Cursed (The Order of the Wolf) Read online

  “Mmm.” His cockhead wedged inside, so tight, so wet and hot he struggled not to thrust.

  Darcy smiled and arched into him, pushing him back with her hands on his chest. Once he was up, she leaned over the side of the bed and pulled out a row of condoms. “Slip one of these bad boys on and you can fuck me as hard as you want, Raven.”

  His eyes flashed open. “I loathe condoms. Besides, I’m clean. Not gonna catch anything from me.”

  “You don’t want any little rock star babies showing up on your tour bus, do ya?” Darcy smiled and shook her head. “It isn’t going happen if you’re not covered, sugar. So make your choice.”

  He glanced at his hard cock, aching to be inside of her. Okay, normally he’d say fuck it and walk away. Werewolves couldn’t give or get diseases and she wasn’t ovulating—he could smell it—so there was never any risk where unprotected sex was concerned. But he wanted this girl in the worst way, needed to slake his hunger for her.

  She tore one of the condoms from the row and tossed it onto her belly. “What’s it gonna be, big boy? Just think: it’ll make the clean-up much easier.”

  Raven smiled as he gripped her legs and positioned them over his shoulders. Then he grabbed the condom, tore it open and quickly slipped it on. “Trust me, baby, there ain’t gonna be anything clean about what we’re about to do.”

  Raven awoke feeling blissfully well used and satiated. He stretched across the bed, his back cracking in the most satisfying way. The sun had yet to peek over the horizon but he felt its approach like a tingle of electricity. Once it crested, the magic that made him what he was would take over. He would become a wolf, a giant fucking wolf for the day. Trapped in a hotel room. Sigh. That was the trade-off while on tour…away from the safety of the mansion. No place to run. No little bunnies to hunt. His wolf was restless, but nights of hot and heavy sex helped a lot. Especially when those nights were as long and satisfying as last night’s had been.

  With a jolt, he pushed himself up, suddenly realizing that he didn’t remember the girl, Darcy, actually leaving. Shit! He’d gotten so caught up in the endless hours of pleasure he hadn’t given her the speech…the one where he made it very clear that she was to be gone come morning. In fact, he was totally unlike him to just fall asleep as he had—usually he was the one escorting his lady out. The girl was hot as fuck, a total sex goddess, but she definitely needed to be out before daybreak.

  He jumped from the bed, listening intently as he made a quick search of the suite. Her clothes were gone. Looked as though she’d left. He was almost at the point of letting out a deep sigh of relief when he smelled it—a distinct scent of something burning…growing more and more noxious by the second.

  He sniffed out the source and came to an abrupt halt outside the closed bathroom door. How could he have missed the bathroom? “Shit!”

  As if on cue, the doorknob started to turn and Raven took two steps back. The distinct sensation of the rising sun sent a wash of terror over him. “Oh, fuck!” He moaned.

  The door swung open and there she was, smiling at him, and not in a friendly way either. She raised her hand, outstretched to show him what looked like a small pile of ash in her palm.

  “You, Raven Glock, have been marked.” She blew the ash. It struck him like a brick.

  He staggered back. “What the fuck!” Ash coated him, burning his skin just as the sun peeked over the horizon.

  He froze, his mouth gaping, his eyes screaming from the burning ash as the magic of the sun transformed him into his wolf.

  He heard a gasp, a stifled curse.

  A whoosh of air across his snout let him know she was running. He shook his head in a vain attempt to clear his eyes, snorting a few times to clear his nostrils. The ash—it burned like nothing he’d ever felt before.

  Get the girl, stop her. Can’t let her leave. He bolted to his paws, staggering as a wave of dizziness rolled over him.

  He took two steps, then collapsed on his side. What had she done to him? His wolf mind struggled to comprehend, working purely on instinct. Get the girl. Strangely, the wolf hadn’t marked her as an enemy. She’d crippled him and the only way to find out how and why was to capture her, but his wolf wanted her for a different reason. His wolf wanted to lay claim to what was his.

  Our mate.

  Raven’s thoughts were scrambled, not comprehending. He needed to get the girl, stop her, find out what she’d done.

  …claim her…mark her as ours…

  His wolf was confused.

  …not our mate…danger…burning…

  Try as he might, he couldn’t get his legs to work, couldn’t rise from the floor.

  Seconds later, he heard and felt the thud and vibration of the door slamming closed and knew she was gone. His wolf let out a primal roar of fear, pain and anger, understanding that the woman he needed had just bolted.

  Chapter Four

  Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.

  Darcy ran. She ran like her life depended on it. Well, it did actually, ’cause she just fucked up royally and if that werewolf caught her, she was as good as dead.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” She slammed her finger and then her fist into the elevator button, glancing fearfully over her shoulder for the gigantic wolf that had transformed right before her eyes.

  Her heart was pounding, her body trembling, her eyes tearing. Oh god, how could I be so fucking stupid? A werewolf? A fucking werewolf?

  The elevator dinged open and she stumbled in, jabbing the buttons, desperate to close the doors again while she wedged herself as far into the corner as possible.

  She held her breath as the doors slid shut, envisioning a paw sliding in between to keep her from escaping.

  When they finally sealed, she collapsed in a whoosh of breath, slumping to the floor as the elevator started its descent.

  Her mind whirred. A werewolf. Oh god, it made so much sense. She knew there was something different about the band. Something different about Raven. He was wild, not only as a lover but in general. She’d been studying him for weeks. Watching videos of him on stage, giving the rare interview in place of Mayhem. He was a take-no-shit wild man. A beast. She should have known.

  But it wasn’t like the supernaturals wore badges. There wasn’t a tattoo that marked you as one.

  Marked.

  Oh fuck!

