A Cursed Embrace

head. “I wish I could tell you what you want to hear, but I can’t.”

Despite the stir of the waves, I heard my tears fall against the water.

Aric tightened his hold and whispered words in French. And while I normally would have melted, this time I wouldn’t allow myself to be tempted by the softness and fluidity of his words. I broke from his grasp and backed away toward the shore, keeping my arms against me. “I don’t want you to say anything you don’t feel, but I need you to understand why it hurts me.” More tears trickled down my cheeks. “I won’t be used, Aric.”

Anger and pain flared in Aric’s eyes as he advanced toward me. When he reached me, his body trembled violently. “You are the most important being in this world to me. More than my brothers, more than my pack. I need you to believe that . . . no matter what happens.”

I gasped, unsure and frightened by what he thought the future held. The demons were gone, weren’t they? And his Elders . . .

I remained silent. Heat lingered in Aric’s gaze, cementing us where we stood. I started to shake, not from fear or cold—something else. Tahoe. Tahoe’s energy hit me with one hard sucker punch. It was strong, primal, and my essence welcomed it like a lost loved one.

My back plunged into the quickly warming water and lolled above the surface as if the very lake held me to keep from drowning. When I blinked my eyes open, Aric was carrying me along the wooded path back to our house. Water dripped from his long hair onto his face. His eyes remained fierce, but his focus was unusually distant. “You’ll always be mine,” he whispered. “And I swear to always be yours.”

* * *

“Do you want to stop for lunch or keep going?” Koda slipped his arm around Shayna as we continued our hike through Eldorado National Forrest, not the ideal way to trek through the thick vegetated woodlands, but Shayna didn’t seem to mind.

Shayna leaned into him. “Let’s keep going until we reach the creek. It’ll be a nice place to picnic.”

The destruction of the demon lords had satisfied the Elders enough to give Aric and his Warriors time off. We’d spent the remainder of the summer at the lake, boating and Jet Ski–ing. I even managed a romantic getaway alone to celebrate Aric’s twenty-seventh birthday. I’d kept all my “I love yous” to myself. And while my admission had caused a strain between us, Aric’s vigilance, affections, and kindness soon helped repair the hurt he’d caused.

I breathed in the scent of fresh pine, happy with my surroundings and the fact that we weren’t competing with the tourists for beach space over the Labor Day weekend. I took in the trees thick with lush green leaves, the small fragrant flowers waiting to be devoured by deer, and the rolling hills littered with stones and wild ferns.

Aric admired his own view behind me. “Damn, sweetness. I love the way you walk.”

I turned back to grin at him. “My eyes are up here, wolf.”

Aric wrapped his arms around me and nibbled on my ear. “I know, but I’m having a hard time getting the image of you naked in the woods out of my mind.”

“Well, maybe we can sneak off later,” I said quietly.

Aric’s entire body stilled. “You mean it?”

Cold and terror suddenly chilled the warmth between us, and goose bumps skittered up my arms like insects on a festering corpse. At first, I thought I was the only one affected until the wolves threw their packs on the ground and surrounded us protectively.

Taran’s irises turned almost white. “Shit. What the hell is that?”

Emme, who was already shaking, grabbed my arm. “Celia, what’s going on? I don’t see anything.”

“I don’t know. Emme, stay close to me. Shayna, grab some wood.”

Whatever it was, it was closing in. My hackles rose, and my claws protruded. An unearthly growl escaped my throat just as screeching erupted around us. My heart leapt into my throat as a horde of demon children broke through the surrounding trees. They flew overhead, scurried on the ground on all fours, and crawled on the trunks of trees like creepy toddlers with wings and arachnid legs.

“Celia, get out of here, now!” Aric yelled before he and the wolves changed and attacked.

I shifted the girls the moment they grabbed me, traveling beneath the soil as far and fast as my gift allowed. We surfaced a couple of hundred feet away from the fight. A quick glance back temporarily stunned me. The creatures crawled and flew everywhere, traveling in clumps thick enough to veil our four wolves. My God.

The reality of our situation smacked the fear out of me. We hadn’t destroyed the demons. We’d only given them time to breed.

A cluster of demon infants attached themselves to the wolves’ furry backs, clawing at them mercilessly and saturating the forest floor with their blood. The metallic scent of their essence burned my nose and still Aric and his Warriors shredded through their opponents like paper, seemingly unaffected despite the wicked pain their twitching muscles revealed.

I sprinted back toward the fight. “Shayna, get those things off their backs!”

A stream of long silver needles flew past me. They knocked the creatures off the wolves’ backs and impaled them into trees like frogs in biology class.

A demon spotted me. His heavy clawed feet stomped along the soil before he expanded his wings and flew at me with his arms outstretched. I leapt and smashed into his body, twisting him in the air and decapitating him in one smooth move. I crashed to earth and dusted off his crawling remains. I needed to reach the wolves, and none of the damn flying monkeys were going to stop me.

The two Geminis fought a demon well over seven feet tall and almost as wide. Stone gray skin covered his humanoid form and sickly yellow eyes narrowed with challenge. His long leather appendages slapped at Gemini and shielded him from the wolves’ snapping jaws. A good offensive maneuver, but not enough to guard his back.

I jumped on his shoulders and shifted him up to his neck. He jerked his head around, hissing when saw me. My leg swung back and connected with his head, sending his skull to roll like a soccer ball into the ferns. Wet, pulsating insides spilled from his neck, shriveling once exposed to the fresh breeze.

Three smaller creatures shoved me against a tree. Two held my arms while the third dug his talons into my shoulders. A serpentlike tongue slithered through his fangs and wrapped around my throat, halting my screams and robbing my breath. I gasped from the need for air while his clawed hand yanked at my shorts.

Anger forced me to act. I brought my arms together, slamming the creatures on either side of me into the third. I sliced off the tongue that strangled me with my claws and kicked each in the groin before smashing their heads into the tree like spoiled watermelons.

I drew in ragged breaths as I crushed the heads of small butterfly-size demons crawling along my flesh. Damn it. Where did they come from? I scanned the skies. More flew above in a V formation, similar to geese until they dove straight down, landing inches from the battle.

Shayna sliced three into confetti in a whirlwind of swinging blades. Maggotlike intestines littered her face, but she managed to sever the arms of a large demon who’d landed in a squat behind her. Poor Shayna, though, had taken on more than she could handle. The immense creature encircled her wrists with his tongue and dragged her away into the thick brush.

I fought my way through the remaining horde to reach my sister, killing anything that got in my way. When the monster saw me approach, he released her and traded for me. We wrestled, his razor-sharp fangs biting into my shoulder as I attempted to puncture his chest with my claws. I screamed from the pain of his teeth piercing through my bones and gagged from his hot, rotting breath. My head spun as his saliva sizzled against my skin, eating its way through my muscles and tendons. I tore his wings to force his release, only to have him clamp down harder.

Shayna was near, but she didn’t seem able to strike. So I continued to roll on the ground while my blood smeared the earth and the creature’s tongue eagerly licked my wound. I screamed in agony as flesh tore from my bones. I thought he was eating me alive until the weight lifted off my chest. Above me, Aric held the decapitated head in his hands. He threw it aside, then gingerly pulled me to my feet.

Aric’s face shone chalk white. But his obvious worry for me quickly turned to rage. He held tight to my hips.