Cursed

  “Here, let me see. You’re itching and burning, right?”

  “Well…yes but how did you know?”

  She shrugged. “I have no idea. How was I able to feel your pleasure as well as my own while we were making love? Isn’t it part of the bonding thing?”

  “Not that I ever heard of,” Stav growled. “But what’s wrong with my back?”

  “Turn around and let me see…”

  He turned obligingly and heard Charlotte bite back a gasp.

  “What? What is it?” he demanded. “Do I have some kind of rash?”

  “No, it’s not a rash—it’s your Mark. Stav, it’s your Mark.”

  “My Mark? What about it?” He frowned.

  “It’s…it’s disappearing. It’s…look, I can’t explain. Is there a mirror in this room?”

  “There’s a 3D viewer, I think. Come on.” Pulling on his sleep trousers, he got out of bed and went to the corner of the room where there was a small sink and hand sanitizing station. Mounted on the wall above it was a 3D viewer. Stav pushed the button to power it up and stepped in front. Then he pushed the rear-view control so he could look at his back.

  After pulling his hair out of the way, he could see what Charlotte had been talking about. His Mark, which had been strangely faded before, was now disappearing entirely. The thick black lines were turning red, as though he had a sunburn, and then melting away entirely. The place the pain and itching had started, between his shoulder blades, was already clear. And, as he and Charlotte watched, the rest of the Mark from the back of his neck to his upper arms to his lower back, simply burned itself away and vanished, leaving nothing but clear, unblemished skin behind.

  “Oh my God,” Charlotte whispered softly. “What just happened? Where did it go?”

  Stav shook his head, mesmerized by the sight of his own back without the familiar black markings which had been with him since childhood.

  “I don’t know. Once a Blood Kindred becomes Cursed—becomes a Sin Eater—he is Cursed for life. I have never heard of the parasite which causes our disease just…just disappearing.”

  “Let me go get Sylvan and ask him—maybe he’ll know.” She was already starting for the door but Stavros caught her by the arm.

  “Put on some clothes first, falinda,” he said dryly. “You’re my female now—I don’t want anyone else seeing your luscious body but me.”

  Charlotte flushed with pleasure.

  “So we really are bonded? And…you’re not mad at me?”

  Stav sighed. “No, I am not angry with you. I am angry with myself—I should have been strong enough to resist you. Now you are bonded to a dying male.”

  “I don’t care what your diagnosis is, I’ll take whatever time I can get with you,” Charlotte said firmly.

  “But it will be so much harder for you when…when I go.” The words stuck in his throat but they had to be said.

  “So much harder?” Charlotte’s eyes narrowed. “Harder than watching you die and reviving you three times? Give me some credit, Stav—I know the score. I already lost you more than once. It was awful. I was crying and praying…”

  “Praying to whom?” he asked, frowning. Charlotte had never struck him as a religious person.

  “To that Goddess of yours.” She threw up her hands. “I mean, I don’t know her—I don’t know anything about her. But I was desperate. You kept dying on me and I prayed to have you back—even for just a little while.” She gave him a small, crooked smile. “I don’t know if she heard me or not but it looks like my prayers were answered. We may not have much time but it’s good enough for me. We’ll make the most of the time we have.”

  “Charlotte…” Her confession about praying for him touched Stavros deeply. “I am sorry,” he said softly. “I should have listened to you when you said you loved me no matter what.”

  “Well, I was pretty pigheaded myself when you tried to tell me that you loved me back at the resort,” she said, smiling. “So I guess we’re even.”

  Stav frowned. “How does your reluctance to realize I love you translate to you having the head of a domestic mammal?”

  She laughed. “Oh, pigheaded? It’s just an expression—it means stubborn. And speaking of stubborn—you keep saying how you’re on your last legs but you didn’t do too badly just now.”

  “Not too badly, huh?” Stav found himself smiling at her. “Is that all you can say after bonding sex?”

