Wolf Curse (Midnight Wolf Curse Book 1) Read online

  T.M. CARUANA

  Wolf Curse

  Copyright © 2022 by T.M. CARUANA

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  T.M. CARUANA asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

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  Contents

  1. CHAPTER

  2. CHAPTER

  3. CHAPTER

  4. CHAPTER

  5. CHAPTER

  6. CHAPTER

  7. CHAPTER

  8. CHAPTER

  9. CHAPTER

  10. CHAPTER

  11. CHAPTER

  12. CHAPTER

  13. CHAPTER

  14. CHAPTER

  15. CHAPTER

  16. CHAPTER

  17. CHAPTER

  18. CHAPTER

  19. CHAPTER

  20. CHAPTER

  21. CHAPTER

  22. CHAPTER

  23. CHAPTER

  24. CHAPTER

  25. CHAPTER

  26. CHAPTER

  27. CHAPTER

  28. CHAPTER

  29. CHAPTER

  30. CHAPTER

  31. CHAPTER

  About the Author

  1

  CHAPTER

  It’s the moment just before death that I fear the most. The healing energies are the hardest to craft, and weaving the yellow spell cord hurts like a fire burning from within you. But killing someone with a blue spell cord is much worse. Your blood becomes as cold as ice as the cord makes impact with enemy skin.

  Fae don’t even talk about the red cord.

  Right now though, there was a need for a substantial yellow healing cord. The limp rabbit in my hand had been wounded by claws dug deep into its flesh. Four cuts ran down its neck and onto one of its front paws.

  I sighed and looked up at my father. “Why would anyone do this without first blessing it in a Fae Temple?”

  “It looks as if a big beast was hungry.”

  That made me worry my biggest fear had come to fruition: that a wolf-shifter had strayed into Fae territory.

  Andreas and Vargo; our bodyguards, only shrugged their shoulders as I met their gazes, as if a hurt animal was just a part of the circle of life.

  I looked up and deeper into the woods amongst bushy silver birch trees. The wolves could be hiding behind any and every tree, boulder or incline in the ground. The Sky City wolves were far friendlier than Alpha Skully’s crew, but I didn’t fancy running into any of them. Whichever Alpha the wolves worked for, they wouldn’t attack alone, they were always out in a large pack hunting together. I couldn’t see anyone right now, though. Nature was soundless; no wind caught in the leaves and the spring sun was gently warming my back.

  I focused back onto my hand where the rabbit lay damaged and pushed down onto the brown furball’s stomach with two fingers, hoping the tiny thing would take in air whilst Father worked on weaving yellow magic by rubbing his fingertips together. He worked the cord so fast I could never have been able to keep up with him. As the cord grew longer, he rolled the glowing thread between his palms.

  Father lowered himself to sit on his knees next to me, his black hair falling to his chest and his dark eyes as serene as the depths of the ocean.

  “Here,” he said, handing the yellow lasso to me. “Keep the energy’s momentum going. You can do this.”

  “Me?” I gasped as the magic snake slithered over to my palm, looping down between my fingers.

  The cords I was used to were shorter, and the victims not usually this close to death.

  This is going to hurt.

  I breathed deeply, anxiety filling my chest. I wasn’t ready for this. I pinned the edge of the cord to the rabbit’s shoulder with the thumb of the hand I was holding it in, and with my other hand, I started to wind the cord’s length around the body. The whirlwind of emotions causing havoc in my stomach took up speed as I completed the first step.

  A shadow was cast over us. My bodyguard Vargo in his iron suit and stony mien towered over Father.

  He looked worriedly to-and-fro between my father’s face and the glowing magic. “My king, are you sure about this? It’s a very long cord for the princess.”

  “Of course he is, Vargo,” answered Andreas, stepping up behind my father. “Athroxane, heir to the Fairola throne, was made for this.”

  I smiled at his optimism. “Being Father’s best friend, I believe you to be somewhat biased, Andreas. And how many times do I have to tell you to call me Roxie when I’m not wearing the court furs? I leave that life behind when I’m off the castle grounds.”

  “As you wish, my fae princess,” he said, his red eyes glistening as he bowed, pushing his black cape aside.

  I rolled my eyes at him before focusing back on the rabbit whose time was on a short countdown. I looked up at my father, and he nodded.

  I closed my eyes, cradling the little life in my hands. “Sinsra livris meris.”

  The unexpected intensity of the fire storming through my blood gave the impression that my veins were bursting. I hesitated but knew I had to repeat the spell until the wound was healed. The more magic I added, the more it was going to hurt.

  “Sinsra livris meris!” I shouted as if the strength of my voice could overpower the pain from the energy.

  The heat rose up my spine, and in my imagination I could smell the fire that ate away my vertebrae, blackening my bones. The pain only seared deeper and deeper.

