A Curse Unbroken (26 page)

I slipped out of bed and pulled on a pair of panties. “Aric?” I called, although something within me insisted he wasn’t there. I sat on the edge of the bed and waited for—I don’t know— sound maybe?

Heavy breaths behind our closed bathroom doors had me sighing in relief. I smiled. Aric was there, I wasn’t alone. “I thought you’d left,” I said.

His breathing stopped, cut off as if with the flip of a switch. Something in the quiet riled my beast and sent her on high alert. Her agitation poked at me, making me uneasy. I tried to settle her as best I could, reminding her that Aric was with us, when Shah suddenly materialized on my dresser.

My eyes widened. He shouldn’t have been here. I shook my head at him, trying to get him to leave. My tigress warned against announcing his presence. I listened and mouthed to Shah that it wasn’t safe for him here.

From one breath to the next, he was gone. I pushed the hair out of my eyes and returned to bed, keeping my attention on the closed double doors. Once more, only silence greeted me. “Aric? Are you all right, love?”

Aric pushed open the doors. Moonlight trickled in from the skylight behind him, shadowing his face. I didn’t give it much thought and edged away, making room for him beside me. “I’m starving. Let’s order takeout, okay?”

I turned and reached for my cellphone while I waited for him to answer, then scrolled through my list of contacts. “The bar and grill down the road should still be open. Do you want something from there?”

Aric crawled under the covers without speaking. There was something different about him, but I didn’t initially know what. His large hand came to rest on my hip. “Not now,” he murmured in an unusually deep voice.

I thought he wanted to make love, but instead of his gentle teases and strokes that usually preceded our intimacy, he slapped his hand over my scars and yanked me to him. I startled, clasping his wrist when he moved his hand aggressively south.

I dropped my phone. “Aric, stop. You’re hurting me.” He wrenched free from my grasp and grabbed my breast, squeezing it hard. Fear and shock warred within me, blinding me to what was happening. I struggled to shrug him off, but his hold on me tightened, and his motions grew more demanding, forcing me to submit.

He rammed his hips against me. “Aric, stop—
stop
!” My breath lodged in my throat. At once I realized his scent was completely gone and so was any trace of warmth. A cold chill swept down my body, making my stomach lurch.

This isn’t Aric.

I fought against his hold. His teeth clamped down on my neck, piercing my skin with all the aggressiveness of a hungry beast upon his prey. Warm fluid trickled down my neck. “Shut up!” he growled when I screamed.

Even through a mouthful of blood, I knew the voice was not his.

My legs kicked out savagely at his shins. His bone snapped beneath my heel. He grunted, but instead of releasing me he wrapped his injured leg around both of mine and clasped his hand over my mouth. I could barely breathe, the force of his hand bruising my lips.

I couldn’t get enough air through my nose. My breaths had quickened to racehorse speed, and my heart threatened to explode from the rush of terror. I tried to
change
and break away, but my tigress was gone.

He held me with just one arm while his other hand released my mouth only to grab at my breasts brutally. I let out a choked sob.
“Aric, no!”

He flipped me onto my back, landing so his knees pinned my arms. I was screaming and crying, knowing I was about to be raped. I knew this, and that thought hurt more than the pain against my arms and the swelling bruises to my breasts. My cries grew hysterical. I fought and kicked, bucking hard, and still I couldn’t get free.

He released a horrid growl and pulled back his fist. Everything slowed, allowing me to meet the wretched cruelty in his eyes. He looked like Aric, but there was nothing of the real him left. And although I knew this, I reached out, hoping to find a trace of my wolf locked within this shell.

“You told me you’d never hurt me,” I choked. “You told me you loved me.”

He stilled with his fist in the air, closing his eyes and his mouth tight. There was a deep rumbling in his chest, like lava building within a volcano. Whatever this thing was, it was about to erupt. I needed to escape, yet I remained too helpless to move.

His head jerked hard to one side then the other, forcing his neck to the point of breaking. A growl mixed with a curse escaped his lips while a turmoil of emotions flooded his face—sadness, guilt, gut-wrenching fear, but most of all primal fury.

When I was sure he’d kill me, his face whipped back to meet mine. Sweat dripped down to his chin, and just as abruptly as he’d attacked, he withdrew, stumbling from the bed and backing into the corner.

