Soul Reborn (Key to the Cursed Book 1) Read online

  SOUL

  REBORN

  KEY TO THE CURSED

  BOOK 1

  JEAN MURRAY

  FATED PRESS

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER one

  CHAPTER two

  CHAPTER three

  CHAPTER four

  CHAPTER five

  CHAPTER six

  CHAPTER seven

  CHAPTER eight

  CHAPTER nine

  CHAPTER ten

  CHAPTER eleven

  CHAPTER twelve

  CHAPTER thirteen

  CHAPTER fourteen

  CHAPTER fifteen

  CHAPTER sixteen

  CHAPTER seventeen

  CHAPTER eighteen

  CHAPTER nineteen

  CHAPTER twenty

  CHAPTER twenty-one

  CHAPTER twenty-two

  CHAPTER twenty-three

  CHAPTER twenty-four

  CHAPTER twenty-five

  CHAPTER twenty-six

  CHAPTER twenty-seven

  CHAPTER twenty-eight

  CHAPTER twenty-nine

  CHAPTER thirty

  CHAPTER thirty-one

  CHAPTER thirty-two

  CHAPTER thirty-three

  CHAPTER thirty-four

  CHAPTER thirty-five

  CHAPTER thirty-six

  CHAPTER thirty-seven

  CHAPTER thirty-eight

  CHAPTER thirty-nine

  CHAPTER forty

  CHAPTER forty-one

  CHAPTER forty-two

  CHAPTER forty-three

  CHAPTER forty-four

  CHAPTER forty-five

  CHAPTER forty-six

  CHAPTER forty-seven

  CHAPTER forty-eight

  CHAPTER forty-nine

  SOUL AWAKENED

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER one

  Chapter Two

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT

  Key To the Cursed – Book 1: Soul Reborn

  Jean Murray

  ISBN: 978-1-943045-00-6

  © Copyright Jean Murray 2014. All rights reserved

  Second Edition

  Cover Art: Robin Ludwig Design Inc.

  www.gobookcoverdesign.com

  Editor: Heather Howland

  Fated Press LLC

  PO Box 1914

  Huntingtown, MD 20639

  Ebooks/Books are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

  All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Fated Press LLC electronic publication/print publication: March 2015

  FATED PRESS

  www.fatedpress.com

  DEDICATION

  To Paul, my husband, who saw my potential, believed in my abilities and encouraged me to try.

  PROLOGUE

  A delicate balance between life and death. A treacherous journey standing between the two. There is no compass, no map to guide the weary.

  Fate. Luck. Choice.

  A trial for all who pass.

  Only our souls will tell our story. Only one chance to get it right. Death will accept nothing less. Paradise awaits to all who measure up.

  But, that was before. Before the balance fractured the lines between good and evil.

  Now, Death has no beginning.

  No end.

  No soul to guide him. No soul to judge us.

  Paradise is lost.

  CHAPTER one

  Movement flickered in the deep shadows.

  Asar stilled. Midnight skin blending into the night, he slipped easily into the gloom of the New York City streets and waited.

  The human heat signature he hunted lingered in the air like a fine French perfume. He was not surprised when a trio of pale-skinned, red-eyed revens zoned in on the same body heat. The undead craved the flesh of their once previous form.

  It was not the human’s flesh Asar desired.

  Saddled by his own hunger that burned like fire in his chest, he raced toward the haunting scent, anxious to claim the prey before the revens. He was not about to give up such a delicious soul to those ravenous cannibals.

  Still too far away, he exploded with a shot of preternatural speed on the slippery, uneven pavement. Surefooted, he hurtled a foul dumpster and sprinted around the brick building. Hunger fueled his every step. He fully expected to hear a scream from the human victim before he reached the alley, but the air remained still.

  He slid to a stop on the wet asphalt. The three revens he had sensed lay decapitated on the polluted street. Gaping chest wounds indicated the hearts had been destroyed.

  Fragments of shimmering light illuminated the gray, decaying flesh, rising into the night air. Normally, he would have absorbed the shifting souls, but revens were tainted and doomed never to reach the afterlife. The undead were truly dead.

  He scanned the smog coated buildings. Where was the human?

  The sound of shattering glass resonated from above, followed by a shower of diamond shards. Asar evaporated into the shadows against the cold brick and narrowly avoided the carcass of a headless reven plummeting from the upper window. The body hit the pavement like a side of meat slammed onto a butcher’s countertop. Dark, putrid shrapnel of blood and bone spattered across the roadway. The reven’s head bounced off the cement with a loud crack and rolled slowly down the sidewalk before coming to rest inches from his foot.

  He did not give it a second look. Through the shattered second story window, he caught a glimpse of glowing green eyes and the flash of silver.

  His body grew taut. The humans he typically encountered at night were criminals and opportunists looting stores or transporting illegal goods — the unsavory dredges of humankind. No one else dared to be outdoors for fear of becoming a reven’s next meal.

