The Konig Cursebreakers Read online

  The force sent him reeling back into the bookcases with a sickening thud and crack. His sword flew from his hand as he hit. Erin hit the table and rolled off, gasping for breath. She staggered back to her knees, praying she didn’t have to attack again. She was too tired and too hurt to keep it up much longer.

  The beast pulled his sword from the floor unsteadily and glared at her. His smile spread slowly. Erin forced herself to keep a steady face though she felt like crying.

  “We’ll see each other again, Erin,” he promised. “I have all the time in the world to pay you back for this.”

  She nodded wearily and bit back more hysterical laughter. What could she say to that? Erin certainly wasn’t looking forward to the rematch. She’d rather see him burn in hell than set eyes on him again.

  “What? No words of love in parting for your future mate?” he taunted.

  “No. Just leave.”

  He bowed a rather tipsy bow and faded away. Erin wished desperately that she had Hunter’s ability to sense. She couldn’t tell if the beast was truly gone. She considered her options carefully. He might not be gone, but Hunter would bleed to death if she didn’t do something about it. She cursed the choice she was faced with.

  She unsheathed her remaining weapon and made her way to the closet. It hurt to heft the heavy medical kit, but Hunter couldn’t wait. Erin cut his shirt away and groaned at the damage. She didn’t think she was capable of stitches, so she packed the wounds that seemed to need it and used butterfly tape on the others. She only hoped help would arrive soon. Someone had to have felt this.

  Erin ran her hand through the jagged mess of her hair and grabbed the scissors from the medical kit. She grasped handfuls of hair and cut them close to the scalp. By the time she was done, her hair was little longer than a crew cut and most likely a jagged mess. She looked at the piles of black curls in a detached sense of loss. “Try grabbing that,” she grumbled.

  Chapter Two

  Talon looked at Kord Maher in disbelief. “Calm down?” he bellowed. “Are you insane?”

  The older man sighed. “Save the Blutjagd. You’ll burn it off now if you’re not careful.”

  “You’re sensing it, too. Corwyn is dead, and both of my children are injured, Kord. I know that damn elder laid hands on my daughter one way or the other.”

  “He’s gone to ground,” the Lord Maher soothed him.

  “But, has he taken my daughter away with him?” he demanded.

  Jayde ran a soothing hand over Talon’s back. “How long, Kord?” she asked nervously.

  “Five minutes,” he assured her.

  “Then, we’ll know in six minutes,” she decided quietly.

  Talon grimaced at the hitch in her voice. This was her worst nightmare come true. If Erin was gone or either of her children died, he wasn’t sure Jayde would survive it.

  Talon took her hand and kissed it. “We’ll make it right,” he promised.

  Kord cleared his throat. “If Erin is still there, we leave for my range tonight. I don’t want you anywhere near here when Lorian comes back up. Hunter must have driven him to ground. That damn elder is going to be bloodthirsty when he comes up for a kill.”

  Talon nodded. “Thank you, Kord. This is a bad position to be in. He won’t be happy with anyone who helps us.”

  “Making beasts happy isn’t in my job description,” he joked.

  The rest of the trip passed in silence. Talon watched the miles slip by.

  An hour! He ground his teeth at the memory of those first few moments, locked in an impotent Blutjagd while his son lit up brighter than Talon had ever seen him and stayed that way. Erin’s fear intensified with that step, and he could tell something bad was coming next. Suddenly, Corwyn and his son were under attack. Kord and Jayde had all but dragged him to the car with them.

  He felt it when Lorian arrived on the scene. Corwyn was suddenly gone, and Talon had screamed in frustration for Hunter. The boy was good, but this was a fifteen-hundred-year-old elder, who took out Corwyn easily. His heart sank as he felt the first of Hunter’s injuries, but the beast didn’t kill him.

  That fact only confused him until he felt Erin’s fear. What he got from his daughter via the amulet was maddeningly little: a rolling cycle of pain, anger and fear he couldn’t defend her from. The amulet had been tested several times. Overall, the experience drove him to the brink of insanity.

