Gifted Curse (Curse Trilogy)

by C. M. Owens

  “I was worried you were mad at me about last night,” he says too loudly.

  Hale’s eyes return to me, and I can see the question he’s wishing he could ask.

  “No. I’m not mad. Just drop it,” I mumble, and I start to walk away to escape any more slips.

  “You looked so incredible, and it felt good to have you in my arms. I wish you had stayed with me,” he coos, and Hale’s eyes narrow all the more.

  “You were drunk, Brazen, and you were sleeping in the hallway. I wasn’t going to let you stay there all night,” I say to explain to Hale what happened.

  He relaxes slightly, and then Brazen’s hand trails up my arm.

  “Your lacy underwear has always driven me crazy. When you were on top of me, I thought I was going to combust,” he smolders out, and my knees tremble slightly.

  Fuck.

  Hale walks over with Clay, and his eyes are scolding me for my omission of events. Clay turns his attention to Brazen before speaking.

  “We’ll head out in fifteen minutes. If you don’t mind, I need you to find the full bloods with the strongest ties to this place, and I’ll ready my best interrogators,” he murmurs softly.

  “I’ll get on it, Sir,” Brazen respectfully replies, and then he swishes away to fill the request.

  Clay refuses eye contact as he leaves me suspended under the scrutinizing eyes of Hale. Traitor.

  “I guess you forgot to mention where you had been before you came to my room,” he grumbles, and then he stalks past me.

  I have to run to catch up, and I tug on his arm to turn him around.

  “I’m sorry. You know I didn’t go there for that reason, and nothing happened. He was drunk and overly aggressive. All I did was restrain him long enough to shake some sense into him,” I explain.

  “Whatever Araya. You’re confusing the hell out of me. It feels like I’m not the only one you want, and I don’t deserve that no matter what I’ve done. If this is your way of punishing me for fucking up in the past, then you win. Just leave me out of your twisted plot,” he gripes, and then he darts by me.

  “Hale,” I exasperate. “I’m sorry. I would never do anything like this to punish you,” I whisper. “I love you,” I murmur, and he turns to try to kiss me.

  I draw back when I see all the eyes on us, and he nods sardonically.

  “Then prove it. I’ve done all I can to prove my love for you. If you can’t tell your fucking ex you love me, then this can’t be as real as you made me think it was. You can let me know when it’s okay to love you,” he growls, and then he storms off to join Clay once more.

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  “You’re with me,” Brazen says with a chipper tone as he returns, and his soft pale eyes show their excitement.

  “Of course I am,” I exasperate.

  “Hey, what can I say? Luck of the draw,” he murmurs, feigning innocence.

  “Sure it was,” I grumble, and then I follow him out to the streets I shouldn’t be on right now.

  I tense up instantly, and then Brazen’s hand holds mine closer.

  “I promise I won’t let anyone say anything,” he offers so sweetly, and I cling to his comforting grip like a lifeline.

  The full blooded eyes glare at me the moment they catch my scent, and then they back off when they see Brazen. I’m curious as to what sort of reputation he could have acquired. He’s always been the most gentle man I’ve ever known.

  “So why is everyone so leery of you?” I ponder aloud as the eyes continue to look, but the fearful mouths stay silent.

  “Because I’m me,” he smugly retorts. “I wouldn’t have let you go off with anyone else. I know I can keep you safe here.”

  “You’re being very vague and evasive,” I murmur while staring suspiciously at him.

  “I’m sorry,” he chuckles out. “A man has to have a little mystery though.”

  “You’re seriously not going to tell me?” I ask with a curious smirk.

  “I’m seriously keeping my lips sealed because I love how terribly it’s irritating you,” he teases, and I just grin while rolling my eyes.

  He seems so different. He’s usually so composed, intense, and very much in control at all times. I’ve seen him completely mad, raging drunk, and he’s been a dirty-talking-teasing son of a bitch all of the sudden.

  “So where are we going, or is that a mystery as well?” I mock.

