Page 12 of Spicy Little Curses (Scared Sexy Collection #3)

Eleven

Petra

The Sacrifice

T he moment I stepped inside, torches flared to life on the walls of the passageway, lit by some unseen hand. The stone steps were worn and narrow, winding downward out of sight.

It was cold, but Dax’s body heat warmed me from behind. Even without turning to look, I knew he was right there.

Seething, overprotective, and wanting desperately to pick me up and carry me outside over his shoulder to safety, but there.

A twinge of fondness for him made me momentarily misty eyed. The big lug was actually growing on me.

Like fungus, only more annoying.

The second I took my first step, he hissed, “ Careful! ”

“Yes, Mother.”

His low, displeased growl echoed off the stone walls.

Blinking to clear my vision, I ventured ahead, strangely calm. I wasn’t one to believe in fate, but this moment struck me as if it had been preordained, as if I was walking into a memory or a dream I’d had.

It was the same feeling of recognition I experienced the first time I’d laid eyes on Dax.

Had I been here in a past life? Had I walked these steps, touched these walls, smelled that strange, otherworldly incense?

Had I once ... loved him ?

Or maybe I had indigestion, which would make much more sense.

“Careful!” he hissed again. “Slow down! And stay close!”

Definitely indigestion.

We descended deeper, following the steps, my breath clouding white in front of my face from the cold. The farther we went, the stronger the scent of incense grew, along with the stench of decay. The steps abruptly ended, opening to a passageway carved into the earth itself.

Beyond the passageway was another graveyard.

Vast and shadowed, the cemetery was far older than the one aboveground. Tombstones of all shapes and sizes stretched out before us, many crooked and blackened with age, the names on their surfaces worn down to nothing.

“The catacombs,” Dax murmured reverently, pressing close, his hand at my waist. “I’ve heard all the stories, but I never thought it really existed.”

We stood in silence for a moment, our breathing falling into sync, until Dax said, “This is it. This is where it started.”

The curse, he meant. The original pact gone wrong. The one that had damned generations and caused so much suffering and led us both here.

I didn’t ask how he knew. I felt it, too, deep within my bones. The coiled power of dark magic was all around us.

When I spotted the cluster of fireflies, my heart leaped into my throat.

They bobbed in the mist, shimmering in the dark like golden embers. Their winking lights beckoned me forward, but when I took a step toward them, they flitted away.

Dax said my name in a warning tone.

“Celeste told me to follow the fireflies,” I murmured, feeling caught in a dream, in the endless space between life and death, where spirits roamed and time was suspended.

My feet carried me forward.

Through the crumbling graveyard, past the silent tombstones, deeper into the shadows of the misty catacombs, I walked.

Dax stayed right behind me, his presence grounding me even as everything around me became more and more dreamlike, the magic of the catacombs weaving a dark, sticky spell, until I saw it and froze.

It was a freshly dug grave, the earth still raw and damp, piled up on one side, the headstone bright and new. Even in the dim light, the carved letters were unmistakable.

Daxon Rousseau

My breath caught, and I clapped a hand over my mouth in panic.

Tense and frowning, Dax stepped up beside me. “What is it?”

I swallowed hard, shaking my head. “Can’t you see it?”

He stepped closer, his eyes scanning the stone, then me. “See what?”

The letters were there, bold and damning, but he saw nothing.

Inside my head rose a ghostly whisper, the memory of Celeste’s prophecy. “ One must be lost for the other to be free. ”

The words the Hollow Man spoke to me in the library followed. “ The grave is open. The headstone is already carved. Only one thing remains, Descendant of Ash—sacrifice. ”

A hot wave of panic surged through me. My stomach twisted, and I thought I might be sick.

I knew what the words meant now. With that grave and that headstone, I was being offered a choice.

The curse could kill me ... or I could kill Dax.

“No.” I shook my head violently, stumbling back. “I won’t do it!”

Dax caught my arm, but I was too distracted to listen to what he was saying. A whisper of movement had stirred the air. As I looked around, cold fingers of dread clawed their way down my spine.

The stench of death and decay was now overpowering. Which meant only one thing.

His figure wavered at the edge of the mist. Not approaching, not chasing, just watching with that featureless, blank face that somehow expressed he knew, as I did, that fate demanded a price.

And he was here to collect payment.

When he lifted his arm and pointed at the grave, the threadbare cuff of his coat sleeve pulled up, revealing his wrist and forearm ... and the tattoos.

Intricate black ink curled across his wrist, winding up his arm before disappearing under his sleeve. They were eldritch marks, stylized and ancient symbols.

And they were very familiar.

Dax wore the same ink on his own skin.

Understanding hit me with the force of a sledgehammer. “Matthias,” I whispered, shocked.

Because that’s who the Hollow Man was. Dax’s greedy ancestor, cursed not only for his descendants to wear the marks of his sins and lose the women they loved in tragedy, but to be the one who came to collect their souls himself.

He’d walked the earth since the day he died, a specter imprisoned outside of time, punished and unforgiven, sentenced to do the curse’s dirty work with his own hands.

Talk about reaping what you sow. The caplata who thought up that whopper of a punishment wasn’t kidding around.

I mean, he did steal her soul. She had good reason to be mad. Vengeful. Furious.

Ancestor or not, I had to admit I was impressed by that level of pettiness.

Dax said sharply, “What is it? What’s happening? Talk to me!”

The sound of his voice snapped me out of my reverie. Into my ears roared something else Celeste had told me. Something I had interpreted wrong.

“ Kill the tattooed devil before he kills you! ”

She wasn’t talking about Dax when she said that. She was talking about Matthias.

And the “sacrifice” that needed to be made to end the curse, the sacrifice the Hollow Man himself spoke of, wasn’t Dax. Or me.

It was him .

When I glanced back at the grave, Dax’s name had been replaced by Matthias’s.

With absolute clarity, I suddenly knew what I had to do.

Striding over to the grave, I slapped both my hands atop the smooth, cold headstone, gripped it hard, looked at the Hollow Man, and called out in my best Shakespearean drama actress voice, “Matthias Rousseau, by the power of my blood, I unbind you. Your debt is paid. Let the stolen souls be freed. Let the curse be unmade! ”

Silence.

The fireflies bobbed uncertainly. The Hollow Man didn’t move.

After a long moment, Dax said, “Uh ... what’s happening now?”

Over my shoulder, I hollered, “I’m trying to undo the curse! Obviously! A little support would be appreciated, Sunshine!”

“Oookay, look. I don’t want to sound negative or anything, but it doesn’t seem like that worked—”

He cut off with a sharp cry and crumpled, clutching his stomach.

Which was right when the ground beneath my feet groaned, like some ancient beast awakening, and began to shake.