  Abruptly, the sharp pains vanished, my healing subject torn out of my hands. I looked up and as Andreas finished the spell the little creature snapped back to life, looking around confusedly before hopping off on its small paws, skipping into the undergrowth that lined the path. Father was staring at his best friend with lowered eyebrows and with clenched teeth as Andreas caught his breath.

  “You interfered with a royal order.” Father’s voice was grim.

  This was one thing he couldn’t turn a blind eye to, not even for his best friend.

  “The cord was too potent. You should have removed it before I did.”

  “That was my decision to make!”

  “She may be your daughter, Trevor, but she is my princess to protect.”

  “I’m your King! Don’t forget that!” Father blared, but quickly calmed somewhat. “You know what this means,” Father said through tightly clenched teeth. “A brand line.”

  “I know,” Andreas said unbothered and pushed up his short sleeve where on his
arm there were already four lines running across his biceps. “It’s not the first time you have been wrong.”

  I wanted to plead with Father to forgive him this once, but I knew the Fae law. It was followed without exceptions. He was going to brand Andreas.

  2

  CHAPTER

  “I’m never wrong,” Father muttered as he spun a blue cord to life. It was short and didn’t hold a huge amount of poisonous magic, but enough to punish Andreas and mark his skin for life.

  Father latched the cord around Andreas’s arm with a snap. Andreas moaned softly but held the screams in. Like sizzling cold water on a hot stone, the cord melted through his flesh and integrated with his blood. It left a fifth black scar just below the others. Andreas seemed unperturbed, as he rolled down his sleeve, grinning smugly at his fae king.

  His strength really impresses me.

  It was expected from his gene pool though. His ancestors had all served the royal family as the King and Queen’s security detail so he and Father had practically grown up side by side since my father was only a young prince. I had heard worse stories about their pranks when they were boys; leaving permanent scars on each other was not uncommon.

  Nothing more was said about it as Father turned around, heading south. The four of us carried on walking along a well-trodded bridleway that led home. We were on our way home from hunting for treasures in Qualmar; the forsaken city across the sea. Father loved to look for old relics and valuable artefacts forged by the blacksmiths and artists from long ago.

  Admittedly, I did too.

  They seemed to have taken greater pride in their handiwork, and most of them also contained valuable gems that could be traded for a good price on today’s market. Although, Father seemed to want to keep all the treasures for himself, just to gawk at when he needed his spirit lifted.

  Our quest had been long but fruitful. My father’s client had offered a lot of money for him to go and retrieve the relic of a golden crown that had once belonged to an ancient Fae King on the other side of the Fairola Sea. It had been buried in ruins outside Qualmar City, and we had dug for days between rocks, mud and the bones of the dead. My hands were still swollen and sore. Father refused to allow me to use a spade, no matter how blunt it was, as it might damage the artefacts and devalue them. After what had seemed like an eternity, we had finally found the Fae King’s corpse, or at least I had assumed the bones were his, as a golden crown was still sitting on top of the fleshless skull. But nothing fazed Andreas, he had simply picked up the skull and prized the crown off, dumping the head back into the mud. We had also found gold coins, a dagger covered with sapphires and a large seer pendant made out of malachite from the region.

  Now, we hiked on terrain to the north of my castle, and I knew we were soon going to arrive at the forking path eastwards. Then we only needed to pass Lady Svala’s mansion, and I should be able to see the golden flag poles on the top of the blue domed roofs.

  It was at Lady Svala’s where we stopped for our royal transformation when we hunted for artefacts in the north. She had always been discreet in offering a stable for our horses and a coat hook for our court furs.

  She understood the pressure of fame. Her parents had died in an ambush by Master Crowland’s men; he was a man who was nothing more than a self-proclaimed warden of the east. I had never seen him, but he was said to be a mercenary dressed in stolen gems. Ting Svala was only thirteen when she became the lady of the mansion and the warden of the district in the north. Lord Givony guarded the midlands all the way to the west until you reached the Fairola Sea, and Lady Chary protected the south.

  Lord Givony and Lady Chary also of course gave us accommodation when we visited, because no one dared turn away the King, but they were less discreet about our stay. They wanted extravagance and to host feasts and balls, expecting us to stay for at least a few days or they would be offended. Those sorts of things bored my father so he tended to avoid to visiting them more than necessary. Father also always seemed to get into disputes with Lord Givony who continuously asked for my hand. Father never told me why he refused the offer and I never asked. I didn’t want to marry him anyway as Lord Givony was a man of many faces that I could not read, and none which I liked.

  Although Lord Givony was sly, it was nothing compared to the hard façade of Lady Chary; her eyes could really stare daggers at you. Her hair was braided back and hidden under a thin steel helmet that looked like spiky jewellery. The scariest part about her was her fascination with her reptile pets. She always had something slithering around her neck or crawling up her arm. I kid you not, her pupils were formed in slits just like a snake, ogling its prey, looking to pounce upon it at any moment, and swallow it whole. It creeped me out even thinking about it.

