The rogues curse, p.1
The Rogue's Curse, page 1
Copyright © 2023 by J.D. Monroe
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Editing by Two Birds Author Services
Cover Design by Yocla Designs
Formatting by J.D. Monroe
ISBN: 978-1-944142-59-9
Contents
Reader Note
Chapter 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 32
The Prince’s Curse - A Sneak Peek
About the Author
Also by J.D. Monroe
Reader Note
Dearest readers, I want reading to always be a wonderful escape. If you have concerns about tropes or content, please visit my website for a description of elements in this book.
Thank you and take care of yourselves!
1
At this time tomorrow, Paris Rossignol intended to be drinking the world’s most expensive bourbon from Carrigan Shea’s bloody skull. For months, Shea’s influence had spread and festered, attracting lawless vampires like flies to shit. Eduardo Alazan had fled town, delivering an implicit go fuck yourselves to nearly half a million humans. And Paris was tired, for more than the usual reasons. He was tired of holding together a fragmented court, tired of his entire life revolving around Carrigan Shea and his violent whims, tired of fighting an increasingly futile battle.
And so, tonight, Shea would die. He would, or Paris would. And either way, it would be the end of things.
Fury boiled in his veins. Like the rest of his comrades, he’d fed until his belly nearly burst, leaving several generous veravin in need of medical attention. Seeing one of his favorite veravin pale and half-conscious still weighed on him; he was normally cautious and attentive, not leaving so much as a bruise. But there were countless human lives at stake, and he couldn’t afford to be gentle.
Full of fresh human blood, his senses grew so acute that they were nearly disorienting, as if he were a brand-new vampire drowning in sensory overload. He smelled everything from car exhaust to gunpowder to long-decayed trash in a dumpster several blocks away. The noise of cars rumbling along the downtown streets, blasting music and podcasts and petty late-night arguments, deafened him, forcing him to bring his focus to a narrow, but satisfying point: destroying Carrigan Shea.
Several stories beneath Paris’s perch atop a nearby highrise, the self-proclaimed vampire king of Atlanta held court in his modern castle of brick and glass. His court reveled and drank their last drops, blissfully unaware of their looming demise.
Death awaited in the form of the Guillotine, the lethal team of fighters he had assembled from their new court. It seemed an appropriate enough name to foretell Shea’s impending fate. Cut the head off swiftly and let the body die. Or at the very least, let the body fall to pieces in the severing of a Covenant, which would leave Shea’s people vulnerable to being picked off one by one.
Semantics, really.
From a distance came a series of rhythmic clicks that formed a distinctive signal. That was Nikko, crouching on the roof of the nearby MARTA station. With vampire guards on the ground just below them, they didn’t dare use verbal communication.
A long pause, then another unique pattern. Sasha and Kristina, on the ground a block away.
A third. Safira, with her rifle and her deadly aim several floors below him.
A fourth. Jonas Wynn and Thomas Moon, in a car circling the block.
Finally came Dominic’s signal, from just a foot away. Wait for my mark, his signal said.
Paris looked up and met his friend’s gleaming crimson eyes. They’d both exchanged their usual tailored suits for black tactical clothing, complete with body armor and armored collars to protect their throats. Veins pulsed along Dom’s temples, his eyes unnaturally bright from over-feeding. The sight conjured memories of dark times, when they had converged on a tiny village in the dead of night and wrung secrets out of a doomed dhampir hunter.
Alistair had wanted to help with tonight’s mission, but Paris had left him in charge of protecting Julian and the ladies. Olivia and her sister were back at the compound, along with Shoshanna and Rachel. As much as Alistair had wanted to be part of the action, he took his responsibility to Shoshanna seriously, and had agreed to keep them safe in their new headquarters nearly fifteen miles away.
Before Paris’s tactical team had departed, his old friend had drawn him close and kissed his brow, as he had done countless times in decades past. The familiar brush of lips against skin had ignited something in Paris—desperation and hunger and even a bit of anger.
“Come back to us,” Alistair had told him.
You belong to another, Paris had thought. Then he realized what he’d heard, what Alistair actually said, and the yawning gap between. Not come back to me, but to us, as if to remind Paris that he was excluded from us, that he was not a part of this beautiful unity that Alistair now had.
Once Paris was gone, his former lover would return to Shoshanna’s embrace, knowing fate itself was pleased with him, so pleased that the mysterious old creature had given him the love of his life. It was where he belonged, and Paris had no right to be bitter when his friend was so damned happy, but here he was. He would never breathe a word of it to Alistair, but his envy sometimes clawed up his throat and choked all the decency out of him.
“I will,” Paris had said, letting his better nature take control. “The house is yours for the night. Keep an eye on the kids.”
