Free The Curse of Oberon (The Inglewood Chronicles Book 3) by Jeremy Croston Page A

who was rather dumb.  “Were you even trying?”
    “Of course I was!  I wasn’t sitting here for my health!”
    She folded her arms and continued the cold stare.  “And you focused on this mark?  What went wrong?”
    I stormed up to my feet.  “One, I focused on your stupid mark and two, I don’t have a freaking clue what went wrong lady!  If I knew that, don’t you think I’d fix it?”
    My little temper tantrum shook her a bit.  “I am sorry Victor; I did not mean to press you.  This is not as easy, but I assumed since you made contact with the curses previously…”
    “You know what happens when you assume?  You make asses outta you and me.”
    “You and your colloquial sayings… you are a source of much amusement Victor.”
    I didn’t know if that was a good thing or not, but it strayed from the point of this exercise.  “Well whatever I tried to do, it didn’t work.  Without getting pissy here, I hope you have a better idea.”
    The Sphinx walked back over to me and circled me.  Sometimes she reminded me of the predator that I knew was just under the surface.  Maybe I’d watched too many Shark Weeks, but I got the feeling those guys must get when there in the cage.  When she stopped, her eyes flashed.  “How did I miss this earlier?”
    “Miss what?”  She didn’t say anything, but just kept looking at me.  It was beginning to creep me out.  “Hey, you plan on filling me in, or just leaving me in the dark all day?”
    The way her head snapped up was almost like she hadn’t been staring at me (she was).  “You have no external way of calling the power.”  The blunt way she put that was like a doctor giving a terminal diagnosis.  “In some ways, you are more human than anything else.”
    “Well ain’t that a punch to the gut.”  Being called ‘more human’ wasn’t something I was going to upload to my online dating profile.  Not that I had any need for one of those.  “What does that mean?  I thought Oberon’s curse already helped me out?”
    “To be honest, I do not know what it means.  This is uncharted territory.  The only thing we can do is experiment.”
    My eyes narrowed.  “When you say experiment…?”
    “I am not going to dissect you or anything along those lines, so calm down.  What I meant was we need to push you to your physical limits and see what happens.”
    “I guess that’s not as bad as I thought.”
    A rumble of thunder shook the cave.  “It appears more bad weather is instore for us.  This might be the perfect opportunity.”
    I noticed the sparkle in her eye.  “What’re you thinking about over there?”
    “The rain and all the foreign scents from this island will obscure the werewolves senses, which are not even close to what yours are.  Under the cover of that, we can begin testing my idea.”
    A flash of lightning lit up the opening to our new home.  It wasn’t even a second later before the cave shook again under the clap of the thunder.  “Yeah, I might be safe from the wolves, but the storm itself ain’t no picnic.  Did I upset you by being a failure?”
    “You will be safe in the storm, trust me.  When have I let you down?”
    “You haven’t yet, but the day is still young.”
    A howl ripped across the forest, cut short by another burst of thunder.  “That’s odd.”
    “A wolf howling; how is that odd?  That is all your kind does.”
    That just went to show how little the Sphinx actually knew about werewolves.  The howl, from the female, was one of sorrow and loss.  I kept listening until they were cut off again, not by thunder this time, but probably by Pan.  “Those two are here against their will.”
    “What makes you believe that?”
    “That howl was one of anguish – the female was mourning the loss of her cubs.”
    A mortified look crossed the Sphinx’s face.  “Are you saying…?”
    “That’s exactly what I’m saying; Pan, or maybe that asshole Jonathan, killed their family before