Cursed Hearts (A Crossroads Novel) (40 page)

“It’s
stuck!” Matt yelled.

“Move,”
Rome said, racing towards them. He was almost out of the aisle when a flash of
movement made him freeze. The eyes staring back at
him from the gap above the books were a muddy brown, dulled by a thin
film
of white. “Shit,” he breathed, swallowing his heart back into his
chest.
The specter vanished before his eyes,
and before Rome could force himself
to move, the shelf began to creak,
leaning up on its base and plunging forward. His arms shot out, but he wasn’t
strong enough to stop the toppling tower of books and solid wood.

“Rome!” Ariahna screamed, watching him disappear under the
falling shelf. It slammed
against the floor and she exhaled, shoulders shaking and lungs burning as she
surrendered her ability to breathe.

Christian
ran over, curling his fingers under the edge. He might as
well have been trying to lift a car. He didn’t
know if Rome was alive, but he wasn’t just going to leave him there. He was so
scared out of his mind he couldn’t even get his magic to surge out of his
shaking fingers. “Come on,” he grunted, pulling so hard it felt like the
muscles in his arms were going to rip.

Rome
groaned softly, wiggling his hands free enough to help Christian push the shelf
off of him. He’d gotten lucky in that a few large books had kept his legs and
his body from being completely crushed. That didn’t mean they were going to hold
for long.

“He’s
coming back,” Jason breathed, pointing at the man with the sharp tip of his
blade.

“Give me the knife,” Ariahna said
frantically. Jason was too
terrified
to hear her. She didn’t have time
to hesitate – she didn’t have time to be afraid. Aria curled her fingers around
the metal, sliding her palm quickly across the blade as it sliced into her skin.
Thick blood dripped from her hand, staining the floor with drops of crimson. A
sharp buzzing crackled above them as the last light flickered into darkness.
The sun was gone, and the room was now blanketed in shadow. Soft flashes from a
lone, struggling light illuminated the room for a few brief seconds at a time.
And each time it flicked on, the Artisan had gotten closer. The temperature went
through the floor and the world began moving languidly. When he materialized into
a solid man before her, she bit back a scream. He was so close she could feel
the ice cold energy twisting off his skin.

“
Mori
magis mortem in sempiternum
!” she shouted, thrusting her bleeding palm over
his face. He shrieked shrilly and Ariahna shielded her eyes from a brilliant explosion
of white light as his soul was scattered in a thousand different directions.
The entire building shook, sending them all flying back in the blast. Not one,
but two bodies were shielding her from the books and dangerous shards of glass
shooting through the air.

The
windows had been blown out. Rome’s ears were ringing, but it was over. The
Artisan was gone. “Did you kill him?” he asked, the light above them humming
back to life. “Is he really gone?”

“Oh
my god.” Ariahna threw her arms around Rome’s neck. “I thought you were dead.” Fingers
were brushing through her curls and when she realized they weren’t Rome’s, she
shot Christian an uncertain glance.

“You
have glass in your hair,” he said.

“What
the fuck was that?” Jason exclaimed.

Matt
frowned.

“That,”
he proclaimed, “is what they don’t teach us in school.”

“That didn’t destroy him,” she muttered. “His soul will be
caught in
a loop, forced
to relive his death. But I don’t think it’s going to hold him. Not for long.”

Jason
sighed. This shit was ruining his high. “I can’t believe you just grabbed the
end of my knife like that. I could have cut your hand off.”

“What?”
Rome said. He reached for her hands, pulling them both out in front of him.
She’d cut herself so deep the blood was nearly black, and pooling in her palm.
“Ariahna, why would you…?”

She winced as Rome touched her hand tenderly. “It’s part
of the
spell. You
need the blood of a witch to trap a spirit.” She frowned as he lifted her hand
to his lips. What he did next made everyone else in the room cry out in mutual disgust.
Ariahna whimpered softly, feeling his saliva tingling against her skin as he
licked at her wound.

