Curses and Faith Read online

  Curses and Faith

  Whitney Hill

  This is a work of fiction. Any references to real events, people, or places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events is purely coincidental.

  CURSES AND FAITH

  Copyright © 2022 by Whitney Hill

  All rights reserved. This book is for your personal use only. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. Thank you for supporting the author by purchasing this book.

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  ISBN (ebook): 978-1-7376311-3-2

  ISBN (pbook): 978-1-7376311-4-9

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2021924127

  Cover Designer: Pintado (99Designs)

  Editor: Jeni Chappelle (Jeni Chappelle Editorial)

  Content Warnings

  This book contains consensual on-page sex, physical violence, gore, non-fatal car accidents, blood-drinking, on-page death, swearing, slurs (not toward any real racial or ethnic group/identity), alcohol use, knife violence, threat of sexual violence, and a scene where a character is unable to breathe.

  It’s also a steamy vampire romance with a happy ending, so make sure you have something to cool down with afterward!

  For those who have had to unlearn bad habits and coping mechanisms to grow into better versions of themselves.

  Chapter 1: Lya

  I sat on the beach watching the tide come in as the sun set, chucking shells into the crashing waves as I wrestled with my thoughts. The whole two-wolves meme, only instead of wolves I had a happy life with my vampire lover on one side and a burdensome debt to the head bitch of the Carolinas on the other.

  The last three months had been good. Real bloody good, no pun intended. Enough that I finally trusted Cade would be there for me, unlike the family and ex-boyfriend who’d stood by while I was tried and then exiled. Shit had hit the fan in North Carolina, and instead of leaving me to deal with the fallout, Cade had been at my side. Our cozy love shack in St. Augustine was his and I lived there rent-free, other than a monthly blood donation I was happy to give.

  Five hundred miles, an eight-hour drive, and all the love in the world didn’t mean shit against my debts in North Carolina though.

  The surf kissed my toes as I wrestled with how to respond to the text message I’d gotten while we’d slept this afternoon: Time to pay off what you owe.

  Nothing else. No details, no targets. Nothing for a twice-exiled, half-elven bounty hunter like me to make a plan with. Just the vague threat that the favor I owed in exchange for the new life I’d been living was due. Knowing Callista, it was something that meant my blissful contentment was about to shatter.

  She didn’t do gentle, easy, or reasonable. She did whatever the fuck she wanted and hang everyone around her—regardless of what her demands cost them.

  It’d worked in my favor for the months I’d served my exile in the Triangle as a bail bond runner and occasional supernatural bounty hunter. It’d worked a little more when it meant she could afford to flip the middle finger to the Lyon and Chapel Hill Conclaves and get me the hell out of her territory. But I’d pissed her off in doing so and, possibly more damning, had agreed to owe her a favor in exchange for leaving town with my life and Cade’s. I suspected there wasn’t anywhere in the world, on this plane or any of the others I couldn’t reach anyway, that someone could go to escape Callista calling in a debt.

  As the sun kissed the horizon, I rose and trudged back to the car, making the short drive home to Cade’s haven just outside the Historic District. Live oaks and palmettos hugged the gravel path that served as a driveway, completely overgrown by design behind the tall fence. Living as a vampire and a half-elf amidst humans required more than a little privacy, and the thick foliage helped block the sun. The house was old, and we’d had to upgrade the wiring for electricity, even if we didn’t use it much. Most of that usage was me, looking for and securing work in the small local Otherside community so I wouldn’t feel completely reliant on the wealth Cade had established in his nearly five hundred years on Earth.

  Yeah, I deserved to be looked after. Didn’t mean I was foolish enough not to establish my own source of income. I’d had to leave Lyon suddenly and Durham after that. I wasn’t about to get cute with my financial security now. And as much as I loved and trusted Cade, I’d been burned before. It left me anxious sometimes. Maintaining an identity apart from being a vampire’s girlfriend helped.

  I did love him. I just needed my space. A lot of it.

  I waved off some hungry mosquitoes and pushed open the door to the screened lanai then the next one into the house proper. Everything was quiet and still. As a half-elf, my crepuscular schedule had overlapping hours with Cade’s, but I was more likely to be active at dusk and dawn, when he was winding up and settling down. It was the new moon, which meant I was more awake and he was more heavily asleep.

  Perfect for taking my mind off Callista.

  He was still crashed out in the bed we shared during the day when I made my way back to the bedroom. I leaned against the doorframe, unable to help my smile as I studied him.

  Almost two meters of unfairly sexy vampire sprawled among black silk sheets, his pale skin a contrast and his dark brown hair almost lost against the pillows, eyes the same shade hidden behind closed lids. He’d rolled to my side of the bed again, as he did sometimes when I got up before him, and his hand stretched to the now-empty space where I’d been.

  Time to do something about that.