  From the fact that Hunter continued to accrue new injuries, Talon could only assume that Lorian was attempting to use Hunter against Erin as Veriel had tried to use Talon against Jayde. He prayed that this beast found it as useless, but Erin was only twelve and she loved her brother desperately.

  When the house came into view, Talon was out of the car before Kord managed to stop it. He hit the door at a run and surveyed the living room in amazement. In his panic, he hadn’t kept track of the dying beasts, and nearly a dozen littered the room around Corwyn. He swept Jayde away as she launched through the door and motioned to Kord behind his back. Gods willing, Kord would cover Corwyn’s body before Jayde saw what had been done to her father. He cringed at the knowledge that Erin probably saw it in gory detail.

  He pushed the library door open and froze. Erin sat on the couch with a weapons belt on and a training blade in hand. The black cloud that surrounded her feet made no sense until he locked on her shorn head. Blade scrapes marked her throat, and a bruise marred her face, covering the right edge of her mouth. She had beast blood splattered over her, and her own — or Hunter’s on her hands.

  Erin looked at them with eyes that Talon would have classified as either unseeing or uncomprehending, until he moved. That she understood perfectly. She locked on her parents and launched unsteadily to her feet with the weapon raised in mute warning.

  “Erin? Honey, it’s Dad. You need to put the weapon down,” Talon crooned. He could disarm Erin easily, but he had no wish to frighten her any worse than she was, and any sudden movement on his part would only accomplish that.

  His daughter took a step closer to Hunter protectively. Her eyes were wary, her stance measured. She was trying to project an air of confidence in her position that she obviously didn’t feel.

  Jayde put a hand on his shoulder and drew one of her weapons. She cut her palm wordlessly and showed Erin the line of blood.

  Tears welled up in Erin’s eyes, and she eased toward them, glancing back at Hunter suspiciously. As her outstretched hand touched Jayde’s, Erin dropped her weapon to the floor. She touched Talon next. Shaking and crying, she fell into his arms.

  Jayde nodded and sheathed her weapon. “I’ve got Hunter,” she whispered.

  Talon led her to an oversized chair and sat, drawing the girl into his lap. He tried to comfort her, but his usual smoothing of Erin’s hair brought him up against the soft fuzz on her head and caused her to cry harder. Finally, Talon rocked her with her cheek to his chest, murmuring to her about how he would never allow it again, the same thing he promised Jayde years earlier. He cursed himself for letting his guard down this far with Erin.

  Jayde nodded to him across Hunter’s body. “A week to ten days down time. He’ll need some stitches on the stab wounds and antibiotics. Other than that, I’d say Erin did a pretty good job of patching him up. How about Erin? She’s still human,” she finished wryly.

  Talon grimaced at that. Still human— Her injuries would take four times as long to heal as they would if she was a Warrior already. “Erin, where are your injuries?” he asked gently.

  She looked at him miserably and opened her hand for his inspection.

  “Knife cut. Maybe six or seven stitches,” he called to Jayde.

  “Sword,” Erin corrected him.

  He nodded despite the tension in his jaw. “What else? I see your face and neck. Anything I can’t see?”

  “My back,” she whispered.

  Talon peeled up the back of her shirt and swore fluently at the swelling and bruises that seemed to cover her from shoulder to waist. “X-rays,” he called ou
t.

  Jayde’s head snapped up in surprise. “For?”

  “You’d have to see this bruising. It’s…” He sighed and shook his head.

  She crossed the room at a dead run. Jayde reached out to touch the blocks of bruises but stopped just short, doubtless realizing how bad it must feel already. She grabbed Erin’s left wrist and ran her hand over the bracer, checking for the amulet, reassured to find it safely beneath the leather. Jayde flicked the severed buckle strap and met his eyes with a questioning look.

  Erin looked down at it, her expression weary, and groaned. “Tactics,” she grumbled. “I hate tactics.”

  “Your hair?” Jayde asked gently.

  “He had me trapped by it.” Erin ran a hand over the thick crew cut she now sported and stifled a sob. “Try grabbing this, you bastard,” she whispered. She sank her cheek to Talon’s chest, her body quaking.

  “Did Hunter drive him to ground?” Talon asked suspiciously. Something was definitely wrong with this scene, and he hoped he was reading the signs wrong.

