Cursed

Cursed

Adison Anderson · Completed · 83.2k Words

534
Hot
537
Views
110
Added
Add to Shelf
Start Reading
Share:facebooktwitterpinterestwhatsappreddit

Introduction

This was a very bad idea—being here with him with the Bond affecting us the way it was. But in this moment I couldn’t seem to care.

“You should probably go, Kassie.”

“Why?” I asked, voice barely above a whisper.

“Because I don’t know how much more of you touching me I’ll be able to handle without doing something that we’ll both regret.”

The tug from the Bond was so strong I didn’t care.

“Kassie,” he warned, voice changing to something graveled. Rougher than I’d ever heard it. That roughness was a lash of heat through my body. I couldn’t stop. Didn’t want to stop. That single word was the only warning I got before he pushed me back into the mattress below him, his hard body hovering over me, wrists held above my head in a single one of his hands.


When her neighbor becomes the victim of a gruesome murder, 18-year-old Kassie gets pulled into a secret world of monsters and magic. Accidentally bound in a long-forgotten marriage-binding curse with an aggravating stranger, Kassie will do anything to break the curse and get her life back on track. But with their thoughts and emotions bound together, solving the string of murders and breaking the life-binding curse get more complicated by the day. Especially as their connection makes it feel impossible to stay away from each other. A humorous urban fantasy filled with friendship, slow-burn romance, mystery, and magic.

Chapter 1

There was a dead person outside my house. And finding a body in real life isn't the quietly organized event I was used to seeing in movies. The noises from the street are what woke me. There was a high-pitched gut-wrenching scream from my neighbor followed by the sound of doors slamming and shouts.

Those unusual sounds from my typically quiet street had me wrenching upright in my bed. I rubbed a hand over my face, blinking away the exhausted blur from my eyes, my heart already thumping a wild rhythm against my ribcage. Leaning across my bed, I lifted up the blinds to peek through the glare of early morning sun to where a crowd was gathering on my tiny cul-de-sac. A cold sweat shivered along my skin. A few of my neighbors had crowded into a clump on the edge of the street near my house, sporting bathrobes and slippers, chattering loudly. Through it all, someone was wailing.

Wrenching back my sheet, I lurched out of bed. My sore feet protested at suddenly bearing my weight, and I winced as I pulled on the first thing I could find on my bedroom floor; the crumpled work uniform I'd stripped off last night before dropping into bed. The fabric still smelled like grease and coffee from the cafe, with stains visible in the black fabric. Ignoring the grubbiness of it, I shoved it over my head and stumbled my way out of my bedroom.

I don't remember the trip down the stairs, the next thing I was conscious of was standing barefoot in my driveway. It was already a scorching hot morning, the sun baring down in a bright haze, the soles of my feet burning on the searing pavement. The heat was like a wall bearing down on me the second I stepped out the door.

By the time I made it to the end of my driveway, a few police cruisers had already parked along the street. Officers had begun cordoning off the area and pushing onlookers off to the sidewalk and away from the body. I recognized a few of the gawkers—one of my neighbors, Lucille, was taking up the frontlines, chatting wildly with another older woman.

My neighborhood has always been an older one—most houses on my street were filled with elderly couples who left for the summer and came back in the winter when the weather was nice. There were a few like Lucille who was here year-round like me, so I knew her a little better. This morning, she was wearing a purple bathrobe, a pair of binoculars looped around her neck.

She and the woman she was talking to had to be approaching eighty—though they hadn't changed much over the years. Ancient wrinkles lined their faces, deep creases around their sharp eyes.

"Kassie," Lucille said when she caught sight of me as I stood next to her to peer into the street. A grim look passed over her face, "You might not want to be down here right now, dear. Nasty business afoot this morning."

One peak around her shoulder lent me a view of the street where the body was. Seeing a body in real life is vastly different than seeing it in a movie or on TV. There's an eeriness to it that doesn't translate to real life—something empty and unnatural that leaves you feeling raw and shakes you from the inside out. And this one appeared somewhat worse than what I even saw in movies.

My gut clenched, throat going dry as I viewed the carnage up close. It was much worse from the street than it had been through my second-story window. The body barely looked like a body. Barely looked human for that matter. The figure was mangled, limbs going in unnatural directions. And the blood—so much blood. The skin had been carved into with something—a knife maybe— blood pooling thickly onto the concrete beneath it.

