Page 15 of Cursed (Wicked Heirs #2)

My chest heaved, and I stared at my hands in disbelief.

I’d slammed the door shut.

I’d done it.

My fingers tingled with the force of my magic and a smile crept over my lips.

The grimoire—all the time I’d spent reading it and studying its pages… Maybe it was finally rubbing off on me.

It had to be.

Was that why Lucian had given it to me?

I waited, trying to breathe normally, for Valen to make a decision.

I knew he was outside the door… would he try to come back in?

Minutes passed, and then my awareness of his presence faded—

Good.

Behind me, the grimoire pulsed—I could feel its pull and the cuts on my arms throbbed in response.

I turned toward my vanity and sucked in a deep breath as I walked toward it.

The vision that had assaulted my senses in the garden, the apparition I’d seen in the bathroom. My mother was trying to speak to me. She was trying to tell me something.

I’d read about spectres of the dead—shades who sought to frighten those who could see them. But the initial fright was meant to shield them from revealing the truth—a message for the seer.

My mother had a message for me—why else would she appear in such a way?

I stopped in front of the vanity and extended my hand over the book.

The grimoire responded with a shiver and a low hum vibrated against my palm. A shiver rippled up my arm and as a chill enveloped my hand.

What if the grimoire contained a spell to bring her shade back—so I could speak to her.

One last time.

My fingers brushed against the cool, unsettling leather. It felt wrong, like touching the carcass of something long-dead. The grimoire’s whispers grew louder in my mind and rose to a frenzied chorus that beckoned me onward.

I hesitated, but only for a moment. Then, with a sudden rush of courage—or perhaps madness—I snatched the blackened silver dagger from the grimoire’s spine and pushed back my sleeve to expose my arm.

Running out of space.

I bit down on my tongue as I pressed the blade against my wrist, sharp and unforgiving, and sighed as crimson droplets fell onto the dark metal clasp. I barely noticed the pain and smiled as the clasp fell open with a soft click .

The spine creaked as I opened the book and the pages crackled in response, releasing a gust of cold air that seemed to wrap around me like an embrace from the grave. They fluttered restlessly, eager to expose their secrets, and I pressed the blade harder against my flesh. Dark droplets fell onto the ancient pages, and a smile twisted across my lips as the arcane symbols twisted and turned over the pages, inked in my blood.

“Show me the spell I need,” I demanded.

The drawings were horrific and nightmarishly detailed, and each illustration sent a chill coursing through my veins, yet I couldn’t look away.

“Please,” I whispered as the pages turned without my help. I set the dagger down on the vanity and ignored the drops of blood that fell onto the wooden surface as I snatched up a piece of clean linen and wrapped it around my arm to staunch the bleeding.

Frustrated, I set my hands to the pages and turned them myself, searching for something—anything—that might lead me to her. The grimoire throbbed beneath my fingertips as though it were feeding off my fear and desire.

“Show me what I need,” I urged. I could sense something shift in the room, and when I glanced up, it seemed that the shadows in the corners of my room had stretched and curled toward me, as if they too were straining to glimpse what lay within those forbidden pages.

The grimoire seemed to respond - the whispers in my head growing in intensity as I moved through its monstrous illustrations and arcane symbols.

As I turned another page, a strange force gripped my wrist and held it tight.

I let out a gasp of surprise, and then pain as my fingers turned pages without my consent—and then stopped. The force dragged my fingertips down the page, smearing the blood-red ink as they traveled, and then stopped.

“Shade Summoning?” I read aloud hesitantly.

The drawings were simple enough to follow—a circle of bone dust or salt, and the symbols I would need to trace around it to complete the summoning.

An item—a personal item.

But everything my mother possessed had been taken from the room on the day she’d died.

On the day I had found her dead in the bathtub.

I swallowed hard and blinked away the tears that stung my eyes.

I could do this… I had to do it.

I lifted the grimoire and cradled it against my chest as I walked into the bathroom.

The scene of the crime.

I laid it down on the marble tiles and walked to the bathtub.

I needed a bowl of still water—the claw-footed tub would have to do.

I put in the stopper and turned on the water.

As it gushed out of the tap, the noise filled my ears and drowned out the grimoire’s whispers—blessed silence—but it wouldn’t last long.

I loosened the bandage around my arm and bit down on my lip as I squeezed the fresh wound to bring blood to the surface once more. This time, pain radiated from the cut and my breath hissed through my teeth as blood dripped down my fingers and onto the stark white tiles.

I fell to my knees and sketched out the circle, finger-painting with my own blood, and then drew the arcane sigils to mimic the drawing in the grimoire’s ancient pages.

I skidded across the floor to the grimoire and read the requirements of the spell again.

