by Bree Moore
Serpent Cursed
Lost Souls Series Book 2
Bree Moore
Serpent Cursed by Bree Moore
Published by Innate Ink Publishing
www.AuthorBreeMoore.com
© 2020 Bree Moore
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact:
[email protected]
Cover by GermanCreative on Fiverr.
Editing by Melissa Meibos at www.thenovelthing.com.
Ebook ISBN: 978-0-9600087-6-6
Paperback ISBN: 978-0-96000087-7-3
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Chapter One
Becca
Becca stepped over a pile of charred rubble. Her weight shifted forward and the solid-looking board beneath her front foot crumbled at one end. Becca flailed, then righted herself. Good thing she hadn’t dropped her phone. The screen pulsed with a green radar screen, where splotches of various colors blipped with each rotation of the radial arm. Becca shifted her backpack to a more balanced position on her back and moved forward again. She frowned and rubbed the quartz stone embedded in the back of her phone case. The image on the screen cleared, bringing a concentrated splotch of green light into view. If she oriented herself southeast a few degrees…
“Oh!” Becca jumped and nearly dropped the device again as she ran straight into a broad, shirtless chest. Her heart fluttered, and she looked up into a soulful pair of brown eyes framed with long, dark hair.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you,” Quinn said, his wings flaring out and shaking until his ebony feathers shimmered in the orange light of the street lamp down the block. It reminded Becca of some birds she’d seen on nature videos, showing off for their would-be mates, and that made her blush even further. Thank goodness it was dark out.
“You snuck up on me in the dark at the possibly haunted site of your burned-down childhood home. What do you think?” She bit her lip to hide the smile creeping onto her face, then glanced back at the screen of her phone. She pointed to the blob indicated behind them. “Something happened there. Or something is buried there. It’s large enough I’m inclined to think that it’s the remnant energy pulse of a spell casting, or…”
Quinn’s breath caught. He reached beneath her hand and pulled the phone toward his face for a better look. “Or the Song.”
“Right. The Song. According to city records, no one else ever owned this property. The fire happened a few years after you left. Could have been squatters. A rogue coven or maybe an unlicensed magic user.” She tapped the screen a few times, then clicked into the backlog of the system and fiddled with the numbers.
“Is there any way to fine-tune it and discover the signature?” Quinn’s intense gaze landed on Becca and she had to swallow several times before answering.
“I-I don’t have the equipment for that.”
“Damnit.” Quinn ran his fingers through his hair, grabbing a fistful and pulling as he looked at the overcast night sky. “Just another dead end.” He shook his head and froze, then slowly moved his head back and forth. He took a few steps across the rubble toward the place where Becca’s device had shown the strong signature. He bent down and moved a few scraps of wood out of the way to pick up an object that gleamed in the moonlight.
“What’d you find?” Becca turned off her phone and stepped closer to him, peering around his arm to look at the object he turned over between his fingers. The metal disc, larger than a fifty-cent piece, had an image of a circle with a ‘V’ inside it engraved on its surface.
“That’s neat,” she said, trying to infuse her voice with enthusiasm.
“I’ve seen it before. The symbol.” He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed a hand against his temple. “I wish I could remember where.”
“What is it? A logo or something?” Becca threaded her arm through the crook of his elbow. She shivered. It was chillier than she expected it to be.
“I have a feeling it has to do with why my parents vanished.”
“Tell me again what you remember about them.” Becca prompted. “Maybe it will jog a memory.”
Quinn sighed and dropped his hand from his hair. He tugged her over to a pile of rocks in the shadows, hidden from anyone who might pass on the street. It was 2:00 a.m. in a quiet neighborhood, but discretion was always a good idea when aiding and abetting an illegal paranormal being.
“I was ten when our parents left on a trip,” he said. “They left us with a cousin. They would be back in a week, they said. I was to behave, to look after Harper, and they emphasized that we shouldn’t shift into our bird forms. Our ‘cousin’ was a witch-friend of my parents. She was all right, showed us some conjurings. You know, little things to amuse children. The day after my parents were supposed to come home, she scried for them. I watched from the doorway of the room. It was late at night. She couldn’t find them. I watched her panic and realized that my parents might be dead.”
Becca held her breath. She’d heard the story before, but she couldn’t imagine being so young and hearing that her parents weren’t coming home. She put her hand on his arm, offering comfort in the tender touch.
“They never came back. The witch tried to get custody of us, but they found out she was a witch halfway through the adoption process and she ran, leaving us in the hands of the state. They never suspected us since reliable detection devices hadn’t been invented yet. I kept Harper safe and wouldn’t let her shift into her true form. They put us in the system and we haven’t heard anything about our parents since.”
“So you think they were killed?”
Quinn nodded. “I never told Harper. I wanted her to have hope that we could find them and be a family again. I convinced myself they could be alive somewhere, unable to return and find us.”
