Black Hides the Curse: Cursed Wolves, #2

By Amanda Heit

In a world of magic, the natural order of things is that demon hunters hunt the demons, demons make the curses, and seers spy on everyone's deeds. The lines are not supposed to cross, but what's a girl to do when she's been dreaming about a demon for years and he suddenly is standing before her asking for help? Fall in love, of course.

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Trying to destroy a cursed medallion was supposed to be easy for Hunter. He picked the perfect person to share the curse with. He had everything ready to break the curse in a day. Three months later, he can't remember his own name or what he's doing. The person he cursed proves to be stubbornly resistant to curses except for the kind that backfire and leave lasting consequences that never should be. Torn between facing his deepest fears or killing another life, Hunter must make a quick decision of who he will save—himself or Ava.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Amanda Heit
• Release date: Dec 31, 2023
• ISBN: 9781949858358

Amanda Heit

Finding meaning in life—feeling like you’re contributing to all of humanity in a good way—is a large undertaking. When I write, it’s the task I take on. Sometimes, that task is daunting. Sometimes, it’s full of laughter, joy, and fear. Reaching the end of a book can put me on top of the world or cause me endless frustration. But I can’t stop myself from trying. I can’t stop the inner clock that ticks and tells me that writing is something I enjoy the heck out of and there is nothing that will stop me from writing for long. As one of the quiet people in the universe, my best joy and flow in life comes when I’m creating new worlds and exploring characters. For me, each book I create finds new friends that share with me the intimate tangles of their lives. They cheer and I cheer. They succeed and I rejoice. They fall and I’m there hoping for that happy ending right along with them. I hope that you can find something in the stories I create that will bring you the same type of thrill. Thanks for sticking to the end!- Amanda Heit

Book preview

Chapter One

Ava

There’s a space between dreaming and waking where anything is possible and everything is made clear. A space where the future is laid out before me in its endless possibilities, and the most likely path burns brighter than all the rest. This was a space I had to avoid at all costs. I couldn’t drift into sleep. I had to slam into it. Jump from the state of being fully awake into the state of being completely out. If I didn’t, they could grab something from me. They could use my seer powers to their advantage, taking from me the knowledge of things to come. They could take for example...

Where is Maggie Furrows?

Maggie. My mother. Like me, she could transform into a wolf at will. She had married JV when I was two. I had told her she was going to. I had told JV as well, but he had only asked once while my mother asked a couple of times over just to be sure of her decision.

No. Where is Maggie Furrows?

Yes! I was holding them off! I could tell them other answers and stretch the words out so they wouldn’t get the truth out of me.

No. Where is Maggie Furrows?

I really didn’t know. They could ask all they liked, but I didn’t know. Maggie Furrows had married Jasper Veridian WoodLark also known as JV Woods. They had decided not to merge last names mostly because of Branson. That was my older brother. He had just lost his dad. Our dad. Branson didn’t want to change his name. He liked his last name.

You know where she is. You were the last one to see her. You wrote a note that you were going to find Maggie and then you came back without her. Where is she?

If I came back without her, then I didn’t know where she was, did I?

You’re a seer, Ava. Find her.

Find my mom...?

No. I wasn’t going to tell these people anything. They had no right to capture me and hold me here until I located my mom. There was no point to it. Maggie was going to stay hidden until she was ready to be found. That’s how it always was.

Wrong. You are going to tell us where she is.

Nope.

Then you’re going to tell us what you did to her. What have you done to Maggie Furrows?

Why would I do anything to my mom?! I wouldn’t. Not in the way that they were suggesting in any case. I might scream at her. I might steal her freshly baked cookies, but I wasn’t going to lose my mom.

Great. So where is she?

My mom... My mom...

There was a wolf. A wolf in the apartment.

Chapter Two

Ava

It was a black door with a wobbly doorknocker that was made from a stick and a ball. The stick hung on a loose chain that threatened to break at the next use, and the ball was glued to the door, ready to be banged on, as if using a fist wasn’t good enough. Next to the knocker was a horseshoe turned upward for good luck. It looked newly placed in comparison. The shine of it gleamed; the nails holding it up winked.

I moved toward the door, pulling out a key from my pocket that I hadn’t realized I possessed, and turned the lock. I stepped in. Weight was on my back, and I realized it was a backpack as I shut the front door.

