Page 33 of Cursed to Be Mine
Witches.
Scrambling into the front of the van, I throw open the passenger door and scream for my daughter to get in.
No longer focused on us, every werewolf lunges for the two shadows, running past me and jumping over Scarlett. She whimpers but doesn’t freeze, rolling onto her hands and knees as she crawls towards me. I hold open the door, urging her to crawl faster as I raise the gun just in case.
But all the sups are suddenly gone, hidden under amagical veil to keep them out of human sight.
“Move your fat ass and get in!” I shout, terrified she’s taking too long. I shift into the driver’s seat, thanking the good Lord that the keys are already in the ignition.
Dragging herself to her feet, Scarlett runs the last few paces and jumps into the car. I throw it into drive, and with a whirl of the tires spinning dirt and blood, the van lurches down the road.
Nine
HIM
As I wrap around the legs of a wolf, dragging half of her body into my shadow domain, I’m filled with an anger that drives my magic. Strengthens it. Makes it greedy for blood.They tried to kill my girl.
Antonio fucking tracked her scentthrough me.
Because I started the blood ritual, marking her as mine.
The wolf I’m wrapped around starts to scream in pain as the monsters in my shadow domain finally grab hold of her legs. When my brothers and I travel as shadows, we can open ourselves up to the monsters who live there, allowing them to feast on things we touch. It is a massive drain on our body, and something we rarely use, but my anger is volatile in this moment and needs to be sated.
The sound of crunching bones and tearing flesh rises up from the realm of darkness. Digging her nails into thesoft earth, the wolf tries to drag herself away from me. To freedom. To safety.
There will be no fucking safety.
I will kill them all for trying to hurt her.
Not trying, I growl to myself.Succeeding.
I smelled the blood on her skin. Felt her fear through our budding link. And now Antonio thinks he can run away? That he can leave his six lackeys to die in his place, as if their deaths will appease my rage like their blood does my magic?
Not a fucking chance.
Leaving the half-consumed wolf to cry and howl for a mercy I will never give, I start to shift into my human form, my body still healing from this morning’s ordeal. If I use too much magic when I’m weakened, it’ll turn on me as the easier target, consuming my organs and making me too weak to fight Antonio.
Four of the wolves don’t hesitate to lunge for me now that I’m not protected by being an ethereal form they can’t touch. But reapers are not trained in just magic. We are often sent to kill other witches, old friends and family members that know our secrets and how to nullify both our innate and learned magic. We’re taught to fight when the gods have forsaken us and the devils have opened their arms to embrace us.
Pulling a double tipped war scythe from the shadows as I fully emerge, I meet the first wolf with a smile. His arm is sliced off on my first swing. Shock parts his lips as I spin and twist the weapon so the flat of the blade on the other end smacks into his detached limb, sending it flying into the face of the wolf beside him, startling her just enough she’s distracted from my follow-up blow. With a wetsquelch, her intestines drop before her knees, and she lands in them with aI dart towards her, kneeing her in the face as my arms twist around my body, spinning the scythe around me. One end cuts across the original wolf, removing his snout as the other tip slices into the shin of a third attacker, who tried to get me from behind.
The blades spin.
My body moves.
And a shower of blood circles around me like a tornado sucking up wayward limbs. The wolves step back, warier now, but one is dead and the other three are mortally wounded – not that they know it yet.
Small cuts they think they will heal from.
But with every second, more blood will pour from their wounds in greater quantity. In twelve minutes, they’ll be dead, their innate healing ability useless against cursed tools like this.
Tools that take payment in blood. Either mine or theirs.
But it’s always theirs.
And soon, it’ll be Antonio’s.
Boiling with the need to end this before the alpha has a chance of getting away, I spin the scythe one last time and shove one blade into the ground. It disappears, sinking into my shadow as I fling my arms out, throwing magic with deadly accuracy.
