A Cursed Embrace

bodies. Cracks crisscrossed the dry earth, forcing the sunbaked sand to resemble a cobblestone path rather than soil. Yup. Bren was right, this place blew.

“According to the werelion who found the last body, we have to hike about a mile that way.” Aric pointed to the dunes. Behind us, three more Jeeps rolled to a stop.

Shayna hurried to me, her pixie face drenched with sweat and bright red from the heat. “Not the best place to track, huh, Ceel?”

“We can handle it,” I said, keeping a close eye on the weres watching Danny. They laughed when he picked up a crumbling stick.

“What the hell are you doing, Dan?” Bren asked.

“It will help me hike through the tougher terrain.”

Bren took it and chucked it behind a large boulder. “Just grab on to my arm. I’ll pull you along the rough spots.”

“You girls together?” a werebear asked, laughing.

Bren winked and grinned. “Nah, I like banging your sister too damn much to play for the other team.”

Aric growled something at the werebear before he could react, cementing him in place. Good for him. I’d already taken a protective stance in front of Danny and Bren. The bear would have to barrel his way through me to get to them. And raging heat or not, I’d kick his ass if he tried to hurt them.

The bear ignored me and narrowed his eyes at Bren. Preternaturals had a tendency to underestimate my petite stature. Stupid mistake on their part.

“Move, Carl.” Aric’s tone broke through the dense air. The bear took the lead without another word or glance back. Aric linked his fingers with mine. “Don’t get between two weres, Celia. Let me handle things.”

“I don’t like bullies,” I told him, not bothering to keep my voice down.

“And neither do I,” Aric answered just as loudly. “Come on, we need to hunt.”

We’d trekked along the hard soil less than a mile when Aric’s head whipped to the side, two breaths behind Bren. Bren threw Dan over his shoulder and bolted up an incline littered with jagged rocks. Danny held tight to the text despite Bren’s spastic movements. Aric and I sprinted after him, leaping over the minilandslide caused by Bren’s racing steps.

Bren ran a few more yards toward a cluster of dead branches. The festering smell of meat kicked me in the face.

Bren put Danny down and began tossing the termite-ravaged wood, building a pile on either side of him. Aric joined him until they uncovered two . . . no, two and a half men left to rot.

“Fresh kills,” Bren said, pointing to the sections of drying blood near one man’s cleanly licked femur.

Aric jerked his head to the right. “The scent originated from that gorge.”

The pounding of paws and boot-clad feet announced the arrival of the rest of the team. Half of the weres had already changed; the anticipation of finding their quarry urged their beasts forward.

Danny cleared his throat but couldn’t hide his gag. “We should try the summoning spell from the gorge. It’s likely where the demon lord cast the lethal blow.”

Bren stared at the bodies. “Or where he started munching on these poor bastards.”

Danny cleared his throat again. “Ah, yeah. Violence like that can help trigger the spell.”

Shayna clutched Koda’s neck, turning her head away from the reek of death. Koda patted her leg and adjusted her against his back. I was glad she’d hitched a ride. The climb along the loose and rolling stones could easily have caused a fall or a sprain.

The witch, sent by the oh-so-lovely Genevieve to assist Aric, remained straddled to her werecougar boyfriend. She stroked his fur, scowling at Danny. “Give me the book.”

Danny held it protectively against his chest. “Um, it’s very delicate. I’ll hang on to it until we get to the gorge.” He glanced at Aric. “If that’s okay with you, I mean.”

“No problem,” Aric answered. “Let’s go.”

The witch huffed before her fuzzy method of transportation took off in a dead sprint toward the gorge. Bren lifted Danny again. We barreled through a section of dried bushes, leaping over and across boulders until we reached the rim of the crater. The sides were steep and sharp along the football-field-wide hole. I panted hard, the thick, dry air making it difficult to catch my breath. “You okay?” Aric whispered beside me. His breaths weren’t as ragged, but then his were lungs were stronger. He kept his voice low so the others wouldn’t hear me. He didn’t want them to consider me weak. And neither did I.

I held out my hand. “Wanna ride?”

His grin told me he knew what I meant. He clasped my hand and leapt with me. I shifted us into the side of the gorge and resurfaced at the center, a few feet in front of the werecougar. The witch on the cougar’s back glared at me, with both surprise and apparent anger we’d passed them.

Aric squeezed my hand once before releasing me. “Thanks, sweetness. All right, let’s do this.”

Bren planted Danny on the ground and stripped before changing. Danny adjusted his glasses and turned the worn text over to the witch. “The section is marked with a—”

“I got it. Super thanks,” she said, cutting him off in true diva fashion. In high school she would have strutted with, if not led, the “mean girls.” My tigress wanted to eat her.

A few of the weres, including her boyfriend, formed a ring around her as her eyes skimmed along the frail pieces of parchment. She chanted. Again. And again. And again. The amulet around her neck sparkled from her magic and from the merciless sun roasting our bodies like wieners. She shielded her eyes and looked to the direction of the bodies and then she chanted some more. She waved a hand. She kicked some dirt. And she chanted more and more, this time swearing between chants. She continued. For at least twenty minutes. Her fits growing hairier each time she returned to the start of the page.

“This isn’t working!”

Yeah. No kidding, Glinda.

The bitchy witch threw Danny’s tattered leather-bound book on the dusty earth. He took a step to retrieve it, but a sneer from the witch and a growl from her werecougar boyfriend halted him midstep.

Bren’s colossal beast form bared his fangs and stalked in front of Danny, challenging the cougar for threatening his friend. “Enough,” Aric snapped. He rushed between the two from one blink to the next.

The werecougar immediately backed down. In the wild, a cougar would make hamburger out of a wolf. But this wasn’t the wild, and they weren’t mere animals.

I ambled slowly to retrieve the book, keeping my focal point trained on the witch. Genevieve had sent Miss Personality along to help the weres. That didn’t mean she’d help me, and it sure as hell didn’t mean she wouldn’t attack. So I watched and waited for one wrong move.

Sweat dripped in tiny rivers between my breasts and down my belly as I bent to lift the text by its tattered spine. Big mistake. The lexicon filled with old magic spells fell apart and scattered in the sweltering breeze swooping into the gorge. The witch had probably called the breeze just to be spiteful.

She shot me a nasty grin just to prove me right. Yup, we may have to eat her.

Danny and Shayna scrambled to snag the floating pages. I would have helped, but the witch’s crappy attitude warned me against giving her my back. We had a run-in with a clan of witches when we’d first moved to Tahoe. I hadn’t trusted the broom-humpers since.

The witch smirked as another battered piece of parchment floated past her. “Doesn’t matter. It was worthless anyway.”

I waved my hand to get her attention. “I’m sorry. What’s your name?”

“Rita,” she said slowly, like it would be too hard for me to pronounce.

“Then shut up, Rita,” I snapped.

I’m not sure what she saw in my face. Or Aric’s, who’d wandered to my side. But it was enough to make her back the hell away. Fast. “My apologies,” she muttered.

“She was saying the words wrong.” Danny spoke barely above a whisper, enough for me to hear, but not