  “I might say a lot more in a minute if you want to do it again.” She gave him a naughty smile right back. “And another thing, I—Ow!” Charlotte had put a hand on her hip but she drew it back quickly.

  “What? What is it?” Stavros looked at her anxiously.

  “Oh, this damn blooding ring! I must have flipped the switch by accident and it got me. See?” She pulled back her hand to show a small trickle of blood flowing down the outside of her hip.

  Stavros knelt in front of her automatically to lick the small wound—to clean and heal her as any Blood Kindred would his mate. Then he realized something—he hadn’t felt her pain. Not even a little.

  “Charlotte?” he said, looking up at her. “Would you do me a favor?”

  “Well, sure, honey.” She gave him a smile that seemed to warm him through and through. “Anything.”

  “Pinch yourself,” Stav said. “Or slap yourself—or just give yourself pain in some small way.”

  “What?” Her smile changed to a frown. “I thought you weren’t mad at me. Why do you want me to hurt myself?”

  “I can’t explain yet. Please, just do it.” He made a motion with one hand.

  “Well, all right.” With a sigh, she used the blooding ring again, this time pricking the tip of her finger with it. “Ouch!”

  “Gods!” Stav took her finger and sucked it into his mouth, healing it automatically. Then he rose and looked at her. “That hurt, right—when you pricked yourself?”

  “Of course it hurt—a sharp stabbing pain. Why do you—?”

  “I didn’t feel it.” He took her by the shoulders. “Do you understand? For the first time in over twenty-three cycles someone in my immediate vicinity had pain and I didn’t feel it!”

  Charlotte put a hand to her mouth.

  “Your Mark disappearing…do you think it has something to do with that?”

  “I don’t know.” Stav grabbed her discarded dress and started helping her put it on. “But I’m going to find out. Hurry—we have to go see Commander Sylvan!”

  Chapter Thirty-six

  “Well, it’s the strangest case I’ve ever seen and I have to confess I have seen some very strange cases in my time practicing medicine here aboard the Mother Ship.” Commander Sylvan frowned and shook his head as he finished examining Stavros’s back. “Your Mark is completely gone and the scan shows there isn’t even the slightest trace of the parasite which causes it. I have never heard of this kind of spontaneous healing happening to a Sin Eater before.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t completely spontaneous,” Stavros said thoughtfully. “I used my Mark to transport positive emotion—possibly stressing it when I did.”

  “And then it mixed with the negative emotion from Ur,” Sylvan said thoughtfully. “When the demon tried to invade you. Stressing the parasites that caused it even further.”

  “And then we finished it off when we bonded,” Charlie added. “The stress of all that intense emotion was too much and we killed the little bastards off.”

  Commander Sylvan raised an eyebrow at her.

  “You…the two of you are now bonded?”

  “Well…” Charlie felt her cheeks getting hot. “Yes,” she confessed.

  “Yes,” Stav echoed firmly, taking her hand in his. “Charlotte heard your diagnosis of my heart while you and I were talking earlier. And she took it into her head to make the most of the time I have left.”

  “That’s right.” Charlie lifted her chin defiantly. “I don’t care if we only get six months or a year—that’s better than nothing.”

&
nbsp; Sylvan looked thoughtful. “Speaking of your heart, let me just check something.” He pulled out the cardiac monitoring device and began running it slowly over Stav’s broad chest.

  Charlie bit her lip, not wanting to see or hear the result. What if their lovemaking had caused Stav’s heart to deteriorate even further? What if she had cut his short remaining time in half? What if—

  “Well, this is most odd.” Sylvan was frowning at his readout in a distracted way. “This cannot be right. Let me try again.”

  “What can’t be right?” Charlie asked, feeling sick as he began to scan Stavros for a second time. “Oh God, please don’t tell me I made his heart worse when I tricked him into bonding with me!”

  “She tricked you?” Sylvan raised an eyebrow at Stavros who smiled back.

