The Cursed Read online

  Rio wept in her mother’s arms. She wept for Berylan’s pain, and for the years they’d lost and would never be able to recover. “Mother, I’ll forgive you if you ask it, but there’s nothing to forgive. You didn’t want to leave me. I know that now.”

  “Never,” Berylan declared, her sparkling silver eyes flashing.

  “Can you stay and talk to me? I have so many questions,” Rio said, not too proud to plead if it would have any effect on how long her mother could remain.

  “Sadly, not this time, but I have a gift for you that will allow me to visit you for longer and longer periods each time, if you are willing and able to accept it.”

  “Anything,” Rio said instantly.

  Berylan pulled her daughter close and shared a secret, and then she called to the starlight that had infused her entire being, and it answered her call.

  “Now it is time for you to conquer starlight,” she said, and it was the last thing Rio heard before the river of silver fire poured into her, obliterating thought and reason.

  Her consciousness expanded, and suddenly she could see the plots and plans of the two branches of her family, almost as if she were plucking them directly out of Merelith’s and Chance’s minds. Such amazing, twisty plans they had for her, and they didn’t even know her. It made her laugh, and it made her angry, and then she felt the starlight take her, and she realized both Chance and Merelith were awestruck at the sight.

  “Starlight is very powerful, and nobody now living in either family can wield it,” her mother told her. “With this magic, you will be safer from their plots and hatreds.”

  “I want to go with you, back to the stars,” she told her mother, who laughed and beckoned.

  Rio danced forward, ready to take the leap into the skies, only dimly aware of Luke hurling himself against the starlit prism, but then suddenly Kit was in the circle, too, and the fox kept blocking Rio’s path to her mother.

  “I want to go with my mother. Don’t you understand, Kit? I never again want to be that little three-year-old, cold and alone and sobbing for her mommy,” Rio cried out, shoving at the fox, who was suddenly the size of a small pony.

  But you are not alone. Have you not seen?

  Kit’s voice in Rio’s mind brought a clarifying calm, and Rio could see and think again. She realized Luke had battered himself bloody from trying to break through the starlight circle to get to her, and looking beyond him, she saw and remembered that all of Fountain Square was filled with her friends.

  “I’m not alone,” Rio said, and her mother nodded.

  “You are not alone, and I am so proud of you. It is not your time, my beautiful daughter. Come back next year, and we will share so much,” Berylan said, but then she began to float up into the sky, returning to the stars that sheltered her. “Remember me.”

  Rio fell to the ground, sobbing, as her mother disappeared into the sky. “How could I ever forget you?”

  The circle of light vanished, and Luke ran in and scooped her into his arms, holding her so tightly she couldn’t breathe.

  “Lungs,” she croaked out, and he loosened his hold just enough for her to catch her breath.

  “They kept you from me, and now I’m going to kill them all,” he snarled, and then he lowered her gently until she was standing on her feet, pushed her behind him, and started to call fire to his command.

  This time, though, the flames weren’t blue. The fire circling his hands and arms burned a hot orange-red, and Luke’s eyes burned with the same fire. Rio flinched back, but then she remembered that this was Luke. He would never, ever hurt her.

  “Mine,” he snarled.

  The curse. It had to be the curse.

  “He’s gone over,” somebody yelled.

  It must have been Maestro, because suddenly he was there between them, slashing at Luke with a silver blade. When the blade connected with Luke’s skin, he howled, and the air filled with the sizzle of burning flesh. Luke swung out with one foot and kicked Maestro in the head, sending the man flying across the square.

  “Kill him,” Maestro yelled, tossing the silver blade to Chance.

  Rio’s brother looked down at the blade in his hand and then at his sister.

  “Don’t even think about it, or I will end you,” Rio said, letting her body fill with starlight again.

  Chance dropped the blade and deliberately stepped on it with his heavy boot, snapping blade from hilt. “I’m on your side, Rio. Remember that in the future.”

