The Cursed Read online

  “I won’t be doing that anymore.” Rio slumped in her seat, folded her arms, and pillowed her head on them on the gleaming bar. “I don’t have a job. Or a place to live, for that matter.”

  Clarice waved a hand. “You can bunk with me—you and your adorable furry friend, by the way—and you know it. And jobs in Bordertown are easy to come by, since nobody but a few fools like you and me want actual, legitimate work.”

  “That’s not the point, although I appreciate the offer of a place to crash,” Rio said glumly. “I’ve lost everything in less than forty-eight hours, and I think this League of the Black Swan that nobody admits to knowing about is to blame.”

  “I assure you, we had nothing to do with it,” a deep male voice said from so close behind Rio that she jumped and spilled a little of the coffee she’d switched to after the second glass of ale.

  Clarice’s glare turned to a speculative smile when she turned around to see who had interrupted them, which made Rio almost afraid to look. But they’d picked the wrong bike messenger if they thought she was a coward. She pushed the thought of running screaming for the door out of her mind and slowly faced the man who claimed to be part of the very organization that was ruining Rio’s life.

  “They call me Maestro,” he said, holding out a hand.

  At Rio’s feet, Kit growled, fierce and low.

  “How nice for you. They call me Empress of the World, but that and five bucks will get me a cup of coffee,” she shot back. “My fox doesn’t like you. Please step back.”

  “We need to talk,” he said calmly, but at least he did step back a pace. “And that is almost certainly not your fox. Interesting that she chooses to be with you, however.”

  “Oh, and nothing good ever came out of those four words,” Clarice said. “We need to talk. I don’t think so, Buster. Rio, do you want me to call Miro or get the shotgun?”

  Maestro turned his gaze to Clarice, and his lips twitched in what might, by the longest possible stretch of the imagination, be considered a smile.

  “Allow me,” he said.

  The bar shotgun floated up over the counter and hovered in front of Clarice, who narrowed her eyes and snatched it out of the air.

  “I hope you don’t think that’s impressive,” she said, as she whirled on her stool to point the gun at the floor in Maestro’s direction. “This is Bordertown, not Vegas. I get six more impressive stunts than that in here every evening before midnight.”

  The man—or whatever he was—laughed, and Rio flinched. That was not a laugh she wanted to hear ever again, under any circumstances. The sound made her think of death by suffocation under a ton of heavy rock. He, like Luke, looked a little like a pirate, but whereas she could see Luke commanding the ship and standing, tall and elegant, in the bow, complete with silk shirt and sword, this man would be the thuggish second-in-command who was always plotting mutiny and betrayal.

  Or maybe Rio needed to cut down on the pirate romance novels.

  “May I at least have a moment of your time?” He gestured to a booth that was relatively secluded from the rest of the room. “I assure you I will not harm you in any way.”

  Kit’s growling increased in volume, but Rio was desperate for answers. She was in a public place, after all. What could he do?

  Clarice made a tsking sound with her teeth. “Don’t do it. Don’t even think about it. Remember the Kelpie invasion of 2010?”

  “I have to find out why they’re hijacking my life, Clarice. Watch Kit for me?”

  Kit’s growling instantly stopped, and she rose and stalked over to the booth and hopped up on one bench.

  “I think your fox has other ideas,” Clarice said dryly. “Let me know if you need me to shoot him.”

  Maestro laughed and waved a hand, and a spinning roulette wheel appeared on top of the table nearest to them.

  “You mentioned Vegas, I believe?”

  While Clarice gaped at the roulette wheel, and the goblins loped over to see what was going on, Rio slowly followed Maestro to the table, wondering if she was making yet another mistake in a life that had been filled with so many.

  “It’s only a few days until your birthday,” he said abruptly, as he sat down.

  She gaped at him. “How could you—why—”

  “The League keeps track of important dates. You’ll be turning twenty-five, and we have an offer for you. Join us.” He leaned back against the leather bench and stared intently at her.

