The Viking's Curse: Deadrose

Copyright

Originally Published November 2015 by Midas Jinx and Xandra James & LA Fox

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book, please purchase an additional copy for each person. No part of this book may be copied or shared, unless a small excerpt or blurb is needed for review or marketing purposes. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, then please return to the vendor and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organisations is coincidental.

Copyright © 2023 Ruby Banks and Midas Jinx

All rights reserved

Contents

Copyright

About The Viking's Curse

CHAPTER ONE - Sniff up

CHAPTER TWO - Home sweet fucking home

CHAPTER THREE - A sight for sore eyes

CHAPTER FOUR - Daddy dearest

CHAPTER FIVE - Business as usual

CHAPTER SIX - Big Red

CHAPTER SEVEN - An early Christmas present

CHAPTER EIGHT - And so it began

CHAPTER NINE - Little white lies

CHAPTER TEN - I'm dreaming of a white Christmas

CHAPTER ELEVEN - The clues keep coming

CHAPTER TWELVE - Dickhead alert

CHAPTER THIRTEEN - Live and let die

CHAPTER FOURTEEN - Death becomes her

CHAPTER FIFTEEN - The truth at last

CHAPTER SIXTEEN - I'll sleep when I'm dead

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - The edge of reason

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - Well, that was a surprise

CHAPTER NINETEEN - He would be the death of me

CHAPTER TWENTY - Party time for the dead

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE - Merry fucking Christmas

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO - Decisions, decisions

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - I'll take one for the team

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR - Love sucks

EPILOGUE - Confetti and shit

About Ruby Banks:

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Other books by Ruby Banks

About The Viking's Curse

PART MAN, PART VIKING warrior shifter, I have only one focus in my life: vengeance. Vengeance for the curse I live with, for the anger that fuels me, and for the man who killed the only things I ever loved. I survive only to ensure he gets everything he deserves... or, at least, I did before I met TJ Knight.

Now, I live to keep my word. To save her from the death mark that threatens her and to destroy our mutual enemy. If we can work together, and the secrets we hold don't rip us apart, there’s a chance we might succeed. The only trouble? That would require two things I can’t bring myself to do. The first is keeping my hands off her. And the second? I might just have to kill her...

Welcome to Deadrose.

​​​​​​​Population: dead, weird, or maybe even both.

CHAPTER ONE - Sniff up

TJ

THE SMELL THAT LINGERED in the air from the absent dead body burnt my nostrils, but still, I bent over the grave, got up close and personal with the empty coffin, attempting to work out who—or what—would want to be a body snatcher.

It hadn't been taken too long ago; I could still feel the buzz of bad energy. The stench wasn't from the rotting corpse. Nope, it was due to the magic shifting around where the body had been. Yeah, I said magic and it was normal for me to smell the stuff.

You see, my name's TJ Knight, and I work for Battle Security and have done so for almost eighteen months after being head-hunted while in the army. Battle Security was a department of the Catholic Church. I work for God, you might say.

You might also say I am quite unusual but I'm not really. There are a lot of people like me around if only you open your eyes and take a look. And I've certainly seen some shit. Magical beings—or wizards—are everywhere. Battle Security specialises in things that go bump in the night, and it's all around you if you know where to look. And I know where to look. Or where to stick my nose.

Which is why I earn the big bucks for sniffing newly popped bodies and get called out in the middle of a date.

I tried not to think of the steak that would have been waiting for me in one of Deadrose's finest dining establishments—well, Calley's Diner, at any rate. My date had been an exceptionally good-looking wolf shifter.

Everything would have been just dandy except, there was no corpse for me to sniff, which was...troubling, to say the least. Especially since this was the third time in three days it had happened while I had been staying here.

I leaned in closer until my nose was almost on the wood of the coffin. There was an essence, a certain smell, which lingered.  I couldn't put my finger on it. Trudging through my memories, I tried to recall where I'd smelled it before, but it was elusive. Spicy maybe? Definitely old.

Sitting back on my haunches, I surveyed the situation. My time was almost up. The magical essence would fade soon.

Tell me what you know, I said quietly to no one at all, except I fully expected an answer of some sort.

Moving a little of the earth which had fallen into the casket, I noticed a mark on the wood—a burn in the shape of a shield, barely an inch in diameter but intricate in its detail. And not something I'd ever seen before. It almost looked like a rune, but I couldn't be sure.

I stood up and paced next to the grave hole, my heels hardly appropriate for the soggy grass-like-mud under foot. It wasn't the first time I'd seen this marker. And I was pretty sure it was a sign of something bigger, I just didn't know what yet.

The magic wasn't obvious at first glance but it felt ancient. I would need to consult the book as soon as I got home—well, home was a hotel room at the Barstow Hotel which I'd been staying at for almost five days—but still. It should give me some idea as to what I'd got myself into.