  Erin shook her head. “No, Hunter was hurt — out cold,” she managed.

  Jayde sucked in her breath at the implication. “Do you know who the beast was, Erin?”

  She shook her head again. “I know he was a high-level. Dade. He said his name was Dade.”

  Talon furrowed his brow. Dade? “You’re sure?” he asked.

  “If that was a low-level, how did it take out Hunter and Grandpa?” she asked sarcastically. “No. It was too good to be anything else.”

  Talon’s mind started working, seeking out possibilities to explain her experience. Veriel called himself Jörg when he pursued Jayde’s mother. “Could he have said Dado?” he asked urgently.

  “Maybe. I was a little busy at the time.” Erin seemed to pale at the memory. She rubbed her scalp and winced.

  “Your head hurts?” Jayde asked, probably fearing a head injury.

  “A little. I think he ripped some of the hair out before I cut it.”

  “Okay, let’s get you in the SUV. Dad and Kord will bring Hunter out.”

  “Our stuff?” she asked weakly.

  “Stephen will come out tomorrow.” Jayde didn’t add that he would also take care of his brother’s remains and collect his lord’s seal. Erin didn’t need that reminder.

  She nodded and trudged toward the door. Erin stepped aside as Kord breezed in. The older man nodded to Talon, letting him know Corwyn had been taken care of before Erin or Jayde could see it — or see it again, as the case may be. Kord looked at Erin sadly and touched her cheek near the dark bruise, before she continued on.

  He turned back to Talon. “Looks like it was ten high-levels that our guys got and Lorian,” Kord reported.

  Erin stopped her forward motion and turned back to Kord, looking pitifully tiny and scared. “Lorian?” she managed in a shaky voice.

  Kord looked at her in confusion. “Yes, honey. The last beast, the one driven to ground.”

  Erin laughed nervously then wrapped her arms around her ribs and bit back a sob. “Dado. Lorian. I have Lorian planning to get even with me. I think I’m going to be sick.” She took two choppy steps toward the door then stopped, whirling to look at the bookcases behind Hunter with wild eyes. “Mate,” she breathed as she collapsed into her mother’s arms.

  Jayde checked her over quickly. “It’s all right. It was just a shock,” she assured herself more than the men in the room. “Kord, I could use your help getting her into the vehicle. Be careful of her back. It’s bad.”

  He nodded uncertainly as he reached for her. “Sure. Did I say something wrong?”

  Talon stood and shook his head, feeling slightly shaky himself. “Hunter didn’t send Lorian to ground, Kord. Erin did.”

  * * * *

  April 18, 2021

  Hunter came to a groggy half-sleep. The bed he was in seemed too soft, and his entire body ached. He had never been seriously ill before, save his sealing sickness. He didn’t think that was possible for Warriors, so he couldn’t imagine what was making him so sick now. Faces and voices danced through his mind as he searched for an answer.

  Lorian’s laughter haunted him. “Can you watch him die, Erin?”

  Erin fighting him, screaming with every pain the beast caused Hunter in her name. “No!”

  His eyes snapped open and took in the strange room and the dim light. It wasn’t a dream. Erin really said she couldn’t watch him die. He failed her. Hunter screamed in anguish. Erin was gone. Lorian had her.

  The door flew open, and his mother hovered over him. “Calm down, Hunter. What is it?”

  He struggled to sit up, but pains tore through him, forcing him back down. Hunter cried out again. “He has Erin. I have to get her back,” he pleaded as much to his unresponsive body as to his mother. How could she ask what was wrong? He had to make her understand. He needed Jayde’s help. Every minute on his back was a minute Lorian had Erin.

  “Hunter, calm down,” she soothed him. “We have Erin. Lorian doesn’t have her. Calm down.”

  He stopped struggling and panted in agony. “How?”

  Hunter knew how far away help was. It had to be more than thirty minutes between when he lost consciousness and when help arrived for her. Plus, Lorian would have felt them coming. The beast would have taken Erin’s arm before he freed her to the Warriors. He made that much clear.

  A motion over his mother’s shoulder caught his attention. Dressed in a Warrior’s shirt that came to her knees and rubbing her eyes, Erin curled onto the wide bed beside him.