  Kit almost fell out of her seat. In a million possible realities, she never would have seen that one coming. They didn’t want to assassinate her. They wanted to recruit her.

  Kit growled, baring her teeth, and Rio shushed her.

  “Why?” Why was the League interested in her birthday, why had a High Court Fae been interested in her birthday, and why was her world turning upside down?

  “I can’t tell you that yet,” he said bluntly. “I can, however, offer you incentives.”

  “Like what? Chocolate cake with sprinkles?”

  “Sarcasm doesn’t become you, young lady,” he said. “But if you really want a cake . . .”

  An enormous slice of chocolate cake, complete with sprinkles, appeared on a plate in front of her. Temptation had never smelled so good.

  “And Eve got Adam with a mere apple,” she said mockingly, pushing the cake aside.

  Kit’s tongue shot out, and she licked a swath through the icing.

  “Kit! We don’t know if that’s poisoned,” Rio hissed.

  Maestro sighed. “First, why would I poison you when I’m trying to recruit you? Second, the Yokai would never ingest a poisoned substance. Finally, I have no wish to go to war with Lucian Olivieri, and if I harmed you in any way, he’d spend the rest of his immortality trying to kill me.”

  Immortality? Now that was interesting. Rio also silently filed Lucian Olivieri away in her memory to ask Luke about, since Merelith had used the name, too, and she resolved to hit the Internet to find out what in the heck a Yokai was, as soon as she had a chance. In the meantime, she needed to deal with this guy.

  “Why is my birthday important? Is November ninth even my real birthday? Do you know my real name? Rio is just a name I picked for myself because the nuns called me Mary and I didn’t like it. I wanted—”

  “You wanted something unique,” he said softly, watching her with something that looked almost like compassion. “I know quite a lot about you, Rio, but there are certain things I’ve sworn not to disclose outside the oath of secrecy the members of the League of the Black Swan swear at induction. You’re nearly twenty-five, which means you can choose to join us now.”

  “Are you the one who got me evicted and fired?”

  He shrugged. “You’re better off at Luke’s, and you definitely don’t need that job.”

  The sheer high-handedness left her speechless for a minute. “What right do you have to decide any of that?

  “Over by the bar, you said you didn’t ruin my life,” she reminded him. “Were you lying then or are you lying now?”

  “I don’t consider it ruining your life. I consider it presenting you with better opportunities.”

  She wanted to blast him with words so harsh he’d shake in his shoes, but she just didn’t have it in her anymore. Instead, she shook her head, weary of all of it.

  “I’ve spent the past two days caught up in the games of men who plot bad things and hire others to carry them out. I have no reason to trust you or your League. I can’t tell if you’re lying to me—”

  But then it hit her. She could. Or at least she might be able to tell.

  “Let me inside your head,” she demanded. “You want me to believe any of this BS, then fine. Let me read your thoughts.”

  A slow smile spread across his face, and she had the terrible thought that she’d just fallen into the middle of the web he’d been spinning for her since he’d first walked in the bar. Or since way before that, considering what Luke and Dalriata had said.

  “Go ahead,” he
invited.

  She shook her head and started to scoot out of the booth. “On second thought, maybe I’ll pass. I’m not much of a joiner, and—”

  His hand flashed out and caught her arm. “I know who your parents are.”

  All the air vanished from Rio’s lungs and she collapsed back onto the bench, trying desperately to inhale. “You son of a bitch.”

  “Yes.”

  “You could have led with that.”

  “I considered it more of a trump card.”

  They stared at each other across the table so hard and for so long that everyone else in the bar seemed to disappear.

  “Are you still willing to let me look inside your mind?” She realized her fingers hurt and looked down to see that she’d been digging her nails into the tabletop so hard that they’d left scratches.

  “Go ahead.” He closed his eyes and made a come-ahead gesture with his fingers.

