The cursed and desired t.., p.1
The Cursed And Desired (The Everlasting Curse Series Book 2), page 1
The Cursed And Desired
The Everlasting Curse Series
G. Bailey
The Cursed and Desired © 2021 G. Bailey
All Rights Reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental and formed by this author’s imagination. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover Design by Amalia Chitulescu
Edited by Polished Perfection
Created with Vellum
Contents
Description
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Epilogue
About the Author
Other Books by G. Bailey
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Description
There’s no love in a world of witches and war.
Riona Dark’s plan to escape The Onyx and the vampire she left behind there all went up in smoke the moment the witches revealed their true intent.
The Quartz island is the home of the witches, and it’s full of more horrors than Riona thought possible. Protecting Arlo, finding out her family’s secrets, and learning the true power of the orbs make surviving The Quartz near impossible.
With war on the horizon,
Death chasing her soul,
and a vampire prince demanding her back with him...
Riona doesn’t know which way to turn.
Riona won’t be a tool for the witches or die for the vampires without a fight. The Onyx may have let her escape, but one vampire will never let her go.
Chapter One
“Get off me!” I demand as Cross shoves his hand into my back and pushes me into the dim room. I spin around as Arlo walks in after me, and Cross grabs the door. “You’re a betraying bastard, you know that?”
“I’m well aware, niece,” he drawls before slamming the door shut in my face. With a frustrated scream, I kick the door and smack my hands against it until Arlo wraps an arm around my waist and pulls me to him. Fury makes my entire body shake, and Arlo can’t fix this. I push away from him and hold my hand up as I back away until I find a wall. I use it to steady myself so I do not fall over. My eyes flicker from Arlo to my hand where my veins are glowing a white, almost silver colour. It’s beautiful, but in the most disastrous way.
It means Maddox, the Mad Prince, is in love with me, and the curse has been placed on my soul. I’m going to die.
“You’re in love with Prince Maddox?” Arlo asks, but the disgust and pity in his voice makes me lift my eyes to his. “The monster who murders humans like sport? You’re in love with him?”
“Maddox isn’t just a monster,” I tell him and cross my arms. “You do not know him.”
“He has you under some spell. It’s the only way—”
“It’s no spell,” I cut in. “It’s no trick, but I do not want to talk about that right now. We need to discuss how we are going to escape the witches.”
He shakes his head and sits down on the floor, stretching his legs out. “Unless you developed magic with those orbs inside of you, we are well and truly out of our depth. We do not get out of this.”
I grit my teeth. “I’m not letting Sabina win. My mother never spoke once about a sister or brother. In fact, she never mentioned her family at all, and I can finally understand why. Our family is evil and clearly has plans for a war.”
“A war they want you to be right in the middle of,” he replies. “And I’m stuck as bait. Along with that girl over there. Who is she?”
I look over to see a bundle on a daybed next to the wall, and most of her is hidden in the shadows. The small lightbulb in the centre of the ceiling isn’t bright enough for me to see her. I walk over, pulling the woman onto her back and recognising her straight away.
“Her name is Ann. We were on the ship that brought us to The Onyx, but then I never saw her. I asked for her to be saved, and Cross clearly saw her as bait,” I mutter. “I do not know if I put her in more danger by saving her from the island. This isn’t a rescue.”
“Let’s wake her up,” Arlo suggests. “We need her to be awake and ready in case we get a chance to leave.”
“Did you…well, did you ever see anything odd about Austin?” I question. “Apparently, our mother is a witch, and that’d mean we both have witch blood. I’ve never been able to do magic, but—”
“If he had magic, one of us would have known,” he cuts in, looking down at me in the shadows. “I never once thought I was the normal one of us three, but look at us.”
“I’m sorry,” I say as we both stand over Ann. “I wanted to save you, and I’ve just dragged you from a kinda safe place to an island of witches who hate humans as much as vampires love to feed on them.”
“This wasn’t your fault,” he finally replies. “But I wish you’d told me about you and Maddox. It would have saved me from making a fool out of myself by kissing you.”
“You’re a good man, Arlo…” I drift off, unsure how to end that sentence, when he does it for me.
“But I’m not a psychotic vampire prince. Got it.”
Before I can reply to that statement, Ann jolts up, her brown hair flying all around her face before she wipes it away. Ann looks a little paler than when I last saw her, but she is still as beautiful with her big eyes and tattooed arms.
“I never had you down for wearing dresses,” I say with a smile. Her eyes widen, and she grins as she sits up. I hold my hand out, and she takes it, climbing off the bed and holding the side of her neck. I do not need to see what’s under her hand to know she was bitten.