“Dude, I am so out of here,” Jason said
, snagging Matt and dragging him
out the door. “Jesse is giving us our money back. This was the worst bag of
weed I’ve ever fucking smoked. I mean, since when does it cause hallucinations?”

“You
don’t have to clean me up,” Ariahna whispered.

“Guh,”
Christian breathed. “That’s so fucking gross.”

“Just
wait until you wake up next to a dead dear,” Rome frowned. “Because it will
happen. Besides, it’s not as repulsive as it seems.” He didn’t know exactly why
he’d done it – his wolf had just told him to. He’d learned early on to trust those
instincts. Rome watched in amazement as her cut closed up before his eyes,
leaving the three of them stunned. Her palm was
still tinged red, but as he swept his thumb across the skin, he saw that
it
was completely smooth. There wasn’t even a scar.

“You
shouldn’t be able to do that,” Ariahna breathed.

“Any more than you should be able to banish Casper the
Bloodthirsty Ghost?” he retorted
with a smile.

“I
shouldn’t know how to do that,” she corrected. “But you… you shouldn’t
be
able
to do what you just did. Not even an al—” She looked at Christian, pressing
her lips together firmly.

Rome
leaned down to whisper in her ear. “He knows,” he said.

“I
know about you, too,” Christian added, shooting her a smile.

“Let’s just get out of here, before someone finds us at
the epicenter
of all this destruction,” Rome decided. “We’re grabbing
that journal, and
then we’re going out to the yew tree.”

Chapter 34

Wind
blew gently through the dead branches of the giant yew as they stood beneath it.
Christian wondered if this was what an ant felt like when it saw a human,
because this tree was more skyscraper than plant. He was seeing it, but he
still didn’t believe it.

“Is
this really The Grove? How did you two even find this place?” he
said, looking straight up through the branches. He
could see the moon
shining brightly through the treetop.

“Can’t
you sense it?” Rome asked. “The subtle flicker of life. It gives off an energy,
similar to feeling emotions.”

“No,
not really,” he said. “Speaking of, my joints are aching something fierce. Is
that normal?”

Rome
shot a glance at Aria before answering him. “It’s because tomorrow is the full
moon. I can feel it too.”

“Is
it going to hurt?” he said, wincing at his own words.

“I’m
not going to lie to you, the first time is the worst, and after that, it
doesn’t get much better.”

“Wait,
are you saying…?” Aria asked.

“He’s
a werewolf.”

“How
can you be sure?”

“I
saw his eyes, and Kaleb confirmed it. Which, by the way, unless you want that
kind of attention, you should probably steer clear of him after tomorrow. He’s
a little… handsy,” Rome admitted.

“Does
that mean you want that kind of attention?” Christian grinned. “Because I don’t
see you staying away from him.”

“You
know, everything you do and say makes me glad I didn’t grow up with you.
Something tells me I would have gotten blamed for everything.”

“If
I could have gotten away with it, probably, yeah,” he laughed.

Rome
smiled and shook his head. At least he’d admitted to it.

“I
want you to meet me here tomorrow night.” He turned his eyes to Ariahna
thoughtfully. “Are you forced to shift? The only reason I ask is because I
think you should stay away from us. I don’t know what could happen. I don’t
have control on the full moon, and for all I know, I could get vicious, or
territorial. Also,” he breathed, “we may end up fighting.”

“Fighting?”
Christian said. “Dude, I’m not going to fight you again. You win, or whatever.”

“It
doesn’t work that way. Our wolves are going to fight for dominance whether we
like it or not.”

“I
thought we were both alphas?”

“Not
in a pack. There is still a hierarchy, and there will still be a beta. Alpha is
really just a witch term to differentiate type.”

“How
do you even know all of this?”

“I’ve
learned to listen to my wolf. It’s the same way I healed her hand. I had no
clue why I was being told to do it; I just trusted its judgment. Honestly, it’s
never led me astray.”

“If
you know you’re going to fight, then why don’t you stay away from each other?
Doesn’t that seem like the safest option?” Aria said.

“All
we’d be doing is putting off the inevitable. Besides, when it’s over with, I
think we’re going to be closer because of it. More like the kin we were meant
to be.”

