Wolf's Curse

by Kelley Armstrong

  Marchocias looks at me without waiting for Allan’s answer. She doesn’t want one—she only wanted to needle him, that needle all the more delightful if he doesn’t understand it.

  “And you, Romulus, pray tell, where is your Remus? I do hope I didn’t injure her too badly. That was an accident. She caught me off-guard. Humans don’t usually run at demons.” She chuckles. “I am glad to see my progeny are so fearless. I only hope they aren’t quite as breakable as they seem.”

  “Kate’s fine,” I say.

  “Then where is she?” Marchocias frowns as she leans to look over my shoulder. “There’s no sign of your twin and her lycan friend, only you and Iphis and Circe and Edward.”

  “Edward?” Mason says.

  “There’s a surprising lack of vampires in Greco-Roman lore, so I chose a more modern moniker for you. I considered Lestat, maybe even Louis, but I settled on Edward, the teenage vampire. Fitting, yes? Please tell me you sparkle, or I shall be dreadfully disappointed.”

  Mason scowls.

  “Close enough,” she says.

  I jump in, diverting her from her questions about Kate. If Marchocias isn’t the one who took her, then I don’t want her to realize my sister is missing. There are plenty of demon-summoning jokes in our world, world-wise supernaturals rolling their eyes at the idiots who fall for demon bargains, the way Marchocias sneered at the idiots who keep coming to her land. People keep coming because they don’t believe the urban legends. And people keep summoning demons because they believe they’ll be the ones who do it right.

  Yet there’s a reason those bargains never work in our favor—a demon’s greater power is their ability to sniff out and manipulate our weaknesses. Tell Marchocias that Kate is missing, and she’ll offer to retrieve her for a price . . . only to reveal that she’s taken Kate herself.

  “If we’re trespassing,” I say, “it’s unintentional, and you know it. We were fleeing your hounds, and they trapped us in this cabin.”

  “They had a bit of fun. I can’t stopper their ears to the siren’s call of chaos, and that camp of yours was screaming louder than an air-raid alarm.”

  “Yeah,” Mason says. “Blame the camp. Blame the chaos there that you created.”

  “Oh, my dear Eddie, I only wish I could take credit for that.”

  The siren’s call of chaos.

  Chaos.

  I mentally kick myself for not seeing it sooner. Demons feed on chaos. Among half-demons, only the children of Lucifer actually crave it, but that hunger must still be there, waiting to be ignited.

  I kept blaming hormones for what happened at the conference. Something sparking testosterone. What the half-demon campers had been doing, though—indulging their sex and aggression drives—also sparks chaos.

  We think of chaos as negative, but aggression can be chaotic in both positive and negative ways. As a Pack, we wrestle and play fight to hone our skills but also because it’s fun, even if we walk away bruised and battered. Presumably, sex would be the same, chaotic in a positive way.

  “That’s what you were doing with the camp,” I say. “Igniting latent chaos hunger in the half-demons.”

  “Igniting latent chaos hunger? My children are as clever as they are bold.”

  “So you admit it,” Allan says. “You did that, back at the camp.”

  “Oh, no. I mean Romulus is clever in his reasoning and his very precise word choices. The problem, my dear babes, is that I am not some lesser demon, so greedy for chaos I’ll gorge on one meal that empties the buffet.”

  Mason scowls at me. “Do demons always talk like this? Round and round in riddles.”

  “Explain it to him, Romulus.”

  I hesitate, but Mason waves for me to go on.

  “She means that what happened at camp would be a smorgasbord of chaos,” I say. “But unlike killing people in nineteenth-century settlements, this would have consequences. Those pioneers left behind loved ones, but they were human. Even if friends and family made the journey and searched, they wouldn’t have stayed long. They’d presume some natural danger took them. This is a camp of supernatural teens with parents who’ll know to look for a supernatural source. Powerful parents who will not leave Marchocias’s territory until they have answers.”

  “Maybe she’d like that,” Mason says. “More souls to devour.”

  Marchocias wrinkles her nose. “I do not devour souls. As for wanting more people here . . .” She turns to me. “Is that what your pack would like? Find a way to draw more humans to your territory?”

