The Cursed Read online

  Rio had listened silently while the tragedy unfolded in his words as if it were happening all around her instead of being the story of her past, a quarter of a century distant. She, Rio, had been assumed dead, after her mother’s own family had hounded Berylan to an early grave. Her father had disappeared, which meant he was probably dead, too. Shock, rage, and sorrow buffeted her, nearly driving her to her knees, but Luke put his strong arms around her and held on tight while she weathered the storm.

  Ultimately, Rio’s heart was too full to hold anything but the pain, so the rest of it broke on the rocky shore of her numbness. Too much, indeed. She wondered if this was what a mental breakdown felt like.

  “How did you not know any of this? You were here in Bordertown then,” she said to Luke.

  He shook his head. “I was in and out, and I was keeping a very low profile back then, avoiding both courts entirely. When I had anything to do with demons or Fae, it was with the lowlifes. I never heard any gossip about the royal families, that’s for sure.”

  “You didn’t know Alice yet, either, so you weren’t nearly as informed as you are these days,” Maestro said.

  “True,” Luke agreed, but then he glared at the man. “Is there anything you don’t know?”

  Maestro sighed. “Every day that I am still alive, I realize that there is more and more that I do not know. Like what’s going to happen tonight at midnight, for example, when Rio will either inherit unimaginable power from both lines of her heritage or be slain when both of her families conspire to kill her.”

  Luke snarled at the man. “I will never let them harm her, and if you’ve got any balls left, you’ll help me protect her.”

  “I’ve been trying to protect her,” Maestro snapped. “Why do you think I’m trying to recruit her? The League is neutral; she’d be safe from both families for a short time.”

  “She is right here,” Rio told them. “Stop talking about me and start talking to me.”

  Luke leaned over and rescued a wrapped sandwich from Kit, then broke pieces off it and started feeding them to the fox. “What do you want to do, Rio? I’ll support you in anything, so long as you don’t plan to leave me behind.”

  Maestro shook his head, but they both ignored him.

  “They drove my parents to an early grave, and I grew up in a convent orphanage because of it,” she said, standing up and brushing off the seat of her jeans. “I need to learn everything about them, so I can decide whether to forgive and forget or find a way to pay them back.”

  “Revenge isn’t a goal worth building a life around,” Luke warned her.

  She nodded, accepting the statement as true without committing to it, and then she held out her hand to Maestro. “I’ll give the League one year, if you can keep my families from going to war. I won’t kill anybody for you, and I won’t break any laws, or even any ethical guidelines. If you can live with that, I’ll sign up right here and now.”

  Maestro stood and they shook hands on the strangest and, probably, the most dangerous deal she’d ever made.

  CHAPTER 28

  Luke figured Rio had about twelve hours left to be part of her old life, and he was determined to give her every opportunity to do exactly that. He managed to sneak in a few phone calls, and by the time they’d walked up and down the length of the Bordertown side of the High Line park twice, everything was in place.

  “We have plans,” he announced.

  “I know,” she said glumly.

  “No, not midnight plans. These are spend the rest of the day having fun plans,” he said, grinning.

  She sighed, and the desolation in that sound was enough to break his heart. “Do you really think I’m in the mood for plans? Or fun? After what I just learned?”

  Luke stopped walking and pulled her into his arms. “I know you’re devastated. I also know that you’re going to have the next year to sort through facts and fictions, and we’ll figure all this out together.”

  “But still—”

  “Clarice said to tell you dancing, O’Malley’s, and the gold dress that matches your eyes,” he said, but then he thought about O’Malley’s, and about how beautiful Rio was, and he scowled. “Although maybe not that, exactly. I don’t want Sean O’Malley or any of his brothers anywhere around you.”

  “Sean O’Malley is a great-looking guy who needs to find the right woman, but that woman is definitely not me,” Rio said.

  He could tell she was thinking about the idea of going out, but after a minute or so, she shook her head. “I just can’t do it. All I want to do right now is sleep and eat and gear up for tonight. I wish I had some idea of what might happen or how to prepare.”