“Or unwilling to put you at risk. If they were caught and held in one of the early camps, they might have lied about having children to keep you safe.”
Quinn grimaced.
“That explains why we're looking for your parents instead of going back for Harper. Aren't you worried she could be brought in? They have your records."
"I hardly spoke in our sessions. They didn’t get past my first name. I made sure to bury my tracks after leaving juvie. Paid a friend to hack the system and get rid of my pictures. He bailed without doing Harper’s, though."
“Even so, brilliant.” Becca flashed him a grin, but Quinn stared at the coin in his hands. Feathers rustled and his wings shrank into his back. Becca slipped her backpack from her shoulders and unzipped the large pocket, pulling out his black t-shirt. She handed it to him, closed the backpack, and sighed, hands slapping the top of her thighs.
“We might not know what happened here, exactly, but we can keep looking. Where to next?”
He finished tugging the shirt over his chest and turned toward her. “You still want to come with me? You could go back home, claim you had nothing to do with me, get back to your life.”
A harsh laugh escaped. “Go back? After all that I’ve seen, I can’t go back. Ever.” She shook her head. “My father is…oppressive. He has to control everything, including me. Who I see, what I do, what I know. I thought he was helping paranormals, you know, with his cryptozoology knowledge, helping others be more aware of how to get along with your kind. But I was wrong. So very wrong. If I went back, I don’t know what I would do. I can’t ignore what I’ve seen.”
Quinn’s hand dropped on her arm, covering part of the white bandage wrapped around her forearm. He rubbed it gently, then let his hand fall away. “What would he say about this?”
Her father—the famous Cryptozoologist, Dr. Jerome Wood—had procured the mummy. He’d had it shipped to the museum from Egypt, where he investigated various tombs for evidence of the supernatural. The half-snake, half-woman mummy had arrived in a wooden crate stamped with a dozen warnings in various languages. The email from her father claimed he suspected the mummy was cursed.
Becca had the job of cleaning and preparing the mummy to be preserved as best as possible. She had followed every protocol, including hiring a warlock to brush up on the curse-breaking and protective wards in the lab. But she had still managed to get scraped. It seemed like such a small thing at the time. However, the wound had split open wider while she traveled, refusing to heal, and then she had gotten caught up helping Quinn escape. By that time, she was essentially a wanted woman.
Becca scoffed. “He’d have me committed to a ward in a hospital somewhere to purge me of whatever curse the mummy laid on me.”
Quinn raised an eyebrow. “Are you cursed?”
“You could kiss me and find out.” The bold words fell from her lips and Becca froze. She meant them as a lighthearted joke, but they were more than that. And from the look in Quinn’s eyes… She leaned forward and he grabbed the back of her head, pulling her into him.
Becca gasped at the sensation of his lips on hers, soft yet wild, yielding and hungry. She’d never had a kiss like it, never felt the coursing of blood through her veins as his lips parted and his teeth tugged on her lip. She rubbed her hands down his shoulders, tracing the muscles through his shirt, the ridges on either side of his spine that became his wings whenever he shifted.
Quinn pulled away from her, breathless. Becca touched her lips, feeling as if they were swollen.
“Sorry,” Quinn said, voice husky.
Becca laughed. “Sorry? What for?”
“For dragging you into this.”
Becca leaned into him, pressing herself against his arm until he yielded and wrapped it around her. “You didn’t drag me. I came willingly. And I’m here for whatever comes next.” She smiled at him and felt again that magnetic pull toward his lips.
An abrupt chirping sound came from her pocket. She drew out her phone, staring at the screen.
“What is it?” Quinn asked, angling his head for a better look.
Becca blinked. “It’s… it’s identified a second signature.” She held up the phone so he could see the screen where a monitor line blipped across, revealing the energy frequency in the area. The numbers climbed rapidly. It appeared that nothing was out there in the dark. Not even the wind stirred in the trees, but Becca’s skin was her most reliable supernatural indicator, and bumps had risen along her arms and the fine hairs on the back of her neck prickled.
She clutched at Quinn’s forearm with her fingers. “We should go,” she whispered.
“What?”
“It’s a new signature. See? You can tell because of how bright…” She froze. The air around them grew bright, as if the night was suddenly becoming day. It grew until objects and their forms washed out in blinding white light. Though Becca shielded her eyes, she couldn’t see the source. A buzzing hum grew and the air pressurized, crushing Becca’s lungs. Her phone’s incessant alarm flatlined. Becca drew in a thin, shuddering breath and narrowed her eyes to see a humanoid form in the midst of the white fire.
It turned to face her.
Before she could look into its eyes, an ink black wall of feathers thrust its way across her and shoved her backward off the bench. She screamed. The back of her head struck the ground with a hollow thud.
The light vanished.
