Angela Addams - Cursed

Annie stared at her for a moment, then pulled her glasses off her face and sighed as she rubbed her eyes. “Well, girl, you’ve got a heap of trouble on you now.” She put her glasses back on and leaned to the side, sliding her old grimoire from a shelf and laying it in front of her. “I’m not sure what can be done. Semen…it’s a powerful binding agent.”

Hair, flesh, anything coming from the body was a powerful binding agent—Darcy knew that. But semen made the vengeance spell work so well for her purposes. The product of lust combined with a spell for revenge? Perfect. Under normal circumstances. By now, Raven—wolf or no wolf—would be a writhing mess of longing, unable to do much more than lust for her, knowing in his heart she would never be his. Knowing instinctively he could never find her again.

Well, under normal circumstances. Shit.

Annie flipped open the spell book and went directly to the back, where the curses were chronicled. Darcy was never officially taught those spells—the bad ones, the ones that interfered in people’s lives in negative ways. Annie, after all, had never even given those curses a glance during her mentorship. But when Darcy had showed curiosity, she hadn’t said no, either. There was no such thing as censorship in Annie’s mind, not where spells were concerned. Annie was all about the balance—you cast only what you think you can handle, because karma had a funny way of whooping your butt when you needed it. Darcy found Annie’s philosophy a little superstitious and besides, she might be using a curse, but she was doing it to right a wrong, so karma could kiss her ass.

“Is this the spell you used?” Annie shoved the grimoire in Darcy’s direction, her finger posed above a spell Darcy knew intimately.

“Yeah, that’s the one.”

Annie nodded as she pulled the book back and flipped it closed. “I hate to say it, Darcy, but you’re screwed.”

“What?”

Annie slid the book back on the shelf. “I told you karma would bite you in the ass one day. That spell is irreversible. It’s a true curse. The only way to stop it is to terminate the source.”

“Terminate the source?” New fear bubbled up Darcy’s throat and the tea she’d drunk came surging from her stomach.

“Uh huh, and if those wolves find you, that’s exactly what they’re going to do.” She tapped her fingers on the table, clicking her nails in contemplation. “Unless…”

“Unless what?” Darcy snapped her gaze to meet Annie’s, desperate enough to do just about anything.

“You don’t happen to know any Hunters, do ya?” She took a casual sip of her tea. “Or better yet, a Huntress?”

“You can’t be serious!” Darcy gasped. Hunters, the wolf slaying variety, were an ancient breed of males who trained their whole lives in preparation for initiation into the Order of the Wolf. Magical beings who passed their training, knowledge and powers onto their destined mate once they found her. The Huntress. A powerful female descended from Amazon warriors, the only known creature on the planet who could kill a werewolf. “I don’t want Raven dead!”

Annie scoffed. “Likely him and his pack aren’t going to give you the same consideration.”

“I’m shocked, Annie. I didn’t take you for a wolf hater.” Darcy shook her head, her mind reeling. Annie had always been indifferent, cautioning against meddling or even interacting with other species, but taking no other interest. “I thought you were more open-minded than that.”

Annie narrowed her eyes, tapped her finger against the side of her cup. “You know very little about how the world works, girl. That much is obvious. You cursed a werewolf, a beast, and he’ll come for you, you can bet your skinny ass on that. He won’t rest until he finds you—that’s the way those creatures work. Better him dead than you, is what I say.”

Darcy slumped, arms crossed over her chest, fear taking hold once again. “What can I do?”

“Without a Hunter?” Annie shook her head sadly. “I suggest you leave the country, my dear, and pray that the pack doesn’t follow you, or you’re as good as dead.”

Raven struggled to regain consciousness, but his eyes were so heavy, his body weighted down by exhaustion, it was a difficult battle. It had been a long day—the witch’s spell weaving its way through him, his wolf fighting to keep it from taking hold completely. And now that the sun had set and he was in his human form, he lay totally annihilated, his energy zapped.

His wolf had done what it could to keep the spell from binding fully, but it hadn’t completely won. That was the problem with magic: you could only battle it so much before you needed to go to the source. He needed to find that fucking girl and make her reverse whatever she had done.

Yes, find the girl. Find her. She belongs to you. He had to admit, the ache for her had never really gone away. A longing that gnawed at his gut, a primal urge to locate her, and yet no real recollection of what she looked like or how to find her…even what her name was.

Good thing he had his wolf. His wolf would scent her out. Her smell was all over him, all over his sheets—her essence seemed to have permeated his very flesh. And he wanted her even more because of it, despite being enraged.

A knock on his door came like a thunderclap and he struggled to raise his head.

“Yo, Raven? What’s going on? Why didn’t you…oh shit!” It was Dyami, the band’s drummer. “Raven! What the fuck, man? Are you okay?”

“Dy.” Raven pushed himself up, only able to get into a sitting position, his shoulders slumped, his body so weary.

“Wow, Rav! What the hell happened to you last night?”

“A girl.” Raven shook his head as he feebly tried to remember her name, her face, anything about her.

“You left with a girl, yeah, we saw that. Tall, curvy, dark hair. Hot!”

“She did something to me.” Raven croaked.

“Yeah, I bet she did.” Dy strolled around the bedroom and chuckled. “Looks like you two had quite the fuck party last night. How come you didn’t spend the day with us upstairs?”

The wolves always gathered for the day. When they were at the mansion, they’d hunt and roughhouse, chase and play in the forest behind the house. When on tour, Mayhem liked to have them close together, all bunking in his penthouse until the sun set. It was customary for the boys to ditch their current conquest and return to the pack before daybreak. Obviously, Raven hadn’t made it.

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you.” Raven sighed.

Dy turned to look down at him, finally taking notice of Raven’s worn state. “Hey, man, what happened to you? You look like shit!”

“She was a witch or something, Dy. She cast some kind of spell on me.”

“You’re joking!”

“No, man, I’m not fucking joking. She blew some kind of ash all over me and said that I was marked or something. It burned into my skin.” He raised his hands to his face, remembering the pain as the ash coated him but knowing—with the way magic worked—there’d be no telltale signs of it marring his flesh.

“Oh shit! Dude, that is so not good.”

Raven nodded as he lowered his hands to his lap. “My wolf tried to fight it, keep the worst of it away I think, but it still latched on. I feel”—he shrugged—“very strange. Like I need to find her, like I can’t live without seeing her again.”

Dy reached down and helped Raven to his feet. “Let’s get you to Mayhem. He’ll know what to do.”

Raven nodded. Yeah, Mayhem always knew what to do.

“So you’re telling me that you don’t remember what this girl looks like, or what her name is, but you spent the entire night having sex with her?” Mayhem stood with his arms crossed over his chest, worry etched on his face.