Page 74 of Cursed to Be Mine
Not giving him the respect of a response, I turn to Talon on my right. Maddox hoots and hollers as he signs something back to Rudy.
The table erupts into laughter. Talon’s green eyes flash with humor as he half-wheezes, half-winces along withthem. Ugly red wounds stretch across his shoulders under his black tank top. Varius clearly only allowed Mother to heal him ‘well enough.’
“Ow!” Maddox rubs the back of his head as an onion bounces onto the floor behind him.
“No rude talk while we’re cooking.” Micha’s stern voice only gets him to laugh harder as he turns to face her.
“Don’t take your frustration over Varius being unable to please you out on us. Maybe if you two tried –”
He properly yelps this time as one of Varius’ knives slices across his ear. The idiot should have known turning his back on Varius while he goaded him was a bad idea.
“Your poor ma…”
I grin, lifting a hand to one of the marks on my neck. I can feel her lips on my skin, and her bond pulls me left. I look in her direction and catch Rudy’s eyes.
He signs. “You look happy.”
My smile drops. He laughs with his hands.
“Between you and Varius, the next generation is going to be all stern faced and no joy to play with. If I leave snakes in their beds, they’ll probably stab me.”
I shake my head with a small curl of my lips as Mother chastises Maddox for harming her chances of grandkids.
“How is Varius going to perform well now with that hanging over him?”
The table roars as Varius sits in irritable silence. Micha ducks her head as her cheeks blush red.
She has only recently moved into our family home, her body having been traded for the support of Varius backing her father’s claim of territory up north. Despite the year, most marriages in the three gangs are still business deals. He needs an heir, and although Mother will never say it, she recommended Micha Black because she’s one of the few strong enough to still have a good chance of makingoffspring with him who are capable of wielding magic.
The stronger a parent is, the more likely their ability to control it passes down. Magic consumes the weak full stop; it does not care about age. The hope is that Micha’s magic is strong enough to overcome Varius’ curse.
If not, she will be passed over to Leno, and his heirs will become the next generation. It’s a silent deal Varius backed; his loyalty is to the Family, not just his own grasp of power.
It’s why I will die for him.
Why I kill for him.
He has earned my respect a thousand times over with the sacrifices he has made for this Family, starting at the age of twelve when our father walked out the first time.
“Khalid,” he says softly, and the table quiets, only a few snickers from Maddox still heard. “You have spoken with Vlad. Tell us what happened.”
Rudy tenses beside me, all his humor frozen fake on his lips. He might pretend to support the deal I forced him to make with me, but anytime he learns I was near Vlad, he shuts down. I wonder if they’re still fucking behind my back. The obsession Rudy has with him is clearly growing.
Really hoping they aren’t –for my brother’s sake, not Vlad’s– I turn to look at Varius. I fill him in on how I killed Hannah and Daniel, then pinned it on the wolves to keep the WALL occupied, how I am clearly suspected by the vamps, but I left no evidence.
The aroma of spicy meat fills the kitchen, along with the sound of sizzling. Micha and Mother discuss cooking in low tones as my brothers and I continue to talk about Antonio and how he’s clearly consumed the fallen. Rudy burned all the bodies we slaughtered last night to make sure he couldn’t grow more in power, but I doubt it will matter.
“He has a stash of food somewhere,” I say. And as long as he has that, we can’t predict how strong he’ll be the next time we see him.
“You think he’s captured a rival pack?” Rudy signs.
It is not uncommon for one of the three Families to attack outsiders. We did it ourselves after I culled nearly a third of our coven for turning on Varius a few years ago. The werewolves and vampires thought us weak, prime for the pickings, so we attacked another coven, a powerful one up north past our territory, and brought the survivors into our Family. It stretched us too thin, but it kept the Blood Fangs and Death Hunt off our backs.
Talon shakes his head. “We would’ve heard something if he had.”
“He could be eating his own?” Maddox throws out as he glances at Varius.
But it’s Leno, the second son and underboss, who says, “He would have been challenged.”