  “You’re a demon, not a werewolf.”

  “You are created in my image.” She looks down. “Well, not this image, which is a little too crunchy for my tastes.” She looks at us. “That is the modern term, isn’t it? Crunchy? Granola? I’d prefer to borrow a puppet with more fashion sense, but such are the limitations of my wilderness abode.”

  She glances at me. “Chosen wilderness abode. I am not exiled here. I choose to live in this forest, and as you can tell by the legends, I do not welcome guests, so I would hardly want a host of supernaturals descending on my valley. I will admit I was trying to figure out how to rid myself of that monstrosity they called your . . . camp, was it? A hideous blight on my forest, filled with teenagers.” She wrinkles her nose. “The trick was to convince them to leave quietly. This is not quietly.”

  “So what do you want from us?” I say.

  She smiles, a slow smile that stretches her human mouth into something disturbingly like a wolf’s grin, her square teeth seeming to lengthen to points.

  “What do my kind always want, dear boy?” She folds her arms on the window opening and leans as close as she can with the warding. “I have come to offer you a deal.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Kate

  The hand on my foot yanks, and before I can even react, I’m twisted, slamming down on my back, a body atop mine, hands at my throat. My arms ram up and smack the arms away, but they come right back, squeezing so hard that I can only flail beneath my attacker as I struggle to breathe.

  It’s dark, and I can’t see with the flashlight gone, and the hands squeeze as I punch at nothingness, unable to find the person on top of me.

  “You killed my brother,” Elijah’s voice snarls. The hands tighten. “Your parents got him killed. Your Pack got him killed.”

  “I—I—” I rasp.

  “Did you think you could get away with that? Did you think I’d let you get away with it? This is payback, Kate. From my family to yours.”

  My arms pulse, skin rippling as panic rocks through me, triggering a Change.

  Is this why Elijah was at the camp? Is this what he had planned? Revenge? He’ll kill me here and then escape, leaving me in a tunnel no one will ever find, and tell my family we got separated and he has no idea what happened. Something horrible. Something tragic.

  That makes no sense, Kate.

  Even if it did, it’s not what’s happening here. In my gut, I know it, and even if I hadn’t heard his voice in the distance, I would know this was not him.

  All that passes in a flash as I fight against the darkness holding me down. Then my hand makes contact, smacking hard against flesh. Something to fight. Someone to fight. Not magic. Flesh and blood. I can hit that. Hell yeah, I can hit that.

  My muscles stop twitching and obey my commands. Forget the hands around my throat. Forget the fact I can’t breathe. I don’t need to see my attacker to know where they are—right on top of me.

  “Giving up already, Kate? Figures. You’re—”

  I slam my fist upward, aiming for that whispering voice. My hand hits hard bone. A yelp. A very feminine yelp.

  I hit again, this one only a glancing blow, but my attacker is already reeling. I grab at the hands around my throat, and my nails are still partly changed, more claws than fingers. I slash, and my attacker howls, and I slash again, and the hands fly off my neck as hot blood spatters my face.

  “Yeah, nice try,” I croak. “But next time you
want to impersonate someone, maybe don’t go quite so over-the-top with the villainy. Also? Elijah has a scent. You don’t. I’m guessing that’s—”

  I freeze, and that’s not my doing. She’s locked me in a binding spell.

  When I go still, she leans over me. “Giving up so soon? I would have expected better than that. Do you have any idea how valuable you are? A hereditary female werewolf? I know places where I could sell you for enough money that I never need to work again. There’s a Saudi werewolf who’d pay ten million for a breeding partner like you. Or there’s a German sorcerer who’d pay nearly as much to study you, see how he could replicate your genetic code. The most profitable method, of course, would be to sell you piecemeal. Bit by bit on the black market.”

  Her fingers move to my breastbone, prodding before she chuckles. “And that barely sets your heart skipping. Nerves of steel, indeed. Would you like to know what I did to your cute boyfriend? Maybe that will unsettle you more. You have noticed he’s stopped shouting for you, haven’t you?”