  “Only because I was too horse-headed to see the truth—that we belonged together.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know that phrase.” Sylvan frowned. “Horse-headed?”

  “Perhaps I have it wrong. Was it cow-headed?” Stavros asked her. “I know it was some kind of domesticated mammal.”

  “Pigheaded.” Charlie didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “But look, farm animals aside doc, can you please tell us what the heart scan says?”

  “Well…” Sylvan looked at it and frowned again. “I’m not at all sure this is accurate but according to this scan, Stavros’s heart is in much better shape than it was when I scanned him earlier. And I don’t just mean earlier before you were bonded—I mean earlier just now. If this is right, his cardiac muscle has made a ten percent improvement just in the time it took me to end one scan and start the next. If this is correct, it seems his heart is repairing itself almost right before our eyes.”

  “What?” Stav’s eyes opened wide. “Can that be right? It must be a mistake!”

  “There is no mistake, my son.”

  The warm, strong, feminine voice filled the little room and made all of them instantly shut up and stop what they were doing.

  “I…what?” Stavros looked up at the ceiling as though he could find the owner of the voice magically hovering there. Of course there was nothing there. But they had all heard the voice. “Who…who are you?”

  “The Goddess…it’s the Goddess,” Charlie breathed.

  “You are correct, daughter.”

  “Oh, my!” Charlie put a hand to her chest. “All this time I’ve been praying to you and I didn’t even know if you were real but I just didn’t know what else to do.”

  “I am real.” There was humor and warmth in the voice. “I simply exist on a different plane of existence than my mortal sons and daughters. But I still care for you, my children and I hear your prayers. I also reward sacrifice.”

  “Sacrifice?” Stav asked.

  “You were willing to lay down your life to save a people not even your own,” the Goddess said softly. “That level of self-sacrifice must be honored. The task you did—bearing the positive emotion and allowing yourself to be used as a catalyst with the demon’s negative emotion—killed the parasite which caused your Curse. And now I have healed the damage to your heart. You will live a long and fruitful life and you and Charlotte will see children and grandchildren of your own before you come to live with me in the Last True Home.”

  “Oh, thank you!” Charlie looked up at the ceiling too, though she could see nothing there. “Thank you, Goddess!”

  “You are welcome, daughter. Your faithfulness too, has been rewarded. If you had not insisted on bonding yourself to Stavros, despite your belief that he would not live long, the process that finished off his Curse could not have been completed. It was the love and emotion generated by your bonding that finally freed him completely and allowed me to heal his heart.”

  “Truly you are good to your children, Goddess,” Sylvan said with quiet reverence and respect. “I think of you and thank you often when I hold my beloved mate and the children you have granted us.”

  “Much has been given to you, Sylvan. And much will be expected,” the Goddess said. “You are the leader of your people now. Commander Terex is broken in mind and spirit. I want to heal him but I cannot…not yet. In the meantime, you must assume the mantel of leadership permanently. You are to be the new Chancellor of the Kindred High Council. ”

  “I will do as you say, Goddess.” Sylvan bowed his head. “And now that the Dark Kindred are disbanded and Earth is allowing us to call brides again, I think we will get on better.”

  “Do not be too quick to count your troubles over, Sylvan,” the Goddess counseled sternly. “It is true that the demon Ur is no more and the denizens of Zeaga Four are now free to feel and have emotions once more. But their leader, Two, is still a danger to you.”

  “But he left. He, uh, flew away,” Charlie protested. “How can he possibly bother us now?”

  “As to that, I am not at liberty to tell you everything. Knowing too much of the future is dangerous for your limited minds, my children,” the Goddess said. “However, know this—you will have to deal with him in time. But you will not be able to kill him yourselves.”

  “We won’t?” Stav frowned. “But then how can we neutralize him as a threat?”

  “A foretelling was given—both Six and Charlotte heard it,” the Goddess murmured. “You must examine it for answers. And now I must go—I can spend only limited time on this plane of existence.”

  “Goodbye, Goddess,” Charlie called. “And thank you—thank you so much!”

