Of hexes and hatred the.., p.1
Of Hexes and Hatred (The Curses Duet Book 2), page 1
Copyright © 2024 by H. L. Hamilton
Cover Design by Gigi Koa
Editing: Rachael Bindas
Map designed by H. L. Hamilton using Inkarnate
HC ISBN: 978-1-7380735-4-2
PB ISBN: 978-1-7380735-3-5
eISBN: 978-1-7380735-5-9
All rights reserved.
No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written consent from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Dedication
To those that are going through something,
This is your down payment to something amazing.
Better is coming and it will be so worth it. Hang in there.
"The light is brighter when we emerge from the darkness."
—Locke
Trigger Warning
Because your mental health matters!
This book touches on some darker themes and may not be appropriate for all readers. Besides the emotional damage H. L. Hamilton has in store for you, you can expect a little of the following themes; sexually explicit content, graphic violence, torture, allusions to knife play, mild bondage.
Contents
Map
Prologue
1. Chapter One
2. Chapter Two
3. Chapter Three
4. Chapter Four
5. Chapter Five
6. Chapter Six
7. Chapter Seven
8. Chapter Eight
9. Chapter Nine
10. Chapter Ten
11. Chapter Eleven
12. Chapter Twelve
13. Chapter Thirteen
14. Chapter Fourteen
15. Chapter Fifteen
16. Chapter Sixteen
17. Chapter Seventeen
18. Chapter Eighteen
19. Chapter Nineteen
20. Chapter Twenty
21. Chapter Twenty-One
22. Chapter Twenty-Two
23. Chapter Twenty-Three
24. Chapter Twenty-Four
25. Chapter Twenty-Five
26. Chapter Twenty-Six
27. Chapter Twenty-Seven
28. Chapter Twenty-Eight
29. Chapter Twenty-Nine
30. Chapter Thirty
31. Chapter Thirty-One
32. Chapter Thirty-Two
33. Chapter Thirty-Three
34. Chapter Thirty-Four
35. Chapter Thirty-Five
36. Chapter Thirty-Six
37. Chapter Thirty-Seven
38. Chapter Thirty-Eight
39. Chapter Thirty-Nine
40. Chapter Forty
41. Chapter Forty-One
42. Chapter Forty-Two
43. Chapter Forty-Three
44. Chapter Forty-Four
45. Chapter Forty-Five
46. Chapter Forty-Six
47. Chapter Forty-Seven
48. Chapter Forty-Eight
49. Chapter Forty-Nine
50. Chapter Fifty
51. Chapter Fifty-One
52. Chapter Fifty-Two
53. Chapter Fifty-Three
54. Chapter Fifty-Four
55. Chapter Fifty-Five
56. Chapter Fifty-Six
57. Chapter Fifty-Seven
58. Chapter Fifty-Eight
59. Chapter Fifty-Nine
60. Chapter Sixty
61. Epilogue One
62. Epilogue Two
63. Epilogue Three
64. Epilogue Four
65. A message from H. L. Hamilton
Map
Prologue
Scorpio
Ishould be dead. I thought I would be, based on all that I’ve researched. Once the black magic is too entrenched into your soul, aren’t you supposed to die? Instead, it feels as if I’ve been split and both halves simply feel like they’re perpetually dying but never actually finding the sweet release of death. Or perhaps the Grievling has found a way to toy with me from the Echo Isles, the rotten bastard that he is.
There have been two versions of me for five years: this version—the pained version who agonizes and regrets the curse, and the version who takes charge and works to end it, and the two are never in agreeance. At least in method. I’m well aware that when I lose blocks of time, I never want to know what I’ve done. I’ve learned the hard way not to ask questions. Not to look closely at the blood on my hands, whether metaphorical or literal. Both parts of me understand how cowardly it is.
I can’t bring myself to care.
Nor can I seem to stop. Even when I’m aware. I’m terrified that even if I did try to stop what the other part of me is doing, it may fracture my mind further, which begs the question: what will be left of me in that case? So, I let it happen, I bury my head in the sand, and hope that I can make amends later. That I’ll have decades, possibly even centuries to redeem myself. In my heart of hearts, I need this pain to stop. I can’t breathe, can’t think, without everything hurting.
I deserve it to stop.
The previous Scorpio’s reign ended in bloodshed and suffering, and my entire reign has been nothing but more of the same. I’m beginning to think the title of Scorpio is cursed, not just me. But perhaps it’s a silly fantasy I made up to ebb the steady undercurrent of guilt when my head comes above water. Lately, I try my best to stay under as long as possible. As much as it feels like drowning, it feels better than the alternative.
To face what I’ve done.
Chapter One
Lark
“You will hear my voice again when the time comes and you need it most.”
