Page 83 of Of Magic and Murder

That’s exactly what I do.

In an instant, the lodestone disappears from Delilah’s hand. She gasps to see it gone at the same time that I gasp to open up my folded hand to reveal the lodestone nestled against my palm.

Holy shit. It worked.

“Give that back!” howls Delilah.

I shake my head.

Delilah throws out her hand. A burst of orange blooms around it before disappearing. It’s replaced by a glowing white circle that pops into existence, then winks out halfway between us.

Her eyes widen as she realizes that somehow, some way, the lodestone is working for me now.

That has to be what it is. I can… I can sense it. The lodestone is warm against my palm. It almost feels alive, pulsing against my skin while centuries of magic crawl over me.

Green, I marvel. I see so much green.

I can feel every curse tied to it, every dark magic spell that took its root in the lodestone and used it to feed on ever since. There are old ones. New ones. Broken ones that left remnants behind, including the curse that Esmeralda once placed on Riordan before I snapped it by mating him.

“Give it to me, Penelope.” Delilah is suddenly frantic. “You have no idea what you’re holding.”

Maybe not. But you know what I do I know?

Curses.

Not only that, but I also know exactly what I want.

I close both hands around the lodestone and close my eyes.

Want something, Pen, and let yourself have it.

I don’t want power. I don’t want to bring Avalon back to life and rule it. Hell, I don’t even want to prove that I can finally perform one simple spell without screwing it up. Realization slams into me. When I’m not obsessing over my mistakes, I can do magic. Just like how I found Garnet’s journal and I stole the lodestone out of Delilah’s hands…

It’s simple, and it might’ve taken me thirty years to understand that, but I finally do.

What do I want? I can say for sure that I don’t want this lodestone to be used to hurt anyone I love ever again.

Magic surges through me, heading straight for the stone in my hands. Heat scorches my palm, but only for a second before the warmth—and the pain—is suddenly gone. My eyes fly open. Staring down at my hands, I grin when I see what happened to the lodestone.

It’s cracked in half, split right down the middle.

Now, this, I think, is useless.

I drop the two broken halves to the grass while Delilah screams in rage.

“What did you do?”

It’s simple. I’m a cursebreaker. And I just broke every curse that anyone has ever used that stone to cast—including the two spells that Delilah shot at my mate.

Riordan realizes that he’s free before either me or Delilah. In one fluid motion, he leaps from the ground, landing in a crouched position as his head snaps toward Delilah. He falls forward, shifting in a heartbeat. My gorgeous hunk of a mate goes to a massive black wolf just like that.

Funnily enough, I’ve never actually seen his wolf before. Oh, I’ve imagined it. Olivia once described her killer as a huge black wolf with gold eyes, and Riordan eventually admitted that description matched him; I should’ve known I was a goner for him when it never even occurred to me to doubt my assurance that he couldn’t possibly be the killer. Still, I knew what he would look like.

And he’s one scary wolf.

When face-to-face with a predator like Riordan Lobo, most people’s instinct is to run. Others freeze. Some, if they have a death wish, hold out their fingers and whisper, “Nice doggy.”

Surprisingly, Delilah is a runner. She takes one look at Riordan’s blazing gold eyes and his paws the size of dinner plates, shudders, then bolts.