The Curse Defiers

I’m a pawn between two ancient gods and I’m done playing their games.

We survived the not-so-final battle, but our short-lived victory came with an immeasurable cost.

We didn’t defeat Okeus; we played right into his hands.

Now, with new threats pressing in from several sides, and those who I thought would always stand beside me nowhere to be found, new details about my mother’s murder are forcing me to challenge everything I thought I knew.

I foolishly believed I had nothing left to lose, but after a devastating loss forces me into a fight against an ancient cult, I’m left with only one option, a bargain with the God of Death himself.

Every bargain comes with a cost, and this time, that cost might be my own eternal life. Join Ellie, Collin, and David in the fight to save our world from two ancient gods in the jaw-dropping third book of the Curse Keeper’s Trilogy. Filled with dark twists and swoon-worthy moments, this is a book you don’t want to miss.

The Curse Defilers completes the Curse Keeper’s Trilogy, but the story continues in The Soul Keeper’s Series, another edge of your seat read set in the same world. Filled with old friends, and new ones, pick up The Soul Seekers after the end of The Curse Defilers.

I felt the demon before I saw it. The mark on my palm tingled slightly, and the tattoo on my back began to burn.
“Curse Keeper,” a low voice floated in the wind.
I sighed. Yep. A demon. No one knew my recently initiated title except for the spirits and gods that had been set loose from hell, and five other people. I was Elinor Dare Lancaster—otherwise known as Ellie—multi-great granddaughter of Ananias Dare, one of the original colonists from the Lost Colony of Roanoke. Only the colony wasn’t lost anymore. The entire thing had reappeared out of thin air two months ago. The reappearance was the signal that a four-hundred-year-old curse had been broken, cracking the gate to Popogusso—the Croatan word for hell—and releasing a slew of spirits, demons, and gods that had been locked away by my ancestor Ananias and Manteo, the son of a Croatan Indian werowance. I was one of two Curse Keepers, a title passed down from generation to generation. While I was the Dare Keeper, Collin Dailey was the Manteo Keeper. And it wasn’t a coincidence that the curse had broken while he was on duty.
It had been a week and five days since I’d heard anything from the spirit world, which was one week and four days longer than expected. Collin and I had destroyed two demons over three weeks ago, and while there had been a few minor metaphysical encounters since, the spirits had been keeping surprisingly quiet, particularly considering Collin’s claim that they considered us fair game now that they knew we could and would destroy them.
Part of it was undoubtedly because I had the protection of the god Okeus. And many of the spirits still needed to regain strength after their four-hundred-year-long incarceration. But even though I hadn’t seen or heard much from them, I still sensed them. They were growing restless, causing an itch in my palm that wouldn’t go away. So, although I wasn’t happy that I was about to face a demon, I wasn’t exactly surprised. But I had just gotten off a double shift from my waitressing job at the New Moon restaurant and it was close to midnight. I had to walk home, and I really wasn’t in the mood to deal with a cranky supernatural being. And from past experience, they were always cranky.
The demon seemed to be waiting for me to take the lead. Since I didn’t know what I was dealing with, I decided to ask the question that would help me most in the long run. “Who are you?” Surprisingly, I’ve found that most supernatural creatures are eager to identify themselves to me. Maybe it’s an ego thing.
The demon’s answer was to appear in the middle of Sir Walter Raleigh Road in downtown Manteo, North Carolina, population twelve hundred. I had encountered giant badgers and a golden deer. A huge horned water snake and a panther-reptile hybrid. That didn’t even take into account the multiple gods with whom I’d dealt with. But after all of those encounters, I still wasn’t prepared for the figure that appeared in front of me.
An old woman.
I blinked. Yeah, an old woman.
She looked like someone’s grandma. She was slightly over five feet tall, and she couldn’t have weighed much more than a hundred pounds. Her face resembled a prune, and she had bushy gray eyebrows and a hooked nose that resembled a bird’s beak. Her hair was long and scraggly and pure white, hanging past her shoulders. Dressed in a faded blue housedress, she was leaning over a plain wooden cane. The only thing about her that clued me in on the fact that she wasn’t on her way home from bingo was her glowing red eyes.
Yep, a demon.
I flexed my wrist, preparing to hold up my right hand. I could use the mark on my palm—an intersecting circle and square—and say the words of protection that would send the bitch away. Not permanently, but for at least a few days. I needed Collin with me to send it back to hell for good, and that was something he wasn’t willing to do. I was on my own.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“I am here to tell your future.” Her voice sounded like she’d smoked two packs of cigarettes a day since she was fourteen.
A shiver of fear crawled up my spine. Nothing this woman could say would be good news. “Thanks, but I’ll pass. Knowing my future is a lot like knowing what all my Christmas gifts are before I open them. Why spoil the surprise?”
Her glowing red eyes shined brighter than flattened pennies. “You are the vessel that will determine the fate of the world. You will either save it or destroy it. And it will happen soon.”
Oh, shit on a brick.
“Are you sure that’s not Collin’s future?”
The old woman’s eyes narrowed as she pointed her cane at me. “Do not mock the fates.”
Fates. Old woman. Was she one of the Greek Fates? Weren’t they a set of three? And if I remembered correctly, they always traveled with yarn and a pair of scissors. There was no sign of either, not even a loose thread on her worn housedress.
“Is there anything else? Any love notes from Okeus?”
She smiled, and it was far from a pleasant expression. “You will see the Great One soon enough.”
I almost snort-laughed. Was that what he was calling himself these days? Since Okeus had made it all too clear that he wanted to be my baby daddy and she’d called me a vessel in her premonition, seeing him was the last thing I wanted to do. “Tell Okeus that I’m pretty busy. I’ll let him know when I’m free.”
Rather than answering, she disappeared, replaced by a flame that shot into the sky.
I needed to talk to David. Stat.