  With that, Rio’s brother the demon prince waved a hand, and he and his entire contingent of war guards turned and marched away.

  Rio turned to Merelith, who shrugged. “I see my sister is as flighty as ever.”

  Rio was still wondering if the Fae had intended the pun when Merelith and her guards vanished.

  Luke, deprived of his targets, whirled around and saw the goblins, who’d huddled together, probably to get out of the line of fire.

  “No,” Rio shouted. “They’re my friends.”

  Rio wanted to slap some sense into him, but El’andille remembered that the only way to conquer a curse was with its opposite. In this case, darkness could only be defeated by love.

  Rio grabbed Luke’s head and pulled it down to hers, and then she kissed him with every ounce of love and caring and hope she’d ever felt for him and for their future together.

  “I believe in you,” she said, over and over between kisses, until finally, when she looked into his eyes again for the twentieth time or so, they glowed a beautiful deep blue instead of flame red, and Luke looked utterly bewildered.

  “I believe in you, too, but why are we making out in the middle of Fountain Square?”

  Some little time later, they sat on the bench facing the fountain, watching a beautiful—and very much alive—black swan float serenely in the water of the Black Swan Fountain near its marble namesake. Rio handed Luke the bottle of whiskey that Clarice had left them, and he took a long drink.

  “Don’t ever do that to me again,” he commanded once more, and she almost laughed.

  “Don’t ever again get sucked into a starlight circle with my mother, who is apparently some kind of celestial being, and learn that I can conquer starlight?”

  Luke looked closely at her, and then his eyes widened. “Rio, your eyes—they’ve gone completely silver. There’s not even any pupil or white left.”

  “I can still see perfectly well. Apparently it’s a big damn deal to conquer starlight,” Rio said, and then she started giggling.

  Luke grinned. “Your eyes just went back to normal. The silver is pretty, but I’d miss the amber.”

  Rio blinked. “Have we had too much to drink, or did that swan just turn into a naked woman?”

  Luke turned to look, but Rio covered his eyes with her hand.

  The swan who’d turned into a woman glared at them. “If you would give a person a little privacy to get dressed, it might be nice. Or is all that starlight affecting your brain?”

  Rio started laughing, pretty sure that both starlight and whiskey were affecting her brain, but she tossed the swan-woman a salute and pulled Luke to his feet. “Time to walk home, handsome. There’s no way either of us is in shape to drive.”

  Rio made an important discovery during the course of that trip: It takes a very long time to walk anywhere in Bordertown when you’re stopping to kiss someone every five feet. She found that she didn’t mind it at all.

  CHAPTER 30

  Luke shoved open the back door to his house and half-carried, half-dragged Rio in with him.

  “We’re bad,” she said drunkenly, and then she started to giggle.

  He tripped on something and realized that the lights in his house were all blazing, which was unexpected in the middle of the night when he’d been out, but he had nothing left. No reserves with which to protect them; his magic was fried and he was damn near fried himself.

  A bottle of water sailed through the air at him, and he reflexively held up a hand to catch it, and then
Alice was suddenly there and helping him carry Rio inside.

  “I managed to get out of the Hawaii trip, but not until I was in Seattle. I’m sorry I didn’t make it back in time, love. What happened?”

  “It’s a long story.” He got Rio to the couch and then stopped moving long enough to drain the bottle of water. “I’ll tell you after I get some sleep.”

  “Sleep would be great,” Rio said, yawning in midsentence. “I conquered starlight tonight, Alice.”

  “That’s lovely, dear. I’ll make you pancakes in the morning.” Alice patted Rio’s arm, but then she shook her head at Luke. “You’re in love, aren’t you?”

  He stroked Rio’s hair—Princess El’andille’s hair—and nodded. “Pretty much out of my mind with it. She’s the princess, and I’m the frog.”

  Luke turned his head and scanned the room, remembering the thing he’d tripped over. “What is all that wood doing in my dining room, Alice? Are you planning to go stake some vampires or something?”