In my head all I could hear, all I could see, were the overlapping images of my death, of Scorpio’s hands around my throat, and Amaya still drowning in the Vale. My mind saw both scenes clearly, distinctly. Her final message to me floating back in such a forceful way I almost looked around the room for her. Her final words to me were a tragic backdrop in my mind, mixing with Locke’s confession yesterday: I would suffer the curse to die once I loved him in return. Scorpio laughing, punctuating each ominous word. But as I dug deeper into the fear, I found sprouts of hope I hadn’t noticed before. Now, instead of images of death and dismay, I saw my body arch from lightning, my body bowing from the force. I felt, rather than see, my heart restarting, which meant only one thing.
I could survive this.
We could break all the curses and survive them.
“What are you talking about?” Locke’s ocean and sunshine eyes searched mine for the answer my voice couldn’t seem to say, his body falling eerily still. His breathing stuttered to a halt as he assessed me. The only movement and sound came from the sloshing suds of the tub, having been disturbed by my jolting awake and turning to face him. I didn’t need his powers as Prince Cancer to see the guarded fragile hope building in his eyes like the first tentative blooms of spring, despite winters chill still clinging to the ground. I could feel that same hope rising in my own rapidly beating heart.
That was what Amaya had said that day in the Vale. And this—I felt it echoing in my bones—this is when our situation became most dire. Scorpio required my death to break her curse. And now that death was assured because of Locke’s. This changes everything, I realized in this moment of clarity. No longer would we have to fight to capture an unkillable adversary and contain her long term. No longer would we have to search for a way to break a curse without my death.
A way that most likely didn’t exist.
Frantic and scattered fragments of thought escaped my lips about what Amaya had sent me from beyond the grave. I rose from the tub, not caring for the bubbles and water making a slippery mess as I paced about. With a small flourish of my air magic, I dried my body before donning my earlier discarded robe. Locke followed me into the bedroom. I could see his desire to wrench my rampaging thoughts in my head from me, but he remained stoically silent. I could see the roiling tension controlling and stiffening each movement of his body as he donned a pair of pants. His eyes never left me as I paced erratically around the room in time with my thoughts when at last he caught my hand gently and bade me to stop before him.
“Lark, please.” His voice was strained, and low, and desperate, and made my heart ache. His hands roamed my arms, his eyes searching mine. “I can read emotions, but not thoughts. I really need you to tell me what you just realized, love. Your emotions are too erratic to read.”
“The lightning,” I said, slowly coming out of my own head. I blinked up at him, and really saw him for the first time since I awoke, my thoughts and my reality finally melding together and coexisting. “The lightning is the loophole we’ve been needing!”
The vision rushed back to me in a flood of memory. I couldn’t suppress a shudder as I recalled the eerie feeling of watching myself die in third person. The kind of horror that would haunt the edges of my nightmares for years to come. Of not being able to move while I watched Scorpio’s hands around my throat, the savage triumph in her eyes as the light at last left my own. His grip tightened on my hand as if he could keep me on his plane if he held onto me hard enough. I told him about the cold feeling of death. And then as I watched myself die, my heart finally stopping, the lightning crashed down from the heavens, perhaps
“The lightning will restart my heart.” Conviction surged through my words, my only evidence being a dream, and yet I couldn’t shake this feeling of absolute certainty that had found purchase. That calm resolution. Locke’s hardened stare gave away his racing mind, doubt evident his posture. “Locke, we can’t break the curse. But we can work around it! I have to die—” He flinched, and I placed my hand on his cheek, using my thumb to smooth away the crease forming near his eyes. “But nothing says I have to stay that way. Not only will your curse, our curse now, be ended, but we can finally take down Scorpio.” I could see the vague fragments of a plan falling into place. We could save the Water Court. Save everyone. And Locke and I could have a future. A real future as soulmates.
Locke’s face turned from doubtful to bewildered, to angry and back again but underneath it lay something darker. More turbulent. His pained stare almost knocked the wind from me, the sheer gravity of it, before disappearing behind the curtain of raven hair. The periodic ticking of his jaw was the only movement for several long heartbeats, but in his eyes I could see ghosts of a past never fully forgotten catching up to him. Ghosts I knew nothing about.
“Speak to me,” I whispered. He didn’t answer right away. That anguished stare only deepened. The same one he’d first worn when I told him I loved him. Was that really only last night?
“You’re asking me to watch you die,” he said in a gravelly voice, accompanied by a slight rumble around me. The flickering of his magic cast tremors in the air, a sure sign that despite his relatively calm appearance his emotions were running haywire just beneath the surface. My heart wrenched for him. He tilted his head as if examining everything I’d said to him in his mind. “You’re asking me not just to watch you die, but to allow it to happen. Something I swore I would protect you from. Under the mere hope that we can bring you back? You’re asking me to stand by and let Scorpio, of all fae, murder the most important person in the world to me.” His massive hands came up to cover mine near his face. “Am I hearing you correctly?”
I paused. When he said it like that, I could clearly hear how ridiculous it sounded. How very farfetched. But I held to the feeling of calm certainty I felt in the dream. In Amaya’s vision. Of her voice from beyond the veil. Goosebumps erupted along my arms as I stared up at him in absolution.
“Yes.”
