The Rogue's Curse by J.D. Monroe

Author:J.D. Monroe [Monroe, J.D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mighty Fine Books, LLC
Published: 2023-10-25T16:00:00+00:00

Misha woke from a pleasant dream of hungry lips and happy Frenchmen to the smell of smoke and rot. An inhuman voice hissed in his ear, yanking him into full awareness. He sat bolt upright and found a monster in his bed. Like a massive tiger made of shadow, it loomed over him with massive jaws hanging open.

He shouted in surprise, and the creature let out a discordant shriek as if it was the frightened one. Misha closed his eyes, opened them again, and found it still there. Adrenaline boiled in his veins as he lashed out at it, but his hands passed uselessly through the smoke.

The beast lunged in to bite him. He threw up one arm to protect his face and was stunned when icy teeth sank into his arm. Pain stabbed through him.

This was no dream.

The shadow took on solidity as blood dripped from its stained teeth, just like the creature that had attacked him at the wall. Voices shouted in Misha’s ears, and the world spun beneath him.

“What the hell,” he muttered. He dove out of bed and fumbled under his pants, just in time to realize he wasn’t in his room with all his things. He’d fallen asleep here after his romp with Paris, and his blades were far away.

Backing into the wall, he gritted his teeth and made a circle of blood on the ground, then inscribed a simple rune. Power surged from the completed symbol, up into his body, and out through his palm. A flash of reddish light struck the creature and threw it back.

The voices in his head were deafening now, making it hard to focus. Gritting his teeth, he drew his power in tight, preparing the ‘fireworks’ as he’d explained to Paris, and dove at the feline creature. It swiped at him, catching him across the chest, but he threw it back with another burst of power and hurled it into the wall. As it scrambled away, he pounced on its back.

Attacking it was disorienting; the creature was solid, but it felt more like damp, packed sand in a rubber skin than the muscle and sinew of a living beast. The scent of that curse magic pouring from it was nearly overpowering. Its dissonant shriek scraped at Misha’s sanity.

Misha grabbed either side of its head and let a burst of his power explode through it. Pain lanced up his arms as the blood magic sliced through him, but the creature flattened beneath him. He fell back, then kicked it onto its side.

Ignoring the blood streaming from his arms, he knelt to inspect the creature. When he dared to glimpse it with his arcane sight, it appeared as a roiling mass of curse energy, slithering and dark. And it smelled exactly like Paris.

He recoiled, watching with a mix of horror and fascination as the tiger-like creature melted into a pool of shadow, leaving only a residue of foul-smelling ash in a ring on the tiled floor.

Voices still scraped at his ears, and he bolted out of the room to get a vial from his workshop.

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