  “Use your time with your mate well, child. Love each other with all your hearts and beware the danger that still lurks. Sylvan, rule with wisdom and patience. And now…farewell.”

  There was a deep silence in the room and then Charlie felt that the warm, feminine presence of the Goddess was gone.

  “Wow…” She drew a deep breath. “That was…intense.”

  “Amazing,” Stavros murmured, putting a hand to his broad chest. “I do not know what to think or what to do.”

  “Do as the Goddess said,” Sylvan counseled. “Clearly she brought you together for a reason. Love each other well.”

  “That won’t be a problem.” Charlie stepped over and pressed herself to Stavros’s side, winding her arms around him and breathing in his warm, spicy scent.

  “But what she said about the Dark Kindred Commander—about Two—is still troubling,” Stav said, even as he hugged her tightly to him. “I didn’t know him very well but it seemed clear the time he spent with the demon inside him affected his sanity.”

  “Affected his sanity? He was crazy, plain and simple,” Charlie said bluntly. “As my Grandma used to say, his elevator doesn’t go all the way to the top anymore. He was actually upset the demon left him.”

  Sylvan frowned and shook his head.

  “It’s very strange. I do not think he could have been completely sane to begin with and inviting that darkness into his soul can only have made his condition worse. But what is the foretelling the Goddess spoke of?”

  Charlie frowned. “I can’t remember all of it—maybe Six can help you there. But I do know Two said a witch told him no Kindred could kill him.”

  “I know it.” To her surprise, Stavros closed his eyes and recited.

  “No Kindred shall kill you

  Though you spill rivers of their blood

  The one who is your doom

  Comes from desert and from flood.

  A free-born male

  Too proud to bend his knee

  Enslaved of his own will

  Against his will set free.”

  “Wow.” Charlie looked at him in wonder. “How did you remember all that? I thought you were out of it or mostly dead while Two was spouting off.”

  He smiled. “I think it was one of the times I was alive. And I don’t know why but it’s burned into my memory—the image of Two flapping those huge black wings of his, hovering in midair and reciting his saying.” A shiver ran through his big body. “Gods, it’s not a pleasant memory!”

  “It sure as hell isn
’t.” Charlie pressed closer to him and held him tight. “But we have time to make some much nicer ones of our own right now. Lots of time.” She smiled at him and Stav smiled back, his eyes half-lidded with lust.

  “Falina, have I told you how beautiful you are?”

  “No.” Charlie snuggled closer. “But I’m ready and willing to listen.”

  Sylvan, whom they had pretty well forgotten, cleared his throat.

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” Charlie felt her cheeks getting hot. “I just didn’t think—”

  “About anything but your new mate. I understand—I’ve been there.” He smiled. “Bonding is a lifelong process in some ways but at the beginning, it’s very…intense.”

  “That it is.” Stavros spoke to Commander Sylvan but his eyes were locked with Charlie’s.

  “Well, I will leave the two of you alone.” A small smile was playing around Sylvan’s mouth. “To honor and obey the wishes of the Goddess. Just remember you’re still in the Med Station and there are sick people around you trying to recover. So…try to keep it down, all right?”

  “Mmm-hmm,” Stavros was already kissing her neck, making it hard to think. Charlie meant to make a more coherent answer, but as she felt those long, dangerous fangs prick gently against the flesh of her throat, she couldn’t do a thing but moan.

  With a smile, Sylvan shut the door with a quiet click and she and Stav were alone.

  “I love you, Charlie,” she heard him send through the new mental link they shared.

  I love you too. Now bite me!

  He did. But the last thing she on her mind before pleasure stole her ability at any coherent thought was the strange foretelling that Stavros had somehow remembered.

  A free-born male

  Too proud to bend his knee

  Enslaved of his own will

  Against his will set free.

  What kind of guy could it be describing? If he’s not a Kindred, then where is he from? And who would willingly choose to be a slave and not want to be set free?