  I stripped the beach wrap and bikini I’d donned and stalked back to the bed. Stealthy as I was, he woke with the sharp, unnatural inhale that said he’d registered a threat. I dodged the first defensive swipe and the second but was caught by the third and unable to help my laugh as he pinned me, arms overhead and teeth at my throat. I held very still then, heart pounding in an equal blend of anticipation and healthy fear. He inhaled, taking the scent from the corner of my jaw to my collarbone.

  “Lya.” Cade pulled back and frowned at me, lips tight even as his hips ground against me.

  “Hey babe.” I wiggled, just to make him grip my wrists harder.

  “One of these days—”

  “One of these days nothing. We’re a long way away from the last time.”

  The last time being the time back in North Carolina when he’d nearly drained me while more than halfway to his second death, after I’d already consented.

  “If I hurt you…”

  I shook my head. “You won’t, or I wouldn’t be here.”

  He caressed my neck then glanced at the curtained window, seeking the answer to a question he hadn’t asked. “New moon.”

  “Mm-hm.”

  He didn’t press me. He never did. My blood was mine to offer, not his to coerce, beg, cajole, or hint after. But all at once, his attention sharpened, and he was a hungry vampire with a half-elf pinned beneath him—a valuable source of more powerful blood than he’d typically be able to get willingly or without incident.

  He could take my blood. Kill me, even. But he wouldn’t, a fact I trusted completely because of everything we’d already been through.

  If only it was that easy to free myself from the ghosts between us, keeping me from the deeper commitment I suspected Cade craved.

  For tonight though, things were simple. I knew what he wanted. What he hoped for. It was mine to offer or deny, and I loved the power I held over a centuries-old vampire. “Thirsty?”

  He swallowed, and the caress was briefly a squeeze around my throat as he shuddered. “Yes. For you, always.”

  A thrill ran through me at the edge of a growl in his voice. I let him drink from me every new moon, when my power crested and his was at its lowest ebb. We’d learned I didn’t need the full six weeks a human would to recover from a blood donation, and he’d gotten much more enthusiastic about it when I’d confessed that I liked being glamoured.

  I pulled him down to kiss me then whispered, “Drink.”

  I didn’t need to tell him to make me feel good after. He did that instinctively, as much from his own nature as from having drunk from me enough times to have a few physiological responses kick in that ensured he preserved my good graces.

  Cade didn’t need to be told twice. He gripped my chin to tilt my head, and I locked eyes with him. The whites of his eyes were lost to black as his pupils expanded and his magic was freed. Vampire glamour slithered over me, drowning me in a swirling mental euphoria. Not a full glamour but enough. His thumb dragged over the skin of my throat as I slumped. Physical ecstasy joined the experience as he sank his teeth into my neck and his magic transmuted the pain of his bite to pure pleasure.

  I gasped, my body arching up against his until the paralytic effect kicked in. He gathered me close and drank deeper. Each swallow seemed to go str
aight to his groin as his cock hardened.

  After a few more swallows, he pressed his tongue against the bite, healing it as much as he could before pulling away. “Lya?”

  I groaned, the best I could manage as I floated in the depths of the glamour.

  “You know the drill. Say it.”

  “I want you,” I managed. “Please.”

  He’d said I’d beg him for this, and he was right. We’d gone over it carefully before trying this the first time, discussing impacts and consent, and I’d started craving it. The swirling embrace of glamour, the sharp pain-pleasure of his bite, the satisfaction of the fuck that followed.

  He didn’t go straight for it, taking his time with my body and giving me time to come out of the paralyzing effect of the glamour a little in case I changed my mind. I never did, but he was even bigger on enthusiastic consent than most vampires, given how his sire and master had abused him.

  His tongue was busy between my thighs when I found enough sense to say, “Please, Cade. More.”

  Then my arms were pinned overhead, and the earlier bliss joined new ecstasy as every stroke of him into me hit something sensitive and pleasurable. The paralytic effect wore off completely, and the more I fought him, the tighter he held me and the faster he moved against me, striving to claim me before I could break free.

  My climax hit me hard. I held him in place with my calves against his ass as I pushed up against him, grinding my hips to take my own pleasure. When I shuddered and relaxed he took his turn, drawing me into a second climax as he reached his.

  As always, he shifted me into a recovery position after he withdrew: laying on my side, head tilted up slightly to ensure a clear airway. Again, instinctive rather than strictly necessary, but I was still mostly adrift in glamour and sex. I liked that he cared enough to make sure I was okay.

  He curled up against my back and buried his nose against the nape of my neck. “Are you well?”

  I groaned, feeling far better than okay.

  “Verbal, love.”

  “Yes.”

  He kissed my throat. “You’ll need a scarf again.”

  I did my best to shrug, not caring in the slightest about scarves to cover hickeys and half-healed bite marks in the Florida heat when I could feel this good. Hell, I’d forgotten about Callista and my guilt-ridden doubts for at least half an hour.

  “Lya?”

  “I’m fine,” I mumbled, annoyed with myself for the hint of discord and tension that thinking of Callista had brought to an otherwise perfect new moon. “Just hold me.”

