Page 3 of 3 Shifters to Break a Curse

An orgasm quickly started to build. She sucked in a quick breath. Her fingers quickened their pace. Pressure built between her hips. She rolled over and pushed against her hand, burying her face into her pillow as her pleasure-filled sighs became muffled by the thick square of cotton-filled fabric.

As her orgasm faded, she rolled to her side and tucked herself in. She breathed in the scent of her room and sighed, falling asleep with a smile on her face for the first time in forever.

1

TONI

I was in hell. And I was trapped with no hope of escaping.

Tried as I might, I couldn’t figure out how we got here.

When we first met, Jared was the epitome of a perfect man. Handsome, charming, romantic, and sweet. Everything was damn near literally sunshine and rainbows. It didn’t take me very long to realize what I had gotten myself into. But by the time I knew what was happening, it was too late. Jared already had his claws in me and wasn’t showing signs of letting me go.

No matter what I tried.

He quickly became completely possessive over me and my time. He had control of every aspect of my life. He dictated who my friends were, when I was allowed to hang out, and he had the final say over my activities in the coven.

If he didn’t like whatever I wanted to do, I wasn’t allowed to do it, and that was a huge problem for me. Not that I would dare speak out against him or even try to do what I wanted anyway. Because, I was terrified of him, and it seemed like I was never going to crawl out from underneath him.

That was until I was charged with a trip to Washington for my coven by High Priestess Raven. We had a sister coven who might have answers to solving our anonymous group problem, and I owed finding those answers to my lost sisters. Having a way to defeat the group for good made the risks with Jared more than necessary.

These people were the kind who held no bars when it came to tormenting witches. Not too long ago, they branched out to shifters as well. They somehow found a way to steal our magic and kill our animals.

We were out of our depth when it came to coming up against them. Any help that we were able to get, I was going to jump at the opportunity to take. Not going was unacceptable.

And the trip held two important tasks… helping my coven and helping myself. Because this was the exact opportunity I needed to escape Jared’s harsh grasp. And it was my one and only chance to be free of him for good.

So, I had to carefully go through every step of my plan. The only way this was going to work out in my favor was to make things as smooth as possible and try to make it sound like doing something for my coven was his plan, to begin with.

And that was something much easier said than done.

Because he had an exceptionally short fuse, one little mistake could tear my hopes to shreds and wind up with me on the painful end of his bad side. And that was a side I didn’t want to be on.

So, for starters, I had a candlelight dinner planned for the evening. I even bought a special, sexy dress to help butter him up. Red. His favorite color, and thin straps to show off my shoulders. Something he had once told me he loved.

Dinner went smooth. Better than I had hoped. I was starting to get my hopes up. And Jared had acted like the person he was when we first met. The look in his dark brown gaze was full of desire. He asked me back to his place for the night, to slip me out of the dress that had his mind going crazy. Once there, and after the sex, he pulled his long, dark brown hair back into a man-bun and sat on the edge of the bed.

His body was covered in lean muscle. He was thin, and to see him fully clothed left little hint to the muscle that stretched over his frame. I stared at his back as he smoked a cigarette.

“The evening went rather well,” I said. “Don’t you think?”

He nodded. “It was fine.”

I smiled. “I thought everything was better than fine.”

He snorted. I shoved down the stab of pain that reaction sent through my heart. Doubts about my plan started to creep in. I hadn’t even started to tell him my news, and everything was going wrong already.

“You can’t leave,” he snapped.

I sucked in a breath. How could he have known? Who could have possibly told him of my plan? I told no one and I simply wasn’t able to reconcile what he had just said to me. His words didn’t make any sense.

“What are you talking about?” I asked, raking my fingers along his back. The move usually tempered his anger… at least, a little.

“I’m not stupid, Toni,” he snapped, shifting his position on the bed to face me with his fiery gaze. “This whole show. This is you trying to say goodbye.”

I blinked back the tears that started to form and sat up. “No. It’s not.”

“Then what is this?” he asked, voice growling deeper. He pointed the amber cherry of his still-lit cigarette at me. “What do you call yourself doing? And think twice before lying to me.”

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