Cursed Read online

  “Here, let me see. You’re itching and burning, right?”

  “Well…yes but how did you know?”

  She shrugged. “I have no idea. How was I able to feel your pleasure as well as my own while we were making love? Isn’t it part of the bonding thing?”

  “Not that I ever heard of,” Stav growled. “But what’s wrong with my back?”

  “Turn around and let me see…”

  He turned obligingly and heard Charlotte bite back a gasp.

  “What? What is it?” he demanded. “Do I have some kind of rash?”

  “No, it’s not a rash—it’s your Mark. Stav, it’s your Mark.”

  “My Mark? What about it?” He frowned.

  “It’s…it’s disappearing. It’s…look, I can’t explain. Is there a mirror in this room?”

  “There’s a 3D viewer, I think. Come on.” Pulling on his sleep trousers, he got out of bed and went to the corner of the room where there was a small sink and hand sanitizing station. Mounted on the wall above it was a 3D viewer. Stav pushed the button to power it up and stepped in front. Then he pushed the rear-view control so he could look at his back.

  After pulling his hair out of the way, he could see what Charlotte had been talking about. His Mark, which had been strangely faded before, was now disappearing entirely. The thick black lines were turning red, as though he had a sunburn, and then melting away entirely. The place the pain and itching had started, between his shoulder blades, was already clear. And, as he and Charlotte watched, the rest of the Mark from the back of his neck to his upper arms to his lower back, simply burned itself away and vanished, leaving nothing but clear, unblemished skin behind.

  “Oh my God,” Charlotte whispered softly. “What just happened? Where did it go?”

  Stav shook his head, mesmerized by the sight of his own back without the familiar black markings which had been with him since childhood.

  “I don’t know. Once a Blood Kindred becomes Cursed—becomes a Sin Eater—he is Cursed for life. I have never heard of the parasite which causes our disease just…just disappearing.”

  “Let me go get Sylvan and ask him—maybe he’ll know.” She was already starting for the door but Stavros caught her by the arm.

  “Put on some clothes first, falinda,” he said dryly. “You’re my female now—I don’t want anyone else seeing your luscious body but me.”

  Charlotte flushed with pleasure.

  “So we really are bonded? And…you’re not mad at me?”

  Stav sighed. “No, I am not angry with you. I am angry with myself—I should have been strong enough to resist you. Now you are bonded to a dying male.”

  “I don’t care what your diagnosis is, I’ll take whatever time I can get with you,” Charlotte said firmly.

  “But it will be so much harder for you when…when I go.” The words stuck in his throat but they had to be said.

  “So much harder?” Charlotte’s eyes narrowed. “Harder than watching you die and reviving you three times? Give me some credit, Stav—I know the score. I already lost you more than once. It was awful. I was crying and praying…”

  “Praying to whom?” he asked, frowning. Charlotte had never struck him as a religious person.

  “To that Goddess of yours.” She threw up her hands. “I mean, I don’t know her—I don’t know anything about her. But I was desperate. You kept dying on me and I prayed to have you back—even for just a little while.” She gave him a small, crooked smile. “I don’t know if she heard me or not but it looks like my prayers were answered. We may not have much time but it’s good enough for me. We’ll make the most of the time we have.”

  “Charlotte…” Her confession about praying for him touched Stavros deeply. “I am sorry,” he said softly. “I should have listened to you when you said you loved me no matter what.”

  “Well, I was pretty pigheaded myself when you tried to tell me that you loved me back at the resort,” she said, smiling. “So I guess we’re even.”

  Stav frowned. “How does your reluctance to realize I love you translate to you having the head of a domestic mammal?”

  She laughed. “Oh, pigheaded? It’s just an expression—it means stubborn. And speaking of stubborn—you keep saying how you’re on your last legs but you didn’t do too badly just now.”

  “Not too badly, huh?” Stav found himself smiling at her. “Is that all you can say after bonding sex?”

  “I might say a lot more in a minute if you want to do it again.” She gave him a naughty smile right back. “And another thing, I—Ow!” Charlotte had put a hand on her hip but she drew it back quickly.

  “What? What is it?” Stavros looked at her anxiously.

  “Oh, this damn blooding ring! I must have flipped the switch by accident and it got me. See?” She pulled back her hand to show a small trickle of blood flowing down the outside of her hip.

  Stavros knelt in front of her automatically to lick the small wound—to clean and heal her as any Blood Kindred would his mate. Then he realized something—he hadn’t felt her pain. Not even a little.

  “Charlotte?” he said, looking up at her. “Would you do me a favor?”

  “Well, sure, honey.” She gave him a smile that seemed to warm him through and through. “Anything.”

  “Pinch yourself,” Stav said. “Or slap yourself—or just give yourself pain in some small way.”

  “What?” Her smile changed to a frown. “I thought you weren’t mad at me. Why do you want me to hurt myself?”

  “I can’t explain yet. Please, just do it.” He made a motion with one hand.

  “Well, all right.” With a sigh, she used the blooding ring again, this time pricking the tip of her finger with it. “Ouch!”

  “Gods!” Stav took her finger and sucked it into his mouth, healing it automatically. Then he rose and looked at her. “That hurt, right—when you pricked yourself?”

  “Of course it hurt—a sharp stabbing pain. Why do you—?”

  “I didn’t feel it.” He took her by the shoulders. “Do you understand? For the first time in over twenty-three cycles someone in my immediate vicinity had pain and I didn’t feel it!”

  Charlotte put a hand to her mouth.

  “Your Mark disappearing…do you think it has something to do with that?”

  “I don’t know.” Stav grabbed her discarded dress and started helping her put it on. “But I’m going to find out. Hurry—we have to go see Commander Sylvan!”

  Chapter Thirty-six

  “Well, it’s the strangest case I’ve ever seen and I have to confess I have seen some very strange cases in my time practicing medicine here aboard the Mother Ship.” Commander Sylvan frowned and shook his head as he finished examining Stavros’s back. “Your Mark is completely gone and the scan shows there isn’t even the slightest trace of the parasite which causes it. I have never heard of this kind of spontaneous healing happening to a Sin Eater before.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t completely spontaneous,” Stavros said thoughtfully. “I used my Mark to transport positive emotion—possibly stressing it when I did.”

  “And then it mixed with the negative emotion from Ur,” Sylvan said thoughtfully. “When the demon tried to invade you. Stressing the parasites that caused it even further.”

  “And then we finished it off when we bonded,” Charlie added. “The stress of all that intense emotion was too much and we killed the little bastards off.”

  Commander Sylvan raised an eyebrow at her.

  “You…the two of you are now bonded?”

  “Well…” Charlie felt her cheeks getting hot. “Yes,” she confessed.

  “Yes,” Stav echoed firmly, taking her hand in his. “Charlotte heard your diagnosis of my heart while you and I were talking earlier. And she took it into her head to make the most of the time I have left.”

  “That’s right.” Charlie lifted her chin defiantly. “I don’t care if we only get six months or a year—that’s better than nothing.”

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