The Cursed Read online

  She cried out and tried to put her legs around his waist, but it wasn’t enough, she wasn’t naked, and so he lowered her back down to her feet and stripped her clothes from her with so little care that soon they were lying in shreds on the floor.

  “Need you now,” he growled. “Need to fuck you now, so hard and so deep that the memory of me is burned into your soul.”

  She captured his face in her hands and pulled his head down to kiss him, and the monster inside him, never balanced so far over the abyss as at right that moment, shivered with pleasure.

  “Make love to me,” she said, and he was lost, because she was right, it wasn’t about fucking, it was about loving.

  He dropped to his knees in front of her, right there and then, and took her sweet, wet heat with his mouth. He licked her and speared his tongue into her, reveling in the creamy evidence of her desire for him, and then he fastened his lips to the little bud that brought her so much pleasure and he sucked on it, just as hard as he’d sucked on her nipple.

  This time she screamed.

  He immediately stopped what he was doing and stood up.

  “No. You will not come until your body is locked around my cock,” he ordered.

  Her head fell back and she panted with short, quick breaths, and he stared at her, frozen and struck mute by her rosy loveliness, but then she opened her eyes and glared at him.

  “Now, already,” she demanded.

  His incredible, wonderful, amazing woman wanted him now.

  “Yes,” he growled.

  He picked her up and positioned the head of his cock at her slick entrance and then he pushed forward at the same time he lowered her body, letting gravity help him to thrust as far into her as he could go.

  “Mine,” he said fiercely, loving the passion that glazed her eyes and the way she clung to his shoulders as if to a lifeline in a storm-tossed sea.

  “Oh, Luke, oh, Luke, oh, Lucian,” she said, crying out again when he started walking, still fucking her, over to his desk.

  The rhythmic movement seated his cock even more deeply inside her, until he was sure he was going to explode before another heartbeat passed. He reached his desk just in time, and shoved everything off it with one hand and then gently lowered her onto the desk while he was still deep in her body. She lay back on the desk, her arms over her head, and the visual feast of having her nude beauty spread out in front of him nearly made him weep.

  “I need you,” he said, and the welcome in her eyes and her body began to heal his damaged soul.

  “I need you, I need you, I need you,” he said, thrusting into her again and again, because it was the closest he could come to saying he loved her. The only words that he was brave enough to say.

  “I need you, too,” she said, barely able to catch her breath.

  “Come for me,” he demanded, and he pushed his thumb against that magical little bud, rubbing and stroking, and he fucked her and fucked her, so hard, and so deep, and so right.

  And then somehow, without him knowing how or why, he wasn’t fucking her at all.

  He was making love to her.

  “I need you,” he said, torn apart by the realization. “Come for me now.”

  Her eyes widened, and she shattered around him, screaming his name.

  His real name.

  “Lucian, it’s too much, it’s too much,” she screamed, shaking and writhing on the desk in the throes of the passion he’d given her.

  He’d given her. She was his, and she always would be.

  He pulled her up and into his arms, and his cock, already swollen beyond the bounds of endurance, demanded relief. He let the release smash through him, shouting out his triumph and pleasure as he came, long and hard, deep inside her.

  Rio’s head lolled on his shoulder as her body went boneless in his arms, and he finally allowed himself to think the words he couldn’t say.

  I love you.

  The power of the thought conquered him, sweeping through him with the crystalline power of the purest magic he’d ever encountered, and he stumbled, almost falling, before he managed to catch his balance and make his way, still holding her, to his bedroom.

  He spared a moment as he made his way down the hall to be grateful that Kit was nowhere to be seen, probably sleeping in Rio’s room, and then he was falling into bed, still holding Rio as close as he could, his cock still buried deep inside her.

  “I’m not letting you go without a fight,” she murmured sleepily. “Miro agrees. He said he’ll use your bones for cue sticks if you hurt me, plus you should know that the goblins owe me a favor.”

