Read The Cursed (League of the Black Swan) for Free Online

terrified, and he was planning to do very horrible things to her. Some kind of demonic ritual, maybe, except he wasn’t a demon. He was Old Magic. Now I need your help to find him and save her—
the end
.”
    Luke didn’t ask how she knew what the kidnapper had been planning. He’d let it slip on one of her first deliveries to his office that he was aware of her telepathy. He just watched her for a long moment, until she thought she might scream, but she refused to speak again until he said something.
    Anything.
    “What kind of big bad keeps a Grendel or two—”
    “Three,” she interrupted.
    He raised an eyebrow but nodded. “Three Grendels on staff as enforcers? I can’t believe I wouldn’t have heard about him if he’d been around long. There are no secrets in Bordertown.”
    “None that people can keep from you, maybe. It seems like everybody has secrets from where I’m standing,” she said. “Also, do you have a shirt? Or maybe two?”
    “What?”
    “You need a new shirt, and I would like to get out of this one, so I was just thinking, well, do you have a couple of shirts?” By the time she finished, her face felt like it was on fire, and he was grinning.
    “I’d be happy to help you out of that shirt,” he said, pushing away from the desk and stalking across the room toward her like he was the predator and she was his prey, and he wanted to eat—
oh.
    Oh, no, we’re so not going there.
    She backed up until she hit the wall and couldn’t go any farther, but he kept on coming. Her breath caught in her throat at the determined gleam in his eyes, but she found her backbone and held out her hands in the universal “stop” position.
    “No, Luke. No, no, no. You don’t get to act all sexy and flirty after you so rudely refused to even have coffee with me. I need your help now. That’s all. There is a little girl who needs us out there, so snap out of it and let’s figure this out.”
    He stopped dead in the middle of the room and scrubbed at his eyes with his fists. “I’m sorry. I think that damn venom is still working on me. Most venoms and poisons have zero effect on my system, so I wasn’t careful enough about staying out of range of its claws.”
    Rio shook her head, suddenly shaking with exhaustion. “It’s okay. I understand, but we need to figure out what we’re going to do. I just want to try to help that girl, if it’s not too late.”
    “If the guy who kidnapped her hasn’t already hauled her into one of the demonic realms,” he pointed out.
    “No, I don’t think so. I got the impression he was here in Bordertown—permanently. Just fragments of thoughts; I didn’t really put it together at the time, but . . . I don’t know,” she said, sighing heavily and sinking into his leather chair. “Maybe I’m just crazy. How could I get all that from a few minutes’ contact with his bizarre thought patterns?”
    Luke crouched down beside her and put his hand over hers where it rested on the arm of the chair. “You’re not crazy. We’ll figure this out, I promise you.”
    She smiled a little, even as she carefully pulled her hand away. “I knew I could count on you. Help me find her, and then I’ll be out of your hair forever.”
    Luke’s expression went from warm to wary in half a heartbeat, and his fingers tightened until he held her hand in a firm, unbreakable grip. “Oh, no, Rio. You’re not going anywhere. At least not until we figure out what the League of the Black Swan wants with you.”

     
    Luke wondered how he was still relatively upright when the inside of his skull was on fire. He hadn’t let anger like that escape his tightly leashed control in more years than he could remember. The mere idea that Rio would leave him had set long-buried primal instincts raging.
    Want.
    Need.
    “Hulk smash,” he muttered, disgusted, as he shoved a hand through his hair.
    Rio edged back in the chair, her beautiful dark eyes so wide he could see tiny flecks of gold and