  The criminals were easy enough prey, overconfident with their modern weapons, but this opponent utilized a more ancient form of deliverance. The reven kills were calculated and completed with the precision and stealth of a skilled assassin. Only a hunter getting paid top dollar would risk this kind of suicide mission.

  The revelation made his chest burn hotter with dark need. His prey would not go down easily. The harder the fight, the more living energy he could absorb from the human’s soul.

  Asar looked upward. The night sky waned to lighter shades of blue. He had only an hour of darkness left before the horizon split open with the sun’s rays. He would like nothing more than to draw out the fight for his own perverse pleasure, but he had to end it soon or face the wrath of his ancient curse.

  An agony he would sooner avoid.

  A loud crash of metal against stone interrupted his reverie. He launched forward out of the shadows, unconcerned with revealing his location, and did not waste any time turning onto the dimly lit street.

  Only to find it empty.

  He scanned quickly around the perimeter while turning slowly in a circle. The hunter did not have enough time to scale a building or sprint down the long block. His prey had to be a short distance from here. He walked forward, following the heat trail that vanishe
d in the middle of the street.

  “Where did you go?” He turned, looking for some exit the hunter could have used. The pavement shifted slightly under his weight. Looking down, he rotated his foot to the right. NY City Water & Sewer.

  So, his prey had gone underground to draw him into a more cramped battle. Little did the hunter know, Asar would be the only victor in this game of cat and mouse.

  He would leave with the man’s soul.

  Into the darkness of the small tunnel, he followed the exaggerated heat trail. He heard the faint breathing and pounding of a human heart. The hunter was foolish enough to make a stand, but not for long.

  Here kitty, kitty.

  He followed the arresting scent, anxious to fill his hollow emptiness. Only a few more steps and then he’d see his prize—

  His gaze shifted over a female with long blonde hair whose curvy hips were loaded with an arsenal of weapons. In her hand, she clasped a long, intricately carved blade—a blade she pointed directly at him.

  Asar swallowed against the sudden constriction in his throat.

  Not a hunter.

  A huntress.

  Energy rippled off her skin like streamers of bright sunlight. Her powerful essence of life called to him, the very energy that fed his unquenchable hunger. All he had to do was touch her silky skin or lips to devour the luscious beauty. He had already taken a few steps toward her when he stopped.

  Another sensation of hunger distracted his senses. One he had not felt in very long time, nor cared to feel again. His hardened arousal was inconvenient, considering the moment.

  An inconvenience he was willing to explore a little before he dined on her soul. Heat radiated off her skin, a sharp contrast to his own cold, dead body. His skin began to burn, even at this distance. A welcome, but deadly blaze. Despite this threat, he drew in like a moth to a flame. Warm, soft and most importantly, alive.

  “I will not hurt you,” Asar whispered in a low, resonant voice.

  Amusement flickered in the female’s glowing green eyes. “I can’t say that I would make the same promise.” With a menacingly seductive smile, she pressed the tip of her blade above his empty chest cavity.

  It brought him to an abrupt halt, but only briefly. Despite the knife, he could not help but draw in closer. He waited to see if she would act, thrusting the blade deep into his flesh. The fair female would be in for a shock, as it would not have the outcome she expected. He had no heart to pierce and no soul to destroy—a fact that relegated him to hunt in this despicable place.

  “Why would a beautiful woman risk her life by being out after dark?” he asked, running his fingertips against the sharp blade. Only a skilled warrior could wield such an instrument. The beheaded revens in the street were evidence enough of her skill and conviction. Awaiting her answer, he leaned in on the tip of her blade, piercing his dark skin.

  “Who says I’m the one at risk here?” She pressed the blade a little deeper into the thick muscle of his chest to call his bluff.

  He sneered. The huntress would need to do more than that to cause him pain.

  “I do,” Asar said, enjoying her little taunt. She obviously had no appreciation for who she was speaking to or else there would be fear in her eyes. Everyone feared death on some level, and he was the master of it.

  Judge, jury and executioner.

  As God of the Underworld, Asar was death, personified.

  As if sensing his thoughts, she withdrew a second blade from her hip, escalating the level of her defense. “You don’t belong here and I’ll see you just as dead as your pale friends from earlier this evening.”

  “Friends? Who said I had any friends?” Asar stepped forward again forcing himself into the personal space she so obviously wanted to keep for herself. He moved close enough to smell her sweet scent. Like a finely spun sugar on the tip of his tongue. He licked his lips and his groin tightened to an unbearable ache.

  His gesture and level of arousal did not go unnoticed. A sudden flash of heat rippled from her body and turned her face a bright pink, a contradiction to her hardened eyes. He still maintained a respectable distance from her, yet he could feel the current of energy emanating off her skin, stronger than an average human.

  More delicious.

  Her beautiful green eyes blinked quickly. Her confusion registered in the deep emerald depths. “What are you?”

