From Bad to Cursed (The Witches of Thistle Grove, #2)

by Lana Harper

Maybe he’d be equally considerate of me if I were more a pretty herringbone tiled floor, less an aggravating Avramov.

I had to escape before that happened, to get away from here.

“Pull over,” I rasped through my teeth, my mouth dry as sand, my whole body quaking. “Now. I need to get out.” “But we’re on the road, it’s pouring—” “Now, Rowan,” I half keened, pounding one weak fist against the window.

As a kid, I’d spent as much time in those woods as I had roaming The Bitters itself, as if the forest were my own backyard, and now it beckoned to me like home. Like somewhere safe I could hide, to ride out my own inner storm.

Then, safe as I was going to be, I drew my knees up against my chest and dug into them with my chin, my body quaking with fear and cold, eyes welling with furious tears.

And how much worse to ask Rowan Thorn of all people—who’d pushed me away right after kissing me, who judged me so harshly for the sheer fact of my Avramov blood—to comfort me now?

I couldn’t blow apart like dandelion fluff if someone held on to me.

“End of the day, we’re all living beings, right? And everything alive just wants to feel like they’re not in this alone.”

Days like this, I fucking loved being a Thistle Grove witch. And even more so, an Avramov.

the invigorating dew inside not running out until the very last Thistle Grove witch enjoyed their sip. Its effects lasted for days, sometimes weeks; it took care of minor pains, cleared your mind, even left behind sweet dreams.

“Because you were an Avramov,” he said softly, the cords of his neck flexing as he swallowed. “And I didn’t think any of you belonged around animals.” I closed my eyes for a second, the injustice of it beating inside me like a pair of thrashing wings, outrage shooting through my veins even as my stomach wrung itself like a rag.

It felt so unfair, so wrong, to be seen in this terribly reductive way, like I could never be more than my necromancy. Death magic that I belonged to, that I loved, that, yes, I would have chosen for myself again and again.

Rowan set me down on a smooth stone, one of many such boulders strewn throughout Hallows Hill without any obvious provenance. Polished and flat-topped, perfect to perch on or to use as altars, depending on your intent.

Then the day shifted around us, without warning, tipping like a scale. Another witch might not even have felt it, not right then, the edge of some malevolence traveling toward us, like the blackening burn of flame racing along curling paper.

Without thinking too much about just what in the actual fuck I was about to do, I shouldered my way in front of him, pushing him back so hard that he stumbled against the stone. Then I planted my feet firmly and lifted my hands, a billow of ectoplasm rising around me as my magic surged to meet my call.

But we hadn’t. And now there was only me to stand between this awful curse and Rowan.

So I’d been right. You could wield a curse against a curse this way, like an improvised weapon.

Under different circumstances, I wouldn’t have had a chance in all the hells of twisting a working this complex into something of my own. But I had Rowan at my back to think of, Rowan to protect.

And beneath the rage, I found something even more confounding, a twisted take on an almost noble impulse. The spell thought it was doing me some kind of solid. Protecting me from Rowan.

Then I collapsed, crumpling like something broken, tears streaming down my cheeks.

“She may be your blood, but she’s also the person who just almost died trying to keep me safe. So until we get her back home, the last thing on earth I’m about to do is let her go.”

They’d gone back and forth, but she hadn’t been able to sway him, and as much as I loved my sister, I’d been woozily glad for it. Rowan had been the one I wanted taking caring of me.

I would’ve been terrified of it, had it not been for Rowan. The safety of his arms around me, the low thrum of his voice reverberating against my ear, brought me back to myself every time the fear threatened to overwhelm. I trusted, somehow, that Rowan wouldn’t let it hurt me now. Just like I hadn’t let it hurt him first.

“What you did for the Thorn boy . . .” She shook her head, pale lips parting. “Isidora, that was nothing short of a marvel. A feat of heroism. I’m not sure that even I could have done it.”

“Well, you should,” she said tartly, sounding a little more like herself. “And you should be damned proud of what you did for Rowan Thorn.