Christian took a deep breath. Every bone in his body was
aching down to the core. He was not ready for this, no matter how much he tried
to convince himself otherwise. “What do you say we focus on the other curse for
a bit?”

“This
isn’t a curse,” Rome said. Christian shrugged. “Fine, you’re right. We don’t
have a lot of time.” He slowly uncurled the leather strap tied around the
journal. Honestly, he was just waiting for something bad to happen. He cracked
it open carefully and a spark jolted through his fingers, making him drop the
book. It landed on the ground, flipping itself open. The pages fluttered about
wildly before stopping somewhere near the middle.

“Okay,”
Rome said, “did anyone else just see that?”

“Well
that didn’t last for long,” Christian breathed.

“I
don’t think that was him. When he comes back, he’s going to do a lot more than
turn a few pages. He’s going to be even angrier than before,” Aria said. “That
was someone, or something, different.”

Rome
took a deep breath and grabbed the book, taking a seat at the base of the tree
as he began to read. “
12
^th
of June, 1628. No more do I await the
summer’s day, no more do I crave the delights that sit upon my table. Edric VayRenn
shall be the first to pay, the first to feel loss like that which I have
suffered. What he wants, he shall receive, and it shall do nothing but take. For
it is an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. So shall I make his wand, and so
shall it be cursed until the day the heart is returned.
”

Rome
ran his finger over the old cursive, staring blankly out at the lake. The
answer was literally right under his nose.

“…What
are you thinking?” Aria whispered.

“I
don’t know just yet,” he replied. He looked up at the massive tree, pushing off
the ground and stepping a few paces away. “Why do I feel like I’ve seen this
tree in bloom?”

“Maybe
because you’re crazy?” Christian commented.

“No,
he’s not.” Aria stood to join Rome at his side, curling her fingers between his.
“I’ve seen it too.”

Rome blinked up at the tree as images flashed through his
mind. “Did we… did we share the same dream last night?”

Ariahna
nodded.

“I
think so. I didn’t remember it until now,” she said.

“It
was breathtaking, and it felt almost…
real
,” they said in unison.
“
Until the day the heart is returned
,” Rome
mumbled. “Didn’t he call the
yew tree the heart?”

“Yes,
he did,” she said softly. “He said that with the heart gone, The Grove couldn’t
live.”

“Are you guys telling me we have to figure out how to
revive this freaking tree? You’ve got to be kidding me! The thing’s been dead
for like a bazillion years. How in the hell are we supposed to manage that?” Christian
bellowed.

“I
don’t know,” Rome muttered. “I really don’t know.”

“…Maybe we should rest here again,” she suggested. “This
place, this tree, it’s trying to tell us what we need to know. Because it’s not
dead,” she whispered, “it’s just sleeping.”

***

Ariahna
awoke to the comforting warmth of a solid body. “Rome,”
she murmured with a smile, cuddling close to him. When she opened her
eyes to find Christian’s sleeping face inches from her own, she felt dazed. Aria
slipped away from him carefully, scanning the forest for Rome. She finally
spotted him by the lake, just outside the cover of the tree. She ducked under
the low hanging branches, taking a seat by his side.

“Good
morning,” he smiled.

“Morning…”

“What’s
wrong?”

Ariahna
shrugged.

“Christian?”
he guessed.

She
hadn’t planned on bringing it up, but—

“Why
did you let him sleep next to me?”

“I
couldn’t sleep, and he was the only thing keeping you warm. And I was wrong before,
when I said he’d fooled me into thinking he cared for you. He fooled me when he
said that he didn’t.”

“Christian’s
here because he’s afraid, because he doesn’t want to die,” she breathed. “Not
because he cares about me.”

“Hmm,”
Rome said, flipping the journal closed. “You know you’re cursed to fall in love
with each other too, right? You can lie to me, and you can lie to each other,
but you can’t lie to yourselves. You don’t want to care
about him, but you do. And that’s okay. Besides, you’re right about
one thing. He is scared, but I have a feeling it’s not of what you think. If my
mother had given me up at birth instead of him, the roles could very easily
have been reversed. I haven’t known unconditional love in a long time, but I
don’t think he’s ever had it, and he’s dealing with more than you know. All I’m
trying to say is that, if he earns it, if he works to redeem himself, don’t
push him away. He’s trying, he’s just got a lot to learn.”