My hand was slick with blood, but I couldn’t be bothered with re-bandaging my arm.

I would need it again.

I pulled the book closer and my blood soaked into the page. The symbols grew brighter as it soaked into the pages, and I gritted my teeth as my arm throbbed.

Salt— I didn’t have any salt, and I didn’t want to ask for any. I didn’t want anyone to know what I was doing.

Scented bath crystals would have to do.

I scrambled to my feet and stumbled across the tiles to the edge of the tub. I turned off the water and grabbed a packet of scented salts.

I ripped open the package and sprinkled the salt over the circle I’d drawn in blood around the tub.

“Good enough,” I muttered.

The Sages at the Academy had always told me that it was intention that mattered… “Even if you can’t find every ingredient, your intention is what calls the spell forward.”

I hoped they were right.

The personal item—

What did I have of hers?

Nothing— she had left me nothing.

The whispers in my mind intensified, and all at once I remembered there was something that had been hers.

Lucian’s engagement ring.

I groaned as I pushed myself to my feet and rushed back into my bedroom.

Lucian’s ring—where was it?

I pawed through drawers and boxes until I remembered…

I flung myself down on the floor beside my bed and reached underneath.

A whimper escaped my lips as I reached farther, fingers scrabbling until finally I felt the edge of the dark velvet box.

With a triumphant cry, my fingers closed over it and I drew my arm back. I opened the box, but only just enough to peek inside to see the glint of the dark gems embedded in the ring.

I rushed back into the bathroom and leaned over the tub to dump the contents of the box into the water.

The ring dropped to the bottom with a metallic clunk, and I dropped the box and fell to the floor beside the grimoire.

Words.

I closed my eyes and concentrated all of my energy on the ring at the bottom of the tub.

My power stirred, weak and first, and then it grew stronger as the whispers in my mind intensified.

“By my blood, I call you forth. With my will, I bridge the chasm of death.”

The words echoed in the bathroom and I waited, heart pounding, for a rush of wind or a murmur of my mother’s voice… but nothing happened.

I opened my eyes slowly, but the bathroom was unchanged. The blood on the floor gleamed in the soft lighting, and the surface of the water was unchanged and still.

With a frustrated groan, I pushed myself to my feet again and lurched toward the tub. I leaned over the still water and held my bloodied hand over the surface.

Three fat drops trailed down my fingers and fell into the water.

But instead of dissipating, they floated on the surface, and then spread out, coating the water in red.

I backed away as the lights flickered, and the whispers in my mind buzzed like angry hornets.

My hands clenched into fists at my sides and pain throbbed up my arm.

Did I use the wrong words? Or said them in the wrong order?

No— the intention was the key.

Focus.

“By my blood, I call you forth,” I repeated firmly. “With my will, I bridge the chasm of death.”

Reach.

Please.

The air around me was suffocating, and the lights flickered—but I must have imagined it.

Shadows flickered at the corners of my vision, and they twisted and writhed like serpents in the gardens hunting their prey.

But I was their prey.

“Mom…” I choked out. My knees weakened, and I clutched the edge of the marble tub for support as the world around me began to shimmer and distort.

The symbols I had drawn, crimson and raw, pulsed with energy—a heartbeat that was not mine.

The surface of the red-stained water rippled, but I could already feel the magic retreating.

Panic flared, hot and blinding, and ignited every nerve in my body as desperation clawed at my throat. “No! Not yet!” I gasped.

My vision blurred as I slipped down to my knees.

The edges of the room softened into a hazy twilight where reality twisted into nightmares. Shadows writhed in the mirrors and over the surface of the bloodied water as it sloshed against the sides of the tub. The whispers grew louder, chilling echoes of laughter that danced just beyond my reach.

I could almost make out her voice—

“Mom? Come back!” I cried out, but even I could hear the tremor of fear that strangled my voice. The darkness surged, swallowing me whole, and my knees buckled beneath me.

I slid down to the cold floor and smeared the bloody circle as I collapsed. My head struck the tiles with a dull thud and I let out a groan as my cheek pressed against the marble. The shadows crept across the floor toward me, but I couldn’t lift my head.

Darkness flooded in.

I wasn’t strong enough—

* * *

When I awoke, the chill of the tiles seeped into my bones, and I gritted my teeth against the pain as I pushed myself up to a sitting position, even though every muscle protested against the movement. Pain surged through my skull and I pressed my palm to my forehead, willing the agony to recede, but it only intensified, pulsing in rhythm with my heartbeat.

“Ugh…” I groaned, but my voice was raspy and weak and my throat ached.

The grimoire lay open on the floor, but I found its pages wiped clean of the secret incantations I had uttered. Its whispers were quieter—but they weren’t gone.

