Filed To Story: Cursed Legacies Series Free PDF by Morgan B Lee
But I’m captivated.
By Maven’s intelligence, her calculated movements, even the way the dappled morning light dances across her skin when she walks under a trellis in bloom. For someone who’s supposedly so quiet all the time, she’s articulate to a point.
Whenever she’s not looking, I find my attention skimming over the frumpy clothes completely obscuring her body, curiosity building in me. Obviously, I want to know what she looks like naked, but more importantly…why does she dress like this? For comfort, or is she self-conscious?
She glances over her shoulder. “I must be boring you.”
A smile tempts the corners of my lips up. It’s a foreign expression on my face. “On the contrary. Go on. I intend to listen to you commentate on the entire greenhouse.”
Maven turns away to run her gloved hand softly over the ferns. I’ve never been jealous of plants before, but my attention suddenly can’t seem to budge from her gloves.
I want to feel her bare hands on me. All over.
“I see. Tell me what topics do bore you.”
“Very little,” I admit, struggling to pull myself out of that arousing train of thought. “Even knowledge of the driest of subjects can be a useful weapon when least expected.”
Maven turns to study me with her first hint of genuine curiosity. I’m standing nearer to her than I have to date, and this close, I discover her dark irises are truly a mysterious blend of dark shades—brown, gray, deep blue, shadowy green.
And…she doesn’t look away from me.
Most people find my full attention and blood-red irises too intense, but she doesn’t flinch or try to fill the quiet with small talk. She’s steady. Immovable. Stubborn.
Beautiful.
“So there’s no chance of me boring you to tears,” she summarizes.
“Is that what makes you want to reject the quintet? You worry we’ll lose interest in you?”
Immediately, her voice steels. “I don’t just want to reject it. I did.”
“There must be a reason. Is it because you come from a human background, and quintets seem strange? Or is something else scaring you away? Perhaps we intimidate you.”
Maven snorts and brushes past me without making the slightest bit of contact despite the close quarters. Still, my pulse jumps, and my mouth goes dry. The dark, morbidly sensual thought surfaces, and my mouth waters as I suddenly wonder what the magic in Maven’s blood would taste like.
What she tastes like.
“I don’t owe anyone an explanation. Go find another keeper, Silas Crane.”
I make no move as she leaves the greenhouse, but the longer I stand here, the more it sinks in.
My paranoia was silent the entire time we were alone.
No thoughts of her trying to kill me, no jumping at shadows, no hearing voices.
“Intriguing,” I murmur to myself.
But not half as intriguing as my keeper is. She must have a reason for resisting the bond. I intend to find out exactly what she’s keeping from us.
MAVEN
That was a bust.
Internally chastising myself for trying to bore my most studious match with plant facts of all things, I make my way through a crowded corridor toward my first class of the day. I rarely take this route since I prefer passing as few students as possible, but I quickly realize just how terrible an idea it was to take it today of all days, right after the Seeking.
Everyone knows who I am now.
That’s painfully obvious with the amount of stares tracking my every move. I can hear whispering, and a few people even wave and try to say hello. Others size me up. And since glowering at them or using choice words would be seen as a challenge and drum up more legacy-power-struggle drama, I decide to take the easy way out and stare at my feet as I walk, pretending none of it is happening.
Just a couple more weeks until the winter solstice. If I don’t fulfill my mission by then, I’m leaving Everbound anyway.
Stepping into my Introduction to Runes class, I climb the stone steps to the right of the amphitheater-style seating to get to my spot in the back, where I’m sure people will leave me alone. But when I arrive at the section of long desks and benches, I pause at the sight of the annoyingly chipper dragon shifter waiting for me.
Baelfire’s smile is dazzling. “There’s my Boo.”
“I’m not your anything. You’re in my seat.”
He points at his face and winks. “I’ve got a better one right here for you.”
Fucking dragon.
When I just stare silently at him, carefully avoiding letting my emotions seep onto my face, he scoots over slightly to make room for me on the bench.
“I’ve never been to a casting class before, but I’m excited to see what you’ve got hidden up those adorably oversized sleeves.”
I want to huff that he has his own classes, but noticing all the PDA-infused groups getting settled in the classroom—many of which are not in the House of Arcana—I remember Kenzie mentioning over a week ago how matches typically go to their keeper’s classes for the two weeks after the Seeking. The school allows it because they place such extreme importance on quintets.
Inconvenient, but whatever. I’m nothing if not adaptable.
I sit on the edge of the bench, as far away from him as possible, while Professor Crowley starts class. The rest of the legacies present quiet down, but there is still a stomach-churning amount of soft arm caresses and cheek kisses. Gods, just looking at it all makes my skin itch. I try to focus on the lesson.
But I quickly learn that dragons make terrible desk mates.
First of all, Baelfire is such an enormous mass of brawn and heat that he encroaches on my space without meaning to. He’s keeping his hands to himself but not his eyes. I can practically feel his gaze memorizing my profile as I look straight forward, purposefully ignoring him.
“I didn’t sleep worth shit last night,” he says suddenly.
Ignore.
“So, to pass the time, I made two very long lists.”
Ignore.
To show him just how little I care that he’s made me the center of all his attention, I pull a notebook from thin air—a useful little enchanted book that anyone can buy at the university store. I open it and start skimming my notes.
He adjusts on his side of the desk to face me slightly more. “The first was a long-ass list of questions I have about you. Promise me you’ll answer at least five of them.”
“Not happening.”
“Awe, come on,” he pouts. Pouting is childish and unattractive, yet somehow, he pulls it off. He even makes it flirtatious as he leans over to catch my eye. “Little questions. Questions that don’t even matter, like your favorite flavor of ice cream or the three movies you’d take with you to a deserted island. I just want to get to know you, even the insignificant shit you think I’ll forget. I won’t pry or ask uncomfortable questions—cross my heart that now only beats for you.”
“Are all the Decimuses this annoying?”
“The word you’re looking for is charming. And nope. I’m one of a kind, and now I’m all yours.”
Could he be any more aggravating? I can feel his body warmth so close to mine, and I edge away, trying to focus back on my notes.
“I’m in class.”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t even look like you casters will be using magic today. Every legacy knows the shit this guy is covering.”
He jerks a thumb at the front of the room, where Professor Crowley points to five illustrations on the massive chalkboard as he summarizes the five planes of existence.
New Book: Returned To Make Them Pay
On her wedding anniversary, Alicia is drugged and stumbles into the wrong room—straight into the arms of the powerful Caden Ward, a man rumored never to touch women. Their night of passion shocks even him, especially when he discovers she’s still a virgin after two years of marriage to Joshua Yates.