Page 100 of Too Cursed To Kiss
Wald’s amber-brown eyes didn’t look at me as he walked toward the altar with the Klyngore. The blade was now glowing red. Sert held out his hand to take it from him.
“You can’t kill me! I’ll like die, die.” But Wald turned away from Sert and drove the fiery blade into my side himself. Pain ripped through me, reverberating with my screams as blood gushed from the wound, soaking the pantsuit and the altar.
“You frigging bastard,” I spat at Wald. Sert muttered something in a strange language. Wald staggered back, and Agatha curled a hand over Wald’s shoulder, as if she were comforting him. With her other hand, she captured his wrist as if to relieve him of the burden of the horror he’d just committed. Plucking the blade dripping with my blood from his hand, she positioned it upright in front of her and then, holding the blade at an angle pointing at her, dropped to the floor on top of it. The blade went right through her body, poking out through her back as she fell sideways.
Holy crap. I was dying; literally, the blood was pouring out of me. But Agatha was dying faster, bucking and gurgling for a few seconds, then completely still as if her heart stopped instantly. Maverick had let go of me, likely sharing my horror.
In the pockets of the jacket were Victoria’s knife and Agatha’s deck. Agatha’s voice was in my head, the warmth of the tingling power crawling over my skin as she entered me, leaving behind her magic and numbing my pain.
“You have everything you need now. Your power is in your voice.” Then, in a whispering trail of incense and roses, she was gone, and I was one of them again.
I gasped and flung myself off the altar, decking Devlyn with my tarot-filled fist. He hit the floor, gazing up at me with horrific malice, rubbing his jaw. His anger was the least of my concerns. Not daring to look at the blood gushing from my side, I bent down and plucked the ring from his hand.
Slipping it onto a blood-slicked finger, I twisted it inward, so my palm would cover it when my fist closed. Then I staggered over to Britannia, releasing the blade of the little knife in my pocket. Before she knew what I was doing, I’dstabbed her in the upper arm and slapped my bloody hand over the trickle of blue blood. She squealed and twisted away.
With a silent,this had better fricking work, I gripped the cards in my pocket, and the room went black.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Light blinded me as I struggled with the disorientation of being somewhere I shouldn’t be and in a time that wasn’t mine. The hall was Easter egg yellow with cream Formica flooring, soft music, and landscape photo prints in black frames. The linger of bleach and fragrance read clinic. I opened the nearest door, knowing what I had to do, even if it was hard. I had to tell this Britannia what she’d told me in the other time, before she chose the abortion.
Inside, the glaring brightness faded, leaving me, Britannia, and a petite blonde woman in a lab coat who was handing her a paper cup of medicine.
“Who the hell are you?” Britannia barked. Her blue flowered exam gown wasn’t flattering, but they rarely are.
I raced forward and knocked the pills out of the doctor’s hand. They scattered on the floor as I tugged Britannia off the exam table.
“Sorry, she changed her mind,” I said, pulling Britanniaout into the hall and away from the agape doctor. Britannia had gotten over the shock and was now full-on fighting me.
“Get your hands off me.” She pushed me so hard against the wall that it knocked the breath out of me. She turned to go back to the doctor.
I grabbed her arm and hung on as she tried to shake me off. She slapped me hard, her fingernails scraping across my cheek. I didn’t let go.
Holding my burning cheek with my free hand, I spit out, “Look, I’m from the future. There, you told me you really regretted this, and you wanted the baby. Whatever choice you are making here needs to be your choice not your father’s. In that time, you screwed everyone’s lives up because you made a bad decision. A decision that wasn’t the one you wanted to make. Don’t have regrets. Choose the life you want to live now. Trust yourself. Defy your father if that’s whatyouwant. You can thank me later.”
My vision misted and dimmed as security guards stormed down the hall. The nine seconds were up. Britannia’s mouth opened and closed wordlessly before the hall went black.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Ameow roused me from the depths of a dream where I wandered in lush green gardens sniffing delicate flowers. I startled awake as a large tabby cat pranced over my chest before plopping down beside me. It began to purr. “Well, hello there,” I said, stroking its silky caramel brown fur.
Pushing tangled hair out of my face, I grabbed my cell. Nine hells, it was Tuesday. I was supposed to be at the Save-Mor in twenty minutes.
I lifted the cat’s tail. Fixed boy cat. Excellent. I wondered what his name was as my apartment blurred into focus. My headache was at a mild throb, but I wasn’t dying. I sat up and brushed cheddar cracker crumbs off my black skirt, then checked under my shirt for gaping holes in my side.
Nothing. Not bleeding either.
Something was going well.
I inhaled the aroma of a fresh vanilla clove candle. My apartment was the same, but I must have dropped a couple of bills at the local discount stores on the framed prints offorests, a new fuchsia-colored throw, a pink furry rug, and a black velvet ottoman. In the corner beside the chair I’d swiped from my aunt’s house, before the creditors auctioned everything, was an elaborate cat tower with a little plaque,Clove’s Roost. I chuckled.
“Good morning, Clove,” I said, giving him a long head-to-tail pet. I’d always wanted a cat. He flipped over, and I rubbed his belly.
So maybe not completely in debt? Cool. The phone on my nightstand was a newer model, and it wasn’t cracked. I’d missed two calls. One from someone called Dennis and one from Gentry.
Holy crap, Gentry was alive.
Okay, first things first. I scrubbed my face with my hands, and my palm came away streaked with blue.