I tried to take a steadying breath to calm the nausea bubbling inside me. But the thick, acrid smell of iron and rot didn't do much to soothe the rising horror. Through it all, the blood and clumping dirt, a glint of gold drew my eye away from the macabre scene. A few feet away from the body, lying unceremoniously next to the curb near my bare feet, was a flat circle of metal.

A familiar gold watch. A watch smeared in rust-colored blood. The sight had my stomach rolling, "Is that...?"

Lucille gave a grim nod, "It's George Morelli."

George—my neighbor. George, with his kind smiles and an understanding light in his eye when I lied about where my uncle was. Who made sure I got in okay after a late shift at the cafe. Who invited me over for holiday dinners even though I usually gave an excuse.

I didn't have many constants in my life, but George was one of them. And now...

The truth was too horrible for me to come to terms with. A stinging started up behind my eyes that I hurried to blink away. It was getting hard to swallow around the growing lump in my throat. I forced myself to take a few steadying breaths. I would not—I would not—lose it here in the middle of the sidewalk. Another dry swallow.

Despite my attempts at hiding the horror growing and the emotions roiling inside of me like a creature trying to escape, Lucille noticed. She lifted a wrinkled hand and reached over to pat me kindly on the shoulder. I had to make a concerted effort not to cringe at the contact—I wasn't good with physical affection even on a good day. And now, with my emotions high, it was even worse.

I forced myself to look back to where the body—George—lay in the street, "Who would do something like this?" The words slipped out, almost without thought.

"George didn't have any money. Whatever little bit he did have, he usually gambled it away at bingo night. And he didn't have any enemies that I've ever known of. Not even any family," Lucille said, conspiratorially. A thick wrinkle formed between her graying eyebrows. "But it seems too gruesome to be random. They took one of his hands—"

A narrowed look through the growing crowd of police officers confirmed what she said. There was only a stump where his hand used to be. Now that the shock was fading I saw a few other things I hadn't noticed at first glance. The knife marks on his skin didn't appear random after all—they looked precise. Like macabre symbols had been carved into his skin. Symbols that were swooping and jagged.

Despite the blistering morning heat, my skin turned cold, and a clammy sweat broke out on the back of my neck. I had to look away again as nausea bubbled back up in my stomach and I had to breathe deeply through my nose to keep myself from throwing up all over the sidewalk. The thick scent of blood didn't help. Or the other smell...something sickly and sweet.

Don't throw up. Please don't throw up. My jaw clenched as I forced myself to keep breathing.

I don't know how long I'd been standing there, forcing myself to breathe, when a police officer approached us. He asked each of us a few questions, getting our information down. I don't even remember what he said, what he asked. My mind was a hazy fog of shock and horror. I mumbled out answers to his questions until I heard what time it was and that pulled me out of the fog that had overtaken me.

"I need to get to work," I said offhandedly to Lucille as the officer turned his back to us. He was moving on to the group of other neighbors grouped nearby, "Will you tell me if they find anything?"

"Of course, dear," she lifted her binoculars back to her wrinkled face, "they couldn't rip me away from here if they tried." I believed her. I wouldn't want to get between Lucille and anything she was after.

She peered at the scene through the lenses for a moment before bringing her gaze back to me. A grandmotherly worry overtook her features, "Are you sure certain you should be working today? Can't you call in sick?"

I forced a smile I didn't feel, already stepping back up my driveway, barely feeling the burn from the pavement, "I'll be okay. Thank you, though." I didn't know if that were true or not. The sick feeling crawling through me and the familiar stiffness in my body from waitressing too many shifts in a row had me wondering how I was going to make it through the day. But there was no way I could afford to take a day off.

I waved to her numbly as I went back into my house in a haze. I threw up once in the sink. With shaking hands, I smoothed my hair back into a quick bun. I double-checked all of the locks on the doors, a worried uncomfortable feeling—a feeling that felt a lot like fear gnawed its way through me. I was already feeling like it was going to be a long day.

At that point, I didn't realize how much worse it would actually get.