  He obliged, tucking closer and tracing a finger lightly over the partly healed punctures in my neck. “Even better than last time.”

  I tried to reply, “Good,” but slipped into a dreamless sleep before the word left my lips.

  ***

  The next time I woke it was full dark. Cade’s warmth and the woodsmoke, iron, and granite scent of him enveloped me.

  “Hey,” I said.

  He startled. Probably dozing, unlikely as it seemed with a couple fresh pints of Othersider blood in him. “Are you okay?”

  “Hungry.” I’d learned to be honest after our first romp after arriving here. It got us both what we needed—me some food and him the sense that he wasn’t a beast boosting his own lifespan by drinking from his girlfriend.

  Which he was. It was mutually agreed-upon, but Cade was funny about it sometimes. Fair play given my own hang-ups, which probably weren’t helping him feel better about it.

  We were trying. We had time.

  He lightly kissed the spot where he’d bitten me before sliding out of bed and heading for the kitchen. As the clatter of pots and pans signaled he was getting some breakfast in order, I took a minute to stretch both my body and my Aetheric senses. My weak wards hadn’t registered anything other than the usual raccoons, possums, tortoises, rabbits, and birds, so I took my time getting out of bed. There’d be time enough to fret and rush when Callista got around to telling me what she actually wanted.

  Cade looked up when I emerged from the bedroom, his eyebrows lifting and the corner of his mouth curling up in appreciation as he took in my choice of dress: the loose cotton swim cover-up and nothing else.

  “That looks like an invitation,” he said, his voice pitched low and easy and his motions smooth as he turned the bacon.

  I smiled. “I’m going back out for a swim later.”

  The beaches were closed after sunset, but it wasn’t like a mundane could stop me.

  The look he gave me said clearer than words that I’d be doing nothing of the sort if he had any say in it, but he didn’t get weird and over-possessive like other vamps—one of the reasons I didn’t give in to my reflex to flee anything resembling this level of intimacy. He just turned back to the new stove we’d had installed. Cade had never needed to cook here, but I, for better or worse, was mortal and wanted to eat hot meals in my escape from all the shit I’d been dragging with me since I’d been exiled from Lyon and lost my bounty hunting work in London in one terrible blow. This had been a chance to take a break and figure out who I was in this new life, with no pressure…until now.

  My stomach clenched again, and Cade frowned at whatever that did to my scent. From his expression, he was trying to parse the different layers. This was hunger, that was blood loss, and underneath was fear. All he did was plate the food though, knowing I had a bad habit of running if confronted any way other than physically.

  “Thanks,” I said, as much for the food as for his patience.

  He leaned over to kiss the top of my head before snagging a Gatorade for me from the fridge we’d gotten at the same time as the stove.

  I’d just started tucking in when my phone chirped. We both recognized the tone signaling it was Callista. The flavorful bacon and eggs suddenly tasted like ash my mouth, but I still shoveled another forkful in.

  Cade frowned. “Don’t tell me you already know what Callista wants.”

  “I know what she wants. I’m ignoring her.” I stabbed at the eggs.

  “Lya—”

  “I know I owe her. She doesn’t have Watchers in St. Augustine, and it is entirely legitimate that I’m just now waking up.”

  He subsided, glowering.

  “I’ll deal with it.” The weight of his eyes in the low light made me hunch. I had a tendency to run away from my problems, and I was afraid he was slowly getting tired of it. This debt wasn’t the kind of thing one could run from though. “I said I’ll deal with it, okay? I just want to have a good new moon.”

  What neither of us said was that if Callista was calling in her debt, it might be our last one for a while.

  Chapter 2: Lya

  Late morning brought a completely separate set of problems.

  I was drifting in the stubbornly half-asleep way I did when I was trying to ignore a problem that wouldn’t go away—in this case, debating what to say to Callista’s follow-up text that she’d be collecting her debt in the form of a task, still no details. I think she was just trying to draw out the anxiety of it, the bitch.

  Cade was curled up as close to me as he could get, one arm across my chest, his face buried against the curve of my neck and shoulder. I wouldn’t have taken a centuries-old pirate-turned-supernatural-predator for an affectionate, overgrown cat, but it was one of life’s better surprises.

  Then again, maybe cat wasn’t quite it. Yeah, it was cute, but it was also quite literally hanging on to blood he’d claimed and ensuring I carried his scent. I chose to accept it for what it was intended to be—affection and protectiveness, not control. I liked the protectiveness. I liked that he wanted me. It was reassuring.

  At the edge of my awareness, one of the Aetheric wards I’d set around the property twanged. Something big. Not a deer. Bipedal. I tried to slide out of bed without waking Cade, but between drinking my blood last night and his own protective instincts, the sun didn’t have him completely under its sway.

  “Ly?” he said.

  I leaned back to whisper in his ear. “Shh. Someone’s crossed the property line.”