I scrambled to the floor panting so hard I thought I’d pass out. “A-Aric?”

He swiveled his head from side to side in an awkward gesture that told me he still hadn’t regained control. “Run, Celia,” he rasped.
“Run
.
”
He searched the room as if something else was there, until he faced me once more. “You need to go—do you hear me?
You need to go, now!
”

Tears trickled down my face. Without turning my eyes from his I reached for the robe at the foot of the bed. I slapped at the silky fabric several times, before my trembling hands could finally lift it. I continued to shake as I pulled it on, terrified to be naked. “No. I won’t leave you.”

Aric reeled fast enough to make me jump. His hand gripped our leather chair, crushing the frame with the strength of his grip. “Go,” he urged.
“Go!”

The tendons and muscles stretched along Aric’s broad back, straining and threatening to sever his spine. He was in agony. Something was tearing him in half.

I covered my mouth with my hand, knowing I should leave; yet I couldn’t force my feet to run. He needs us, my tigress insisted. He needs
you
.

My entire body shook violently as I inched my way to him. Every rational thought should have sent me bolting from the house. But I couldn’t leave him, and neither could my tigress. My fingers quivered as I reached to touch him, but just as my skin skimmed over his, Aric catapulted through the window.

Glass exploded in his wake and there was a loud thud as he hit the ground below. A sharp burning sensation filled my lungs as I took my first full breath. For a moment, my body simply swayed in place and my vision seemed to double. Somewhere deep within me, my tigress roared, snapping me out of this cloud of confusion.

The breeze from my shattered picture window beckoned me toward it. I peered over the damaged wood of the sill to find Aric on the front lawn seizing violently, his body illuminated by the light streaming from the living room window.

I leapt from the bedroom window onto the thick grass just as Koda’s and Gemini’s screeching cars pulled up to the sidewalk. Koda and Gem raced out growling with all the ferociousness of hell itself. Their eyes wandered to me as they scrambled to Aric’s side. “What happened?” Koda asked. His tone was low, vicious, deadly—making it clear he was seconds from slaughtering.

I couldn’t answer. Shayna had sprinted to my side as I watched Aric convulse. Nothing made sense, nothing was right. Jesus
Christ,
what was happening?

My quickening breaths burned my chest. “Ceel?” Shayna shook my shoulders, her voice shrill. “Celia, what happened to Aric?”

I took in her familiar aroma, trying to gather comfort from it to speak. Koda and Gemini spoke in a rush, either to me or to Aric, I wasn’t sure who. It took all I had to concentrate on Shayna’s quaking voice. “Oh God, Ceel. What happened to you?” She tried to close my robe, but I wouldn’t allow it and wrenched away from her.

There was another screech of tires and the quick footsteps of others running toward me. Emme and Taran were suddenly there, muffling their screams. Strong arms fell upon my shoulders; I yelped and jumped away, crying into my hands.

“Celia,” Gemini’s normally calm voice rang out ferociously. “You need to tell us what’s happening so we can help Aric.” He took a step toward me at the same time I took another step back.
“Celia,”
he said more insistently. “Who attacked you?”

I buried my face further into my hands and released several choked sobs. Shayna wrapped an arm around me. “She’s going into shock!” she yelled.

It was true; I was losing it. Just like I had the time we thought he was dead. I couldn’t allow myself to fall back into that darkness. Aric, or whatever was left of him, was in danger.

“Celia, tell us who attacked you,” Gemini growled.

While I couldn’t speak through my sobs, I did manage to point…at Aric.

All eyes that had been watching me turned to Aric in time to see him arch his spine with enough force to crack it. Every vein in his body rushed violently to the surface of his skin as if trying to rip through it. Black fluid pulsed along each branch. Whatever had infected Aric was forcing its way through his system.

I completely fell apart. Aric’s body was being ravaged and there was nothing any of us could do. Koda was yelling something to Gem when what sounded like every bone in Aric’s back crunched. He collapsed, his head falling limply to the side. He wasn’t moving, he wasn’t breathing, he was…

I scrambled to his side, where Koda had remained. My knees sunk into the mud, the grass beneath and around him torn up by his violent thrashing. I wanted so badly to touch him, but being so close to him brought all my fright back in one nauseating rush. I couldn’t stop shaking; I was going to be sick.