  She strode over to a pile of cardboard and held a piece up, and he was shocked to see that the cardboard square was mostly covered with his picture, with some writing surrounding it. Realization dawned, and he looked around for something to blow up. Since wood and paper covered most of his house, targets were plentiful.

  “Alice, I’m going to kill you.”

  Something in his voice must have alerted Rio to possible danger, because she sat straight up on the couch, already pulling starlight into her eyes, but then she fell back against Luke and started laughing.

  “Luke, why is Anne Hathaway holding a Luke Oliver for Sheriff sign?”

  Luke sighed and gave up, and then he pulled Rio into his lap and kissed the breath out of her. Alice had discreetly vanished down the hall, with Kit following her, by the time they came up for air, and Rio started laughing.

  “Happy birthday to me. It’s going to be a crazy damn year.”

  Turn the page for a preview of Alyssa Day’s League of the Black Swan novella

  THE CURSE OF THE BLACK SWAN

  Appearing in the Enthralled anthology, coming in July 2013 from Berkley Sensation

  THE CURSE OF THE BLACK SWAN

  A thousand years ago, a beautiful young peasant woman was bathing in a stream, singing a song of gratitude for the golden sunshine and the magnificent day. However, unlike many who play in the daylight, the girl also sang her thanks to the moon, which rested in diurnal slumber and yet heard the lilting melody of the girl’s voice and was pleased.

  But others with darker purpose heard the girl’s wondrous song, too. The ruler of the land, a cold, hard man who beat his hounds, his children, and his wife with equal fervor, followed the melody to the stream and found the girl, innocent and glorious in her nudity, and he determined to attack her with his rapacious lusts.

  The girl pleaded with the barbarian king, which availed her nothing. So then she ran, and she fought, as her father the woodsman had taught her, and she managed to keep the king at bay until the sun dipped below twilight’s horizon, when her strength finally gave out. The king, enraged by her defiance, stabbed her through the heart and left her to die. As the girl bled to death on the bank of the silvery stream, the night wind whispered in her ear that the moon, who had appreciated the gift of the girl’s song, had taken pity on her.

  “I will save you from this king, but you must agree never to leave me, and to become a black swan and sing to me every third night for the rest of your life, and swear that your daughters and their daughters will continue to fulfill this promise.”

  The girl, who had lost all hope as her blood pooled near her body and then slipped into the moonlit stream, parted her lips, barely able to speak. “And if I agree, will this gift—this curse—never end?”

  The moon reigned alone over the dark night, and thus had her own measure of cruelty, but she knew well that mortals needed the promise of hope to survive, and so she offered this edited version of the truth in return:

  “You and each generation’s eldest daughter will be released from your vow when you meet your one true love.”

  The girl’s tears flowed as her blood had done mere moments before when she agreed, and the moon caused a beautiful fountain to appear on that very spot. In the center of the fountain, a perfect black marble statue of the beautiful young woman, one hand held out to a swan, now stood as eternal monument to the vow.

  From that day until this one, a black swan swims in the fountain and sings her songs of loss and longing, every third night, while the moon smiles her icy smile. This woman who is also a swan plots and plans for how to avoid falling in love, for her ancestors had learned and passed down the bitter truth of the moon’s deadly promise.

  And, somewhere, a man exists who one day will become the true love to a magical swan.

  Just before she kills him.

  CHAPTER 1

  BORDERTOWN, A PLACE WHERE THE FAE, DEMON, AND HUMAN WORLDS INTERSECT, HIDDEN IN THE HEART OF NEW YORK

  Sean O’Malley ran into the burning building, dodging and weaving around the rest of his colleagues who were running and limping out of the inferno before it exploded or completely collapsed, either of which was due to happen at any minute.

  “O’Malley, get your ass back here,” his boss, the new Bordertown fire chief, shouted.

  Sean ignored him, just as he’d ignored the previous fire chief. He’d heard something in that building. Maybe it was only a cat. No matter how much it tore him up inside when he found evidence that a helpless animal had lost its life in a fire, he knew the rules: Firefighters didn’t risk their lives for pets. Not that he gave a rat’s ass for rules right then, and he’d certainly bent a few to save pets in the past. They all had.