  Luke pulled the covers up and over them and then settled her against his chest. “You do meet the most interesting people, Rio Jones Green.”

  But she was already asleep. Luke stayed awake watching her for a very long time.

  “I love you,” he whispered, and the curse—or, as he thought of it, the monster who’d crouched inside his soul for so long—agreed.

  He carefully untangled Rio’s limbs from his own, kissed her forehead, and headed back to his office. Maybe now, confident that she returned at least some part of his emotion, he would finally be able to think.

  CHAPTER 19

  Rio found Luke in his office at dawn, and she handed him a mug of coffee. The long, high table in his office was covered with bottles, vials, and jars, all filled with various powders and liquids. The hair on the top of his head was standing almost straight up, as if he’d been clutching his head all night long. She glanced around and froze when she saw the evidence of the previous night’s encounter. Everything from the top of his desk was still strewn across the floor nearby.

  She was the new, nonblushing Rio, however. She ignored the mess and her embarrassment and instead concentrated on what he was doing now.

  “New case?”

  He stared almost blindly into his mug and then placed it on the table, reached out and took hers and did the same with it, and then pulled her into a tight hug and kissed her soundly.

  “Good morning.”

  “Good morning to you, too,” she murmured, perfectly content to stand right there for the rest of the morning.

  But he let her go, picked up his coffee, and drained it in a few long swallows. “I need to tell you something, and it’s going to be hard to hear. I think you should sit down.”

  Panic and anger flared. “If this is some kind of twisted routine with you, that you have sex and then have unpleasant talks the next morning, I’m not—”

  “It’s not about us,” Luke said, flashing a brief, reassuring smile before his face resumed its stern lines. “I’ve never used the expression before, but this time it applies: This is literally about life and death.”

  She didn’t like the sound of that. At all. Her mind immediately started tumbling in a thousand different directions, trying to figure out what could be wrong. “What?”

  “It’s Elisabeth,” he said gently. “She is in very bad shape.”

  Of all the crises she’d been considering, one involving Elisabeth hadn’t even been in the mix.

  “What’s wrong with her? I thought she was fine when Merelith came to get her. Is she hurt? Was she in an accident?” Rio put her coffee down again and drummed her fingers on the table, unable to stand still.

  “We should go to her. Where is she?”

  “That’s just it. I saw her yesterday. I went to the Silver Palace to see if I could get Merelith to talk to us about your parents, and I saw Elisabeth while I was there. She’s in a coma, Rio, and she’s barely breathing—she’s barely alive. Neither the Fae healers nor the human doctors can figure out what’s wrong there.”

  He swept out his hand and knocked half the bottles and jars off the table and sent them crashing to the floor. “None of this is going to work, either. Her blood tells me nothing. Her hair tells me nothing. I have no idea why that little girl is sick, but she’s fading fast, and she’s going to die if I can’t figure it out.”

  “Then you’ll figure
it out.” She said it with all the calm certainty in her heart.

  Luke could do anything, and he would do this. It was that simple. Elisabeth needed them, and they were going to make her well.

  He stilled, and then he captured her with his hot, blue gaze. “Maybe there’s a way. Maybe if you could somehow reach her telepathically, in spite of the coma, you could help me figure out what’s wrong. Where it hurts, or what the symptoms are, or something.”

  “Yes,” she said instantly. “Let’s do it. I’ll try anything.”

  She pushed away the niggling fear that nothing she could do would be enough, or that she might actually make it worse.

  Kit suddenly appeared in the doorway, and she didn’t look happy.

  “I already put your breakfast down,” Rio told her. “It’s fish this morning.”

  Kit snarled, but she was facing Luke, so Rio figured it wasn’t about the fish.

  “I know. Don’t you think I know?” Luke ran his hand through his hair again, making it stick up even more wildly, as he stared with frustration at the little fox. “It’s dangerous for Rio to be anywhere around the Winter Court right now. I know. But that little girl’s life hangs in the balance, and I can’t think of any other way to try to reach her.”

