A Curse in Darkness by Sherilee Gray

Chapter 3

Willow

Business was slow today,and I wandered around my shop mindlessly straightening products on the shelves. Everything I sold at the front of the store was harmless. I stored Else’s potions and elixirs out back. When someone came in looking for help, I treated them like a doctor would a patient. They needed a consultation first. You couldn’t just hand that shit out willy-nilly without all the relevant information, or things could go seriously awry.

The bell jingled above the door, and I smiled at the woman who walked in. She averted her eyes and headed to one of the shelves.

“Can I help you with anything?”

She shook her head, her hair a little wild, her hands shaking as she picked up bottles and sightlessly stared at labels.

Something was off.

I waited for my blade to warn me. It remained still.

When a witch turned thirteen and they begin to learn more complicated magic, they are given a dagger. Especially witches who use blood to spell. Not all did, but our coven, which was made up of close and extended family, scattered all over the country, frequently used blood magic. When I became the Keeper, one of the gifts I received from the mother was making my dagger more useful, as well as the nice boost in power she’d given us.

Now it warned me of danger, and the strength of that warning correlated with the scale of the threat. It also increased my ability to fight, passing on the skills and knowledge of Keepers past.

It was an extremely cool gift, and I’d been more than grateful for it many times over the last year.

Although my ancestors had some serious moves, I’d been training as well, taking advanced fighting classes. I needed to be unstoppable. No one would hurt me again. But more importantly, no one would hurt my family or someone else I cared about.

I glanced at the woman again. Her eyes were wide, and there was no missing the look of desperation. “Are you sure you don’t need some help?”

She eyed me from the other side of the room. “Are we alone?”

Still no warning from my blade. “Yes, is everything all right?”

A tingling sensation danced over my ribs. It started gently at first, the tattoo-like vines growing warm in a familiar way under my skin.

My task.

Whatever this woman was about to tell me, I had to help her.

“You’re a witch, aren’t you? I mean, you sell all this…witchy stuff, and you look like…” She motioned to me, waving her hand about. “That. I don’t believe in any of this bullshit…well, I didn’t.” She shoved her fingers through her graying dark hair, and she was shaking, badly. “I’ve been to our church, and they think I’ve lost my mind, and I…I didn’t know where else to go. Witches, they can perform exorcisms, right? I googled it and that’s what it said…”

I lifted my hands to get her to slow down. She flinched. “You have nothing to fear from me.” I motioned to the door. “I’m going to close the shop, and we’re going to have a cup of tea and a chat. Whatever is worrying you, maybe I can help, okay?”

She nodded and took a big step away from me as I walked to the door to flick the lock and flip the sign to closed. Then I led her to my kitchen behind the shop. I lived back here most of the time, but lately I’d been staying with my family, in my old bedroom, since things were so volatile.

I turned on the kettle and pulled a chair out from the table. “Take a seat while I make the tea.”

She perched on the edge of the chair as if coming into contact with too much of it might give her witch cooties. Or maybe she thought it’s where I chopped up my eye of newt, frog’s toes, and bat’s wings? They weren’t actual ingredients we used. Of course, I’d chopped up a few other things on that table that were pretty disgusting, including harvesting demon organs from a fucker who broke into my shop. But she didn’t need to know that.

I steeped the tea, adding a few extra herbs to hers that would help her calm down, added a little honey and a squeeze of lemon, and slid it across the table, making sure not to get too close. The last thing I wanted was to spook her and have her run off.

I sat as well and took a sip of my tea first, showing her that I hadn’t poisoned it, and no, she wouldn’t turn into a toad or something if she drank it, and waited for her to do the same. She watched me, then finally lifted the cup shakily to her lips and sipped. Surprise crossed her face. Yes, my tea was good, really good. After a few more sips, she’d visibly calmed.

“Sorry, I didn’t catch your name?” I said and smiled.

She blinked a couple of times, studying me, still wary.

“I’m Willow,” I offered, still trying to put her at ease.

She took another sip of her drink. “Rebecca.”

“Okay, Rebecca, why don’t you tell me what brought you here today?”

Gripping the cup with both hands, she drew in a shaky breath. “My daughter Jane has been acting…odd. She’s always been a bit of a problem child, acting out, headstrong, willful…but lately she’s been hanging around with a bad crowd, and I think…” Her lips quivered. “I think they’re devil worshippers. I think they’ve been doing terrible rituals…and…and I don’t know what.”

Okay, not what I was expecting. “What makes you think that?”

Her hold on the cup tightened. “She’s been dressing differently, wearing a lot of black.” She paused, her gaze moving over me and my almost entirely black outfit.

I was starting to get the feeling that Rebecca was somewhat judgmental and I kind of felt bad for Jane. “Black clothes don’t really point to devil worship,” I said, needing her to be more specific. Whatever this task was, I needed all the details I could get.