Valen was right— Titus was right… I wasn’t strong enough to handle the power that coursed through that damned book.

My fingers trembled as I reached for the book and pulled it into my lap.

The ink beneath my bloodstained fingertips had faded— as if nothing had happened.

But the dried blood on my wrist and hand, and the smeared sigils on the marble tiles, told a different story.

“Looks like a crime scene in here,” I muttered.

It is a crime scene — a voice snapped.

I was sure I’d imagined it.

My eyes widened at the dark words and my head whipped around.

I was alone in the bathroom.

Was that relief that rushed over me? Or disappointment in my failure?

“Mom?” I whispered.

Silence.

“Shit.”

My head throbbed, and I didn’t know how much time had passed.

I took a breath and pushed myself up and gripped the edge of the tub and braced myself against it so I could stand, but my legs were weak and everything was blurry—

My blood covered the floor, but the symbols I’d smeared onto the tiles were strange and crooked—had I even traced them properly? Or was it all wrong?

Was that why it hadn’t worked?

Not strong enough…

I pressed my lips together and stared down into the tub.

The plug was still in place, but the water had drained out. A dark red ring that stained the stark white of the porcelain was the only evidence that the tub had been filled, and Lucian’s dark silver ring lay in the bottom.

I reached into the tub and drew it out. Pinched between my thumb and forefinger, it glinted wickedly in the soft light.

“Fuck you,” I whispered.

The dark stones winked at me and I let out a furious breath as I looked around for the velvet box. It lay on the floor and my head throbbed as I bent to sweep it off the tiles. I shoved the ring back into the box and the lid snapped shut.

I had lost so much blood—and it had gained me nothing.

Furious with myself, and with my failure, I strode across the bathroom and back into my bedroom.

I laid the grimoire down on the vanity beside its dagger and placed the velvet ring box near the mirror.

The bathroom was a nightmare, but I couldn’t bring myself to clean up the mess.

Not yet.

What if I tried again…

I sank down into the vanity chair and let out a heavy sigh. The grimoire’s pages were dull and lifeless—an unhelpful relic until I dared to spill more blood onto its pages.

“I won’t have any left, soon,” I muttered.

I turned the pages with listless motions. The spells and incantations on the pages seemed simple compared to the one I’d just attempted.

None of them called for blood sacrifice.

Or for sigils to be scrawled in the penitent's blood.

Safe spells.

Sage spells.

I wouldn’t get anywhere with those.

The pages turned with a monotonous rustle and my eyelids were heavy.

It would be so easy to sleep.

No.

You hit your head.

No sleeping.

The whispers in my mind swelled and throbbed and buzzed in time with the thud of my headache.

How was I going to master this book?

How— How was I going to be strong enough to perform this spell?

Then, there it was—words scrawled in jagged letters that sent a shiver down my spine: Hemorrhage of Power.

My heart raced as I read the words and a dark thrill sparked within me. Drain the power from a willing (or unwilling) participant.

A spell that would allow me to absorb another’s power—

Was I really considering this?

The thought twisted in my gut like a knife and the whispers in my mind became a little sharper—were they laughing?

I shook my head and concentrated on the words of the spell.

By blood, our essence entwines. By sacrifice, your strength becomes mine.

I sever your flame; I claim your light.

Through blood and bone, your gift is mine,

I drink your power, one drop at a time.

This was no Sage’s spell. This was something else. Scrawled in dark ink on an uneven angle—this was the spell of another sorcerer.

Was I really this desperate?

The image of my mother’s rotted face rose in my mind; its horror remained etched in my memory and I wondered if it would ever be scrubbed clean.

Yes. I was this desperate.

The dark velvet box that held Lucian’s ring caught my eye.

I couldn’t falter again.

If I was going to find out who had stolen my mother away—and her magic—I needed power, and if that meant reaching out to three of the men I hated most in this world—I would do it.

Lucian’s sons…they had all used the grimoire before.

It would respond to their power.

All three of them had approached me and offered me help—in their own way.

They were dangerous, and unpredictable… if I asked them for help, they would laugh in my face.

But if I took what I needed— Would they even notice?

They were all so strong. So powerful.

I would never be able to overpower them.

I examined the cuts on my arms and then looked at my reflection in the vanity mirror.

“You look like shit,” I whispered.

I was pale, with dark hollows under my eyes.

I had pulled my hair into a knot on top of my head, and I desperately needed a shower—

There was a smear of blood on my cheek.

But there was something else there—something I couldn’t seem to push away.

They all wanted to possess me.

I hated them for what they had done to me.

Bastards and betrayers.

All of them.

Yet, as revulsion and anger twisted in my chest, I recognized the truth—this wasn’t about them.

This was about me… and about reclaiming the pieces of my past that had been stolen away.