Looking around the cemetery, it was as normal as a burial ground could be. And as deserted as you'd expect. Nothing seemed out of place—like it hadn't on the last three times someone had robbed a grave from here. This man, Robert Walker, I checked his headstone, had no direct link with the other two stolen bodies. At least, as far as I could see. I was officially stumped. And no one at Battle could shed any light, either.

He was just like the other two victims. All with the burn mark on the wood, all with the unusual essence of something spicy, and all a mystery to me. It made me look like a novice. Which I probably was. Maybe I was in too deep—maybe it was time to move on if the feeling of bad juju sitting high in my gut was anything to go by.

Pushing the slightly irrational feeling away and adjusting my bag to sit neatly on my shoulder, I took one photo of the empty hole with my phone, and then stepped away, belly rumbling uncontrollably.

No one had seen anything. No one had a clue as to what could be happening. Even the families were at a loss, though officially they'd been told of a contaminate in the earth which was affecting the dead remains, so they had to be removed. The local paper had even run a story on the environmental implications of having to move the cemetery if they couldn't find a solution. The loved ones had bought the lie up to a point, but they wouldn't forever. And it was my job to figure it all out and cover it up so they could go happily on with their little lives.

But all of this didn't bring me any closer to working out who or what was to blame for these mysteries. A fact which pissed me off no end considering I had Christmas shopping to do and arrangements to make to fly home out of this shithole in middle fucking England, back to Scotland.

I made it onto the deserted street and started walking, mind abuzz with all the new information I'd not quite learned this evening. The taxi service had brought me up here, but I needed to clear my head so a nice long walk would be perfect.

The most important thing was to find out more about this essence I had discovered. Oh, and the burn mark. It was time to consult the book and see what it could tell me. Because it may be that I had shit all apart from that.

Wrapping my knee-length heavy coat further around me to keep out of the late December chill, I eventually made it into town and walked down the main street on my way to Turner's road where the inn was located. Enjoying the brisk coldness of the night, I absently stopped to look into the window of a quaint coffee shop that was about to close up and I smiled at their selections of cupcakes.

Christmas lights adorned the window display and lots of cheeky little cupcakes in festive colours called out to me. I knew I wouldn't be able to resist much longer as my belly grumbled, tantalised by the cupcakes after passing up my dinner plate full of succulent steak as I was on the way out the restaurant exit earlier.

A text message bleeped at me from the dark recesses of my handbag. I stuck my hand in and tried to find it as I lusted after the cupcakes, trying to decide between a vanilla and a cinnamon. Decisions.

After an age of digging in my bag, I found my phone and glanced at the message. Frowning, I re-read it before cursing loudly. My supervisor, Frankie, thought this was more than kids stealing bodies, or something equally as mindless by people with a little magical know-how. This meant the last thing they wanted was that fact all over the media at this time of the year—especially when the magic wasn't being claimed by any of the usual suspects.

Deadrose and its strange inhabitants needed to be protected. The less people who knew about this town, the better. Not that it was advertised and easy to get in; the portal's kept out most potential visitors. But people talk. And that meant there was a risk.  And if the British media caught a solid sniff, they would stop at nothing to get into Deadrose. No, it couldn't happen.

This left me with one directive; find the grave robber at all costs before there were any more dead victims. Even if my Christmas goes down the toilet as a result.

Frankie is always the wart on my arse at Battle.

Well, fuck you very much, Frankie. I decided to buy both of the cupcakes.

CHAPTER TWO - Home sweet fucking home

Kol

MY MOTORBIKE ROARED through the empty streets of Deadrose a little before midnight as I fought the tiredness threatening to overtake me at any time. I was back here—where I apparently needed to be—after being gone for months.

The ghosts of my past needed to shut the fuck up for once so I could get some sleep. Thinking was overrated. Right now, my arse was numb and my shoulders were tense from riding for almost three days straight.

Running away.

The thought stabbed at me. Maybe I had been, but I couldn't stay away forever from this place. Its very essence called to me, guiding me back home. Whether I wanted to be here or not. Which I absolutely didn't.

All I knew was that I was sick of being me. And being me, I had a part to play when dead bodies started to disappear. The dead Viking detective to the rescue. I'd laugh at that thought if it was in the least bit funny.

For once, though, I'd like to disappear completely. I was so sick of being me. So sick of the responsibilities that went along with it.

Boo-fucking-hoo. Don't you feel sorry for me? I know I do. Or at least I should if I could feel anything besides the cold running through my veins. And that cold had nothing to do with the fact it was now gently snowing and bitter enough to freeze my balls to the bike underneath me.

My name's Kol Brandsson and I have a big secret. A fucking whopper of a lie