A light chuckle followed, but real fear lurked in Alistair’s eyes. Much to his dismay, Julian Alcott was also forced to stay behind. Such was the burden of a court Elder. If Julian died, their newly formed Covenant would shatter, putting all of them at risk. That would only compound the problem of Shea’s bloodthirsty vampires, and so he was banished to his office with Alistair and several new vampires to watch over him. None of them wanted to admit that if they failed tonight, there would be little left for Julian to govern.
So, they could not fail. Simple as that.
Dominic nudged Paris, raised his dark brows, then nodded. It was time.
With a slight nod, Paris took out his own signal. Karina Nowak had fretted for days over how to communicate quietly, but it was their Olivia who had suggested the dog training clickers.
He squeezed the little button. Four quick clicks, a pause, then two slow clicks.
Go.
A quiet whoomp sounded from below them. A split second later, a shell slammed through the brick building across the street. Shards of brick exploded from a jagged hole in the wall. Two more shots left the brick building looking like something had taken a bite out of it. A clatter came from below as Safira changed weapons. With the next two shots, huge plumes of toxic wood smoke poured from the jagged holes.
Paris and Dominic yanked helmets over their faces, then launched themselves from the edge of the nearby office tower, soaring through the night to tumble onto the roof of the former Atlanta Constitution building, the building he had drunkenly dubbed Chez Shea.
Chaos had erupted already, with furious shouts and pained screams pouring from the shattered walls. Another well-placed shot from Safira cracked the tinted glass walls of Shea’s penthouse. Paris didn’t wait for the next shot; he kicked right through the spiderwebbed pane. Glass rained to the concrete, and he plowed through the jagged opening.
The tinted visor of his helmet obscured colors, making it easier to focus. Half a dozen men waited inside the penthouse, already firing directly as Paris and Dominic breached the door. Bullets bounced harmlessly off his body armor, and he took two targets down easily with headshots that left bloody craters where slicked-back hair once lay. Dom took another three. The lone survivor ran for the door, but they cornered him and left him twitching. After swiping his key card, they set off a smoke grenade and descended further into the building.
They’d done their best to reconstruct the layout of Chez Shea based on Sasha and Kristina’s recollections. Unfortunately, two cursed amnesiacs who’d been kept in cages weren’t the best source of information, so they’d had to guess at a lot of it.
Given that Shea wasn’t in his penthouse, he was either in his ‘club’ or his throne room. Paris didn’t know whether to be disgusted or begrudgingly impressed at the idea of a throne room. It was the twenty-first century, for fuck’s sake.
The club was their next stop, and Paris hoped to God, Blessed Mary, and all the saints that Shea was there so he could kill the bastard in front of his people.
Down they went, leaping the concrete stairs a flight at a time.
Floor eight.
Flo
Floor six, where music blared over the sounds of shouts and screams. Paris kicked through the door and burst into a huge, open hall. With toppled tables and broken glass everywhere, this was Shea’s club.
A figure blurred toward him. Lowering his head, Paris caught them by the shirt and slammed them into the floor hard enough to splinter the hardwood floor. He left the writhing vampire and plowed ahead.
The scent of his prey hooked him, drawing him through the crowd. That smell had been all over Kristina Arensberg when she escaped. It had been in her blood, in her hair, in every cell of her. Even a month later, with her bond broken, he swore he could smell it and wondered how it didn’t drive Sasha mad.
“Protect the king!” a woman screamed.
Three vampires stepped into his path. Cocktail dresses and suits meant they were probably Shea’s followers, rather than his armed security.
Too bad.
He squeezed off three shots, dropping two while the third dodged and lunged for Paris. Dominic intercepted the runner and hurled him over the railing on the upper level. That area was where Shea kept prisoners, where Sasha and Kristina had been held. He knew there were probably humans there waiting to be served up for dinner. Guilt tugged at him, but he’d given orders for Kristina to check on them. And God help him, he had to trust Kristina to do her job.
Two impacts slammed into the back of his thigh. Ducking behind an overturned table, he dug his fingers through shredded fabric and into the bloody wounds to pry out the bullets. Acidic burning radiated through his veins, but he pressed on, cutting a swath through the crowd.
Toward the back of the club, a human woman lay prone across a long banquet table. The scent of human blood perfumed the air, tempting him even in the midst of all the chaos. Past the living buffet, vampires clustered like a phalanx around a raised dais.
“Down,” Dominic ordered in Italian.
Paris ducked, and Dominic opened fire, exploding another wood smoke grenade in their midst. Pained cries rang out as Shea’s protectors peeled away like unfurling rose petals, trying to escape the acrid smoke.
And there he sat. The so-called king rose up from the mass of whimpering vampires. Dark hair mussed, eyes burning red and furious. His scent cut through the smoke and overwhelmed Paris with its intensity. Shea was old, powerful. “Get out of my way,” he snarled.
Paris raised his gun, pulled the trigger, and fired into empty air.
