Page 12 of Cursed to Be Mine
Sweat pours down my neck as my fingers tighten on the alexandrite. Forcing them to relax, making sure I don’t mold one part incorrectly, I draw more power from the runes around me. Working with soul dolls requires a high attention to detail. One wrongly shaped part can ruin the whole spell, giving the magic a way out of its confines to burn the world around me.
My body hums with volatile magic, and for a moment I am battered by both the werewolf and my own power. Sharp claws dig into my soul. Chaotic energy burns it. Blood blossoms in my lungs as both wish to see me dead, but I will not go and leave my girl unprotected.
Lifting my gaze to Cid, I slam out with my magic, giving it an outlet other than me. The tattoos of runes across my flesh light up with red energy – the color of our family’s power. Wind rushes across the room, dropping him to his knees. His ragged breaths intermingle with choked snarls. The magic, for now, is sated.
“If you hurt her,” Cid growls as he lifts his head to face me, having the nose of a wolf but the chin of a man, “I will hunt you down in the afterlife.”
He knows there’s no survival for him. I respect his instant acceptance – no pathetic groveling, no pitiful denial. Because of that, I hold up the piece of alexandrite I’m working on and grant him a bit of mercy through knowledge.
“This will become Abril,” I say. His oldest daughter. The first stone after him was shaped into that of his wifeElena. I pick up the next stone in the line of natural alexandrite. “Your boy Jorge.” I rub it in between my fingers for a moment before placing it back in line and tapping the next one. “Your feisty whore Rei.” I glance up at him, my eyes hardening. “Elena is first so she doesn’t suffer the truth of your infidelity.”
Even if we weren’t enemies, I would kill him for that alone. Men should worship their girls. Give them the world they deserve. And the only justice for a cheater is death.
Glancing away from him, I pick up the last gem and hold it close to my face, looking it over. “Pretty little Zita,” I murmur. Cid’s youngest daughter. The one Maddox, my youngest brother, is obsessed with. But he hasn’t claimed her yet, and so she is free to be tortured.
“Don’t you fucking touch her.”
My eyes find Cid’s face again, but his gaze is on the rock. I tsk. “A father shouldn’t have favorites,” I chastise as I put the stone back down.
“I will find you after death.” His soul vibrates with his anger, but I pay the threat little heed. He does not know which gods I worship, which of the three underworlds I will go to when I die: Niflhel ruled by Hel, the Otherworld ruled by Arawn, or the Underworld ruled by Hades. But even if we do end up in the same one, I’m under no illusion that we will be sent to anywhere but the darkest realm of it. We might be tortured side by side, but we will never get to torture each other. No fun is allowed.
Pushing my magic into Abril’s stone, I hold his gaze. “Tell me what your father is planning.”
He lunges for me again in his rage.
A trapped rage he can’t expel or do anything with.
As Cid Garcia continues his pointless rampage, the circle flaring up red around him, I finish crafting his eldestdaughter’s image and move to pick up Jorge’s stone. Then Rei’s. His curses intensify. The runes around me flare red as I pull on more and more power. Sweat pours down my back, but he can’t smell it in his soul form, his senses reduced to just touch, hearing, and sight.
Knowing I’m getting nowhere, I put Rei’s stone down and pick up his wife Elena’s. Holding his gaze, I form a ball of fire in my other palm.
He slams against the bindings of his cage, his blows felt across my body as the magic connects us, punishing me for controlling it. Blood trickles up my throat again with his newest ram, but I swallow it down. The metallic taste fills me, and for a moment, I think of my girl. Her taste on my lips. The start of my claim.
My cock jerks, and Cid glares at it.
“You sick fucking bastard.”
I smile as I curl my fingers around Elena’s stone and rub the back of my knuckles against my hard-on. “What is your father planning?” I ask, my voice betraying not a single ounce of my pain and exhaustion from keeping his soul caged. It would’ve been easier to hold him in his physical form, but we need to send a message to the Garcia Family: we will not sit idly by, waiting for our turn to be attacked.
“Fuck you.”
“Fuck Elena,” I say dismissively as I drop her stone into the fire. Her screams roll around the room, pulled from her body, wherever it is, as it suddenly bursts into flame.
“Elena!” The new voice is loud, very close to her, and I raise a brow as Cid trembles, his fists clenched. Every time she makes a noise, we’re able to hear those around her as well.
“What is your father doing so close to your wife?” I ask mockingly.
“Fuck y–” He stops as I pick up his eldest daughter’s stone.
“Is he fucking her like you’re fucking Rei?”
Cid’s soul solidifies as a full werewolf for just a second, sending shivers down my spine. My fingers flex around Abril’s stone as I prepare myself for another attack. If he can keep his soul into that of his wolf, he’ll be able to rip his way through the magic circle. In less than a second, he’ll be on me, a werewolf’s speed unmatched.
“If you kill her, they’ll come for you.” His face twists with agony as her screams falter and his father’s shouts of concern and command to others nearby echo stronger.
I shrug. “They will already come after us for killing you.”
I lift Abril’s stone to above the fire, right above her mother’s. The flame is purposefully weak, although Cid can’t tell without touching it. Its white hot flames burn bright, but its temperature is controlled by my magic to be relatively cold. Elena and the rest of Cid’s loved ones are to suffer, not go out in a burst of flame before they can even scream.