“No, of course not. But it’s more than that…fishnet stockings, lots of black eyeliner, and…and slutty underwear.”

Was this woman for real? Slutty underwear? Jesus Christ. I would have told her I couldn’t help her and sent her on her way if it wasn’t for the way those tingles at my side had increased. “Is there anything else?”

She nodded vigorously. “I saw her walking to her room the other morning, she’d just showered and was only wearing a towel, and there were these marks, wounds, almost healed…but it looked like a bite mark on her shoulder.”

My mind started spinning. Demon? Shifter? Vamp? There were numerous others who liked to bite while they were getting busy. Or just as a way to feed.

“Right, and what did your daughter say?”

She bit her lip. “That she was bitten by a dog.”

A dog?A weird feeling curled in my belly. “You don’t believe her?”

“There were no other marks on her that I could see. Just on her shoulder. Wouldn’t there be others, and scratches if she was attacked by some dog?”

“Maybe she was telling the truth?” Or maybe it was a shifter gone rogue?

Then why is your side tingling?

She shook her head. “No…that’s not it.”

“Is there anything else? You mentioned exorcism.”

Rebecca wrapped her arms around herself. “This morning, I went to check on her. She was with her friends again last night and didn’t get home until seven a.m. She wouldn’t wake and was breathing oddly, heavily. I shook her, and when she opened her eyes, they were black. Her entire eye was black.” She gripped the small gold cross hanging around her neck. “And her voice…it wasn’t hers.”

Perhaps she should have opened with that instead of slutty underwear. “Where is she now, Rebecca?”

“She ran off before I could do anything. She threatened me and pushed me over, and then she ran. I think she’s gone back to her new friends.”

My stomach sank deeper, because I knew what she was going to say. Somehow, I just knew. “Do you know their names, her new friends? Where they live?”

“They live in Linville, and they’re a motorcycle gang…a gang of thugs. They call themselves the Devil Dogs.”

Hellhounds.

Awesome.Just freaking wonderful.

“Can you help me?” Rebecca asked, voice full of fear. “Please.”

“Of course.” It wasn’t like I had any other choice.

* * *

It was a thirty-minute drive from Roxburgh to Linville, New Jersey. The town was small, just over three thousand people resided there, and of course, the hellhounds.

I drove up to the entrance of their clubhouse. The gates were closed; they were always closed, and the huge chain-link fence butted up against an old brick building, a dive bar, one of the two businesses they owned and operated. The other was a garage. The bar was shut for the day and would open later. The garage beside it was fairly busy, the wide roller doors up, several hellhounds inside working on cars and bikes for the unsuspecting people of the town.

Only invited guests of the hellhounds were allowed past those imposing iron gates and into their clubhouse. Except me. I could come and go as I pleased. Warrick’s orders. Not that I took him up on the offer all that often. The male had staked some claim over me more than a year ago, for some reason known only to him, and I didn’t think encouraging him was wise.

I didn’t belong to anyone.

We hadn’t dated…if hellhounds even did date, and we sure as heck hadn’t slept together, so I wasn’t sure why he was so possessive of me. He’d told me we had a special bond, whatever the hell that meant.

Being around the guy unnerved me. He was overwhelming, and kind of terrifying at times. He was blunt and rude and demanding. He was also the sexiest male I had ever encountered. He took that rough around the edges thing some males had and cranked it all the way up to high. I won’t lie, it worked. Oh, he pissed me off more than anyone else in existence, but yeah, it seriously worked for him.

And unfortunately for me, he’d been the one to come to my rescue—more than once. He knew I could take care of myself, he just didn’t seem to care, and for some reason, had appointed himself my personal bodyguard.

Dragging in a steadying breath, I shored up my defenses and climbed out of my Morris Minor truck. It may be old, the blue paint faded and chipped, but I took good care of her. I’d had a few modifications done over the years—a bigger, faster engine, for one. It had once belonged to Gran, and she’d given it to me when I got my driver’s license. I loved it, even when occasionally it wouldn’t start on cold mornings.

Fender, one of the lower-ranking hellhounds, was working on his bike next to the clubhouse and spotted me first. I waved, and he straightened and slowly cleaned the grease from his hands before finally swaggering my way. He had long hair and a beard, like most of the hounds seemed to, was well over six and a half feet, and exuded cockiness and aggression with every breath, which was also something they seemed to have in common. Fender’s hair was a deep red and his eyes were light amber.

They studied me as he gripped the chain-link with thick fingers. “What you doing here, Wills?”

“I need to speak with your alpha,” I said and plastered a smile on my face.

“War’s busy at the moment.”