  “The two of you had better stop talking about me and start talking to me,” Rio snapped. “I’m going. If there’s even a chance that I might be able to help her and I don’t take it, I could never live with myself.”

  Kit crouched down on the floor, as if ready to leap, and she growled, but this time at Rio.

  “I’m going,” Rio repeated firmly.

  “There’s no way I can get you in there without a big battle or long explanations that I just don’t have time for,” Luke told Kit. “You’re Yokai, and they may not like that. You’ll have to stay here. Merelith did say that Elisabeth wants to see you, so once I explain it to her, I’m sure we’ll be able to bring you with us. But for now, I’d never get past the front door.”

  Kit snarled again and then turned around and stalked back into the house.

  “I think she’s letting us get away with it for now,” Rio said. “Or maybe she’ll just suddenly appear in the middle of Merelith’s place, like that trick she did in the kitchen.”

  She grinned at Luke. “Now that’s something I’d like to see.”

  Luke stared after Kit for a moment, but then he shrugged, as if dismissing the topic.

  “We’re going to travel by Shadows again,” Luke told her. “It can be a little disorienting.”

  “I remember. That’s how you brought me here the night the Grendels were chasing me.”

  He nodded and then wrapped his arms around her waist. She could almost see a dark, shadowy space just before they stepped into it, but it struck her that she didn’t actually know if she’d seen it in reality or if she’d seen it through the prism of Luke’s thoughts. The new and disturbing possibility that she was able to read Luke’s mind was something she’d tried deliberately not to think about, and now wasn’t the time, either, because they were walking into the darkness of his peculiar mode of travel.

  After a brief disorientation, they took another step forward, and Rio realized they were standing about a hundred feet away from the Silver Palace.

  “What? You couldn’t get us right up to the doorway?” She was trying for a little humor—anything to lighten the burden of despair that was crushing Luke—but he only shook his head.

  “The Fae have safeguards in place to keep anyone from showing up on their doorstep through magical means. This is as close as I could get us, and now we’re probably going to have to do battle with the flunkies before we can get to Merelith,” he said grimly. “If ever I were in the mood to blow something up, it’s now, so maybe you should keep an eye on me.”

  She had a better idea. She slipped her hand into his. “We’ll figure this out, and Elisabeth will be just fine. I promise.”

  He kissed her then, fast and hard, and they headed for the Winter Court Palace.

  Elisabeth was awake.

  Rio wanted to jump up and down with joy, but she noticed that Luke’s grim expression didn’t change much. He’d managed to keep from incinerating anybody on the way in, which had been exactly as difficult as he’d predicted.

  “Has she eaten anything? Has she had water? How is her temperature?” He fired the questions at Merelith as he paced the sumptuous silver-and-white room.

  The Fae’s eyes dimmed. “No. In fact, she only woke up a little less than an hour ago. She refuses food and won’t drink any water, but she did accept a little papaya juice. Should we be worried?”

  Rio barely managed to contain her shock at hearing a member of the High Court admit to having an emotion like worry, but she must have given something away with her expression, because Merelith’s icy gaze snapped to Rio.

  “Uncanny,” Merelith whispered. “If someone else had told me, but then—who would’ve dared?”

  It was almost as though she were talking to herself, and when Rio started to ask her about it, the Fae turned away. Rio filed it under things to ask later, when they were sure Elisabeth was well, but questions burned in her brain, and the ominous sound of the ticking grandfather clock in the room haunted her with a reminder of the countdown to her birthday.

  Luke, oblivious to the interchange, was still firing questions. “What did she say? How does she feel? What part—”

  Merelith finally cut him off and gestured to the door. “Why don’t we go in and you can see for yourself, wizard. Elisabeth does want to see Rio and her fox.”

  The Fae looked around the room and then frowned. “Where is the Yokai?”

  “Kit wanted to come and see Elisabeth, but Luke was afraid it would waste too much time trying to persuade your guards to let her in with us,” Rio explained.

