Filed To Story: Cursed Legacies Series Free PDF by Morgan B Lee
My potion crafting class doesn’t start until after lunch, and at the moment, I’m finally alone. This would be the perfect time to call the supernatural black market dealer…if it wasn’t for the fact that I lost my cell phone at some point during combat training. I memorized his encrypted number, but I need to track down a phone.
Someone knocks at the door. There’s a high chance it’s Baelfire, Silas, or Crypt out there, and I can’t afford to let my emotions slip into play any more than I already have today. Taking a deep breath to compose myself, I run through my plan in my head.
Mess with their heads. Use their curses against them. Make them all hate me.
I open the door, prepared to be a bitch, and blink in surprise at the interim headmaster holding a tablet in front of me. Mr. Gibbons’ bushy brows jump up in recognition.
“Ah, Miss Oakley! I see you’re still alive.”
“Disappointed? Me too.”
Not understanding my sense of humor, he once again looks scandalized. “Of course not! It’s always wonderful to see atypical casters make the cut. I’m only here to verify whether you’re alive because…well, there’s been a rather tragic death at Everbound that is under investigation.”
He marks something on his tablet, and I realize it must be a student record of some kind.
“What makes it tragic?” I ask.
He frowns, scratching his neck uncomfortably. “Well, obviously, death is always tragic….”
“Hardly. But as I understand it, legacies rarely get more than a letter sent home to their families if they die here. What would warrant an investigation?”
Mr. Gibbons seems reluctant to say anything. “We faculty are supposed to keep this under wraps, but several students stumbled across the scene and took pictures, which are now going about the school, so I suppose there’s no point hiding it. I might as well inform you that a rather gruesome group of pyres was put on display in one of the castle courtyards, set aflame and advertising anti-legacy ideology. We haven’t identified the burned remains yet, so we’re doing a sweep to see which students might be missing.”
Burning pyres? How deliciously morbid.
I barely keep from smiling, but it must slip through a little because the interim headmaster looks disturbed as he regards me. “Miss Oakley, do you know anything about who did this?”
“What makes you think I would?”
He scratches his neck again, harder now, like a nervous twitch. “Well, after all, you’re a…never mind. If you learn of any missing students, report it to one of the faculty offices or an instructor immediately.”
It doesn’t take a genius to deduce that he suspects me of having a hand in this purely because of my atypical background. Curious.
Mr. Gibbons turns to leave, but I stop him by asking, “Will this little incident bring Headmaster Hearst back to Everbound?”
“Well…that’s hard to guess at. We’ll finish the investigation and report to the Legacy Council. They’ll decide what to do, but if we don’t find the culprit, the Immortal Quintet certainly will.”
He retreats, disappearing down the hall while I snort at his faith in the Immortal Quintet. But my amusement quickly vanishes as Kenzie crosses my mind. I haven’t heard from her all day. What if she was one of the corpses on fire in the courtyard?
Alarm courses through me, and I step outside my dorm, ready to look for her.
“Your friend’s all right, darling,” Crypt murmurs, appearing before me in the hall like a mirage has melted away.
He surprises me so much that my hand immediately goes into one of my hidden pockets where a knife is hidden, but to my credit, I don’t squeal, scowl, or make any expression. “Exactly how long have you been standing out here?”
His purple eyes grow devious. “Long enough. I almost made a mess in my pants hearing your delicious little sounds through that door. But you sounded unsatisfied. Care to remove those damned dreamcatchers and invite me in so I can give you what you need?”
The asshole must have either incredible hearing or he had his ear pressed literally right up against the door like a stalker.
Mortification threatens to rise into my cheeks, but I choose to ignore it. After all, legacies are incredibly uninhibited when it comes to sex. As if he hasn’t heard shit like that before.
“Kenzie is all right?” I demand, bringing us back to the topic at hand.
“Fit as a fiddle and trading sappy nonsense with her quintet in one of their classes.”