  She’d marked him. She’d completed the spell. A whimper of fear bubbled out of her mouth.

  When the doors binged open, she realized she was still on the elevator floor, a crumbled heap on the verge of crying. She needed to get it together and get the hell out of the building before the pack came for her. Give herself time to figure out how to undo what she’d done. She needed to talk to Annie, the old crone. Annie would know what to do.

  Okay, suck it up. She’d forgotten the most important thing. She’d completed the spell—a spell that would make Raven Glock lust for her in unimaginable ways but never, ever be able to find her. That would buy her some time at least, but she needed to find a way to reverse the spell. She sure as shit didn’t want to live her life fearful of running into a werewolf marked by her own hand. No fucking way. She’d broken some kind of supernatural code with this one. Fucking with a pack wolf? Nah uh, bad news. She needed to find a way to undo it and disappear for a while. She hoped like hell that Annie would know how to fix it.

  Darcy grasped at her flimsy hope and with a deep sigh that bordered on relief, she pulled herself up and did her best to walk through the lobby without attracting attention.

  “You did what?”

  Darcy winced as she sputtered her tea, the sorry attempt to calm her nerves evaporating with Annie’s shrill tone.

  “You marked a werewolf? Are you fucking nuts, girl?” Annie, a witch older than dirt, was the only one Darcy could trust with such a confession.

  “I didn’t know.” Darcy winced.

  Annie stood with both hands braced on the harvest table, leaning forward so she could actually look down her nose at
Darcy, her long grey braid dangling over her shoulder and threatening to slip right into her abandoned tea. “You didn’t know? Girl! You should always know who you’re casting on.” She clicked her tongue. “Have you no sense? Do you have any idea what that pack is gonna do to you if they get their claws into you?”

  “They won’t be able to find me,” Darcy offered weakly, suddenly unsure of her reasoning from earlier. “I finished the spell. He can’t find me.”

  Annie scoffed as she pushed herself back and folded her arms over her chest. “You’re an idiot, Darcy.” She shook her head. “You marked a werewolf! They’re natural trackers. He’s gonna find you. Sure as shit he is, and when he does…” She made a motion across her throat.

  Darcy gulped. “There’s got to be a way to reverse it. Please, Annie, I need your help.”

  Annie shook her head again and Darcy practically saw the battle waging in the old crone’s head. She’d mentored Darcy, trained her in the craft since she was a child. Darcy had never been a very powerful witch, had no special innate abilities other than to cast. She was no healer, no tracker, no extra-special breed of witch. A distant relative, Annie had taken her in when her parents had died and had trained her to use the spells within her means. She’d never intended for Darcy to become a Vengeance Dealer.

  Annie sighed. “Which spell did you use?”

  “I marked him with a Double Vengeance Spell,” Darcy said, feeling a beat of hope that Annie could help.

  “Double Vengeance?” Annie pulled out a chair and sat down, her old face looking so weary Darcy almost regretted troubling her with this problem. “That’s not so bad. What did you use to bind it?”

  Darcy took a sip of her tea, delaying the response she knew would complicate things. A spell could be cast in multiple ways, some thrown at a target, some chanted, some thought…but nothing was as powerful as a spell bound to a target, and for that, you needed some kind of bodily sample.

  Darcy lowered her cup and cleared her throat. “Um, I sorta used his own semen.”

  Annie snapped her eyes to meet Darcy’s. “You did what?”

  “That’s what I do, Annie! I’m a Vengeance Dealer…I get revenge and the best way to do that is by binding them with their own lust.”

  Annie slammed her hand down on the table. “You fool of a girl! So this is what you’ve been doing? You’ve been binding these men to you? To lust for you endlessly? Is that what your clients want?”

  “They want satisfaction. They want to know that I’m striking a blow and fixing a wrong. I don’t go after innocent men, Annie! These men are scum. They use women and then toss them away. They cripple women and make them hurt.”

  And Raven Glock had been the worst. Notorious for one night stands, using women and shoving them aside with no regret or remorse, never even acknowledging them after the fact. At first, Darcy had balked at the small group of women who wanted her services. What did you expect when you slept with a rock-star, after all? But then she’d listened to them and seen the tears and heard the pain and she knew she needed to pull this Raven fellow out of the game for good. One spell, a whopper of a curse, which would have him lusting for the rest of his life for a woman he could never have, let alone find. And after what he’d done to her clients? It was the least he deserved. Normally there was no risk, but had she known Raven was a werewolf, well, she never would have said yes in the first place. Annie was right—if there was any man who could battle the spell and find her, it would be a werewolf.

  “And how do you get their semen, girl? I’m sure they don’t just offer it up for you to take.” Annie narrowed her eyes as she scanned Darcy from head to waist. “Or maybe they do.”

  “I have sex with them.” Darcy shrugged. “I collect the sample and slip into the bathroom while they’re sleeping.”

  “You collect their sample?” Annie scoffed. “Disgusting.”

  “It’s called a condom, Annie. Collects my samples quite efficiently, no mess.”

  She’d didn’t think Annie needed to know that she’d enjoyed Raven, her target, all night before casting a sleep spell on the man so she could perform the vengeance curse in peace. Let the old woman think it was a one-time thing.

  Annie wrinkled her nose. “So you use his semen and you’re sure you completed the spell this time?”

  Darcy swallowed the lump in her throat and nodded. “Uh huh, yep. No doubt about it. Blew the ash, said the words, the man is marked as mine.” And then he turned into a fucking wolf! “It felt different this time though.” Darcy shrugged. “Like some kind of rope snapped into place between him and I. Never had that happen before—usually it’s just a quick jolt and then nothing. Probably ’cause of the wolf inside him, I guess.”

  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 ag
ainst 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.”

  Chapter Five

  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.