War was a fitting nickname for the hellhound alpha. The way he fought, the male was a one-male army, or maybe a tank. “I’m sure he’ll want to see me.”

Fender’s lips twisted. He was not pleased. “You should go.”

This was new. They always let me right in. “Did Warrick ask you to turn me away?”

He shook his head.

“He’ll be pissed if he finds out I came here and you told me to leave.”

Fender growled under his breath. Then, after long seconds, he finally unchained the gate and motioned for me to come in.

The fact I’d turned down their alpha was obviously becoming a sore spot. Great, that’s all I needed. More hellhounds pissed at me.

I drove through the gates and up to the clubhouse, parking beside the long line of bikes. To people living in Linville, the place looked like a human motorcycle club. It worked for them. They had a hierarchy, a roughness, and most definitely a lawlessness that suited that whole vibe. They also loved bikes. Hounds like the wind blowing through all that hair—they preferred that in their hellhound forms, on all fours, running through the woods—but riding a bike was the next best thing, or so I’d been told.

There were other hounds milling around and music was playing. The clubhouse, or den as Warrick sometimes called it, was an old factory and had their MC name, the Devil Dogs, painted on the side.

The music got louder.

Awesome.

They were having a party.

I strode through the doors and braced. Anything could be happening in the main room when they partied. Fucking, fighting…fucking and fighting. I’d seen it all. Things I wished I could unsee but were now imprinted on my brain forever.

I tried not to look into the dark corners, but there were several human females around the room, wearing little to nothing. No sign of Warrick, though, and the guy was hard to miss. He was the tallest of the hellhounds and radiated so much menace and violence he set off my fight-or-flight instincts whenever we were in the same room.

Without my say-so, an imprint of the way he held me after I’d been hurt a year ago had my skin tingling like a phantom caress, something else that often happened when we were together. He’d carried me away from the fear, from the guilt, from the scene of my failure, promising to protect me from ever being hurt again. That menace, that incredible violence that rolled off him, it’d made me feel safe then. And I’d needed that more than anything.

I didn’t need it anymore, though.

You sure about that?

I shut that voice down even as my belly gripped tight at the memory and the urge to run the hell out became almost more than I could resist.

Maybe I wouldn’t even have to see him? Lothar leaned against the wall, drinking a beer and surveying the room, seemingly oblivious to the woman clinging to him and all but dry humping his thigh. Lovely.

“Hey, Lothar,” I called over the music.

He turned to me and raised a dark brow.

A man of few words was Lothar. “I just want to ask your friend something.”

I tapped the woman’s shoulder, and she turned, scowling at me. “Go find your own guy.”

Lothar smirked, and I rolled my eyes. “I can assure you I don’t want…”

His eyes narrowed.

“Um…as wonderful as he is, he’s all yours.” The big male’s mouth twitched. Okay, the hound wasn’t totally humorless. “I’m actually looking for someone. Do you know Jane? She comes here sometimes.”

She shrugged as she dragged her hand down Lothar’s chest, over his stomach, and grabbed his dick through his jeans. Lothar remained completely unmoved. “Last I saw, she was with Maddox.”

“Right, thanks.” I turned, about to head to the doors across the room, the ones that led to the rooms where they took their females to bump uglies. There was also a door that took you to the lower levels, tunnels the hounds had dug out, vast and complicated, and where they lived and slept most of the time. They never took humans down there, keeping it hidden. I’d been down there, though, several times.

Lothar grabbed my arm, stopping me, and shook his head.

“I need to find this girl,” I said.

He shook his head again. “You wait until Maddox is finished with her.”

Delightful.

“I wouldn’t usually do this, but it’s important.” Goddammit, I was going to have to find Warrick. “Is your alpha here? I need to talk to him.”

Lothar’s nostrils flared and his eyes narrowed again, then he tipped his head down. I assumed it meant he was in his room below. “You can wait until War’s finished as well.”

I froze.

He was with someone?

Something unhappy squirmed in my belly, and for some reason my face flushed hot. “This can’t wait.”

“Yeah, it can.”

I don’t know what came over me, but an urgency slammed me in the gut, and I was on the move before I knew what my feet were doing, pushing through the hounds and their women, making my way to the door that led to the tunnels. I punched in the code to open it and shoved the door open, slamming it behind me.

Shadows closed in, firelight flickering from the torches that lined the passageways. It looked medieval down here, the way these guys liked it. Warrick’s room was the closest to the exit. As alpha, he put himself in the most vulnerable position of the pack, making himself their first defense. Something else he’d told me the last time I was here. I’d been recuperating after my first task. One of the times he’d found me injured and I’d been forced to share more with him than I’d been comfortable with.

His door was shut, and my fist was up and banging on it before I could think better of it.

No answer.

Visions of him and some other woman filled my head. It should be a deterrent, but it wasn’t. This couldn’t wait, that was the only reason I was pounding on his door, there was no other reason.