“My vampire owner likes dresses,” she mutters. “I did like the woman. She was kind, and I’d happily go back to her.” She pauses and looks around. “Where the hell are we?”
“You can explain this,” Arlo states and leaves us, going to sit by the door.
“In the very short version, the witches have taken us as hostages. Well, me. You and my friend Arlo over there are ways of making sure I do as I’m told. The witch leader is my estranged aunt, and she wants something from me. To wrap up, I’m sorry I dragged you into this, and I’m going to do everything I can to keep you alive.”
“Wow,” she breathes out, and we go silent as we look at each other, and she processes everything I’ve just said. “Alright, sounds messed up, but how much worse can witches be than vampires? They do not drink blood, right?”
I wrestle with how much I should tell her before deciding the truth is the best way to go. “They use human body parts for their spells and sacrifices for magic. They could be worse, but I’m not a hundred percent sure.”
“Great,” she rubs her forehead before giving me a brave smile. “I’m going to silently freak out over there. Good to see you again, Riona.”
She walks away and paces by Arlo, both of them close by but feeling a million miles away. I sit down on the bed and then lie down, holding in the anger and pain in my chest. I should never have left Maddox, even if it was the best thing for both of us. The worst has come to pass anyway. I’m cursed, and if Sabina is right, I have a year left to live.
I’ll be damned if I spend that year in the witches’ hold. Maybe it’s time I act more like Maddox. A little darkness could really help my escape before Maddox comes after me and that final orb ends up in my soul.
I do not want it or the magic that comes with the orbs.
Chapter Two
Being stuck on this ship just reminds me of the first time I was kidnapped and taken, but this time it’s so much worse. The witches actually have a plan for me. It’s me they want, and I’m not just another human to be sold. I’m family, whatever that means to them, and they think they have some claim on the orbs I’ve somehow got inside my soul. And they’ve got two people here who I know have no problem killing me if I do not do exactly what they need.
Everything feels different now, and I’m not sure how I’m going to get out of this. The sea sounds calm outside, even as the ship crashes through the waves and is rocked. I can’t smell anything over the seawater and damp in the room, which makes me feel sick with every rock.
I stare at the wooden beams on the ceiling, seeing people above move around through the tiny gaps and occasionally hearing the boards creak. I wonder how many witches Sabina’s got on board and how long it took me before it ever crossed my mind that someone could betray Maddox. Someone so close to home. Cross McGowan. If that’s really even his last name. I doubt it. I’ve gone over every time that I’ve been around Cross, which was so many in the weeks I was on The Onyx, and not once did I ever suspect that he was a witch or capable of doing the things that he has done. He was so close to Maddox, and Maddox is going to be so angry when he finds out Cross
And he will. Part of me misses him so much already, and another part of me fears what will happen when Maddox comes for me. He will destroy every witch on this ship and burn it to the ground.
What scares me more is that I would let him.
Ann and Arlo are silent and have been for the last few hours. Or what feels like hours with no actual way to tell the time.
I know Arlo isn’t speaking to me because he learned about Maddox, and I wish it was me who told him instead of Sabina. Part of me will never forget the look in his eyes as he realised what he had been missing. I didn’t tell him, because I didn’t want to hurt him and because a part of me knew he would never understand my relationship with Maddox. Another part of me wasn’t ready to admit how I was feeling. But here we are, and there’s not much I can do about it now. Arlo no doubt feels betrayed.
And that is on me.
Ann, on the other hand, just looks terrified, and I’ve never seen her any other way. The sad fact is, I likely never will do. Ann hasn’t opened up to exactly what she went through before she got here, and I know the vampires aren’t all as kind as Reign can be.
I’m tired of the silence. Tired of hearing the witches move around and the sea crashing outside, reminding me where I am. The silence just makes me think more about the curse and makes me wonder more about the orbs and the effect they are having on my body. Can I even die under this curse with this magic inside of me? What exactly do the orbs do? I know they want to make me feel comfortable on The Onyx island, but what else? The one orb made me impossible to control, but I suspect that was just the start of the magic those orbs contained. I try to remember everything that Maddox told me about his father, who had all three orbs at one point, but he never absorbed them into his body. So I think it might be a moot point, anyway.
Really, I need to talk to Reign and Maddox. They might be able to give me some answers. I do not trust a single thing that comes out of the witches’ mouths even if they decide to tell me the truth. I sit up on the bed and walk over to the door to bang it a few times.
“Hey, witch bitches! Let me out!” I shout and bang on the door a few more times to make my point. But no one replies, and I rest my head against the wooden door. I give up and sink to the floor, wrapping my arms around my knees and resting my head against the wall by the door.