  My heart does speed up at that, but I force it to slow. I heard Elijah shout as she grabbed me. She wasn’t anywhere near him.

  But that doesn’t mean she’s alone.

  Doesn’t mean she hadn’t set a trap—

  No, none of that. Wait, and be patient, and let her talk. Mom says that is a surefire way to lower their guard. Everyone wants to talk, like the villain in a James Bond movie. So you let them do it.

  There must be a pinprick of light coming from somewhere because I can distinguish the outline of her head. That helps. It gives me a target—a head with long, curly hair that, for a second, reminds me of Paige. I inhale, but there’s still no scent. She’s using some kind of dark magic to cover her smell.

  Her head lowers toward mine again. “Do you have any idea—?”

  I slam my fists up, breaking the spell. One fist collides with the side of her head, and she rocks, and it’s enough for me to hit her again and scramble out from under her.

  “Now that is a left hook,” she says, coalescing into a dim figure with one hand pressed to her head. “Please tell me you’re left-handed.”

  “Nope.”

  “Damn. I’d almost like to see your right hook, then. Just preferably not in the side of my head. I might not survive the encounter. You’re lucky I had the forethought to cast an armoring spell.”

  “I’m lucky?”

  “You are if you hope to get out of here. You won’t escape if I’m dead. Or too addled to show you the way. You’ll crawl in circles forever.”

  She’s toying with me. Maybe that should have been obvious. It’s certainly what I’ve been telling myself—that we’re in no serious danger, that she could have killed us if that was her plan. Did I believe it? No, but it kept me calm enough to get us through this. Nerves of steel are very easy to find when you’ve convinced yourself this is just an adventure, Alice down the rabbit hole, curiouser and curiouser.

  Now I hear her words, hinting at escape, and I want to heave a shuddering sigh of relief. See? I was right. She’s toying with us. Scaring us off. Except, if I were a dark witch who’d caught a couple of teens in her web, I’d tell them the same thing. One, it keeps your prey from panicking and fighting back. Two, it keeps them from killing you if they do decide to fight.

  I crouch as best I can in the low tunnel, facing off against the shadowy figure, every muscle tense for attack.

  “Bring me Elijah,” I say. “Show us the exit. Then we’ll leave.”

  “Is that an order, princess? Didn’t I just mention how valuable you are?”

  “I’m a Pack wolf. The only time we tell a mutt all the horrible ways we can kill him is when we want to scare the shit out of him and leave him alive to pass on the message. Otherwise, we’d break his neck and be done with it.”

  Her chuckle ripples through the darkness. “Nice to speak to a fellow predator. So many wannabes, you know. Sorcerers and half-demons and druids, all thinking they’re badass killers, but once they see my storeroom, they can’t get out of here fast enough.”

  “It’s the scrotum jars.”

  Her laugh turns to a snort. “True enough. I’ve thought of pickling penises, but that seems too . . . on the nose?” Her shadowy figure shifts, as if getting more comfortable. “I almost wish you could stay to chat, but I suppose you really must be going.”

  “Yep, with whatever message you care to send. I figure it’s either tales of pickled scrotums or ‘Cabin? What cabin?’”

  “You really are a delightful child.”

  “And you really are a patronizing old hag.”

  “Now, now, what made you think I’m old?”

  “The same thing that makes you call me a child. If we’re trading insults, I like to stay on-theme. Now, the message?”

  “No message. Just a question. You came from that monstrosity of a building. What are they doing there?”

  “It’s a summer camp.”

  A low hiss of breath. “I’ve switched to my serious voice in case you haven’t noticed.”

  “So have I. It’s a summer leadership camp for teenage supernaturals. Just as hideous as it sounds. Well, no, worse actually. Seems you have a demon in this forest, and he had some fun with the half-demons in camp, infecting them with . . . something. Whatever it was, it drove them into a frenzy, and they tried to kill us. We had to take refuge in your cabin to escape the hell hounds. Out of the frying pan, as they say. But, if you’re worried about the camp, trust me, they’re getting the hell out of this forest and leaving you in peace.”