Was I awake? Was this in my future and I was seeing a vision? Why couldn’t I remember wearing a backpack?

My destination was my room. I could finally get off my feet for the day, plop onto the bed, and fantasize about pink ponies or something.

Grrr oowww! Grrrowl!

I jumped. This was my safe place, my one safe place, and something was in here growling at me! The backpack clunked to the floor, more out of instinct than anything else. If I transformed into a wolf to ward off my attacker, I didn’t want the backpack in the way. But I didn’t transform. What I was looking at was another wolf. He stood with his gray fur bristled, teeth snarling, eyes glaring.

A wolf. I hadn’t seen another wolf in so long that my reaction was to smile. My dad told me I was going to miss wolves and he was right. I missed my pack. I missed my home. I missed my parents. I could pretend to be like most people and fake excitement that I got to be free. I was my own independent self. Finally! But I wasn’t that way on the inside. Freedom came at a cost, and I hadn’t wanted to be free out here.

"Are you trying to scare me or someone else? I asked the wolf. I’m not afraid of you. You can stop."

I picked up my bag and walked away from the wolf, right down the hallway to my room. How I knew this was my room, I didn’t know. I still had no explanation for the house key or why I was here away from home. Why this place? All the walls were so dark. Each wall was covered in gray paint. The sofa I had just passed that faced a wall-sized television was brown and scratched up. It reeked of cats. I never sat on it.

There were a series of six rooms behind the entry room, all of which had their doors closed most of the time. Three doors were on the left and three doors were on the right. My room was the second door on the right. Behind the rooms was the kitchen where I was headed just as soon as I chucked my bag.

I scanned my hands as if they would give me some sort of additional context to my current version of wakefulness before I opened the door to my room and tossed my backpack on the bed. A glow caught my attention. A green glow, threatening and evil, hung just out of sight. It was a round medallion that I had been ignoring, although I couldn’t understand why. Surely my mom would have told me how to end the curse on it by now since I got the impression that I had lived here for a while already. Oh well. I’d get around to it later. Much later. Closing the door again, I trod down the hallway to the kitchen.

You hungry, wolf? I called out. Want some water? Steak? I’m making steak tacos tonight. It’s the least I can do to make a menu and cook food for a crowd when my rent is covered for me. Nice of everyone to pitch in for my sake. They won’t mind if you eat too. How’d you get in?

I looked behind me. The wolf had stopped growling, but it was still bristled as it followed me into the kitchen. It nearly tripped me when I grabbed for a chopping board and then it stretched out so it was blocking the sink.

Water? I asked.

He was in wolf form right now, so he could smell that I wasn’t scared of him at all. I wasn’t about to leave the kitchen or the apartment, so he would have to deal with it. Since he was looking directly at my face, his fur came down. His shaggy head rested on the top of his paws and he blinked. There. He got it. I could turn into a wolf too. I wasn’t intimidated.

Just let me know, I told him.

Chop, chop, chop. Toss. I started making dinner. The wolf moved back to the doorway as if satisfied that I knew my around and that I belonged in here. I could tell he was glaring at my apartment door as if I shouldn’t be living right there, but I wasn’t about to move. It had to be here. Again, I couldn’t recall why.

Dinner was done, I was taking a bite of my taco when the front door came open, and the wolf went back to growling again. The angry snapping lasted a good four seconds before it came to an abrupt stop. Curious, I rushed into the hallway where I could spy on the front door and see why. Standing in the doorway was a leopard. One of the twins had returned home. I couldn’t tell who it was when they were cats. I was much better at telling them apart when they were human. The leopard and the wolf stared at each other for another minute before my roommate turned back into... a human-shaped black blur.

Wait a minute. Dreaming! It could also still be a vision, but at least this confirmed that I wasn’t super forgetful while awake suddenly. Satisfied that I wasn’t needed for anything other than eating a dream dinner, I went back into the kitchen.

Do you know who that is? my roommate asked as he rushed into the kitchen. How long has he been here? Did he hurt you, Ava?

A wolf? I laughed back. Hurt me? Want any?

I nudged the premade tacos on the tray before me and pointed out that more ingredients were ready to go on the counter.

I have to call... blur, blur, blur, roommate panicked.  