  Ting Svala was the youngest warden there had been throughout our entire history, and was rarely seen in public. She kept to herself, dressing in black and living in the shadows. Every time I met her, it felt like she was looking at me over her shoulder and from behind her black sleek hair, already on her way to be somewhere else. She never approached me, or gave me her full attention. Although, it suited me because she didn’t blabber about my real identity and how I concealed my true look under the court furs and wig.

  At the junction of the forking path, we followed the narrow bridleway that was going to lead us to the back of the mansion close to the stables; a path that carried on and eventually ended by the shore of Svala Lake. As many believed the place to be haunted, the mansion had no gates or protection from intruders, and it seemed too far out of the way to attract the attention of Master Crawland.

  From the path, we crossed the lawn towards the stables, that were located in a separate building from the main home itself; a massive rectangular building where I had once counted eighty-nine windows on its front façade alone.

  I rushed through the stable doors, longing to see Mazzi again; a mare I had bred myself and who had been with me since she was a foal. Her grey fur and equally grey mane made her look like a ghost-horse risen up from the land of the dead.

  I smiled as I saw ‘boy Matthews’, as he was known; a stable boy, who was actually not a boy anymore, leading Mazzi towards me. Matthews wasn’t a man who bowed for anyone, and with that body I completely forgot that he ought to. His overalls had been stripped off halfway down his chest with the sleeves tied low around his rippled abdomen. The bicep on his right arm, hoisted so that he could hold onto Mazzi’s throatlatch, bulged like the hills located at the back of the Fairola Castle. The other arm featured an elaborate abstract tattoo.

  His muddy knee-high boots clomped over the floor in a different rhythm to Mazzi’s hooves, but I was still dumbstruck by the time he was close enough to pierce me with his sapphire blue eyes.

  “Princess, you’re back, I was just about to take Mazzi out for grazing. Should I prepare her for immediate departure instead?”

  Before I got to grips with my ability to speak, Andreas replied over my shoulder.

  “Ready the King’s horse too. Vargo and I will do our horses ourselves as we want to get going as soon as possible.”

  The men were experienced and once they got to work, it wasn’t long before all the horses were saddled and bridled, loaded with a chunky saddlebags, and supplies or artefacts were laid over their rears. I had arranged my black wig into place and coated my shoulders with layers of fur that both warmed and decorated my stature.

  Andreas, used to walking first, gave his stallion a sharp kick in the ribs to get him to move. “Let’s go horse!”

  Andreas never named his horses, and he had had many. He said they were a mode of transportation, not a friend and he always kept calling them; the horse, good creature, or filthy thing, and had never understood the bond I had with Mazzi. She was my baby and I dressed her in silks and gold jewels that were more fanciful than anything I bestowed upon my servants.

  A gallop didn’t seem fast enough, as I was longing terribly for a hot bath, my soft night gown and my bed. When I took on th
e role as an artefact hunter, I couldn’t enjoy such luxuries on my journeys with my father. A little dirt under my nails had never fazed me, but even a beggar had his limits.

  When I finally saw the bridge leading to the golden arch frame, where the gates were open, ready for our arrival, my spirits lifted; even more so when the fanfare of trumpets played the royal welcome. I stretched tall in the saddle as Mazzi’s hooves clattered over the cobblestones, and the sense of ‘home’ engulfed me. Guards were bowing at the top of the grey stone battlements, framed by railings made from gold. The blue domed roofs of the towers were only a shade darker than the sky and my fiery pride felt as burning red as the dungeon tower; a tower that rose higher than the others and was painted in red to symbolise the spilling of traitors’ blood.

  A line of servants awaited our arrival in the courtyard; the four court members with their serious expressions on their faces, and my handmaiden ‘merry’ Kerri, were amongst them. Kerri had dressed in fashionable robes as always, her current garment being in a teal colour with a delicately embroidered wide hem. The top layer of her hair had been swirled into a bun clamped with a golden jewel while the rest of the black hair cascaded down to her waist. Her jaw was square and her eyebrows full, making it hard to determine whether she looked like a feminine man or a masculine woman.

  Jayme J was the stable boy who attended to Mazzi; not at all like Matthews, but a boy of twelve summers. His father was the stable master and had trained him well so I couldn’t complain. He was always on time, was clean, dressed handsomely, and his manners were second to none.

  He lifted his beret to greet me and took hold of the reins. I dismounted in one fluid movement and instantly had Kerri at my side. Before I knew it, Vargo was also there, closely guarding my back.

  I removed my burgundy leather gloves and passed them to Kerri. “I’ll need a hot bath with rose scented oils.”

  “Yes, Your Royal Highness,” she chirped and fell into step behind me and Vargo.

  “Princess!” Alcar Montegrief, the counsellor who believed himself to be the most important of the court members, called for my attention. “I’m afraid we have some urgent matters that need attending to at the court before you retire.”