  “We’re going downtown. A friend of mine told me about a bar where I could find an outsider that came in from the bordering lines of Salan. He might have seen something, and it’s the best lead anyone had. I thought you’d appreciate it,” he boasts, and I stifle a grin when I see how smug he’s acting.

  “Brazen Mordel. I can’t believe my fucking eyes,” a guy gushes from across the street, and he rushes over to greet him.

  “Araya, this is Corbin,” he says in acknowledgement, but I just take a step behind him when the guy sniffs the air carrying my hybrid scent.

  Brazen’s hand keeps a tight lock on my hand, and I put my free one on his back as I lean against him.

  “You don’t have to hide from me, babe,” Corbin chuckles out. “I’m harmless,” he continues.

  “She’s not hiding from you because she’s scared of what you’ll do to her. She’s putting me between us so that she doesn’t tear you apart by accident. She doesn’t trust very many of our kind” Brazen adds with a casual but proud tone.

  I only trust one full blood.

  “Oh. A gifted hybrid. Sweet,” Corbin says mildly, and then I step out from behind my buffer to gauge the unaffected eyes of the full blood staring at me.

  “You’re not appalled by me?” I muse.

  He roars out his laughter, and Brazen covers his mouth as if he’s hiding a grin.

  “Actually, I think you’re fine as hell. If Brazen wasn’t holding your hand I’d probably be working my magic.”

  Brazen rolls his eyes, but I’m still stumped by his odd reaction.

  “I’m confused,” I mumble.

  “Why? You think every full blood hates hybrids?” he scoffs.

  “She hasn’t had a whole lot experience with anyone worth meeting. Most of the full bloods she knows are military bred or old world,” Brazen explains.

  “If you’re not disgusted with my breed, then why do you live in a place where we’re not welcome?” I retort to the jackass laughing at me.

  “Because the blood here is fucking awesome. You can’t get blood as close to the vein as possible anywhere else. Everyone else goes overboard with dilution,” he continues.

  “That shit is dangerous though. A bad batch could leave you locked up for months with someone keeping you sedated,” Brazen scolds.

  “I don’t give a fuck. I’ll lose a month or two to keep from drinking the cold shit outside these walls. What are you doing here, and how did you get a hybrid in?”

  “I’m me,” Brazen adds with a pretentious attitude.

  “You smug bastard. You haven’t changed a bit,” Corbin chuckles out.

  Apparently I really don’t know him if this is how he usually is.

  “You’re gifted, so I can only assume you’re part of the United. Is that how the two of you met?” he asks.

  “Sort of,” Brazen vaguely answers, and he kisses the back of my hand just as three hissing full bloods walk by.

  “Don’t mind them,” Corbin interjects. “As long as you’re with Brazen, the only full bloods you have to worry about are Greta and Miles,” he snickers out.

  I let out a snort of derision, and Corbin bursts out laughing as Brazen narrows his eyes.

  “You seriously introduced her to your uptight parents?” he rolls out in hysterical disbelief.

  “I did,” Brazen huffs out.

  “How did that go over?” Corbin eagerly questions, and I roll my eyes.

  “Greta instantly loved me like the daughter she never had, and Miles thought his son was the luckiest man in the world,” I retort with sarcasm oozing out.


  “That bad?” he muses.

  “Oh, it was so, so bad,” I grouse.

  “We have work to do,” Brazen growls, and Corbin smirks before giving me a wink.

  “If you ever get tired of this wild ass, call me,” he seduces, and I have to stifle a grin when Brazen scowls at him.

  “Later,” Brazen grumbles, and then he starts pulling me away from the ogling fool standing on the sidewalk.

  “Wild ass?” I laugh out. “I suppose there is more to the story I won’t learn?”

  “Not today, but I have a feeling you’ll get your chance,” he smolders, and his eyes burn into mine.

  “I’m carrying a weapon and five clips today. Just a heads up,” I tease, and he gives me a sexy wink before pulling me into a bar.

  “I’m not scared of you, Araya,” he whispers, and then his breath cools my heated neck with that incredible steam threatening to invade the air between us.

  You should be scared.

