Cursed: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Thrice Cursed Mage Book 1) by J. A. Cipriano Page B

the room. On the wall behind it was a painting of a Nordic looking blonde wearing a wolf skin cloak standing on a snow capped cliff overlooking a forest of pine trees.
    Loraine stepped out of the elevator still clutching her clipboard to her chest as though trying to hide her ample cleavage from Jack’s eyes, but all that made him do was smile lasciviously. It was the kind of gaze that made me think he probably had seen her naked, and the fallout had not been friendly. Man, I was going to be so dead.
    Before I’d even made it out of the elevator, Loraine was across the tiny room, standing next to a door I hadn’t noticed before. It was the same shade as the rest of the wall so it nearly blended in with the surroundings, which I suspected was the point.
    “I’d caution you to mind your tongue when speaking with the alpha, but I know you won’t bother,” Loraine said, her voice hushed and strangely reverent as she pressed her hand against the wall.
    A little wooden panel slid away to reveal one of those biometric hand readers. Loraine touched it, and green light flashed from between her fingers for several seconds before the door opened, exposing a long dark tunnel. The only light from within came from a strip of white LEDs set into the cement floor.
    “Please tell me we aren’t going into a dark tunnel,” I murmured as Jack shot me a look that had a frailness to it I hadn’t expected. It shook me. He’d been cocky a second ago, but now he was scared. Well, screw this.
    Loraine shot me a pleased smile rimmed with wicked intentions. “Ricky is just through there—”
    I cut off her words with a bullet to the face. The right side of her skull evaporated in a cloud of blood and thicker bits. Not bad for a left-handed shot. Instead of falling, she staggered backward, her remaining eye fixing on me with hate. For good measure, I fired the Beretta twice more. The two shots caught her in the center of the chest, knocking her body to the ground with a thud I couldn’t hear over the sudden ringing in my ears.
    “How about you get Ricky out here before I get mad?” I barked as the crack of the gunshots faded.
    I stepped up to the woman as blood gushed from her perforated chest, staining both the carpet and her blue blouse scarlet. I ground the toe of my cheap loafer into the wound. She half-gasped, half burbled a cry of pain that let me know she was still very much alive. Good, I hadn’t wanted to kill her.
    Truthfully, after what I’d seen from the two low level werewolves I’d tangled with earlier, I wasn’t exactly worried about killing her. I wanted to let the wolves know I was serious. Since I could already see her bone and tissue starting to knit itself back together, I decided to kick it up a notch. If I let up for long, Loraine would be fully healed and pissed. That wouldn’t help.
    “What the fuck are you doing?” Jack cried, reaching out toward me, but I held up my right hand as the smell of rotten eggs filled the air. He stopped midstride and stared at me, mouth agape. “You’re going to get us both killed.”
    I ignored him and turned back to the woman struggling beneath my shoe like a wounded animal. Her skull had already reformed in a way that reminded me of watching a candle melt in reverse. I’d definitely have to hurry. I sucked in a breath, filling my lungs with the coppery tang of her blood and the tattoos along my right arm blazed to life. Scarlet light pulsed along my arm as I bent down and grabbed her by the throat with my right hand, careful to keep my gun at the ready in my left. If anyone came through that hallway, I wanted to be ready.
    As I tightened my grip on her neck, hellish light spilled from my tattoos, and just like that, her healing stopped. A surge of energy rushed through me, bringing with it the scent of pine forest and brisk nights. I wasn’t quite sure how, but I was somehow directing her energy into me. My heart hammered excitedly as her eyes went wide in sudden fear. I