Cursed Read online

  Cursed

  Copyright © N. Isabelle Blanco

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  This work is copyrighted. All rights are reserved. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior written permission of the author.

  Cover design by Black Widow Designs

  Publication Date: January 12th 2021

  Genre: FICTION/Paranormal Romance/ Erotica

  Copyright © 2021 N. Isabelle Blanco

  All rights reserved

  Contents

  A Million Different Aims

  Intro

  1. Chapter 1

  2. Chapter 2

  3. Chapter 3

  4. Chapter 4

  5. Chapter 5

  6. Chapter 6

  7. Chapter 7

  8. Chapter 8

  9. Chapter 9

  10. Chapter 10

  11. Chapter 11

  12. Chapter 12

  13. Chapter 13

  14. Chapter 14

  15. Chapter 15

  About the Author

  Also by N. Isabelle Blanco

  “A million different aims,

  Twisted on the path,

  Casting all the blame,

  Incurring their full wrath.

  Strength of day,

  Malice of night,

  I rule over the creatures that manifest fright.

  Cruelty, pain, etch it in my name,

  Fading, Fading,

  Dying in the flames,

  Siblings that betray,

  Monsters bathed in shame,

  Let the righteous in this quarrel rise up and claim the game.”

  INTRO

  The tombs are coming down around us.

  Literally.

  Everything is a blur from the speed of our movements. I have her against yet another crypt and we’re tearing it apart while we fuck—a reality defying act for an ex-mortal like me, and if we’re caught, all hell will break loose.

  Do I give a fuck? No. Getting my cock into this witch was my driving goal for years now, I just didn’t know she was real before. Now that she’s twitching in my arms, pussy trembling, there’s no stopping me.

  No stopping us.

  She sinks her fire-lit claws into my back, penetrating deep.

  “Fuck,” I groan, yanking her head back by her hair and sinking my enlarged canines into her neck. “What did I tell you about doing that shit? You want me to wreck you.” And I will.

  Her dark gods help us both, because I will.

  The creature her kind turned me into demands no less.

  “As if you could,” she hisses, turning her head and sinking her little teeth into my forearm.

  The fires surrounding us grow brighter, emanating from her unnatural body.

  A body I’m pile driving into like a demon possessed.

  Her insides are just as hot as the inferno she gives off, a tight cunt that strangles me with each thrust. Her juices drench my groin, the wet slap amplified by the emptiness around us.

  Perceived emptiness. I’m sure someone will come around eventually. The Cities of the Dead are hardly empty at night, regardless of whatever laws the New Orleans officials enact.

  And that’s only in regards to the living.

  I can see them now, the dead, their barely visible forms spread throughout this city by the millions.

  Most are oblivious. Confused. Lost in their prisons between this realm and wherever they’re supposed to be.

  Others are conscious, alert.

  Frantic as they try to get our attention.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see their efforts to get us to look their way, but I ignore every single one of them.

  They want to be voyeurs to this? So be it.

  Same thing goes for anyone else that happens to go by.

  Nothing and no one is getting in the way of this.

  I yank her leg higher around my thigh, circling my hips with my dick as far inside her as it can go.

  She gives off this little gasp that sends shivers down my back, walls fluttering.

  “How’s that, baby? That what you want?”

  Claws dragging across my heated skin, she tightens her hold and lifts her other leg around my hip. “Maybe,” is her cheeky, moaned response.

  Wrapping my hands around those gorgeous thighs, I pound her harder, and fuck, we’re about to break through into that crypt at the rate we’re going.

  Screw it. I’ll screw her right on the coffins inside. Don’t care. That wet, luscious pussy is all that matters.

  I clip her ear with a fang, groaning long and deep. “Is it what you imagined, witch? My dick owning that pretty cunt? Filing it with my cum?”

  She cries out loud as fuck, clearly not caring if we’re caught either. “Fuck you, werewolf.”

  I slam her onto my dick again, pulsing at the end of her. “No, witch. I’m the one fucking you. Stretching this perfect—tight—pussy—to—the—brim.” My hips bang into her with every word, concrete further collapsing all around—

  As predicted, the wall finishes giving way, and I find myself stumbling into the interior of the crypt with her wrapped around me.

  Sweating, maddened, I rush forward, hands on her ass, until I can sit her on the surface of one of the coffins. Once I have her on it, I spend no time forcing her backward and yanking those legs over my arms.

  Pretty face flushed, she whimpers at the new angle, dark hair plastered to her forehead.

  She’s not as physically strong as I now am, but she’s proven to be able to take the beating, and I give her just that, heaving thrusts into her so hard there’s no doubt that coffin will be the next thing to break. “That’s it, witch. You love this. Can’t live without it any more than I can.”

  Her back curves, breasts jiggling. “Still going to kill you when this is all over, wolf.”

  Sadly, of that I have no doubt.

