refused to acknowledge me when Professor Hardin wrapped up his class and she was out the door before he’d even finished speaking. I swore under my breath and put away my notes. I didn’t have a lot of them. That probably wasn’t a good sign.

  Like the last class, Prof. Hardin called me to the front as everyone was filtering out. He waited until he, Lilian, and I were alone in the room before speaking.

  He eyed me up and down. “You broke your curse I see.”

  I grinned. “Yup.”

  “Shame, it really was one of a kind. Elegant in its simplicity really.”

  My grin turned into a scowl.

  “How did you break it?” he asked. “I didn’t realize you were developing advanced thaumaturgical theories of your own.”

  I shrugged and very deliberately looked at him and not Lilian. He didn’t know that she had sent me his formula for the spell that had broken my curse and I wasn’t about to throw her under the bus when she’d gone out of her way to help me. Not that her help had done me a whole heck of a lot of good.

  “Guess I just sort of figured it out, you know?”

  “Figured it out. I see. I look forward to seeing your paper then. I’ll be expecting a lot out of it.”

  I blinked. “My paper?”

  He blinked back. Slowly. “The one I assigned you last class? The one that is due, next class.”

  “Oh,” I said, my stomach falling away. “That paper. Right. Gotcha.”

  “I hope so,” he said. “You’ll be needing excellent grades if you hope to replace your scholarship.”

  “Replace my scholarship?” Why would I have to replace my scholarship?

  “Your scholarship is for individuals who are afflicted by a curse, correct?” he said in his lecturer voice. He already knew the answer to this question and understood that I did not. “You are no longer cursed. Don’t worry, I doubt that they’ll revoke your scholarship in the middle of the semester, but it would surprise me greatly if you qualified for it again come fall.”

  Oh shit, I hadn’t thought of that. But he clearly had. Had that been something he’d intended to pull on me if I had pressed for him to try and break my curse?

  “Yeah, guess so,” I said.

  He patted me on the shoulder and walked past me toward the door. “Shame. I might have gotten you some kind of paid internship. Finding work outside of the university in this town can be a bit tough.”

  That condescending bastard. I bit my tongue to keep from saying something I’d regret later and winced as my teeth reminded me once again that they had become much sharper.

  “You okay?”

  I jerked my head up to find Lilian looking at me with an expression of sympathy.

  “I’m fine,” I said, trying and failing to be nonchalant.

  She offered a sympathetic smile. “He can be
a bit of a douche when he doesn’t get his way.”

  You think? “I might have noticed that.”

  “It’s impressive, what you did.”

  “Huh?”

  “That was a pretty tough curse to break. From what I read Hardin figured you’d just about have to rip yourself apart if you tried casting that spell on your own.”

  I had no idea how to respond to that, so I crossed my arms and settled for irritated. It seemed to be my default since the curse broke. “That might have been nice to know before I went and used it.”

  She had the good grace to blush. “Yeah, sorry about that. I just figured you had the right to, you know, figure out how to handle the curse for yourself. You had deserved options. I didn’t think you’d actually try to break it on your own. Um, that is what happened, isn’t it?”

  I nodded and tried not to think about what had followed the curse’s breaking. “Pretty much.”

  She shook her head. “I figured you’d bring his work to someone who knew what they were doing and get them to help you out. I’m so sorry, that must have been…tough.”

  Tough. That was a word for it. “It wasn’t an afternoon of flower picking.”

  “I wouldn’t think so,” she said. “I’m glad it worked out. I think you have a lot of potential as a mage. Don’t let Hardin get you down.”

  She thought I had a lot of potential? At least there was something about this week that didn’t suck.

  Chapter Six

  The walk back to my house wasn’t a long one but I took the opportunity to do something that I should have done days ago. I called Nicole.

  Nicole is my adopted sister, four years older than me and always willing to give great advice. She was the best part of being adopted by the Marshals. We had a secret, she and I, something we could never tell anyone. At first it had made things awkward as hell between us, but then she’d realized she could trust me not to blab and something opened between us. She started to confide in me and me in her. I’d never get by without her support, especially now that Soraya was AWOL.