  “There he is,” he says more seriously, and I see a hulking man sitting in a corner booth in the dimly lit, alcohol drowned bar.

  “At least I don’t have to worry about someone sniffing me out in here,” I say with disgust.

  “Just let me try to talk to him first, but stay close,” he murmurs, and then he pulls me over as he slides into the booth to be in front of the man.

  I stand just barely behind him, keeping my hybrid blue eyes lowered, and I begin sipping on a whiskey that has been left sitting for far too long. I need to kill my hybrid breath in a room full of drunken full bloods.

  “Who the fuck are you?” the man snarls.

  “Captain Brazen Mordel of the United,” Brazens asserts. “I need to ask you some questions about Salan. It has come to my attention you might have been in the area when it all fell apart, and I want to know everything you know,” he says very authoritatively, and it’s kind of hot.

  I’ve never seen him at work because he’s a field officer with his own platoon. He’s so confident and poised. I never knew him this way, and I’m regretting going along as his partner.

  “Go fuck yourself,” the man growls, and I smirk when it reminds me of how Hale would respond.

  “It’s just a question. I don’t suspect you, but I will if you continue be uncooperative,” he threatens.

  “You want to know what happened? It fucking went to dust in seconds. You happy? Now fuck off,” the belligerent man scoffs.

  “If you don’t tell me what you saw, I’ll let her start asking the questions,” Brazen says with a smirk while his eyes point to me.

  My eyes move from my full blood to the skulking man. He stares into my eyes, and then he shakes his head in disgusted disbelief.

  “You would dare to bring that filth into our pure colony? You’re a fucking disgrace,” the full blood barks, and now all eyes are on me.

  Brazen stands up and pulls out his United credentials to flash to the on-looking bar.

  “This is United business. Everyone should leave, or deal with our wrath,” he threatens, and the drunken full bloods scurry out as though they’re scared.

  Who the fuck is he?

  “Now, where were we?” Brazen says while turning his gaze back to the man.

  “I was telling you to leave me the fuck alone,” he says while spitting at my feet.

  Big fucking mistake.

  I smirk as the table in front of him rattles, and the man stares into my eyes again, fearlessness still clinging to his pale blues.

  “Your parlor tricks do absolutely nothing to scare me, you piece of shit,” he growls out.

  “I’ve got more than parlor tricks.”

  I grin, and then he’s suddenly cowering as I walk over to him with my prowess daring to provoke him with fearless ambition.

  The bigger they are, the harder I can make them cry.

  “Just tell us what you saw, or I’ll make sure every full blood disowns you with the same disgust you’ve shown me,” I warn.

  “I’m not scared of you,” he lies.

  “I’m not trying to scare you, big boy. I’m going to make you fall in love,” I seduce, and then I sit down on the table to spread my legs as I lean over to him.

  He’s so repulsed by his attraction to me, that he physically flinches when my leg almost touches his arm.

  “You see, if I sink my teeth into your juicy flesh, you’re mine. We both know once you go hybrid you can’t go back. It’s divine to feel our power bursting inside of you like an erotic bomb exploding with more force than any other blood fuck you will ever feel. Everyone knows we don’t give a damn who we fuck, so it’s not exactly hard for me to make this promise. Then everyone will know you’re fucking a hybrid, and I’ll video the whole thing. I’ve got a sexy little hybrid symbol tattooed between my shoulder blades as proof of my breed just like every other gifted hybrid has.”

  “Your kind doesn’t blood fuck our kind,” he quivers out.

  “My kind fucks anything, and you know it,” I roll out, and I taste the vomit trying to rise to my throat as I bash my species with the one thing that pisses me off worse than anything. “Just ask him,” I smolder out, and my eyes turn to Brazen as I turn to straddle him inside the booth.

  “Ready to play my puppet?” I whisper.

  “Fuck yes,” he breathes, and my lips brush his before I turn back to see the shaky full blood too scared to try to run because he doesn’t want to turn his back on me.

  “Brazen has felt what it’s like to be inside of me, and as you can tell, he’s full blood just like you. He’s not appalled in the least, and I can do whatever I want to him just like I’ll be able to do with you,” I say with the misleading air of the devil in disguise.