  But it hadn’t sounded like a cat. It had sounded like a baby.

  Zach, the closest thing to a friend Sean had on the crew, planted himself in front of Sean, blocking his path to the door.

  “Not this time,” Zach shouted.

  They had to be loud to be heard over the roar of the flames that were greedily consuming the old building. Too much rotten wood, too little upkeep—it would be easy to blame that, if this hadn’t been the fourth building in as many nights hit in exactly the same way. They had a serial arsonist on their hands.

  “I heard a baby. Get out of my way, or I’ll go through you.”

  Sean didn’t have time to delay. Zach was just over six feet tall, and he was all lean muscle, but Sean was bigger still, by a couple of inches and probably forty pounds. Not to mention his extra abilities.

  Marcus moved out of Sean’s way, fast. None of them understood how Sean could hear things that nobody else could, but they knew it was true. Enhanced hearing was one of his superpowers, they liked to joke. Just as they all knew that he could withstand temperatures that would have fried most of them alive.

  They didn’t joke about that one.

  They knew he was different, but they didn’t know how different. Sean didn’t tell anybody he was half fire demon. Life was easier that way.

  He burst into the conflagration, head down and running for the spot where the sound had originated. Second floor, to the left. He barely paused at the staircase, but the view was enough to make a sane man flinch. A roaring wall of orange-red flame screamed toward him, and the heat knocked him back a couple of steps. His skin felt the heat even under his suit, and he found out his protective gear wasn’t rated anywhere near high enough when the fabric started to melt off his body.

  Whatever accelerant the bastard had used wasn’t purely chemical; no way would a normal fire be burning that hot. Magic was involved here. In fact, it would take black magic to push a fire to these levels. Sean could feel his eyes flaring as his pupils contracted and he knew that anybody watching him would see his irises turn deep blood orange in color and start to glow.

  Sean analyzed the situation for options, but the stairs were the only way up; no matter that the stairwell was a tunnel of flame and probably going to explode any minute. He took them four at
a time, barely clearing the last one before the explosion hit and the stairs collapsed into a burning mass of tinder. He glanced back at the fiery pit at the bottom and grimaced, and a falling chunk of ceiling smashed down on his helmet, nearly knocking him on his ass.

  He stood there, head ringing and skull vibrating, and realized that one of these days he was going to kill himself trying to act like a big damn hero.

  But it wasn’t going to be today.

  The sound came again, and he still wasn’t sure. Wounded animals could sound a lot like babies. It could go either way. But he’d come this far, and he’d be damned if he’d leave anybody behind. He took the first door across the hall to the left of the stairwell, unerringly finding the source of the sound. The front room of the apartment was only beginning to burn, and he had a moment to hope that the bedrooms were in good shape before he hit the door running. Two seconds later, about a hundred pounds of shaggy black fur smashed into his chest.

  Sean barely stayed on his feet. There had been a lot of power behind that furry projectile. The beast hit the floor and immediately clamped its powerful jaws around Sean’s ankle and pulled, hard. The pink collar on the dog’s neck proclaimed that the creature was named Petunia.

  “Okay, Petunia, hang on,” Sean said, using his most soothing voice, but the dog’s whining increased in both pitch and volume, and she pulled even harder, trying to move Sean over to the corner of the room.

  The corner. There was a crib, or bassinet, or whatever the hell people called the small, lace-draped, wooden cradle tucked against the corner of the room. The crying sound came again, and now he could tell it was coming from the crib.

  “I got her, buddy,” Sean told Petunia. She seemed to understand, since she let go of Sean’s ankle immediately and stood there, panting and making deep coughing noises. Smoke inhalation could damage dogs’ lungs, too, and Sean made a mental note to have the animal looked at when they got out of there. A crash sounded in the apartment’s front room, and he amended the thought.