  Rio kept her own eyes open, but she threw everything she had at him. The reality of the bar dissolved around her, and she found herself standing in an empty circular room surrounded by gray stone walls. An icy cold breeze shivered through the room, although there were no windows. Rio whirled around in a 360-degree circle and realized there weren’t any doors, either.

  “Cliché, much?” She put her hands on her hips. “This is your mind? Fairly empty for somebody who calls himself Maestro.”

  A banner unfurled and draped itself down a good half of the room. Scarlet letters painted on white silk mocked her:

  I Know Who Your Parents Are.

  She smacked herself, hard, in the forehead with the heel of her hand and instantly snapped out of the vision or fugue state into which he’d enticed her. The smell of beer, chocolate cake, and unwashed goblin swept over her in a nauseating mix, and she jumped up from the table and raced for the door.

  Fresh air, she needed fresh air, now, now, now, or she was going to be sick all over the top bully of the League of the Black Swan. She made it to the door and shoved it open, but then her knees gave out and she toppled forward, face first, toward the sidewalk.

  Strong hands caught her as she fell, and for the second time in two days she heard Luke’s voice as she was escaping the Roadhouse.

  “We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Luke frowned and wondered what or whom he needed to kill this time. Rio’s face was whiter than the chalk he’d once used to set magical circles, before he’d learned to do it with a thought. The fierce desire to protect her ate at his insides. Why the hell had he ever let her out of his house? The dark predator leashed inside him howled savagely, and Luke clenched his jaw against letting it loose.

  “You—how?”

  “Clarice called me,” he said, answering the question he thought she was trying to ask. “She said somebody was threatening you. And I’m glad she did, since you didn’t show any signs of letting me know you needed help. I should buy that bartender a car.”

  Rio leaned her face against his chest, and his arms automatically came up to wrap around her soft, warm curves. His body reacted so fast and so hard to the sensation that he had to fight to keep from embarrassing himself with an erection. She surrendered to the embrace for the length of several heartbeats, but then she pulled away, leaving him with a sense of loss and a hollow pang in his chest.

  “I’m fine. It was just bar smells; suddenly they got to me, and your pal Maestro was playing games with my head, which didn’t help.”

  Primal, uncontainable rage seared through Luke, and he moved past Rio and slammed the Roadhouse door open, barely missing the fox, who yelped and leapt out of the way.

  “Sorry, Kit,” Luke growled, and damn if the little creature didn’t incline her head, as if she understood and forgave him.

  Rio rushed in and picked up Kit, apologizing to the fox. “I’m so sorry, oh my gosh, please forgive me. I thought I was going to be sick, and I’m not used to worrying about anybody but myself, and—”

  The fox stopped the flow of words by the simple method of licking the side of Rio’s face in one long slurp. It surprised Rio into a little burble of a laugh, which brought some color back to her face, so Luke felt a moment of affection for the fox lighten his fury.

  Briefly.

  Then he turned to face the bar, fire already glowing at his fingertips, and nodded to Clarice, who was pointing a shotgun at the shadowed booth near the back.

  “He’s over there, Mr. Wizard, er, Mr. Oliver,” the little red-haired bartender called out. “Miro’s on the way, too, if you need help.”

  Luke headed toward the booth, barely sparing a thought for the new roulette wheel, which he was almost sure hadn’t been there before.

  “Maestro, you may as well stand up, because you and I are going to have this out right now,” he snarled as he strode across the room, his boot heels sounding like cracks of thunder on the wooden floor.

  But Maestro was gone, and he’d left behind a gift. A giant seven-layered birthday cake that said Happy Birthday, Rio and I Know in pink letters on white frosting graced the top of the table.

  Rio walked up behind him and blew out a huge breath. “He has a thing for cake.”

  Clarice walked up behind them, holding out a glass of Luke’s favorite whiskey, and he nodded his thanks before draining it in one long gulp.

  “Nice cake,” the bartender remarked. “He gave me a roulette wheel.”

  “I’m buying you a car,” Luke said.