  “I tend to carbo-load in preparation for a major magical event,” he said, tongue firmly in cheek, and was rewarded with a glimmer of a smile.

  “I can’t imagine how I could make it through this without you, but I can’t believe how selfish I am to say that, or even to feel it,” she whispered. “What if the stress of tonight activates your curse?”

  “Then we’ll be cursed together, and your families in both Winter’s Edge and Demon Rift had better watch their asses, because we’ll be coming for them.” He knew he’d probably ruined the atmosphere of lighthearted fun he’d been trying to create, but just the thought of taking on the assholes who’d ruined Rio’s parents’ lives was enough to make his entire damn day.

  She flashed a menacingly deadly smile, and he almost started to worry. Maybe being around him was teaching her to be bloodthirsty. Next thing he knew, she’d be blowing up cars and hurling fireballs.

  “Why would I want to blow up cars?” She looked puzzled, and then her eyes widened and she gasped as she looked up at Luke.

  “You did it again, didn’t you?”

  She nodded. “Just that snippet about next I’d be blowing up cars and hurling fireballs. I’m so sorry! I’m not trying to intrude on your privacy or your mind. It just . . . happens.”

  He frowned down at her, while humans passed them by on both sides, barely sparing a glance at the couple standing stock-still in the middle of the path.

  “What am I thinking now?”

  She closed her eyes, and then she inhaled sharply and her cheeks flamed a vividly hot pink. “You—you—is that even possible?”

  He leaned closer, so he could whisper in her ear. “I think if you are very, very flexible, and I—”

  “Luke!” She cast a scandalized glance around. “Stop it immediately. There are people walking here.”

  He clasped her hand in his and started walking, ready to leave the park, retrieve his Jeep, and head for home so they could eat, sleep, and maybe try out the idea that he’d just been thinking about. Or an even simpler one, that involved Rio naked, bent over the back of the couch, and him driving into her until she lost her mind and screamed his name.

  “Luke,” she said, gasping, and he realized she’d done it again. She must have pulled the visual right out of his mind because she was blushing so hard her skin was practically on fire.

  “Oh, Rio. I am so going to love this new skill of yours. Do you want to know what I’m thinking about now?”

  “No! Kit, bite him,” Rio commanded, but Kit laughed her little laugh, changing back from dog into fox as they walked down the stairs into Bordertown, and then she trotted about ten paces ahead of them all the way back to the parking lot.

  Luke called Clarice back and postponed their plans and asked her to organize a birthday bash for Rio—for tomorrow night. He and Rio both might be dead, but if they survived tonight, they’d be seriously in need of a party.

  “Luke,” Clarice said, stopping him just as he was about to hang up. “Take care of her. Whatever is about to happen tonight—and I don’t want to know—but please. Take care of Rio for me.”

  “I swear to you that I’ll either protect her or die trying,” he told her.

  “I’d prefer option A,” she said dryly. “You wizards are pretty dramatic.”

  “I think we’re going to be gr
eat friends,” he said, grinning.

  “You still owe me a car.”

  When he hung up, he was still smiling.

  “She has that effect on men,” Rio said, rolling her eyes.

  “Would you like to know the effect you have on me? Why don’t you read my mind again?” He leered cheerfully, and she burst out laughing.

  The sound was like balm to the cracked and scorched places in his soul.

  Mine, mine, mine, mine.

  “Yes, yours,” she agreed. “Now give me the keys, I’m driving.”

  For the entire way back to his place, Luke couldn’t wipe the smile off his face.

  CHAPTER 29

  Twenty minutes to midnight

  BLACK SWAN FOUNTAIN SQUARE

  “Here’s the thing about the easy times. They sweep by in life far too quickly,” Rio said, smoothing the sides of her dress with her hands. “I can’t believe I’ll be twenty-five in twenty more minutes.”

