Cursed to Love You

Chapter 1: The Hunter's Moon

Clara Blackwood's fingers stilled over the dried lavender stems she'd been bundling, her breath catching in her throat. The bell above her shop door hadn't rung, but she felt it—a disturbance in the ambient magic that coursed through Salem's streets like invisible rivers. Someone had crossed her warning ward three blocks away.

Someone dangerous.

Through the front window of Blackwood's Botanical Remedies, late October sunlight painted the worn wooden floorboards in honey-colored stripes. Glass jars lined the shelves, their contents casting prismatic shadows: dried herbs, crystallized flowers, and carefully labeled tinctures. To any normal customer, it looked like nothing more than a quaint herb shop, perhaps a touch too traditional for the tourist-trap spirituality that dominated modern Salem. But to Clara's magical sight, every item blazed with purpose, their auras a symphony of color that only she could see.

A flash of crimson caught her attention—Vesper, her one-eyed crow familiar, had abandoned his perch by the window and now stood alert on the counter, his good eye fixed on the door. He croaked softly, a sound that carried more warning than any mundane bird could convey.

"I know," Clara murmured, carefully setting down the lavender. Her fingers trembled slightly as she brushed them against the smooth wood of the counter, feeling the protective sigils carved beneath the surface. "I feel it too."

The magical signature approaching her shop was unlike anything she'd encountered in the decade since she'd returned to Salem. It wasn't the raw, chaotic energy of untrained power, nor the corrupted taint of blood magic that still haunted her nightmares. This was something else entirely—disciplined, focused, and absolutely lethal. A hunter's aura.

Clara forced herself to breathe slowly, fighting back the surge of memories: screams cutting through harvest night air, the copper stench of blood mixing with burning sage, her parents' final stand illuminating the night like a supernova. She'd been sixteen then, her wild magic erupting too late to save anyone. Now, at twenty-six, she was no longer that helpless girl. She'd survived, adapted, learned to hide in plain sight.

The shop's protection spells hummed beneath her skin, ready but dormant. She'd spent years layering them carefully—subtle enough to avoid detection, strong enough to buy her time if she needed to run. Again. Her emergency bag was still packed in the back room, next to the carefully disguised grimoire and her grandmother's crystals. Ten years of peace had not made her complacent.

The magical disturbance grew stronger. Whoever it was had turned onto Essex Street. Clara's fingers drifted to the amethyst pendant at her throat, a focus for her wild magic. Through it, she could sense the hunter's approach like an oncoming storm. If she fled now, she might have time to—

The bell above the door chimed.

Clara's heart stuttered, then steadied. She lifted her chin and smoothed her expression into the pleasant mask of a shopkeeper, even as her magic coiled tight beneath her skin, ready to defend or strike. The man who entered moved like a predator, despite his casual stance and modern clothing. Tall, broad-shouldered, with dark hair and sharp features that might have been handsome if not for the intensity in his gray eyes. Eyes that missed nothing as they swept the shop in a practiced assessment.

"Welcome to Blackwood's," Clara said, proud of how steady her voice remained. "Can I help you find anything?"

Those gray eyes fixed on her, and Clara felt a jolt that had nothing to do with fear. Recognition flickered across his face—not of her identity, but something else, something that made him pause briefly before offering a polite smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

"I hope so," he said, his voice carrying a hint of an accent she couldn't quite place. "I'm looking for something for headaches. I've tried conventional medicine, but I've heard natural remedies can be... more effective."

The emphasis he placed on those last words was subtle but deliberate. Clara felt Vesper shift on his perch, feathers rustling. She could read between the lines of the request—this was a test. The hunter was fishing, looking for proof of real magic among Salem's many charlatans and tourist traps.

Two choices lay before her: provide a mundane remedy and hope he moved on, or risk using actual magic and confirm his suspicions. The safe choice was obvious. But as she studied him more carefully, she noticed the shadows under his eyes, the slight tension in his jaw that spoke of genuine pain. And something else—a familiar weight of grief and duty that resonated with her own carefully buried wounds.

"Headaches can be tricky," she found herself saying, even as her inner voice screamed at her to stop. "The right remedy depends on the type. Is it more of a sharp pain, or a pressure?"

"Like a vice," he answered, watching her intently. "Been getting worse with the full moon approaching."

Another deliberate tell—he was watching for her reaction to the lunar reference. Clara pretended not to notice as she turned to her shelves, using the moment to center herself. What she was about to do was monumentally stupid, but something deeper than logic was driving her now. Perhaps it was the healer's instinct her mother had nurtured in her, or maybe just tired defiance of a life spent hiding.

She selected three jars with practiced efficiency: feverfew, white willow bark, and a special blend of her own that contained a rather impossible combination of herbs—impossible because some only bloomed by moonlight, and others hadn't grown naturally in Massachusetts for centuries. To these, she added a pinch of powdered moonstone that shimmered with more than mineral luminescence.

As she mixed the ingredients, she let the smallest thread of magic flow through her fingers—not enough to trigger any hunter's alarms, just enough to bind the elements together into something truly effective. The resulting powder glowed a soft blue to her magical sight, though she knew it would appear perfectly ordinary to anyone else.

"Mix a quarter teaspoon with hot water," she instructed, sealing the jar and wrapping it in brown paper. "Best taken at night, especially when the headache corresponds with lunar phases."

Their fingers brushed as she handed him the package, and Clara felt a spark of energy that had nothing to do with magic. The hunter's eyes widened slightly—he'd felt it too. For a moment, neither of them moved, caught in a strange tableau of unspoken recognition.

"I'm James," he said finally, breaking the silence. "James Constantine. I'm new in town."

"Clara Blackwood," she replied, the truth feeling dangerous on her tongue. "Welcome to Salem."

As he paid and turned to leave, Clara caught a glimpse of something silver hanging from his neck, half-hidden by his collar—a pendant that pulsed with stored power to her magical sight. A hunter's tool, designed to disrupt spellcraft. Her hand went to her own pendant unconsciously, and she saw his eyes track the movement.

The bell chimed again as he left, and Clara released a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. Vesper croaked softly and flew to her shoulder, pressing against her neck in comfort.

"Well," she murmured, watching James Constantine's retreating form through the window, "that was either very brave or very stupid." She couldn't decide which worried her more—that she'd revealed herself to a hunter, or that part of her hoped he'd return.

Above the shop, storm clouds gathered against the autumn sky, and somewhere in the distance, thunder rolled. The air felt charged with possibility and danger, like the moment before lightning strikes. Clara could feel change coming, as inevitable as the turning of the seasons.

She just hoped she hadn't just made a terrible mistake.