⇺ ⇻
The luminescent being moved like water across the ground. It had feet and arms and hands and a face, but no one would mistake it for human. It bent toward the unconscious couple on the ground, gently moving the man’s wing away to reveal their faces. A finger floated through the air and brushed the woman’s forehead, leaving a white fingerprint-sized spot there. The woman’s face relaxed, and she looked instantly more youthful.
The finger pressed against the man’s forehead, and a gleaming white brand flared in the shape of a circle with a ‘V’ inside.
“Preservation protect you. Vengeance anoint you.” The being’s voice rumbled through the muted air. Then it vanished, leaving behind an absence of light more tangible than any physical form, keeping away any curious eyes or ill-intentioned creatures until the sky lightened and the two bodies stirred.
⇺ ⇻
Chapter Two
Becca
One month later…
A muffled voice broke through Becca’s consciousness, and she jerked awake with a hiss of pain as her head rattled against a cold metal floor. Quinn peered into her eyes, a deep furrow in his forehead. He shook her shoulders.
“Becca!”
Becca licked her lips and tried to respond, but only managed a drunken slur. Had she been drugged? She moved her hands to sit up, but the motion proved impossible. She strained at the cuffs digging into her wrists. She looked at Quinn in panic, the words coming from her mouth senseless babble. Mid-sentence, her tongue untwisted and she could speak again.
“—don’t understand!”
His hand cupped beneath her chin, then slid away as he sat back on his heels. He let out a sigh. “You had me scared for a minute there.”
Becca’s mind reeled. She tried to recall what had happened before she got here.
Actually…where was here? It looked like the back of a utility vehicle. Steel walls and tiny, dark back windows on double doors. She pulled experimentally against the handcuffs and winced as the motion rubbed against the bandages on her injured arm.
“Here, I got you.” Quinn gently wrapped his hands around her arms and picked her up. His touch relaxed her nerves and her heart rate slowed.
“How come you’re not cuffed?” Becca asked, gathering her legs beneath her and standing. She swayed as the truck turned a corner, and she leaned into Quinn’s broad chest. It wasn’t a bad place to be. She breathed in, and his dusty scent tickled her nose.
Quinn wrapped an arm around her shoulders, keeping her in place. A metal band around his wrist pressed through her shirt. “I broke mine. The chain, at least. I’m surprised they weren’t reinforced somehow. Or I’m stronger than they thought.” His voice rumbled against Becca’s ear. She grinned to herself, but the grin slid from her face when she considered their situation.
“Did you see what happened to Tyson and Harper?”
“Aberration enforcers hit me with the tasers. I remember one of them punching Tyson before I blacked out, but unless they’re being transported in another car, it’s just us.”
The truck passed over a bump and Becca shrieked as the force threw her toward the side of the truck. Quinn lunged for her, one arm looping around her back and the other catching the wall before they struck it. His brown eyes stared into hers.
Becca tilted her head back to look at the metal wall mere inches from her skull. “That would have hurt.”
“We should sit down.” Quinn droppe
d onto a metal bench built into the back of the utility vehicle. Becca squeezed in beside him. She flexed her fingers, still caught in the handcuffs behind her back. She started to ask Quinn to break her handcuffs, but before she could get the words out, the van slowed, halted, and the engine turned off.
The front door latches released. Footsteps sounded on pavement, and the doors swung wide. The sudden daylight flared in Becca ’s eyes, and she screened them with her hand. The man at the door had a bushy, sand-colored mustache and pale green eyes. He seemed coiled, ready to spring if Quinn or Becca chose to attack, but when he spoke his voice was steady.
“Rest stop. One at a time. Ladies first.”
Becca glanced at Quinn, noticing he held his hands behind him as if he were still cuffed. She nodded and he nodded back. Blood rushed to her ears as she carefully hopped from the van onto the pavement. A gas station stood before her, baking in the late afternoon sun. Her escort walked directly behind her, hiding the handcuffs from the view of patrons in the gas station. Legal hire or not, he obviously wasn’t eager to expose his purpose to the public. He smiled at everyone they passed, then stopped at the door of the ladies’ restroom.
“I’ll be waiting for you out here. Any funny business and your friend gets it.” He lifted the edge of his leather jacket and showed her the butt of a gun sticking out of a holster there.
Could a gun kill Quinn? A bullet in the right place could, most likely.
Becca shoved her hands out to him. “Hard to do anything essential with these on.”
The man reluctantly took out a key ring and unlocked the cuffs. He jammed them in his pocket. “Get on with it,” he growled and gestured at the door.
Becca pushed on the heavy door and went through. She leaned against the bathroom sink, staring into the mirror, cringing at her reflection.
Never mind that. How could she get out of here? The only windows were near the top of the wall, and narrow enough that she couldn’t slither through. Too bad she couldn’t shift into snake form after all. She snorted at herself. As if that would ever happen. She turned on the water and splashed her face before turning the water off again. Might as well use the bathroom while she was here.