  “She.”

  “What?”

  “The demon is a she. Marchocias.”

  I perk up. “Marchocias? Isn’t that—?” I shake my head. “Not important. Yes, I know Marchocias identifies as female, so I’ll get the pronoun right, even if I never plan to face her and use it. Point is that this is a very, very bad place to set up camp, and once it’s cleaned up, they’ll be gone, which I presume is what you want.”

  “It is. All right, then. Let me grant your wish. One more thing before I let you go . . .” She leans closer, still no more than a curly-haired figure against the darkness. “Tell the girl to stop looking for me, or she will end up like her boyfriend. Understood?”

  “What gi—?”

  I don’t get the word out before a snarl of rage cuts me short. A snarling figure grabs the witch, yanking her back, even as she murmurs, calmly, “I believe this was the other part of your demand, child?” and then—

  I’m not quite sure what happens then. There’s a flash, blindingly bright, and against my retinas, I see the face of a woman, dark hair falling in curls streaked with gray, an unlined face with eyes the color of mahogany, brown so rich it’s almost red. That face, though. I know that—

  The light lasts as long as a camera flash, and when it’s gone, I reel back, blinded. Something slams down on me, and my fist flies, striking a split second before I see who I’m hitting: Elijah.

  He lets out an oomph and raises his hands, saying, “It’s me, Kate.”

  I exhale, and I start to sit up, but his arms go around me, and for a heartbeat, I hear the memory of that nightmare vision of him, feel his hands at my throat. I stiffen, but only long enough for him to pull me into a hug, his racing heart slamming against my chest as he grips me tight.

  “You okay?” I murmur as I give him a quick hug back.

  “Me?” His voice comes ragged. “I was the guy bumbling around in empty tunnels. You’re the one she caught. I heard—” He swallows hard. “I heard bits of it. What she said. About how valuable you’d be. It was like you were right there on the other side of the wall, and I . . .”

  He lifts his hands and looks down at them. His nails are filthy and torn, as if he clawed earth, and I catch them and hold them, my hands wrapping around his.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I was fine. She just—”

  He kisses me. I don’t see it coming. I’m looking down at his poor hands, and then I glance up at his face, b
acklit by the abandoned penlight, and his mouth comes to mine before I realize what’s happening. He pulls me into a kiss and . . .

  Our other kisses have been oh-so-fine. I should say then that this one is better, only I’m not sure better is the word. Before Elijah, kisses have ranged from a mere punt to a third-base power drive. His were home-runs all the way, blowing the others from memory. This one is like the ball just . . . disappears. Goes someplace I can’t even see it, onto territory I’ve only vaguely imagined. This kiss is hunger. Deep, devouring hunger and need.

  I barely even feel the kiss. It’s as if a fire ignites and scorches right through me, and our lips are only the place where it started. His body is over mine, on top of me in the tunnel, and all I feel, all I smell, all I hear is him, the fire and the need and the hard weight of him pressing into me.

  I take that kiss, and I let it carry me away, my own tamped-down fears rising to the surface, the kiss burning through them, adrenaline fueling the fire. I press up against him, all my hidden panic bursting free and consumed. He groans and kisses me harder, limbs entwined, his hands in my hair as he presses harder and groans again.

  This is new, and this is scary as hell, and I’m not quite sure what to do with it. It’s certainly not the first time I’ve been underneath a guy, his body against mine, his need hard and obvious. It isn’t even the first time I’ve felt my own desire ignited.

  The fear doesn’t come from that, not from any concern that it will go too far. This is Elijah. He isn’t sliding his hands under my shirt or tugging at the waist of my jeans. His fingers are in my hair, and they stay exactly where he’s put them.

  It’s a kiss, nothing more, but it ignites everything I felt earlier, that grief of wanting what I cannot have, multiplied a hundredfold.

  This is what I’d hoped for with Brandon. That I’d feel what he did and want what he wanted. Something had been missing, and it’s here, in the heat and weight of Elijah’s body, in the smell of him, in that devouring kiss that says he’d been terrified of what could have happened to me.