  Only makes me more frantic to fuck her as much as I can before I die, like a glutton at the buffet table hosting his last meal.

  In case you haven’t realized by now, my life is a sad, sad mess.

  How did I get here, you ask?

  I sold my soul to an ancient voodoo priestess.

  Or so I thought.

  Sounds like the beginning of a worthless, B-rated script. Doesn’t it?

  Hah. Just wait. It gets worse. Alice’s rabbit hole doesn’t have shit on mine.

  See, the priestess might’ve been ancient, but I was high off my fucking ass.

  I was always high back in those days; it was my only way to get by.

  Easy to tell myself I imagined that entire night—the odd woman that approached me, her ability to see the rotting pain in my soul. How she offered me everything I could’ve ever wanted, a deliverance from the life I didn’t ask for.

  How, according to her, all I had to do was “sign” on the dotted line . . . Or, in the name of complete transparency, press my bleeding thumb to the bottom of an old-fashioned, text-filled parchment.

  I told you this crap sounds like imagined garbage.

  Except, I did it.

  I convinced myself I didn’t.

  Shortly thereafter, my life changed in ways I could’ve never envisioned.

  Ten years down the line, it’s changing once more—a bad acid trip that’s about to become ten times worse.

  The only way I can help you make sense of it—hell, the only way I can begin to truly understand it—is to show you.

  St
ep one: my suicidal idiocy.

  Step two: the dark hole it’s about to lead me to.

  And the incarnation of fire and damnation that’s waiting for me at the bottom of that pit.

  CHAPTER 1

  Flames surround her, a tempest of hellfire that encompasses her entire form.

  I’m not burning as she approaches; I’m frozen down to the depths of my damaged soul.

  “I know you,” I hear my warped, echoing voice say.

  “We all recognize death when it finally arrives at our door.” Her outline flickers as she appears inches from my chained body.

  Chains? When was I . . . the question vanishes into the ether as I tilt my head back to take in her mind-bending glory. Her black coat flares out into a skirt and each step she takes parts the folds, exposing the straps of a garter belt connected to black, silk-edged thigh highs.

  Her hair falls in brown waves down her shoulders—a cacophony of different shades that’s highlighted by the fire trickling along her silhouette. Her skin is a golden tan and my befuddled mind muses how apt that is; after all, a woman of flames would be kissed by its glow.

  Ice-blue eyes assess me in the coldest of ways.

  My soul freezes even more.

  My heart nearly disappears in a burst of molten ashes fanned by her presence.

  She scares me to the core.

  Fascinates me like the quintessential abyss calling my name.

  I’m sure I’m not the first man to get aroused by the cause of his demise.

  “It’s you. You’re the one here to collect.” The chains I’m shackled in cut my flesh with each move.

  She tilts her head, staring at the pitiful fool by her feet. “You gave them your soul and you’ve become the abomination you’re meant to be. Now you shall burn for your greed.”

  Greed? Can she not see how wrong she is, this glorious creature of myth. She calls me the abomination, yet she’s the embodiment of all that shouldn’t exist. Proof that what happened a decade ago—me selling my soul to that bedraggled woman—was real.

  Proof that there’s a world beyond human pettiness, poverty and glitz, desires and strife.

  I jerk my head, unblinking, drunk on the sight of my intended executioner. Not that she’ll have the chance to become that. She’s here for something much worse. “They sent you here to kill me, but that’s not what you’re here to do. You’re here to own me . . .”

  An undeniable truth.

  A damming one.

  A punishment far worse than my death.

  I don’t know her, yet my molecules recognize the danger she poses.

  Her expression flashes; fire-framed fingers twitch at her sides. Every inch of her is in denial of my claim—ready to destroy the lowly being that would dare to utter such a claim. She’s a vision of incoming disaster.

  A symphony of bad intentions.

  “The only thing I own, foul creature, is the life still coursing through your veins. And I shall be taking that now.” She lifts her hand, the flames bursting into an even more blinding whirl—

  Last thing I see is that fire coming for me.

  The disgust in her gaze.

  My own limbs shifting within the shackles, overcome with . . . fur?

  Someone’s haunting howl is the last thing I hear.

  And I’m pretty sure that sound came from me.

  Champagne flows freely throughout the room. No one asks what kind it is, but we all know it’s the expensive shit. It has to be. Louis Westfeldt would have no less.

  Within seconds, his need to brag takes over, and he’s proudly announcing that what we’re toasting with is no other than Louis Roederer Cristal Gold Medallion. Twenty-five K a bottle. Purchased in honor of me because my achievement deserves “nothing but the best”.

  I toast.

  I smile.

  Graciously offer my thanks.

  It’s all about playing the part. So what if this fucker probably got this stuff not only because he shares a first name with the man who named the company, but also to show off his ability to throw someone’s yearly salary on a single bottle? It’s not like we’re actually drinking it. It’s toast-and-dump here. Hold the expensive stuff up like an offering to the gods and then move on to the real liquor.

