Page 16 of Cursed to Be Mine
“How are we going to kill the Garcias?” my youngest brother blurts, his voice soldier-like as he leans forward.
She eyes him for a moment longer, and the whole room tenses as we wait to see if Mother accepts the change of subject.
Shit. She’s not going to –
When she opens a drawer to pull out a knife, the fear in the air dissipates.
Thank gods.
The last thing I want to know is what my twisted little brother gets off to. I already have shitting werewolves and Varius going back up Mom’s –
I slash out at my soul, magic erupting inside me. Pain flares through me like ice shards hit with lightning, but it’s a welcome reprieve from the images that were about to toss around my skull.
Mom looks at me dryly as she pulls out a cutting board. “Antonio’s death,” she says as she starts to peel and cut the onions, “will create a vacuum of power in this city. He has ruled the wolves for decades, long before any of you were born.”
“We know,” Maddox says, then immediately ducks as one of the onions comes flying at his face. I snap my arm out, catching it before it can go much further past his head, not wanting to risk her retrieving it with her magic. Her stubbornness will be the death of her.
And me.
And Varius given I can sense the lock of his jaw as he stares at her.
“Don’t be a little shit.” Mother holds up her hand, and I toss the vegetable back to her. Cutting it, she says, “His reign started without a drop of blood, if you can believe it. There was a time when he spoke only of peace between our species. Where he asked us to look past our centuries of hate –”
“The furries sold our grandparents out to the Spanish,” Maddox spits. “They dissected us for years. And Antonio thought what, we’d just forget?”
“And we taught the natives how to skin them so they could wear their fur,” Talon says.
“We were helping them survive a harsh winter while they fought the Spanish. That practically makes us Jesus.” Maddox snorts as he turns to face him. “Butof course you would back them. But, bruh, you’re not supposed to simp over the porn actors.” A yelps leaves his lips without Talon ever having moved.
I catch the onion that bounces off the back of his head and place it down on the counter. Mother smiles at me, but her words are for Maddox. “What did I tell you about being a little shit?”
He waits until the last onion is diced before mumbling, “At least I don’t like watching werewolves eating it.”
Even Mom snickers while Talon glares at Maddox in silence. He knows if he protests, that’ll just set the little shit off more. Maddox is the baby of this family, eleven years younger than me, and four and a half years younger than his closest brother Rudy. He was a last-ditch effort for our parents to rekindle their marriage.
Meaning Maddox was a failure before he was even born.
And so Mother spoils him, making sure she loves him enough for two. Not that Father ever loved us.
Although Varius and Leno, the two oldest, say they remember his warm smiles and crushing hugs, I reckon they lie, their brains twisting memories or making them up entirely just so Father’s rejection doesn’t hurt so much.
I smother a snort.Not that it matters now.
He died putting a curse on Mom – hating her so much he gave his life to the dark magic in order to strengthen it. There is always a way to break a curse, but the curser is the one who decides what that is, and Father died, taking that answer with him.
A blessing of mercy considering what I would’ve done once I got my hands on him.
Containing her smile, Mom turns to rummagearound the kitchen. “Antonio Garcia has been alpha for over a century,” she continues. “He has made a lot of alliances in this time, a lot of enemies too. With his death and the death of his Family…” She pulls out a pot and places it on the stove. A dash of oil goes inside. “Wolves will come in from all over the U.S., trying to claim his territory.”
“Which is why we haven’t already killed him,” Varius says, forever the dutiful student. Despite Antonio’s anger over Cid’s death, it is, in fact, insignificant in the piles of bodies that have washed this city. They kill one of us. We kill one of them. We break bread in a few days. Such is the way of power and alliances. Buthisdeath…
Mom nods. “And why they have not killed Aleric or us.”
Aleric Zadar is the leader of the vampires, and he is so hated, a likeness of him used to stand in Mom’s basement, a target dummy that took the full force of her wrath every night. Varius removed it after she was cursed, worried she’d risk death just to desecrate his face over and over again with her magic.
Mother dumps in the onions, and they sizzle as they hit the hot oil. “If we kill Antonio, we also kill the peace of the last thirty-eight years. Death will touch us all.”
Maddox scowls and rolls his eyes. “There is not muchpeaceleft. The suckies keep encroaching on our territory, and the furries keep cutting into our businesses. I say we kill them all and rule St. Augustine on our own.”