  “I don’t drive, but tickets to the Bordertown Opera would be nice,” Clarice said, grinning. She thought he’d been kidding. He hadn’t.

  He snapped his fingers, and an envelope appeared in his hand. He handed it to Clarice, whose mouth fell open.

  “Thanks for calling me,” Luke told Clarice. “If he shows up again, let me know right away, and I’ll convince him that he’d rather be somewhere else.”

  She nodded, clutching the envelope. She thanked him, but he caught her staring at his hands, which were still glowing, and he released his hold on the magic. The bartender blew out a breath and headed back toward the bar, leaving him alone to face Rio.

  “Are those really opera tickets?”

  He shrugged. “I know a guy.”

  “I found out what he wanted. Maestro,” she said, staring down at the cake. Kit hopped down from her arms onto the bench and delicately licked a pink icing rose.

  “Icing is definitely not on the vet’s list,” Rio said reprovingly.

  The fox immediately sat down and pretended to be occupied cleaning the fur on her front left paw.

  “Bandages, not a cast. So it’s not broken?” Luke pointed to Kit’s leg.

  “Just a sprain. Aren’t you going to ask?”

  “Do you want me to ask?” He wanted to demand she tell him everything, every word, every gesture, that the maestro had said and done. He wanted to whisk her back to his place and tie her up—preferably naked—for the next five or ten years.

  He knew better, so he waited for her to tell him.

  “He wants to recruit me. Into the League.”

  She finally looked up and stared into his eyes, and he immediately lost track of what they were talking about. The golden glow of her eyes trapped him like a dragonfly in amber, and he understood the futility of trying to struggle. He cast about for something relevant to say.

  “You’re still wearing my shirt,” he said stupidly.

  She glanced down. “Ah, yeah. This is what you want to talk about? My clothing choices?”

  “I thought you were going back to your apartment,” he said. “I figured you’d change your clothes. So now I’m wondering if something went wrong at your place.”

  “No, my place was great. Well, other than the part where I got evicted,” she said bitterly. “It was almost as much fun as when I went to my job and got fired.”

  Luke wanted to blast something. Hard. “What happened?”

  “Your friend happened,” she said, and he could hear the accusation in her
voice.

  “He’s not my friend. He said hello to me yesterday by stabbing me with a silver knife,” he told her. “Do you want to stay here, or can we go to my place and sit down and talk about all this?”

  “Why not? I don’t have anywhere else to go,” she said, throwing her hands in the air in defeat.

  Defeat wasn’t an emotion he wanted to see on her face or in the slumped line of her shoulders. Not now, and not ever again. He started thinking up ways he could protect her from everything bad in the universe and realized his mental inventory was starting to look a lot like a list of people he’d need to kill.

  Not good.

  It wouldn’t help Rio if she wound up needing protection from him, after he turned dark because he was trying to take care of her.

  Damned if he did and damned if he didn’t had never sounded so true.

  They took his Jeep to his place, after Luke paid a kid ten bucks to ride her bicycle over. On the drive, she told him everything that Maestro had said to her. Luke caught himself slamming his fist against the steering wheel and forced himself to stop. There was no need to scare Rio into thinking he’d gone over the deep end.

  “But what I don’t know and don’t understand is why the League would want me. I don’t know why everyone is so interested in my birthday, either. I don’t know what significance twenty-five years old has. I don’t even know if he’s lying about knowing who my parents are,” she said, her hands clenched together on her lap. “Argh. That’s a lot of ‘don’t know,’ isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know any of that either, except for the significance of twenty-five years,” he said, leading the way into his office. “The quarter-century mark is important to several magical traditions. It’s also a major birthday for the Fae, who consider a child finally grown to adult independence at that age.”

  Rio opened the door to his living quarters, and a warm feeling of contentment spread through him at the idea that she was comfortable enough with him to act so at home. Maybe he should just ask her to move in with him right now. She could start out in the guest room, until he had time to figure out how to be charming and romantic and whatever else women wanted.