Where the—
A fist slammed into his back, sending lightning up his spine. The pain was fleeting, but the sheer terror was not. Shea was far stronger than Paris had anticipated. An iron vise of a grip closed on his elbow and squeezed, forcing him to drop his gun just as the joint cracked.
He whipped around in time to catch a fist that shattered the visor of his helmet. With a growl, he yanked it off and swung it like a bludgeon, clipping Shea across the brow. The man reeled, and Paris got in another solid hit to the back of his head before Shea scrambled away. Paris tossed the useless helmet and grinned. He liked it better this way, no modern gear or weapons, just brute force.
Glaring at him with burning red eyes, Shea shrugged off an expensive jacket and tossed it aside. He was bigger than Paris had expected, with a broad chest and thick arms that would have been well-suited to wielding a broadsword.
“This is my fucking house,” Shea snarled, swiping at his bloody cheek before lunging. Paris batted away vicious swipes, keeping the other man on the move. He stole a glance over his shoulder and saw Dominic fending off Shea’s bodyguards. In the back of the club he caught the glint of Kristina’s golden hair streaming from under her helmet.
This was the plan. They kept everyone off his back while he took down Shea. He was three hundred years old, and he wasn’t going to tuck tail and run because of a cocky shitweasel like Carrigan Shea, even if he was realizing he was on the wrong side of the David and Goliath equation.
With a growl, he grabbed an injector from the holster on his thigh and snarled, “Fuck your house. This is my city.”
Shea feinted toward him, and Paris leaped straight up in the air, caught the railing of the upper level, then hurtled downward again as Shea looked up. He slammed an injector full of Shieldsmen wood toxin into Shea’s neck.
Suck on that, asshole!
The older vampire roared in pain, then caught Paris by the arm and slung him overhead like a sack of gain. His back cracked against the hard stone floor, and he felt as if his entire body had been crushed to powder. Even worse, the plastic injector rattled to the floor. And still, Shea remained on his feet.
Impossible. That was a concentrate of Shieldsmen poison, which should have knocked him flat.
“Nice try,” Shea said, brushing idly at his neck. “I got a taste for your sweet little wood poison after I met Kristina. Did you think you’d put me down with a needle and some pine sap?”
Jesus.
Paris drew a knife and staggered to his feet. He drove Shea back with wild slashes that left his chest sliced open in a crooked X. Then his blade stopped short as Shea grabbed it with his bare hand. Blood poured from his slashed palm, but he twisted the knife out of Paris’s grasp and threw it across the room.
The smell of his blood was powerful, frightening even…a primal signal that would have warned vulnerable prey to run from the encroaching predator.
For all his bluster, Shea was moving slower now, veins bulging on his temples and neck. Sweat poured from his brow. The poison was having more of an effect than his bravado suggested.
They tussled in a whirlwind of bone-cracking blows. He vaguely heard male voices telling them to move; Shea’s men and his both, trying to help them by shooting the other, but he ignored it. Shots rang out around them. Alarms screamed. A female voice came over a loudspeaker telling people to evacuate to the MARTA station. He vaguely heard a much closer voice saying, Intercept them at the MARTA station.
That was someone else’s problem. Shea was his.
Paris drove a wooden stake into Shea’s gut and was rewarded with a satisfying roar of pain. It left him open to take a blow to the face that certainly cracked his jaw, but he didn’t care.
He was winning. Painfully and slowly, but he was winning, dammit, and if he dropped dead, he wouldn’t care as long as Shea’s head hit the ground before his.
After landing another hard blow and a second dose of wood poison via Shea’s thigh, he shattered the other man’s knee and sent him to the ground. While Shea struggled to get up, Paris pounced on his back. Wrapping his arms around the other man’s head, he prepared to take the kill, glorious and messy. His screaming subjects weren’t here to see, but that didn’t matter. As the first vertebra gave way, Shea roared and leaped into the air.
His momentum crushed Paris against the ceiling, and he flipped them in the air to slam Paris onto the ground under him. The shock of it broke his grip, and Shea hurled him against the nearest wall. He crumpled in a boneless heap, but still, he managed to get up. Everything hurt, but he was so close. It was almost over.
Almost there.
Almost free.
Shea grabbed Paris’s throat and slammed him against the wall. Plaster crumbled around him. “This was your city. It’s mine now,” the man said, his voice rough and cracking. His skin was corpse-pale with two feverish spots of red on his cheeks. If Paris could just survive a few minutes longer, Shea would be done.
Carrigan Shea hadn’t gotten that message, apparently.
Before Paris could manage a witty retort, Shea drove his fist straight through Paris’s body armor. There were no words for the pain as the other man’s hand slithered up inside his ribcage, invading and grasping and violating inside him. He retched, but still Shea drove his hand deeper, scraping against bone and viscera. Blood soaked his white shirt sleeve. “To whom should I deliver your heart and your head, Mr. Rossignol?”
