Summer Cursed

Chapter Four

When Wednesday rolled around, it felt like the longest day of my life. I was too amped up to sleep, so I woke up super early and went for a long run through the woods surrounding my house. Then I showered, ate breakfast, outlined the next book in my Chastity Files series, and it was still only ten o’clock.

Isaac was off on some kind of business issue again. Stella was at work. That took care of my friend list. So, it was up to me to entertain myself before anticipation of the pending meeting drove me crazy.

I caught my reflection in the full-length mirror in my living room. I ran my hand through my hair, through the white streak that had always been the bane of my existence. The color of my hair alone would have been enough to aggravate everyone, but that streak scared the piss out of them. And people tend to hate what they fear. Another wonderful trait that isn’t unique to humans.

Moving to my bedroom closet, I pulled my lockbox from the top shelf to retrieve my newest notebook. I had the time, so why not continue researching the truth behind my so-called mark. I ignored the twelve other notebooks full of non-answers I’d collected over the years and returned to my laptop.

The human web couldn’t help me. I’d been through it extensively and found nothing but the typical myths about our kind. Which was good. We encouraged the false information to keep our existence a secret. Hell, we probably started it.

Where I needed to go was the shifter run web only we could access.

There are magical barriers blocking any human from ever accidentally stumbling onto it. Yeah, magical. There is magic in our blood. It’s the reason we can shift and basically live forever. Where did it come from? No idea. That was part of what I was searching for.

I had a feeling the magic that allows us to shift is the same magic behind my curse. The rumors say it’s because I’d been born under the Vinur Moon. But oddly, no one had seen it before my birth, and no one had seen it since. Go figure.

So, I chalked it up to being yet another myth shifters liked to pass down throughout the years.

Like the stories about ancient Fae beings hidden in the forests who had used their magic to create us. Those stories say the Fae created the first shifter millions of years before the earliest humans showed up. Shifters were the Fae’s source of entertainment and companionship. Basically, we were their pets.

The Fae didn’t like the regular humans and early on, created another realm to hide from them but loved played pranks on them.

It was one theory at least. And to me it made more sense than a goddess cursing me.

I chuckled as I closed my eyes and placed my hands on the keyboard. I repeated the words needed to get through the magic and into the database before peering at the screen. It went dark for a second before pulling up the archaic program that was the lupoverse. It may be the lowest tech ever, but it was the easiest way to explore shifter history.

A jolt of excitement hit me when I found an article that seemed hopeful, but it turned out to be a nothingburger, so I kept scrolling. The following four also turned out to be a bunch of crap. But the next one had goosebumps forming on my arms.

It was about a woman rumored to have been cursed by the moon goddess. It was not the first one I’d come across and there was no mention of the Vinur Moon, but it was the closest to my situation I’d found. Except instead of red, her hair was jet black with a white streak starting at the peak of her forehead.

And rarer still, her wolf, like mine, was silver. Not white. Not gray. Silver.

Not in the metallic way, but a unique color of fur that no one had seen before or since. Until me. I try not to shift in front of too many people because it freaks them out. They’ve attacked my wolf many times, but she’s stronger than me so it works out okay for her.

By the end of the article, I was frustrated when it didn’t provide any helpful information. I’d wasted another four hours of my life on this damn curse.

Granted, the reporter had written the article hundreds of years after someone had murdered the woman and the article was mostly full of hearsay and old tales told to scare children. More than likely it was all made up, making me even more discouraged.

I slammed my laptop shut just as the front door opened. “What the fuck? Don’t you ever knock?”

“Whoa! What’s got your panties in a bunch?” Isaac asked, stopping dead in his tracks and pushing Stella behind him when he felt the flash of my power.

Closing my eyes I took a deep breath, then another, then another until I felt calmer. “I’m sorry. Did I hurt you guys?”

Isaac smirked and shook his head.

Stella pushed Isaac aside and shook her head too. “No. Have you been researching your mark again?”

“Yeah. I found something about a woman born in the eleventh century with the same streak and same silver wolf, but other than that it was nothing. I think it was all bullshit anyway.”

Stella sat in the chair next to me. “I’m sorry, Em, I know you want answers. Is she still alive, you think?”

“No, someone murdered her in the late nineteenth century.”

Isaac looked up from his phone. “Murdered? By another shifter?”

My gut twisted at the implication in his tone. “It didn’t specify. The guy writing the article was a shifter so I would like to think he’d have mentioned it if a human had killed her.”