“Are
you saying you don’t want to be with me?” she said softly.

“No,
it’s not that. I think I just know what’s coming.” A calm silence surrounded
them until the gentle sounds of the water and the birds were the only things
left filling the morning air.

“Do
you have feelings for someone else?” Aria asked weakly, hugging her knees to
her chest. Rome took a deep breath.

“You
mean do I have feelings for Kaleb?” he corrected. “I care about him, but I
don’t know if it’s more than that. He keeps doing things I don’t want, and
confusing me into thinking I want them.”

“That
doesn’t sound much like a friend,” she commented jealously. “That sounds like
sexual harassment.”

“Isn’t
not like that,” he sighed.

“Then
what is it like?” Ariahna replied. Rome didn’t seem to have an answer for her. “…Have
you been reading that all night?”

He
nodded. “I made a few notes in the back. I think I know what some of the other
curses are now.”

“Really?”

“That’s
the easy part. The Artisan cursed all of us strategically. I think he did it because
he had a strong sense of justice though, not because he was just blatantly
evil. Some of these aren’t even payback or revenge for some personal wrong. It
sounds like some of these people deserved it. It just sucks that we have to
deal with this because of the crap our ancestors pulled,” he grumbled. “The guy
had a reason behind all the madness though, and the forms of retribution
generally fit the crimes. After reading through some of this, I get it. I don’t
agree with what he did, but I get it.”

“So
what did you find out?”

“Okay,”
Rome said, pointing at his scribbled notes. “The Artisan was in love with Vivian
Graham, and she left him for my ancestor. The thing he failed to mention at the
museum is that our curses are not one in the same. My
dying, that’s your curse, not mine. Each wand came with its own fun
package, so to speak. You get to watch me die, and I get to suffer until you
do. My curse is actually a generalized form of misfortune.”

“Really?”
Christian groaned from under the tree. “Bad fucking luck? That’s our curse?” he
shouted.

“Essentially,”
Rome said, watching him emerge from the branches.

“Did
anyone even dream anything?” he asked. “Or did I just sleep on the hard, dirty
ass ground for nothing? It feels like there’s bugs in my hair.”

Christian
frowned, itching at his head.

Rome
laughed. “It could be fleas.”

“What?” Christian shrieked. “Are you serious? No, we can’t
get fleas
, right?”
He was itching even more frantically before Rome started busting up laughing
again. “It’s not funny.”

“The
cold water would kill them,” Rome grinned. “You could always jump into the lake.”

“Stop
it,” Ariahna said, trying desperately not to giggle. “Christian, you don’t have
fleas. Rome’s messing with you.”

That
didn’t stop his paranoid itching any.

“There’s
always Frontline,” Rome murmured. Aria elbowed him in the
side, giving him a stern look. “What? Let’s call
it payback for meowing at
me the
entire ride back yesterday, and for overall being a little shit,” he
smirked
.

“…Wait,”
she said, finally cutting them off as they bickered and teased one another. “How
is any one person’s death equal to what my ancestor did to The Grove? Is he
collecting the souls as restitution?”

Rome
turned to her with a worried smile.

“I
wondered that too. I think it’s not so much about the death, as it is the loss.
He lost what he loved most, and that’s what your family’s curse is really all
about. But if I find out he has my mother’s soul I’m going to rip him to pieces
with my teeth.”

“Good
luck with that,” Christian interrupted. “So anyways, I’ve been thinking. Why
don’t we just plant a new yew tree?”

“I
don’t think that’s going to work. It’s not just about the type of tree; it’s
about this tree specifically. The journal gives insight into the curses and the
reasoning behind them, but it’s not going to tell us how to break them.
Honestly, I think we’re on our own from here.
Besides, that would be
too easy.”