  My lips fall over Brazen’s, and he grips me passionately as he willingly goes with the ploy I’ve launched. My hips begin grinding against his, and he jerks me into him so that my center feels his erection. He moans into the kiss he’s been seeking, and his body begs for more which plays perfectly into my hand as I rip free. My teeth graze over his shoulder, and his breath hitches as his hands tighten against my waist to pull me closer.

  “You see? He wants me because he has felt how incredibly hard my kind can fuck,” I provocatively release.

  The hulking beast swallows hard when he feels turned on by my little expedition. His hand strums his ratty beard, and I pray I don’t have to put my lips anywhere around his scruffy body. I hope using Brazen as a puppet will be enough because I’ll more than likely puke if I have to do anything to entice this man.

  Brazen jerks my face back down to his, and I go along with the kiss when the guy starts squirming all the more. I break free and climb out of his lap to return to the pale faced man who looks far more ashen than earlier.

  I fight the urge to gag as I lean over to his flesh and let my lips almost touch his arm. He jerks back, and I climb into the booth as I use my gift to pin him against the wall.

  “Fuck. Stop. I’ll fucking tell you. Please don’t do this,” he pleads, and I grin triumphantly as I step back and adjust my clothes.

  “Then start talking,” Brazen commands.

  “It was fucked up. I was passing through on my way here, and I saw this group of… I don’t know what they were. Their scent was fucked up, and it didn’t resemble anything I had ever encountered before. I thought I was getting sick since I couldn’t distinguish their species, and then this girl walks out last with a red hooded robe. She held her hand up, and in a blink, the whole fucking compound exploded into rubble. They just loaded up as if it was no big deal, and then they drove away. They were in dark sedans mostly, but there was one big ass armored vehicle the girl climbed into. That’s all I know,” he blurts out rapidly.

  “How do you know it was a girl if she was wearing a hood?” Brazen asks suspiciously.

  “Because her scent wasn’t clear in some aspects, but there was no mistaking the smell of a female. I swear she almost smelled hybrid, but it was different. I couldn’t figure it out.”

  This doesn’t ma
ke sense. No one can have that sort of control over something that strong without a downfall.

  “What happened after that? Did she lose her sanity, or did something worse happen?”

  “I don’t know. She looked perfectly fine to me, and nothing else happened. Like I said, they just drove away,” he panics.

  “Fuck,” Brazen breathes. “We need to call Commander Jude.”

  “I’ll call him. Let’s go,” I murmur, and I pull out my phone to dial him.

  “Araya? I hope you found something because no one else has had any luck,” Clay gripes while answering.

  “We found something. Where are you? I don’t want to discuss it over the phone,” I say with concern etching my tone.

  “We’re heading back to the hotel now.”

  “I’ll see you-”

  My sentence is cut short when I hear screams erupting from the backside, and my phone shatters to the ground as I rush behind Brazen to investigate. Mothers rush by holding their children, and the men are fighting against an hoard of infected humans, their foaming mouths and zombie-like attributes giving them a way as their insatiable blood thirsts for anything carrying a vein drives them forward.

  “What the fuck?” Brazen yelps, and then he throws two knives simultaneously to slice through the throats of five of the monsters swarming the town.

  The almost white men and women gargle without speech, their red, poisoned eyes blaring clearly. Their bodies are hairless, just as all the infected, and their horrid fangs instead of blood bringers are visible for the world to see as they charge toward the full bloods in the streets.

  “I thought they were feeding off diluted blood,” I snark, and then I snap the neck of one of the beasts when it tries to attack me from behind.

  “They are. This isn’t from them. This is a fucking attack,” he screeches, and then I pull out my gun to start firing the uranium bullets into the heads of the rabid creatures.

  “They’ll fucking rip this place to shreds with these numbers,” he asserts, his eyes motioning to the flooding army falling over the walls as they break in without falter.

  I feel my invincibility covering me, and the fangs of one of the vicious fiends snaps off as he tries to bite into the unforgiving flesh I purposely exposed.