Names and faces were often like that in my dreams. If I hadn’t met these people before, they would stay anonymous. Why then could I see the wolf so clearly? The leopard too?

Next thing I knew, there were three other roommate shadow blobs all chattering about how the wolf could have hurt me. The one girl in the apartment and I had been left alone with a rogue wolf. The wolf was someone they all knew, but they wouldn’t tell me who.

He’s cursed, roommate number one whispered. That’s why he has been gone. What can we do about it?

Just to make dreams even more exciting, I sighed to myself and climbed a chair to reach into a top cupboard. I knew how to break the curse to free whatever the wolf had a problem with. The issue with freeing the wolf was that in doing so, I was letting loose something else. Not a beast, but a series of events that could end up badly for me. Oh well. It was the right thing to do.

In the very back of the cupboard was a green glowing pot I knew nobody else could see. I pulled it out of the cupboard and then threw it onto the ground.

There. Now his curse is gone.

And I was waking up. Who was the wolf? Why did he matter? Where had I been living?!

Chapter Three

Hunter

W e lost her.

That was a dooming sentence to wake up to. It sounded so final, like the ending note to a sad symphony. Even worse, I couldn’t recall falling asleep in this room last night. The light flicked on to reveal my roommates. All of them stood in the doorway and most of them held strange masks in their hands.

Yo, I greeted as I sat up and realized that I wasn’t in my room at all. I was in Halim’s room. Just fabulous. Now I was going to smell like a snake.

Lost who?

Don’t you worry about it. We’ll figure it out. We’re going to get you better, Halim assured.

Standing there in the light, Halim didn’t smell like a snake. He smelled strongly of cologne instead. That had to be why I never noticed before how his squinty eyes and ability to eat enormous meals at a time hinted at him being able to turn into a snake. Other than that, his bright blue eyes, mocha brown skin, and stubby legs looked normal.  

Am I sick?

I didn’t feel sick. I felt just fine, but there were five of them and one of me. They all exchanged looks like I was insane, so okay.

I bonked my head?

You got cursed, Max provided. Well, your work got you cursed. Then you came back and... If I was a better seer, I’d tell you the cure, but I’m not all that great.

Max fidgeted with the tribal-looking wooden mask in his hand before shrugging his shoulders. I followed his shoulder up to his brown spiky hair and then back down to a large bruise on his pale arm.

She’ll pull through, Halim stated.

Who?

The other seer, Argos answered. Max says she’s superb.

Argos and his twin Khan could turn into leopards. Both of them had been born with unique eyes. Argos had a green eye on his left and a blue eye on his right. Khan’s face was reversed. When they transformed, both of their eyes turned yellow, which made them harder to tell apart. Tall, strong, gorgeously dark, and agile, the two of them were certainly beasts when playing any sport. Standing beside the twins was Callinor. For a guy who could turn into a bird, he was awfully quiet all the time. He didn’t enjoy singing unless he had feathers. Callinor appeared to be rugged and rough with toned muscles and broad shoulders. No one would guess he was a small bluebird.

She’s the best. That also means that she’s not the easiest to talk to, Max explained.

But the window! Khan insisted. You said there was a brief window where we could get any vision from her by asking!

Yeah. Normally.

Max rubbed the back of his neck, which had him shifting his mask into his other hand. There was something wrong with those masks. I squinted at them.

Don’t ask me. Max shrugged as he caught me staring. You’re the one who insisted we have these or we’d lose our minds. I don’t know why. You said it.

Sounds important.

I couldn’t remember any of this. To stave off my panic, I pulled out my phone and checked the date. December third. It was three months later than I expected it to be. Three whole months.

What was I cursed with?

That’s what we’re trying to figure out, Halim sighed.

And how are you doing that? My voice hitched up. Without a solid plan, it sounded like I might be doomed. I couldn’t remember three months of my life. Where had it all gone?

We're going to locate a person who stops curses, Halim responded.

And the curse stopper will want to help because we have a ton of money, I sassed.

We’re not rich. We’ll trade her something she wants back for the help.

That’s what I thought, I grouched as I stood up from the bed and checked my phone again.

I frowned at it. Most of my days were blank on the calendar, but there were a few entries that sounded criminal in nature. I had apparently told myself to steal a jeep and drive to the horseshoe. Yes, it was put into quotes so that no one