  Cognac.

  Bourbon.

  Drinks that make them feel like “real men”.

  Every bottle equally as expensive as the wine we so callously disposed.

  Clearly.

  “Another one, LeBlanc!” One of the new lawyers to the firm gushes, face split in a smile, as if we’re already friends.

  I know he hopes we’ll be.

  I’m one of the top attorneys in this crowd, second only to the family that owns the firm itself. Everyone wants to cozy up to me.

  The newbie’s enthusiasm is mimicked throughout the room, a perfect parody of ass-kissing.

  Westfeldt LLP—that’s right, one name, no partners in the title—has scored another huge, unpredictable win.

  Unpredictable to the outside world. I, for one, knew I’d win the moment I was brought onto the case.

  I always win.

  Funny, it wasn’t always like that, but that was an era long past. Ten years past. Not worth thinking about.

  Yet, as the entire penthouse of young and old attorneys, as well as their assigned booty calls for the night, flow to me like the joyful bubbles in the discarded champagne, nothing but congratulatory smiles and awe on their faces, I’m oddly fixated on that time in my life.

  Those memories I’d rather forget.

  The shell of a person I once was, worthless to the point of deserving death.

  I push away the memories and focus on the stunned glee on the partners’ faces.

  The rank envy of those beneath me; those that wonder how the fuck I do it. How I keep winning case after case, no matter how obviously guilty the client is.

  Even with the entire media painting a picture of corruption and culpability.

  It’s sheer talent, my friends. My unnatural knack for picking apart facts and repainting the events into any picture I choose.

  Nothing at all to do with that woman. That hallucination. The deal you keep dreaming about lately.

  There was no deal, and there’s no room for paranoia in tonight’s festivities. Laissez les bons temps rouler, as we say in New Orleans. Let the good times roll.

  I’ve done what I do best—the money being deposited into my account takes me one step further from who I once was.

  Adds another layer of security to my life.

  Assurance that I’ll never go back to being the good-for-nothing I was originally born to be.

  Someone claps me on the back. Again. I take it and dish out another gracious smile. Thank them for their praises. Pretend to be one of them—New Orleans’ crème de la crème—and the entire time the whispers grow louder.

  Outside the wall of windows, the Big Easy glows like the unique jewel it is.

  Not the part I was born into. Hell no. That part is like a festering rot upon this city.

  This is the view the world sees. The infamous Canal Street. The best of Vieux Carre—the French Quarter.

  This suite in the Ritz-Carlton? Only a select few ever see its grandeur outside of pictures.

  “They went all-out for this one, huh?” Travis, one of the only people I can actually stand at the firm, murmurs with a smile on his face.

  I simply tip my head in acknowledgement and continue to work the room.

  Louis and his father, Herbert Westfeldt, acquired it for the night in order to host this celebration. In “my” honor, you see.

  As if they don’t view me as nothing more than an asset to advance their own names.

  Not that I care. My own name is well known in the upper ranks of this city. My bank account? Perfect. Right where I need it to be.

  I’ll never go back to being that penniless, unworthy nobody again.

  Making a deal with the devil has its perks.

  I didn’t make a deal w
ith the devil!

  “What was that, Silas?” Joanna, a fellow lawyer, asks. Her green eyes are wide, blinking rapidly, brain failing to compute the stupidity I clearly blurted aloud.

  My forehead prickles with sweat.

  I’m saved from responding by another wave of ass kissers. Their eager, sparkling gazes are like hungry spotlights following my every move.

  Every tilting, wobbly move.

  Shit, am I swaying on my feet? I’ve barely begun drinking.

  The stares turn questioning. Concerned.

  There’s a pounding in the back of my head.

  I back away from the crowd, but there’s nowhere to go. There’s upwards of a hundred people crammed into the living room of this penthouse and they all want a piece of me.

  Because they’re just like me—soulless, insatiable leeches obsessed with their best interests. Looking for ways to further their own agendas.

  Huh? Where are these thoughts coming from? I never think of myself like that.

  Not anymore. I became somebody. There’s no need to.

  But it’s true though, isn’t it? It’s what you are. Lowest of the low. That’s why you made that deal.

  Why you defend the worst of the worst.

  Why money is all you care about.

  You became the same type of monster that steps on your kind. The class you were actually born into.

  The class that’ll always run in your veins. No amount of money will ever wash you clean. You aren’t of their pedigree; you’re an imposter trudging through their midst.

  “No, I’m not! I deserve to be here!”

  Stunned, hush silence falls over the room at my outburst.

  Shame and astonishment rise, yet I’m too bewildered to stop. I’m reeling, literally, falling backward—

  I slam into something, a side table perhaps. The pain that shoots along my lower back doesn’t begin to compare to the agony radiating in my bones.