“Why?” A simple question. A loaded question, paired with an equally loaded look. But it wasn’t a simple, or uncomplicated answer. Feeling jittery, my legs moved in short, shuffling strides about the room, a reluctant pacing of their own accord. Locke stood still, eerily so by comparison, intently watching my every move as if I might disappear before him.
“It’s our one and only chance to survive the curse and save the entire Water Court. You’ve looked for years to save them. This is that chance, Locke. Port Azure can be free. We can be free. Free of Scorpio, free of the curse, all of it. I refuse to be pushed to the side anymore.” I stopped to stand before him again, raised my hands to cup his face gently. “I have a role to play here now. I can help. Or are soulmates not equal in relationships?”
“Of course you are, Lark. But—”
“This is a risk I’m willing to take. I want to take it. I believe that Amaya sent me that vision in good faith.” I kept my voice gentle. I found myself standing directly in front of him again, wishing I could take the sorrow from him. I smoothed my thumb over his pinched expression again, hoping I was comforting him. He had that faraway look that told me he was scanning my emotions, seeing my resolve. “Locke, I’m going to die regardless of what we do here. This way, my death can save everyone and we stand a chance at bringing me back. We have a single chance at the future we want. But I can’t do it without you.”
“Tell me how.” His gaze shifted then to showcase a hardened jawline, anger hinting there. “Tell me how I’m supposed to watch the most important Fae in the world to me die like it isn’t going to rip my heart out. Like it isn’t going to kill me too.”
From a place I thought was buried yesterday, indignation flared. “I’ve only been the most important fae to you for a day, Locke.” My voice was cooler than I’d expected. His eyes flared in response.
“You know that’s not true.” Locke’s voice was somewhere between a whisper and a snarl. The volume didn’t change, but the electricity between us surged as he spoke. “You’ve only known how important to me you are for a day. There’s a very big difference, soulmate.”
His words effectively stopped whatever argument was about to leave my lips. My breath stilled in my chest as Locke’s gaze warred with mine. A battle of wills. Locke still didn’t move. Not even a flicker in his eyes. The air shifted, getting thicker with each inhale.
“I will not yield on this, soulmate.” I matched his tone. My eyes didn’t waver from his. I didn’t even blink. “This plan will work.”
Eternity seemed to move by us when at last Locke let out a breath, though the anguish and skepticism on his face didn’t falter.
“Let’s call this plan B.” His voice wasn’t entirely calm. I could hear the cracks in his restraint. In his resolve. His anger was palpable at not having another option readily available, though I couldn’t say I blamed him entirely.
“What’s plan A?”
“I’ll let you know when I come up with it.” Grasping my forearm, he tugged me further into his embrace and I offered no resistance. I rested my head against his chest, listening to the rapid thump of his heart. My own heart responded in kind. I tasted blood. I let go of my lip, unaware I’d even bitten it. Even though I knew this was our best chance, a twinge of uncertainty formed in my gut, warring with the calm I had just moments before. In my heart of hearts, I knew that this was a long shot. That the future I was fighting for was like sand through my fingers. That the likelihood of my permanent death was high. That Scorpio would win. We had to orchestrate everything to the last detail.
“Oh, Crowned Assassin,” I murmured, hoping to lighten both of our moods, “my plan will work. It can give us the happy ending we deserve. I just need you to believe in it.” If he could believe, I knew I could too. I held to the certainty I’d felt only minutes ago as if it were my last lifeline, and I suppose in a way, it was exactly that.
“I’m trying,” he whispered into my hair before placing a gentle kiss and tightening his arms around me, holding me as if I might disappear from him this very moment. “Until I do, I’ll just believe in you. But believe me when I say this,; I will never let you go. If I lose you…” he cleared his throat, his voice losing all tones of doubt and indecision and in its wake was the quiet reverberation of certainty, “if I lose you, then the veil of death had best lock itself away. Because I’ll pry it apart to bring you back. Mark my words, Lark.”
My breath failed me. Because I knew without a doubt that he was telling the truth.
We stayed locked like that for a long time. It could have been minutes or hours, I wasn’t sure. I melted into him as he rested his chin on my head. I closed my eyes, breathed him in, and loved him fiercely with my whole heart. I hoped he could see my emotions now. My resolve, but also my feelings for him.
“What else happened in your dream?” The quiet of his voice startled me, breaking me out of my reverie. It wasn’t his usual quiet, like the soft kiss of a shadow. It was calculating, a hint of his mind whirring to come up with any other plan. “Can you give me any more details of your vision? We need to examine everything.”
I told him every detail that I could remember. The rocky terrain which it took place. The iciness of Scorpio’s hands, how powerless I’d been to stop her. The burning in my chest from the lightning.
“Where did the lightning come from?” That was the final piece of the puzzle that I couldn’t seem to place, I thought. Water, earth, and fire magic had no claim over lightning. So I could only assume it was a gift of air magic, but doubt nagged me. Perhaps it was old magic. Or was it possible dark magic could summon such a thing? I wracked my brain, searching the memory of my vision for any sign of Locke’s black magic, telltale black threads of wispy shadow. I found none. When I asked Locke, he shook his head.
