Page 3 of Grave Curse

“Hey, stop that,” I said, alarmed enough to reach out to touch her forearm. “It’s not the end of the world, okay? It’s just a flat tire.”

“Sometimes a flat tire can be the end of someone’s world.”

That was a mortal’s way of thinking, and while I knew I was one, I automatically jumped into pretend-goddess mode. “Maybe for some people, but not for us. Nothing can defeat us.”

Olive’s shoulders slumped as if carrying a massive invisible weight. “Trust me,everythingcan defeat us.”

“You’re just having a bad morning, but don’t worry, okay? Things are about to turn around, I promise. Come on.” I tried out my most charming smile, shifting gears from towering menace to fairy godmother, and gently pulled her toward my shop. “I’m going to get you settled inside my place with something hot to drink, and then I’m going to change that tire for you. I’ll bet you anything you’re going to feel loads better an hour from now.”

“Uh, your place?”

“Vixen’s Den. The shop you’ve always wanted to go into, but were too afraid to look.” With a laugh, I led the way toward my shop.

“That was quite a wake-up call for the morning.” The moment we walked through the door, my best friend and shop manager, Roxie LaRue, stared at us from behind the counter with wide eyes. “I saw the whole thing from the display window. Nothing like a near-death experience to get the ol’ blood pumping.”

“Remember, Rox, that which does not kill you makes you stronger and pissed off.” I tossed my hair to underscore the point, then glanced back at the girl I’d almost made into roadkill. “Please, come in, Olive. Make yourself at home while I get some coffee going, okay? Then I can head out and take care of that tire for you.”

“I…” The girl took one step into the shop, looked at the stripper pole and the mini stage it was on smack in the middle of the front room, before taking in a mannequin display next to her dressed in a neck-to-toe fishnet bodysuit with patches in all the delicate places. Then she looked around at the never-ending displays of pasties, platform heels displayed on rows of underlit wall shelving, and bedazzled bra-and-brief sets on circular racks, some of which were my own design. “Wait. What kind of store is this again?”

“We are Chicago’s fastest-growing shop for all your exotic-wear needs,” I said brightly. “Which is a polite way of saying we sell lots of sexy, smutty stuff to strippers and stripper-wannabes. Welcome to Vixen’s Den.”

“Thanks,” she said faintly, her gaze making another sweep of the fab front room before landing on me. “Who are you?”

“Ginger Sisko, owner of Vixen’s Den.” I pulled off a little curtsy. “Over there at the counter is Roxie, my bestie and all-around good egg. Get this, she was one of the best exotic dancers in all of Chicago—even won a lot of dancing awards—but then her back got crunched while she was competing at the World Pole Dance Competition about seven years back.”

“Wow.” Olive looked at Roxie like she wasn’t sure if she should applaud or back out of the door and run for it. “I didn’t even know you could compete in… uh, in something like that.”

“Oh yeah, it’s a big industry.” Roxie tossed back her glorious mane of brown hair and gave Olive a wink. “Any time you want a lesson, kiddo, I’m your girl.”

“Um…”

“She’s for real on that offer,” I said brightly, hoping to loosen the poor girl up. Everything about her reminded me of a nervously clenched fist, and the mother hen in me wanted to find a way to make her take a breath and relax. “She teachesclasses here whenever she feels the itch, in addition to being the Den’s store manager. Be nice to her, she may or may not bite.”

“Only if you give me permission,” Roxie shot back without missing a beat before glancing at me. “And no need for you to put on the coffee, babe, I’ve already got it going.”

“Oh, you’re the best, Rox, thanks. I promised Olive here a cup of coffee before I headed out to change her tire for her.”

Roxie, an impossibly gorgeous brunette with an itty-bitty waist balanced by a butt and boobs that gave new definition to dangerous curves, slow-blinked deep blue eyes immaculately done up, complete with out-to-there eyelashes. “You’regoing to change it?”

I gave her my best goddess-tier look. “Of course I’m going to change it. Got a problem with that?”

“Why not just call across the street and ask for help from—”

“Never ask a god for help, Roxie.” Zipping my bright red jacket up to my chin, I shot her a quelling glance. “They always make you pay for it.”

To be fair, Tyr Colgrave—the man Roxie had been on the verge of mentioning—was the most tolerable of the modern-day gods that weaved in and out of my life, I thought minutes later as I hefted the spare tire out of the back of Olive’s beat up Honda Civic. Ever since I could remember I’ve had terrifying, powerful men—all named after some ancient god or another—casting their shadow over me and my mother. For years we were pawns in a twisted game of checking the balance of power, and that balance had always seemed to be held between two opposing poles—Hades, the leader of the Chicago Gravediggers MC, and Tyr, his nephew, the leader of the breakaway chapter known only as the Gravediggers.

It hadn’t started out that way. My first memory of Hades was when I was only about four or five years old. He and my mother, drunk on what she used to call “mommy juice,” hadstumbled home one night, crashed through the bedroom door and tumbled onto the unmade bed. They then proceeded to screw each other right in front of me because my mother had clearly forgotten our apartment had only one bedroom and my little cot was crammed into the corner by the overflowing closet. At the time I hadn’t understood what Hades was doing to my mom. All I knew was that she’d been laughing and begging him to give it to her hard, but since it looked like he was hurting her, I’d pulled the covers over my head and plugged my ears so I wouldn’t hear them.

I was too young to understand what was happening then. I was also too young to recognize that this was the beginning of the end for my mother.

A growl rumbled out of me as I retrieved the tire-changing tools from the car’s trunk. Careful not to make the same mistake Olive had made by stepping out into the street, I shoved the scissor-style jack under the car’s frame, slipped the cheap-ass hand crank into the jack, and cranked it like it was my mission in life. Physical exertion—dancing, working out, playing on the pole inside my shop—was my go-to method of repressing memories when they wouldn’t stay repressed. Thoughts of my mother and Hades triggered me something fierce, but that was to be expected.

Sadly, any mention of Tyr had almost the same effect.

Which probably wasn’t fair, I thought, readjusting my grip on the manual crank that had a jagged point on the end of it that poked my palm with every turn. But when it came to Tyr, I never feltfair. From the moment Hades had ascended to power as the leader of the Chicago Gravediggers, I’d become the whipping boy—or whippinggirl—Hades used to keep his powerful nephew Tyr in line.

The problem with that, of course, was that Tyr never stayedin line. He never gave me a thought if he came in late, orhad a bad run, or sassed his uncle. He didn’t get punished for that.Idid. So what if Hades had knocked out yet another one of my teeth because Tyr pulled some stupid shit that hadn’t been authorized? It wasn’t his teeth. My smile now had four permanent fake teeth screwed in place thanks to that bastard’s carelessness with my life. And the scars on my arms and chest, from the night there had been so much blood… That had been Tyr’s fault too.

---