Last Chapters

You Might Like 😍

The Dragon's Last Fae Queen

The Dragon's Last Fae Queen

6.5k Views · Ongoing · Sylvia Sylvester
Hidden all her life in the slums of Emberveil, Aerith has one rule: never let the dragons see her eyes. Fae are extinct, hunted, burned, and erased from the kingdom. Or so everyone believes. But on the night of her eighteenth birthday, when her forbidden magic stirs awake and her grandmother falls deathly ill, Aerith breaks the one rule meant to keep her safe. She enters the royal dragon pharmacy… and collides with a werewolf princess who drags her straight to the dungeon. There, in the deepest shadows of the palace, the youngest dragon prince sees her glowing eyes and instantly knows what she is. A fae. A secret the entire kingdom would kill for. What would be her fate? Another dead Fae? Or the Last Dragon's Fae Queen?

“Prince? Dickhead? Asshole? Or stalker?” A slow, dangerous smile curved his lips. “Maybe I should show you the one title I want you to use.” Before I could react, his hand closed around my chin, tilting my face up. His lips crashed into mine, hard, claiming, breath-stealing. When he finally pulled back, his voice was a rough whisper against my lips. “You could call me yours… because you are mine.”
The mafia princess return

The mafia princess return

910.9k Views · Completed · Tonje Unosen
Talia have been living with her mother, stepsister and Stepfather for years. One day she finally get away from them. Suddenly she learn she have more family out there and she have many people that actually love her, something she have never felt before! At least not as she can remember. She have to learn to trust others, get her new brothers to accept her for who she is!
Bound by Fate, Freed by Choice

Bound by Fate, Freed by Choice

5.3k Views · Completed · Nafisatuu
When Lyla's fated mate is revealed as Alpha Kaiden—her sister's ruthless ex-husband—the only thing he offers her is public humiliation and a brutal rejection. Heartbroken and branded as unworthy, she flees her pack, determined to uncover the truth behind her sister's mysterious disappearance.

Her escape leads her to Alpha Rowan, the commanding leader of the Blackwood Pack, who offers shelter, protection, and an unexpected chance at a new life. But Rowan’s fierce and jealous fiancée sees Lyla as a threat, and the pack’s charming Beta is drawn to her quiet strength.

As a dangerous attraction simmers between Lyla and Rowan, they begin to unravel a dark web of secrets that implicates Kaiden and threatens both their worlds.

With her hidden power awakening, Lyla must navigate treacherous loyalties, face the alpha who shattered her, and decide: Will she follow the destiny fate forced upon her, or claim the love and strength she has chosen for herself?
The Deadly Mafia Princess

The Deadly Mafia Princess

8.1k Views · Ongoing · Tonje Unosen
Ro was taken from her real family when she was 1 year old. Those she believed is her parents have been abusive towards her do years. Despite she being a very feared gang leader of a well known gang, she can’t find it in her to stand up against what she think is her parents. The little girl in her wants their love which she never will get.
Her gang take the matter in their own hands, to try to save their leader from the horror of her home. What none of them know, they wasn’t her real parents, and now Ro will be sent away to live with her real family. That makes her closest members in her gang pack up and move as well. They don’t want to be far away from their leader.
Goddess Of The Underworld

Goddess Of The Underworld

884.9k Views · Completed · Sheridan Hartin
Left at a pack border with a name and a stubborn heartbeat, Envy grows into the sharpest kind of survivor, an orphaned warrior who knows how to hold a line and keep moving. Love isn’t in the plan…until four alpha wolves with playboy reputations and inconveniently soft hands decide the girl who won’t bow is the only queen they’ll ever take. Their mate. The one they have waited for. Xavier, Haiden, Levi, and Noah are gorgeous, lethal, and anything but perfect and Envy isn’t either. She’s changing. First into hell hound, Layah at her heels and fire in her veins. Then into what the realm has been waiting for, a Goddess of the Underworld, dragging her mates down to hell with her.