Not a single taxidermied wolf head or crystal skull lurked anywhere. Elena and I were severely out of our element.

Like the team we clearly still were, if not like two people who’d been about to get seriously busy on a mountaintop before a necromantic curse cockblocked us. Fuck, I really did have the very worst luck sometimes.

On the way over, I’d struggled with whether to mention that the spell had also thought it was protecting me, before deciding against divulging as much.

For one thing, it made no sense; I very clearly hadn’t been in any danger from Rowan. For another, that kind of motivation seemed like something that would shift the guilt so squarely onto the Avramovs—who else would feel so strongly about me besides one of us?—that

With his other hand, he reached for my own, lacing his fingers through mine where everyone could see them. Gabrielle’s lips parted, her eyes flicking rapidly between our joined hands and faces, her expressive features running an entire gamut of emotions as she considered us.

Apparently all you had to do to get a little love around here was vanquish a soul-grubbing death monster for a dude.

Every time I got antsy, I reminded myself that Rowan’s safety hinged on my full recovery;

I couldn’t see it either . . . and yet. The way the spell itself had despised all Thorns, tracing all the way back to Alastair himself, the way it had thought it was somehow protecting me from Rowan . . . It sounded exactly like how my diabolical pit viper of an ancestress might feel if she were around today.

The bad blood between our families had begun with the two of them.

It was possible that I’d thought this look through way too intensively.

“I was, um,” I said, blinking fast, struggling to formulate words. “Just thinking you should probably never wear a shirt again.”

“I never really thanked you,” he said, eyes locked on mine, their hazel deepened to a rich honey brown by the low light. The moving reflection of the water played over his face like diamond facets. “For, you know. Saving my ass entirely, without any regard for what might happen to you.

Lips drawn through his teeth, he traced lines between my freckles with a fingertip, charting constellations,

“She’s stoked about you, too,” he added, grinning. “Especially likes that you won’t let me stay on what she refers to as my ‘preachy bullshit.’ I think you’d be surprised by how much you two have in common, when it comes to keeping me on my toes.” “You know what, that does help.”

“Good. And here’s the thing—what you may not know about me yet, but that I hope you’ll come to trust,” he murmured, those warm eyes agleam on mine. “Issa Avramov, I do promise you this: I never make the same dumbass mistakes more than once.”

“Wait a minute,” Rowan muttered beside me. “Is this supposed to be Honeycake? And those people . . . is that meant to be us? My family?”

But those of us around her had known the difference, I realized with a sickening thud of revelation. Even if we hadn’t understood what it was we were seeing.

I thought of the harsh, strange, overly aggressive way Talia had behaved at the Crowning right before the shade inside her cast the Misbegotten Curse;

the way she’d slammed binders around Elena’s office at the mere mention of Rowan; how woun...

Maybe that was what she and Emmy had been fighting about on First Dew, too. Emmy must have noticed some discrepancy, called Ta...

And all of this was my fault, I thought, guilt lashing at my insides. It had begun with me, and somehow everything I’d done since had only managed to make it worse, even when I was trying to help.

“Run, Issa,” Rowan said through his teeth—because of course he hadn’t budged from my side, hadn’t moved so much as an inch when I’d asked him to.

“Not entirely your fault, I’m guessing, based on what Letha told me,” she finally said, tilting her head. “And the part that was, I’m guessing you addressed—the way you’ve always done with your own messes, ever since you were a little girl. As eager to take responsibility as you were to stir up trouble in the first place. So why don’t we start there; tell me about the trouble.”

“That’s what it means to have our blood. We give our hearts and take them back, as we see fit. We choose our own course, set sail by our own stars. And no one else can ever—should ever—hope to master us.”

“How literally do you mean that, babe?” she said, wrinkling her nose. “Because I’ve been sitting here twiddling my thumbs for a minute now, waiting around to kiss you. But now I’m having several kinds of second thoughts about it.”