  Merelith nodded slowly. “That may indeed have been the case. I will make sure they know to allow her to enter, should you visit at Elisabeth’s request in the future.”

  They all ignored the elephant in the room—the question of whether little Elisabeth even had a future. Rio shoved the thought out of her mind as soon as it appeared.

  “Can we see her now?”

  Merelith opened the door, and the three of them walked into an enormous bedroom that looked like Marie Antoinette’s interior designer had decorated it. There were even chandeliers. Rio, who’d grown up feeling lucky when she managed to get one of the soft cotton quilts for her cot instead of being stuck with one of the scratchy wool ones, gaped at the splendor like she was a country mouse.

  “Rio. You came.” The faint, frail voice came from the direction of the biggest silk-covered bed Rio had ever seen.

  All thoughts of silk and chandeliers fled Rio’s mind when she saw Elisabeth. The girl was clearly very, very ill. She’d become a skeletal caricature of her former self—emaciated, as if an evil incubus had drained her life force in the short amount of time since Rio had last seen her.

  Elisabeth’s cheeks burned with two bright red spots of color, and Rio recognized it as a very bad sign. She’d seen fever like that in children before, and there’d often been a funeral in the convent’s small cemetery shortly afterward. She had no idea how human fever affected the Fae, or if Elisabeth’s half-human, half-Fae body was reacting in a doubly bad way to whatever it was that was making her ill, but Rio didn’t need to be a doctor, or even a wizard, to know that the child was rapidly approaching the end.

  And Rio didn’t let one ounce of any of that thought process show on her face. Instead, she flashed her brightest smile and strolled over to the bed as if Elisabeth had all the time in the world to chat.

  “Elisabeth! You look so beautiful in that lace nightgown,” Rio said enthusiastically. All the time in the world to talk about nightgowns, she reminded herself. “I wish I’d had something like that when I was a little girl. My most exciting pajamas were the Donald Duck ones I once scored at the Bordertown Goodwill thrift shop.”

  “I like Donald Duck,” Eli
sabeth said, smiling so beautifully that Rio’s heart cracked into several jagged pieces. “But I like Minnie Mouse better. She’s my favorite. I would love to have some pajamas with Minnie Mouse on them.”

  “I do not understand humans,” Merelith said, but she was smiling instead of sneering, and Rio felt a moment of kinship with the Fae when she realized they were both putting on an act for the desperately ill child.

  “Why would you want a rodent or a waterfowl on your nightclothes?”

  The Fae looked honestly baffled, and Luke, Rio, and Elisabeth all started laughing.

  “They’re cartoons, Auntie Merelith. I’ll show them to you when I get better.” Elisabeth sighed and closed her eyes, and then she leaned back against the mound of propped-up pillows behind her.

  “Will you try now?” Luke quietly murmured the words, so that Elisabeth wouldn’t hear.

  “But she’s awake. She can tell you herself,” Rio protested.

  She was still afraid that she’d try to fish around in the child’s brain and maybe make things worse. She didn’t know what she was doing—she was a bike messenger, not a neurosurgeon.

  Luke was shaking his head before Rio even finished her sentence. “She’s just a little girl. She probably doesn’t understand what’s happening to her, and to interrogate her about it would frighten her even more than she already is.”

  Merelith stepped closer. “What are you talking about?”

  “I want Rio to listen in on Elisabeth’s mind and see if she can learn anything about this illness that might help us.”

  Merelith considered the idea, and then she nodded.

  “Yes. I give my permission. Besides, since it is you—” Merelith interrupted herself, and whatever she had been about to say to Rio remained unsaid. “Yes, please try it now.”

  Rio approached the bed, climbed up on it, and curled up next to Elisabeth. She stroked the little girl’s hair away from her brow and nearly flinched at the searing heat that was pouring off Elisabeth’s skin. No child could survive fever like this. It was hopeless to even try.