“Aric.
Aric
. Wake up! Breathe, damnit.
Breathe!
” Koda said, shaking him.

Behind me, I could hear Emme crying softly. Gemini was on the phone with Martin, speaking fast. “Don’t let either one of them out of your sight,” Martin’s deep baritone ordered. “I’m coming.”

Aric’s face turned from blue to gray as the sickly black fluid shoved its way through even the smallest capillaries of his face. My cries strengthened, and I began to scream.
“Wake up, baby. Please, wake up!”

Aric’s eyes remained closed and his chest failed to rise. He was dying while I watched, and it ripped my soul apart. I forced my hand to touch his chest. I barely brushed his skin when a cloud of smoke in a silhouette of his body rose above his still form. The image was Aric’s perfect double in shades of black and dark gray—every hair, every muscle, every feature, outlined to reflect his unmoving twin below. I watched it with wide eyes until it disintegrated into the night.

Like a strong gust of wind, Aric’s clean aroma filled the night air. He let out a pained roar and his eyes flew open, latching onto me. The intensity of his stare cemented me in place. No one moved, but then Aric lurched forward, reaching for me.

I stumbled away before he could touch me. The wolves hauled him back, sensing my fear.

Deep remorse and sorrow etched lines into his face.
“Sweetness,”
he pleaded. “I’m not going to hurt you. I just need to hold you.”

Anguished tears dripped from my eyes. He was back. My Aric was back. I tried to step forward only to fall and land in Taran’s arms. “You son of bitch!” she screamed at him. “What did you do to her?”

Emme tried to close the front of my robe, like Shayna had before. I looked down, confused as to why until I saw what they saw—what everyone saw. Oh
God
.

My breath caught in my throat. I should have realized I was completely exposed, but I was blind to anything but Aric’s suffering. Bruises shaped like long fingers painted my breasts, revealing the marks from the assault. What was worse was the angry red handprint over my thick scars.

Horror fell upon me like a landslide of boulders until numbness forced its way forward, claiming me. My panties were torn, the thin lace barely enough to keep the sides together.

I folded the sides of my silk robe closed and crossed my arms, hugging my body. Everyone knew I had almost been raped. And everyone believed it was at the hands of the man who told me he loved me.

Thick tears fell down my face, mixing with the blood that continued to seep out of my neck. Emme said something about needing to heal me, but my gaze had returned to Aric.

He tried forcing his way to me, yet the wolves held strong.
“Celia,”
he begged. “It wasn’t me. It wasn’t me, sweetness.”

“Aric,” Gemini warned, his tone tight. “Leave her alone. You’re scaring her.”

Aric stared back at me with eyes that implored me to tell them all that I wasn’t afraid of him. But at that moment, I still was, despite knowing he wasn’t technically the being who attacked me.

Taran didn’t seem to care. Every whisper of hair along my arms stood on end as she gathered her magic. A crowd of concerned neighbors, including Mrs. Mancuso, had arrived to investigate the cause of the commotion. Taran was trying to alter their memories. Yet I suspected she wasn’t far from turning her power on Aric.

I vaguely remember Emme and Shayna taking me into the house. They led me back to my room, but I didn’t want to return to where I’d been attacked.

“I-I don’t want to go in there,” I stammered. “I’m scared,” I admitted.

Shayna and Emme paused. “It’s okay, Ceel. You’re not alone,” Shayna said quietly. “Emme, take her to your room and heal her. I’ll run in and get you something to wear.”

I showered in the bathroom that connected Emme and Shayna’s rooms as soon as Emme healed my wounds. I had a good cry as the water sprayed down my skin, needing to unleash one last time as all the impurities of the assault were washed away.

Aric and the wolves shuffled downstairs where they were waiting to speak to me. Their voices, while muffled, carried all the strain and anger from the incident. I knew I had to face them and explain what had happened. But sweet heavens, I so didn’t want to.

I stepped out of the shower and dressed in the yoga pants and long-sleeved T-shirt Shayna had brought me. For a brief instant, I simply stood there, until a familiar nudge had me looking toward the vanity.