Kiss at Your Own Risk Read Free

her, even if Reina did have a vested interest in capitalizing on Trinity’s mistakes.
    A perfect, enduring friendship between a couple of freaks.
    Reina leaned forward. “So, your black widow curse expires Sunday night at seven fifteen, right?”
    “Assuming I don’t kill anyone between now and then, yep.” Trinity had etched that date in her mind five years ago, when she’d forced herself to visit her last true love in the morgue, her ice cream cone still lodged in his carotid. She’d stood over his mint chocolate chip scented body and vowed to him that she would break the cycle, that no one else would fall victim to the blackness coursing through her veins. The black widow curse was a fickle creature, and if Trinity could go five years without killing, the curse would leave her.
    She had no clue how she’d been lucky enough to acquire the curse. No one did. She’d been kidnapped as a baby for six months, and when the police had found her in a pet store snuggling in a pile of puppies, no one had known what had happened to her.
    Until she’d turned sixteen and fallen in love for the first time. It hadn’t taken Trinity and her parents long to figure out what had happened, and the Internet was rife with all the info she needed to find out exactly what was wrong with her and how to break it.
    Diagnosis: Evil killer bitch. (Sigh.)
    Treatment: Abstain. (Yeah, so easy. Not. Way harder than giving up caffeine and chocolate. You don’t believe? Pick your worst habit and try to break it. Not so easy, eh? And you’re not even compelled to do it by some wicked, supernatural force.)
    Worst-Case Prognosis : Forever a murderer if she killed five times. (Up to four now. The first couple of years had been tough…)
    Best-Case Prognosis : Forever free if she could go five years without killing anyone. (One week left.)
    She was down to d-day, and she knew her curse wasn’t going to let her go easily.
    “So, not that I don’t fully support killing, you know, as Death’s assistant, but as your friend, I really want you to succeed.” Reina twirled her wineglass between her thumb and finger. “I talked to Death and got him to offer up his cabin in Minnesota. We could take a girl’s week and watch bad movies and avoid men.”
    “Oh, wow.” Relief rippled through Trinity at the thought of escaping. “That sounds so good.”
    “Fantastic.” Reina grabbed her iPhone and started dialing. “I’ll just call him and let him know. Don’t want any of his harem girls hanging around when we get there—”
    Trinity set her hand over the phone. “I can’t duck out on this, Reina.”
    Reina pried Trinity’s fingers off her mobile device. “Why not? Running away is a basic human reaction when pure, unadulterated hell comes looking for you. People try to flee from me all the time. “
    Trinity raised her brows. “And does it work when they hide from you?”
    Reina shrugged. “Well, no, but I’m really persistent.”
    “And the curse isn’t?”
    “Mmm… true. But this is different. I mean—”
    “No.” Trinity leaned forward. “I need to prove to myself that I’m stronger than the curse.” If she could resist temptation while under the dictates of the curse, she would be able to believe in herself, to know there was something worthy in her soul. “I need to know I’m not some evil killer who uses the curse as an excuse to do bad things.”
    It scared the daylights out of her whenever she got caught in the thrall and watched herself do horrible things to good people. Her family and Reina all gave the curse full credit for her actions, but she couldn’t help but think that if she was good enough, strong enough, that she should be able to stop herself. She had to know what the truth was. Had to know that somewhere inside her was a person worth liking.
    Reina studied her, clicking her tongue quietly. “You have no idea what a good soul you have, do you? You should see some of the scumbags I go after. Those are bad