All Chapters of THE CURSE OF LUST: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

A week slipped by, slow and heavy.The real challenge was the pub itself. Every night I had to adapt to the strange environment, to the objects that were mine to manage yet subtly alien. Silver cutlery, plates with faintly embossed symbols, relics from long before the current owner had taken over—some pieces raw with history, forged in the days when witches had once lingered here. I burned my fingers on them the first few nights.Rapid as shadow, silent as a ghost, I replaced every object I touched during the nights. New metal or porcelain plates, clean cutlery, polished glasses—everything that bore a trace of history, silver or danger, found its way back into the night's careful rotation.By the end of the week, I moved through the pub as though it were my o

Slowly, Ashford reached into the leather bag at his side and set several small journals and books onto the table, their pages marked with post-its and notes crammed into the margins. Finally, he placed a small box on top.My brows pulled tight. "What's all this?"His gaze never left mine."Recollections of you. Through the years... through centuries." Then, with a voice low enough to shake me to my core, he added, "Lilith."I froze, breath caught in my throat. My blood went cold. Hearing that name from him—my real name—was like being stripped bare in the middle of the room.We did not move. His eyes pinned me in place, unblinking, certain. And for the first time in so long, I was afraid. Properly afraid.I forced myself to open one of the notebooks, then another, skimming words that were not meant for me to read. Men and women describing her—me—in scrawls of obsession. A woman of impossible beauty, described the same way, century after century. Politicians, nobles, peasants, even book

The fire had long since gone out, leaving the room cold. The sheets lay crumpled on the floor, abandoned in the night. We stayed pressed together, naked, our bodies heavy with fatigue yet restless, aching for more. Every shift of his chest against mine reminded me of the hours we had spent wrapped in one another, consumed by lust and tenderness until neither of us had strength left. His grey-blue eyes met mine in the pale light. I traced a line along his cheekbone and whispered, almost guiltily, "I should take a shower." Instead, my fingers drifted lower, to the faint scar above his heart—the mark I had left him. It was almost fully healed, the bite closed over, yet the imprint remained, a pale crescent in the shape of my teeth. I ran my fingers gently over it, marveling at how quickly it had sealed."It... healed fast," I murmured, surprised. "It's not supposed to be like this for humans. You shouldn't... you shouldn't recover like this."He followed my gaze, his thumb brushing over

The gathering was to be held beyond the ruins of Minster Lovell Hall, where the River Windrush bends into a slow, dark curve and the stones remember older vows than any pack still dared to speak aloud. Wolves had gathered there long before the village had a name.Christopher stood beside me at the edge of the clearing, silent, watchful. He had never lived through a crescent moon, not like this. I did not know how his body would answer it, or whether the pull he now carried would recognise the call and answer back. He looked calm, but I felt the tension coiled beneath his skin, a readiness that was no longer wholly human.Rowan paced a few steps away, boots scuffing the damp ground, jaw set hard enough to crack. He had been insisting for days that I come alone."They won't accept him," he said for the third time, not looking at Christopher. "They won't even listen. This is not the moment to provoke them.""This is exactly the moment," I replied.He turned on me then, eyes flashing ambe

The cabin was not warming up. On the contrary, it was closing in on us, narrow and dark, the cold biting harder with every breath until it felt deliberate, as if the night itself wanted to test how far we would go to survive.Christopher's hands were still on me, his arms wrapped around my back, his body pressed against mine. I could feel him trembling, no longer only from fear or determination, but from something stronger. Beyond the obvious physical attraction I felt for him, my hands sliding under his clothes, using the cold as an excuse, the bond between us vibrated, agitated, stretched by restraint and violence at once, and the touch of the Goddess still lingered in my blood."You feel it too," I whispered.His breath grazed my neck. "It's like I'm burning and freezing at the same time."I smiled, slow and sharp. The words had barely left his lips when I pulled him towards me, and his fingers dug into my hair, my skin, as if they had always belonged there. That touch ignited some