BORN UPON A CURSE: THE DARKNESS WITHIN (THE COST OF MAGIC #1) BY M DANE – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Authors: M Dane
- Language: English
- Genre: Paranormal / Sci-Fi
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 7.6 MB
- Price: Free
Working Friday night shifts at Taco Bell in the Southern heat felt a lot
like being stuck on a date with Mr. I-Don’t-Believe-in-ClimateChange-Because-It’s-Cold-Outside—almost torture, but unacceptably legal.
Sweat poured down my back, threatening to turn the slick tiles into a slipand-slide, while the heavy air clung to my throat in a greasy layer. As bad as
it was, surviving spontaneous combustion was only part of the challenge;
the real struggle was ignoring the stares thrown my way.
I wasn’t strange to look at. While my auburn hair didn’t match the typical
Southern belle palette, it didn’t scream “outcast” either. I had no missing
teeth or bonus ears. Yet the folks knew that the girl with freckles was
different. Dangerous. A weed that needed plucking before it spread.
I braced against the windowsill, the calm between orders offering a
moment to dream of my bed and the bliss of air conditioning. Two hours to
go. Work had lobotomized me enough for one night. Soon I would find
peace in my solitude.
As I clung to that fleeting image of comfort, reality swooped in and
snapped me back to my pitiful existence. A searing pain sliced through my
stomach. I caught my breath, fingers digging into the windowsill. It was
her.
“No,” I breathed, the pain climbing. “Please.” I forced myself upright,
steeling against the familiar dread. “Don’t do this.”
She didn’t listen.
She never listened.
She exploded through me with a force that buckled my knees. I bit my
tongue, tasting the tang of blood, but refused to cry out. Unwanted attention
was the last thing I needed.
The first tendrils of her being snaked into my mind, piercing my thoughts
like rusty hooks. I gasped. The intensity, the power, was new and terrifying.
“Hello?” a man’s voice crackled in my headset. “Did you hear me? I said
I want—”
I tore it off and dropped it on the bench. My vision dimmed as I fought to
bury the chaos in her cage. Her anger flared. She was tired of being locked
up. She wanted out.
But she hurt people when she escaped.
My hands trembled as flashes of the times she’d stolen control burst
through my mind. I’d woken in the beds of strangers too often to count,
naked and ashamed of what she’d done. I fought harder, terrified of another
scandal, unhooking her from my thoughts and pushing her down. Bit by bit,
like water dripping down a hair-clogged drain, I squeezed her into the
confines of her prison. She flared for a moment of pure frustration, then
withered into the darkness and fought no more.
I slumped onto the bench, shaking like I’d sprinted a mile. Something had
changed in her over the last few days. It was like she’d awoken after a long,
booze-induced siesta, and was desperate to make up for lost time.
“Alina?” a voice called behind me.
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