The Nightmare Prince is known to care about nothing and no one. What could have motivated him to check on Kenzie’s safety?
Crypt sees my skepticism and smirks. “I agree with what you told the balding interim headmaster. Death is hardly tragic, and one less shifter wouldn’t bother me in the least. But if someone hurt you by hurting your friend, I would bring you their head on a platter within the hour.”
I relax slightly, turning to lock my door and realizing this new one doesn’t have one.
“No lock needed. Silas had this installed first thing this morning and it will only open to you, from what I understand. I’ve never seen so many magic wards placed on the same door,” Crypt muses. “He boosted the dreamcatchers in there with more of his blood as well. Paranoid bastard.”
That is just…annoyingly thoughtful.
I’m not used to people doing things for me. I don’t even know how to react to it.
Deciding to move on quickly, I side-eye Crypt. If Kenzie is all right, then it’s time to make a call that would land me firmly in the hot seat with the Legacy Council if anyone else here finds out about it.
“Do you have a phone?”
He tips his head thoughtfully and disappears, air warping and leaving nothing behind. I hesitate only a second before shrugging it off and heading toward the eastern exit, planning on getting a new phone from Halfton during lunchtime to make this call. But before I can reach the steps, he reappears with someone else’s cell phone that he clearly just stole, holding it out to me with a grin.
I glance at it. “It’s locked. Needs a code.”
He huffs and disappears again. Several more moments later, I hear a shrill scream from somewhere nearby, and then Crypt appears in front of me with a now-unlocked iPhone and…blood splattered on his hand.
“They resisted,” he explains casually, placing the phone in my gloved hand. “So I popped one of their eyeballs.”
That triggers a grin to spread before I can help it. “Very efficient.”
Crypt goes stock still, fixating on my mouth. I realize this is probably the first time I’ve slipped up and actually smiled around him. I wipe the expression away quickly, feigning boredom as I try my best to navigate to the phone section of the newfangled device.
Then the Nightmare Prince tenses and my attention skips down to where several of his markings light up in a soft purple light. He’s dressed in a ripped T-shirt, jeans, and a leather jacket that all start to drift slightly with his hair as if he’s underwater. It looks like he’s listening to something far away, with his head tipped, and then he grumbles something I can’t make out and disappears back into Limbo. I no longer feel his presence a second later.
Interesting. Something to do with Limbo?
I’ve never considered what he does when he’s there. Of all the layers of existence, I’ve only studied three extensively, and Limbo certainly wasn’t one of them. I have no idea what the Nightmare Prince does with his time.
I remind myself that I don’t care—because right now is the perfect window to call the black market dealer.
Silas laid a lot of protection on my door, but if Crypt could overhear my moment earlier through the door, I can’t risk someone else coming along and listening through the wards to my conversation. So I leave Everbound Castle using a virtually unused ancient hallway not far from my dorm and slip away from the university grounds into the forest.
As I near my favorite spot in Everbound Forest, I take a deep breath and dial the number.
It only rings once before he answers.
“I don’t get unknown calls,” the voice rasps. “So how the fuck did ya get this number? And if this is Kevin, I’m gonna hunt you down, rip your head off, and?—“
“Boring. Pick a different threat.”
A long pause. “Ex-fucking-
scuse me?”
“Ripping heads off is outdated. Try something else. Testicles, maybe. Whoever Kevin is, he probably values those over his head anyway,” I muse, side-stepping what looks to be a legacy’s skeleton on the ground. Probably someone who didn’t survive a combat class. “As for where I got your number, there are a few loose-jawed drunks who frequent the Twisted Tavern in Halfton. You might want to snuff them out for tossing your number around so freely.”
There’s another long moment before I can hear a smile in his rough voice. “Fuck me with a pitchfork, I thought you were a myth.
Telum. That’s what they call you, right?”
I’ve always hated that nickname, so I decide to move on. “Are you still in Pennsylvania?”
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.