Keep telling yourself that.

I put more heft behind it.

The heavy, scarred wood swung open, and my knees literally went weak. Warrick filled the opening, close to seven feet tall, long, thick, black hair hanging past his shoulders, beard in need of a trim, and his tattooed, monster chest, bare and on full display under his leather vest. All the hounds wore them, with the Devil Dogs emblem on the front. Warrick’s said President, fully leaning into the whole motorcycle club ruse.

He also had more than a dusting of chest hair, they all did, and his carried on down, thinning into one of those trails, dipping below the waistband of his faded jeans.

His pale, gold eyes locked on me, and I had to force myself to breathe normally.

Pull your shit together.

“Dove,” he growled out in that incredibly deep, impossibly rough voice, something else the hounds had in common. But Warrick’s was the roughest, as if he were more beast than man.

“Don’t call me that.” I ignored the way my belly flipped and pushed on. “Now tell your plaything to leave, I have something important to discuss with you.” Maybe I should tone down the attitude a few thousand notches, but for some reason, I was having serious trouble doing that. I guess I could have waited until he’d finished fucking whoever he had in there with him, and I didn’t want to think about why I insisted on busting in on his private party, but there was nothing to be done about either of those things now.

Warrick stared down at me, his gaze locked on mine. “Jag, we’re done here for now.” He didn’t break eye contact.

“Jag?” I said stupidly.

He nodded.

“I thought…I assumed, because Lothar said…” I bit my lip. Shut up.

“What did Lothar say?” Warrick asked, crossing his heavily muscled arms, causing the chunky silver rings he often wore, one a skull, another engraved with a language I didn’t recognize, to glint under the torchlight.

Jagger, Warrick’s lieutenant, strode up behind his alpha, and he didn’t look impressed.

My gaze slid back to Warrick. “He just…well, he implied…” Goddammit, my face was getting hot again.

“That I was fucking?”

I didn’t reply because I’d come down here all hot under the collar for reasons unknown and…god, he was loving this. “You can screw who you like, Warrick.”

His jaw hardened. “I know I can.”

Jagger slipped past without a word and walked away.

“Right.” My face grew even hotter.

We stood there, eyeing each other for long, overwhelming seconds, and my flight instincts were kicking in. “Well, are you going to let me in?” I asked, ignoring them completely.

He stepped back, making space for me to pass, and I entered his private quarters.

I looked around the big room. A massive bed, he’d made himself out of logs, that I was sure he’d torn out of the ground and split with his bare hands, sat against the far wall. There was also a fire burning in the hearth on the opposite wall and animal furs on the floor.

I’d woken up in that humongous bed after my last combat trial…with a sleeping, naked Warrick plastered against me—

The sound of female voices came through the door across the room. It opened to a staircase that led directly to the main room aboveground. I guess so he didn’t have to bring humans through the tunnels.

Someone knocked.

“Busy,” he barked.

“It’s Molly, can I come in?” a female voice called.

“No.”

Another knock. “It’s Diane, what about me?”

“Fuck off,” he said, his expression unchanged.

I snorted. “Seriously? Women stand outside that door and wait for you to let them in?”

He dipped his chin.

“That’s pathetic,” I said, way too bitterly. “And here I thought we had a ‘special bond,’” I said, adding air quotes. I had no idea why I was goading him. And yes, sarcasm was dripping from my voice, along with a good dose of bitterness.

“What do you want me to do, Willow? Sit around with my dick in my hand, drawing love hearts and listening to Coldplay while I wait for you?”

My mouth opened, closed. “No, of course not…”

He took a step closer, so close the heat of his body soaked through my clothes. Warrick was always hot, his skin like a furnace. “They like the way I fuck, dove. I guarantee you would too.”

A rush of heat pulsed through me, because I suspected he was right about that.

“Say it,” he growled out.

“What?” Again, I was pushing him like a goddamned fool. I knew better.

“Yes.”

His deep voice reverberated through me. I gritted my teeth.

“Say yes,” he commanded, ordering me to submit, to give myself to him.

I shook my head, because suddenly my mouth was too dry to speak.

“Female, if you gave yourself to me, I wouldn’t put my dick in anyone else ever again, only you,” he said just as growly.

I swallowed, trying to get moisture back into my mouth. “Such a romantic.”

His brows lowered and he snarled a warning. Anyone else would know they were on thin ice. I lacked self-preservation, and honestly, common sense around this male. My self-control wasn’t great either, which was one of the reasons I’d been staying the hell away from him lately.

“You ran from me the other night in the clearing. I smelled your blood.” His expression darkened. “And I smelled the fox.”

“You know why I was there. I have my new task…” I straightened. “And apparently, it involves you.”