When the veil between the Divine, the Living, and the Dead begins to crack, Envy is thrust beneath with a job she can’t drop: keep the worlds from bleeding together, shepherd the lost, and make ordinary into armour, breakfasts, bedtime, battle plans. Peace lasts exactly one lullaby. This is the story of an orphan pup who became a goddess by choosing her family; of four imperfect alphas learning how to be better. Steamy, fierce, and full of heart, Goddess of the Underworld is a reverse harem, found-family paranormal romance where love writes the rules and keeps three realms from falling apart.
The Shattered Moon King

The Shattered Moon King

1.6k Views · Ongoing · Hannah Kalu
In a world shattered by monsters, the only thing more dangerous than a lost memory is a forgotten identity.
Lena is a survivor. For years, she has weathered the harsh, post-apocalyptic landscape by following one rule: trust no one. But when she finds an amnesiac man near death in the wilderness—a man with kind eyes and a strength that is anything but human—she makes a choice that will unravel her solitary existence.
She calls him Cain, but the shattered-moon tattoo on his back brands him as Kaelen, the long-dead Alpha of the powerful Sky-Fall pack. His return triggers a brutal civil war with the usurper who stole his throne and his fated mate. Hunted by Lycan assassins and a fanatical human commander desperate for the secrets locked in Lena's own past, their only hope lies in embracing the very power Kaelen can't remember and Lena has always feared.
As they uncover a conspiracy that threatens not just the pack, but the future of every living thing, Kaelen must fight for a kingdom he doesn't know and Lena must confront a legacy she tried to bury. In a world of broken thrones and fated bonds, they will discover that the greatest choice is not between love and duty, but between who you are told you must be, and who you choose to become.
A pack of their own

A pack of their own

2m Views · Completed · dragonsbain22
Being the middle Child ignored and neglected, rejected by family and injured, She receives her wolf early and realizes she is a new type of hybrid but doesn't know how to control her power, she leaves her pack with her best friend and grandmother to go to her grandfather's clan to learn what she is and how to handle her power and then with her fated mate, her best friend and her fated mate little brother and grandmother start their own pack.
Where The Ice Gives Way

Where The Ice Gives Way

27.1k Views · Ongoing · Sheridan Hartin
Charlotte Pierce is used to surviving in motion. New towns, new schools, the same old house on the edge of nowhere, and the same rule that keeps her standing. Keep her twin brother, Charlie safe. Keep his hockey dream alive. Keep her own needs quiet. She works too much, sleeps too little, and saves the one thing that still feels like hers for the middle of the night, when she can lace up her worn skates and carve freedom into dangerous frozen ice. Charlotte and Charlie shifted once, years ago, and never understood what it meant. They had no pack, no guidance and no protection. Just two twins clinging to each other and pretending the voice in their heads was stress, imagination, or loneliness. Then they move to Wellington.
Blake Atlas scents his mate the moment Charlotte arrives. The bond hits hard and unmistakable, but Charlotte doesn’t recognise it. She doesn’t know why her chest keeps pulling toward the one boy she absolutely cannot afford to want. Blake is Charlie’s new hockey captain. Charlie’s chance at making something good. Charlie makes it clear; his sister is off-limits and Blake tries to do the right thing, but secrets don’t stay buried forever. Rogues prowl the edges of town. The ice cracks. The bond tightens. Then Charlotte’s rare white wolf awakens, the very thing that makes her powerful, also makes her a target.
Shanti needs Shakti. (Peace needs strength.)

Where the Ice Gives Way is a slow-burn YA paranormal romance filled with fated mates, protective alpha energy, fierce sibling loyalty, found family pack bonds, hurt/comfort, and quiet, aching tension. It’s a story about first belonging, learning to be cared for, and what happens when the girl who has always held everyone else up finally falls, and someone catches her.
To protect what’s mine

To protect what’s mine

533.3k Views · Completed · Winter Rowe
Amalie is more special than she ever thought possible. Why would the twenty-two-year-old think any different after she has been told she’s nothing for her whole life by her family? Adoptive mother of a three-year-old, Ama has been locked up by her family for the past seven years. But everything changes when her old friends, the Alpha twins, Markus and Calyx, take over the Moonstone pack. Finding out that the twins are her mates, she is a white wolf, and has a connection to the Moon Goddess, is just icing on the cake of her life is a huge mess. Ama just wants a normal life with her mates and protecting her pup, but life rarely gives us what we want. She is thrust into world that she no longer remembers and has forgotten her. Amalie is charged with protecting those closest to her. But she has her own past to overcome as she heals and attempts to move forward. Will she come out alive or lose herself along the way? After all, someone has to be pulling the strings, why not pull her along for the ride?
Accardi