  The cadence of her breath increased as he hovered over her lips, creating a small white vapor as it crossed his face. The urge to kiss her was strangely unbearable, as was the strain of his hard cock against the confines of his pants. “You would not believe me if I told you.”

  Her eyes shifted to his approaching lips. “Honestly, it doesn’t matter. You are not human, which makes you only one other thing.”

  Despite her threatening words, the pain from the tips of her blades penetrating his skin disappeared. The knives were no longer positioned to kill. He tilted his head and watched the fluctuation in the huntress’ green eyes. Still no fear, but intelligence and an equal amount of curiosity analyzed him.

  Asar could not deny the need to taste her any longer. Grimacing against the burning of his skin so close to hers, he leaned in to savor her soft lips.

  The human female’s eyes darkened and her breath hitched. Her eyes darted to the exact location from which his brother and two royal guards approached with no scent, no sound, and no heat signatures. Despite this, she had sensed their arrival. Before he could speak or grab her, she jerked out of his reach and sprinted down the sewer tunnel.

  He pursued her as far as he could before the line of dawn light filtering down the narrow passageway blocked his path. She left in her wake a long, floating strand of her golden hair. Daring a moment of pure agony, he reached out into the burning rays of the sun to retrieve it. The silk thread shimmered between his now-pale burnt fingers.

  Kamen stopped beside him, curiosity in his deep set eyes. His brother’s own hunger evident in the feral, orange glow of his black eyes. “You let her escape?”

  True. His prey had been saved by mere curiosity and apparent lust. He could have easily killed the huntress and absorbed her energy into his body. Despite the nagging ache of hunger, he stopped short of his goal. There was a sense about her — a feeling. A desire. “Have you ever seen a human move with the agility and speed equal to our own?”

  “No, never. They have always made easy prey.” Kamen stepped back as the sun’s awakening shifted the line of light in the tunnel.

  “There is something different about this one. Her skin burned much hotter, and her eyes had an aura about them.” He remembered how they glowed in the dark. Her body was filled with life and energy which he was born to see and absorb. It rippled across her soft, perfectly pale skin like an iridescent light show.

  Kamen’s eyes narrowed on him. “Is that admiration I hear in your voice?”

  “Hardly.” Asar huffed, pivoting to navigate down the dark tunnel. Ironically, the huntress had chosen a sewer tributary located less than twenty meters from their temporary quarters. “She is just a human.”

  Despite his statement, his skin still throbbed from the burn of her heat. She was hardly like any other human he had encountered. If she was, he would have consumed her life source without blinking a cold eye.

  “Different or not, this human huntress may get in our way. She may need to be eliminated,” Kamen said thoughtfully, as they entered the portal to their makeshift dwelling.

  “Perhaps.” Asar paused a moment to collect his thoughts. As he sat down on the velvet red sofa, a rush of servant activity occurred around the pair. “The outbreak of revens in this area is quite heavy, and more than likely will keep the huntress busy. I would like to find out more about her. How is it she has strengths beyond the capabilities of her species?”

  “I will arrange scouts to document her activity.” Kamen shifted his large body onto the long chaise. A servant removed his sandals and washed his feet.

  Asar rubbed the tender flesh of
his chest that had come in close contact with the huntress. The skin of his arms, chest and face still retained a pale glow of warmth, but in a few hours would revert back to its usual coal color. He touched a patch on his arm and watched it blanch white. “That is a very prudent suggestion but I would like to observe her activity myself.”

  Kamen straightened his posture and widened his eyes, but did not question. When Asar spoke, everyone listened, even his kindred. “I will arrange it. How soon do you want to observe?”

  “Tonight.”

  CHAPTER two

  Hands shaking, Lilly over engaged the throttle on her lime green and ebony Ninja ZX. The four-hundred-pound motorcycle’s front wheel lurched off the ground and propelled her and the bike through streets filled with cars and pedestrians. Life, as usual, had reclaimed the bustling city now that it was bathed in the protective ultraviolet light of the sun.

  The eerie encounter with the dark reven chased her like a cold chill.

  With skin black as midnight, he was a stark contrast to any of the pale revens she had exorcized in the last five years. It lightened to the human tone of olive, somehow transforming under the heat of her body and revealing its unmarred and perfectly structured features. Strong jaw and cheek line. Thick black hair and the darkest eyes she had ever seen, which had the slightest hint of pain in them.

  Kill it, her mind had screamed. So, why the hell hadn’t she? The warmth of arousal still surged through her body despite the chill against her skin, and her lips burned as if she had been out on a cold winter’s day.

  She’d almost kissed the damn thing.

  Recalling the events sent a coarse shiver down the length of her back. Unbalanced, the motorcycle’s handlebar and gas tank grazed the side of a yellow cab, and left streaks of green paint down its quarter panel. With no intentions of stopping, she gunned it, leaving a high pitched squeal in her wake. The blare of the cabbie’s horn and discharge of expletives trailed her down the street.

  “Get over it,” Lilly muttered.