  Hunter looked at her in awe. He started to smooth hair that he thought was pulled back behind her head, but what he encountered was short and sweat-soaked. “You cut it to get away,” he breathed. “Oh, Erin.” Hunter choked back a sob. Her beautiful hair was her pride and joy — or had been until Lorian got hold of it.

  “It’ll grow again,” Jayde soothed them both.

  “No,” Erin whispered. “I won’t let it grow.”

  His father sauntered in. “Told you we should’ve let her sleep here. She was bound to end up here after the night they both had.”

  “How?” Hunter asked again.

  “I drove him to ground,” Erin replied quietly.

  Hunter laughed heartily, wincing at the pain in his chest and shoulders as he did. “Ow, that hurts. That was a good one.”

  “I wasn’t joking,” she countered miserably.

  Hunter tightened his jaw and met his father’s eyes.

  Talon nodded. “If you didn’t, she sure’s hell did.”

  “She couldn’t,” he protested. “She couldn’t even protect herself from his coercion.”

  Erin groaned. “Let’s not talk about that, Hunter. Please. Not now.”

  “It’s not your fault, Erin. He’s an elder with fifteen hundred years of dirty tricks.” He smoothed his hand over her bruised cheek to soothe her.

  “And I’m just a human,” she grumbled. “Drop it. I’m sick enough just thinking about it. Please, don’t talk about it.”

  “What coercion?” Jayde demanded.

  Erin buried her face in his ribs. Hunter noted a bandage on her hand as she wrapped herself around his body. He searched out the memory of the blood running down her hand from the sword cut with a grimace.

  He placed his arm around her protectively. “I’m sorry, Erin. They need to know.”

  “No, they don’t,” she assured him, her voice muffled as she buried her face further into him.

  “What?” Jayde demanded again.

  Hunter sighed. “From what the beast said to her, I’d assume it was some sick sort of mind-fuck.”

  Erin stiffened. “It didn’t get quite that far,” she offered miserably, “barely.”

  Jayde started to rub her back, and Erin hissed in pain. Their mother moved her hand to her arm to continue her soothing. “I’m sorry, baby. I forgot how sore you are.”

  Hunter looked to his father for confirmation, and Talon nodded. Fighting an elder is not a prett
y thing. Hunter just hoped she had amulet-bruises and not more stitches from the sword blade. He felt sick at the thought. Erin was human. She decided to fight an elder as a human. His mind reeled at another thought. She won — as a human.

  Jayde pulled him out of his reverie. “I was just going to tell you that I had something similar done to me when I was a trained Warrior. Elders aren’t like other beasts. It’s no sign of weakness that he tricked you.”

  Hunter knew what she was talking about. When he was training, he heard the story of the many things Veriel had done to try to get Jayde’s amulet off. Sending one of his substantial dream-illusions of their father to convince her to remove it was one of the worst for her.

  “Great,” Erin grumbled, no doubt unsettled by the idea still. “Tell me how to win Mom, because he’s coming back someday, and he left pissed off and promising revenge.”

  Hunter groaned, half at the thought of it and half at the impossibility of her doing any more than she obviously had. “You sent him to ground, Erin. What more do you want?”

  “Let’s see. To survive in less pain next time and to kill him so he won’t be coming back.”

  “Fine, but let me assure you that if you ever again balk an order a Warrior gives you in battle, I’ll wring your neck myself. Beyond that, I’d say Corwyn was right. We have to train you. Nothing else will save you next time.”

  * * * *

  Curt Maher watched as Erin made her way down to the summer training grounds. She looked like hell in his hand-me-down jeans — ill-fitting and so large that she had them cuffed up at least three times, one of his caps turned backward on her head, and one of Kord’s shirts which reached her knees. He understood that her own clothing required major cleaning or disposal, and the rest of her things hadn’t arrived. Still, it seemed a shame to batter so lovely a face and dress her this way.

  He shook his head, trying desperately to dislodge his next discovery, but it seemed to want to stick with him. The battering and the clothes did little to mask Erin’s body, unbelievable for her age. She had blossomed into a hot young woman in the ten months since Curt had seen her last.