Accardi

996.9k Views · Completed · Allison Franklin
“I thought we discussed this earlier, Weakness? I warned you. His death is on your hands.”
“I thought you said you were done chasing me?” Gen mocked.
“I am done chasing you.”
Before she could formulate a witty remark, Matteo threw her down. She landed hard on her back atop his dining room table. She tried to sit up when she noticed what he was doing. His hands were working on his belt. It came free of his pants with a violent yank. She collapsed back on her elbows, her mouth gaping open at the display. His face was a mask of sheer determination, his eyes were a dark gold swimming with heat and desire. His hands wrapped around her thighs and pulled her to the edge of the table. He glided his fingers up her thighs and hooked several around the inside of her panties. His knuckles brushed her dripping sex.
“You’re soaking wet, Genevieve. Tell me, was it me that made you this way or him?” his voice told her to be careful with her answer. His knuckles slid down through her folds and she threw her head back as she moaned. “Weakness?”
“You…” she breathed.


Genevieve loses a bet she can’t afford to pay. In a compromise, she agrees to convince any man her opponent chooses to go home with her that night. What she doesn’t realize when her sister’s friend points out the brooding man sitting alone at the bar, is that man won’t be okay with just one night with her. No, Matteo Accardi, Don of one of the largest gangs in New York City doesn’t do one night stands. Not with her anyway.
The Contract Wife: Marriage Of Malice

The Contract Wife: Marriage Of Malice

79.6k Views · Completed · Cherie Frost
"Tell me to stop, and I will," he murmured against my ear. "But if you don't..."
He didn't finish. He didn't need to.
I didn't tell him to stop.
Instead, my fingers curled into his shirt, clutching the fabric as though it was my only anchor. Something in him snapped—something he had been holding back for too long. His mouth found mine in a kiss that wasn't tender, but hungry, desperate.
I gasped into him, his hand sliding up to cup my jaw, holding me as if afraid I might vanish.
"You drive me insane," he breathed against my mouth, his lips trailing to my throat. "I can't lose you, Ella. Not you."
My head fell back, a soft sound escaping me as his fingers memorized my waist. My anger melted beneath his desperation.
"James..." I whispered, more plea than protest.
His hand caught mine, fingers threading together tightly. "I'll bring him back. I swear it. Just... don't turn away from me. Please."
The word please—low, ragged, almost broken—undid me more than anything else could have.


Ella never imagined she would marry the man she had secretly loved for years in such a way.
When her brother Theo faced twenty-five years in prison for massive embezzlement, the ruthless business tycoon James Lancaster offered her a deal: marry him in exchange for her brother's freedom.
This wasn't a fairy tale proposal, but a carefully orchestrated revenge. Because in James's heart, Ella was the culprit who had killed his sister Cecilia. He wanted her to pay the price—to atone with a lifetime of suffering.
Falling for my boyfriend's Navy brother

Falling for my boyfriend's Navy brother

2.8m Views · Ongoing · Harper Rivers
Falling for my boyfriend's Navy brother.

"What is wrong with me?

Why does being near him make my skin feel too tight, like I’m wearing a sweater two sizes too small?

It’s just newness, I tell myself firmly.

He’s my boyfirend’s brother.

This is Tyler’s family.

I’m not going to let one cold stare undo that.

**

As a ballet dancer, My life looks perfect—scholarship, starring role, sweet boyfriend Tyler. Until Tyler shows his true colors and his older brother, Asher, comes home.

Asher is a Navy veteran with battle scars and zero patience. He calls me "princess" like it's an insult. I can't stand him.

When My ankle injury forces her to recover at the family lake house, I‘m stuck with both brothers. What starts as mutual hatred slowly turns into something forbidden.

I'm falling for my boyfriend's brother.

**

I hate girls like her.

Entitled.

Delicate.

And still—

Still.

The image of her standing in the doorway, clutching her cardigan tighter around her narrow shoulders, trying to smile through the awkwardness, won’t leave me.

Neither does the memory of Tyler. Leaving her here without a second thought.

I shouldn’t care.

I don’t care.

It’s not my problem if Tyler’s an idiot.

It’s not my business if some spoiled little princess has to walk home in the dark.

I’m not here to rescue anyone.

Especially not her.

Especially not someone like her.

She’s not my problem.

And I’ll make damn sure she never becomes one.

But when my eyes fell on her lips, I wanted her to be mine.