  “You look spectacular, and I enjoyed every minute of today. There was no sweeping,” Luke said, and the gleam of honest appreciation and even more sincere desire in his eyes—in spite of all the ways they’d tried to quench their hunger for each other all afternoon and evening—was enough to warm her up all the way to her icy cold toes.

  “I’d feel better in my jeans and boots.”

  Clarice had insisted on stopping by with The Dress, telling Rio that if she wouldn’t wear it on her own twenty-fifth birthday, then there must be something wrong with her. Rio had sat her down, poured her a stiff glass of whiskey, and then told her everything. It had taken longer for Clarice to quit saying “You’re a princess?” than it had for her to stop saying “You slept with Luke Oliver?” but she’d finally moved on.

  After that, she’d held Rio’s hand while Rio had cried about losing her parents before she’d ever been able to know them, and Luke had gone outside and incinerated Helga’s new van.

  “We need to get you a new hobby, by the way,” Rio told Luke, but then she handed him another bottle of water. Preventive medicine, in a way. “This one is costing you a fortune. Helga told me that she’s looking to trade up again, and this time she wants a better sound system.”

  Luke grimaced, and Rio started laughing. Only in Bordertown would people be so sanguine about a neighbor who regularly detonated their automobiles as a bizarre kind of stress relief.

  Anyway, The Dress. It was a shimmery gold silk that matched exactly the amber flecks in her eyes, or so Clarice had told her, but even fashion-challenged Rio had to admit that when she’d put it on, she felt sexier, more beautiful, and more powerful than she’d ever felt in anything she’d worn before.

  And Luke loved it. He’d been reduced to stuttering incoherence when he’d first seen her, in the dress, with actual makeup on, and with her hair framing her face in gentle waves. Clarice was a miracle worker, and Rio’d needed to fight Luke off to keep him from ripping the dress off her, right there in the dining room. They’d discovered, though, that silk slid up legs and hips really easily, and at least one of Luke’s fantasy visuals from earlier in the day had been fulfilled.

  “You look like a princess, so maybe the people who don’t know you well enough to see your inner royalty will pause, at least, before they try to pull any tricks,” Luke said, folding his arms over his chest in his best bodyguard impersonation.

  “Here comes Merelith, so let the tricks begin,” Rio whispered, and then she began her own impersonation, the one where she pretended to actually feel like the heiress to two separate thrones.

  The Fae led at least two dozen of her guardsmen, and they marched toward Rio in icy and terrible beauty. She could imagine herself after a decade with the Winter’s Edge Fae; she’d be as icily perfect as an orchid trapped in an icicle, and just as useless, with only the potential of danger or ruin in her future.

  No, she didn’t see herself living in Winter’s Edge.

  “We will be delighted to take you home with us when this ceremony is over,” Merelith pronounced as she came gliding over the cobblestones of the square.

  “Why, hello to you, too, Auntie Merelith,” Rio purred. “How nice of you to wish me a happy birthday.”

  Merelith’s eyes flared to molten silver. “Do not mistake my kindness for apathy, El’andille. It’s a flaw your mother shared.”

  Rio touched Luke’s arm when he raised flame-cloaked hands, as if to blast her aunt. “No, it’s not time.”

  A ripple ran across the assembled Fae when the sound of stomping feet—many stomping feet marching in cadence—began on the other side of the square and then headed toward Rio. It was Chance, of course, leading a contingent of his war guards.

  “Happy birthday. I see the ugly side of your family is already here, sister,” he called out, and his demons pounded their chests and laughed with voices like thunder.

  Rio smiled at him and waited for him to come closer.

  “You told me no gifts,” he said, showing her his empty hands. “I hear and obey.”

  Rio could imagine herself after a decade in Demon Rift; she’d be as logical-minded and vicious as her brother, afraid to trust or love or even show compassion, with only the potential for brutality or battle in her future.

  No, she didn’t see herself living in Demon Rift.

  A solitary figure walked out of the fountain, untouched by the water, and crossed the square toward Rio. When the man arrived in front of her, he did what none of the others had.

  He bowed.