“How long do you think it’s going to be until we get to the witches’ island?” I enquire. “Do you know anything about the witches, Arlo? Did Reign or Katy talk about the witches?”
“You should know, you’re the one who hangs out with the prince and apparently knows that witch,” he sourly replies, lifting his head until his green eyes clash with mine.
“I met her once at a meal in Maddox’s house. She was apparently a friend of Maddox’s, but I do not believe it much anymore. There were two other witches there who said they were friends of his, and he seemed closer to them. I’m hoping that we see them around and they might actually help,” I suggest. “Other than a miracle, they are the only plan I have.”
“We do not need help from witches,” Arlo snaps. “Or vampires, for that matter. They both clearly are using you for different reasons, and I think we are better off trusting anyone who isn’t supernatural.”
“Yeah, I’m kind of with your friend over here,” Ann finally speaks. “I wouldn’t trust any of them.”
“I do not mean trust them, because I get why we shouldn’t,” I say. “I just meant that they might help us escape or get a message to Maddox for help. They could just get you guys off the island, and I will figure out something.”
“I just do not see that happening,” Ann replies with a sigh. “There is no such thing as a good witch. They are made with dark magic and revel in it, from what I heard.”
“Where did you hear that?” I ask. I believe her, because the little time I’ve spent around Sabina, I would never call her a good witch. She lives and breathes darkness.
“I was taken in by an older vampire woman, and she wasn’t too bad. Other than occasionally feeding on me, she kept pretty silent and looked after me like a pet. Better than I saw other humans being treated, so I kept my head down and did as I was told,” she explains. “I know because she talked about witches with her friends occasionally, and I overheard them, but yeah. Witches are nothing to be messed with. Everyone thinks Prince Maddox is insane for having witch friends with everything that happened to his mother.”
“What happened to his mother?”
“The witch’s curse killed her and destroyed any goodness in his father. Their family was a mess from that point onwards,” Ann answers. Arlo’s eyes drop to my hand, and I hide it at my side, refusing to meet his eyes.
“So witches are bad news. We have literally nothing else,” I sum up our conversation. “It’s not going to be easy once we get off this ship. It’s just going to get worse. And whatever you do, do not aggravate them.”
“Alright,” Arlo agrees, and I see Ann nod.
We sit in silence again for hours and hours, but Arlo looks at me the entire time, and I can feel the questions burning in his mind. I do not want to tell him I’m dying because I fell in love with a vampire prince. I do not want to say it out loud or even look at the curse. This curse destroyed Maddox once, and if I die, I do not know what it would do to him. I know he cares about me, and because of this curse, I know he loves me. The Mad Prince in love with a human. It’s something that should never have happened.
As the hours pass by, my stomach rumbles, and I’m desperate for a drink of water as I lick my dry lips. But there’s nothing in this room except the droplets of saltwater that come in from the sea. I highly doubt the plan is to just let us die. So one of them must be coming with food and drink soon.
The ship seems to stop a little later, and I hear the sound of an anchor dropping into the sea not long afterwards. We all stand up, our eyes saying everything, and we silently make an agreement that we need to do something when this door opens. We’re only humans, but we aren’t going easy. We’re against witches, but they need me alive for whatever reason. If I could just get a weapon, I might be able to find a way to make them listen to me and not let them just use me. The door swings open seconds later, the lock magically opening by the sounds of it. Cross walks in, followed by two female witches who have marks all over their faces. I’ve never seen them before. Their blonde hair is hidden under a deep red cloak, and Cross is wearing the same red cloak as the others, but I’ve never seen him in it in the past. It must be a witch thing. He is a witch, and it annoys me how Maddox never knew. It must have been one hell of a spell to hide his true side.
“Hey, Betrayer, what are you doing here?” I joke. He scowls at me. “I know, you’re here to set me free before I try to jump right off this ship into the sea. It seems warmer than your sister’s cold, dead heart.”
He sighs. “Let’s not pretend you won’t do anything to save your friends, niece.”
Cross roughly grabs my arm and starts dragging me out of the room as I struggle in his grip, and he shakes me still. I glare at him.
“Bring the others to the holding cabin and make sure they’re not harmed. Make sure you feed them as well,” he tells the witches, and they bow their heads.
“Seems you have power here, Betrayer. Were you always that jealous of Maddox?”
“Shut up,” he growls at me, harshly pulling me next to him. I’m dragged out of the room, and I try repeatedly to pull my arm from Cross’s grip before he stops. He pauses in the corridor and looks down at me. “Stop it. Sabina wants you alive, but my sister is cruel, and she will kill one of your friends. Do you want that?”