  “Princess, it is time,” Maestro said, rising.

  The Fae and the demons all fell back a step or two, but it didn’t last long.

  “The League of the Black Swan has no business here,” Merelith cried out.

  “Demon Rift agrees with the Fae,” Chance yelled.

  “You’re not even official yet, and already you’re making history,” Luke said loudly enough for everyone to hear him. “You’ve got Demon Rift and Winter’s Edge agreeing on something.”

  “I’m scared,” Rio admitted to Luke, her lips not moving at all, in a whisper barely loud enough for him to hear. Nobody else could know. She had to present a courageous front. Hence, The Dress.

  She took a deep breath and began. “Listen to my words, all of you. I want to learn about both sides of my family, but I won’t be used as a tool in your politics, and I especially won’t be used to incite war. For the length of one year, I’ll be working for the League of the Black Swan.”

  Merelith and Chance both started to protest, but Rio cut them off.

  “I’ll visit you, and I’ll study my heritage, as long as you treat me with respect and promise not to try to lock me in any dungeons or anywhere else, for ‘my own good’ or for any other reason,” she continued.

  “If we can’t agree to this, then we’ll all take the time to see what powers, exactly, I inherit in a few minutes.”

  Merelith started forward, but Luke raised his hands, and everyone in the square could see the blue flames as they rose at least ten feet into the air.

  “I don’t think so,” he told the Fae, and then he bowed to Rio. “Happy birthday, Princess.”

  Clarice and Miro stepped out from behind the fountain, startling the demons nearest them. “Happy birthday, Princess.”

  An entire Oblong of goblins swarmed up from behind Luke’s Jeep and settled themselves on the ground around Rio. “Happy birthday, Princess,” their leader said.

  A mountain troll carrying an enormous club sauntered into the square and took up a position near the Fae guards. “Happy birthday, Princess,” Abernathy said.

  The overall effect was exactly as she and Luke had planned it, and Rio had never felt so very much the center of attention in her life. She was going to look like a complete fool if something didn’t happen, and happen fast.

  “No worries,” Luke said, and he took her hand and then pointed to the sky with his other hand. “Something is definitely about to happen.”

  The starry night above them was changing; fixed points of
light in the sky suddenly danced and circled each other, combining and retreating in graceful movements until the entire night sky was filled with their waltz.

  A starlight waltz.

  A giant band of pure silver light formed in the sky and then hurtled down toward Earth—toward the square—toward Rio. She had only an instant to tell herself not to panic, and then the band of light struck the ground, enclosing Rio but pushing Luke out of the circle with a loud clap.

  When Rio could hear and see again, she was no longer alone. A woman who seemed to be made of pure starlight stood next to her, gazing wonderingly at her, and somehow Rio knew, with no room for doubt, that this was her mother.

  “You are my El’andille,” the woman—Berylan—said, and Rio wanted to cry or laugh or shout with joy.

  “Mother? Is it really you?” Rio whispered the words. “Are you—are you really here?”

  Rio’s mother smiled at her, but the smile held a universe of sadness. “I can only be here as you see me, and only on the anniversary of your birth each year now that you have finally reached age twenty-five, but I have a gift for you, my beautiful, darling daughter.”

  Rio let her tears fall without even trying to stop them. “I don’t want any gifts, Mother. I only want to spend time with you.”

  “And you will, my lovely, brave girl, but first I must tell you something that I’ve waited for twenty-five years to say.”

  Berylan’s sadness was so obvious that Rio’s chest ached for her mother, for herself—for both of them.

  “Don’t tell me if it makes you this sad,” Rio said. She’d had enough bad news to last a lifetime.

  Her mother embraced Rio with arms made of starlight, and she whispered into her ear. “I am so sorry for leaving you. I was so very ill, but I tried to fight. I tried so hard to fight so I could stay with you, my beautiful girl. Please forgive me for leaving you alone. My body wasn’t strong enough to keep the promise I made to you that I would get better. Please, can you ever forgive me?”