Filed To Story: Cursed Legacies Series Free PDF by Morgan B Lee
I’ll either throw up or, worse, try to do it again.
Given his track record, I knew it wouldn’t be easy to deter Baelfire, but it was worth a shot. Turning, I stride away. “Just drop it.”
I make it two halls over with him trailing along beside me like the most guilt-ridden person in existence before Kenzie’s voice sings, “May! There you are!”
She prowls up to us with a smile, flipping coils of pale hair from her face as she throws her arms around the shoulders of the two legacies beside her—Vivienne and Dirk, who are both perfectly polite. “Wanna join us for a late lunch, you two? You don’t have another class today, right, May?”
Damn her and her excellent memory of my class schedule.
“Fine.”
Inside the vaulted eating hall, while standing in one of the food lines with Kenzie’s quintet chattering happily and picking out the foods they want in front of us, Kenzie glances over her shoulder at me.
“I tried calling you, like, ten times. Seriously, you need to turn your phone off silent mode.”
“That will be hard to do, considering it’s at the bottom of a river.”
“What?” She smacks her forehead. “Girl! We go to school in a fucking maze, and you disappear all the time on me! You know it freaks me out when I can’t reach you, right? I mean, I think you’re a total queen, and I’m sure you can handle yourself if you had to, but this place is full of some crazy competitive legacies, and now that you’re matched with some of the strongest here?—“
“
The strongest here,” Baelfire says smugly behind me.
“Whatever, Dragon Boy,” Kenzie rolls her eyes but gives me a pleading look. “My point is, I’m worried about you, okay, Maven? Promise me you’ll get a new phone ASAP so I can send you dirty memes and check in a couple of times per day to make sure my bestie is still breathing.”
She worries almost as much as Lillian. “Sure. I’ll get a new phone.”
“Get a cute case for it, too,” she adds, squinting at my outfit. “And not just a plain black one again, you prude little monk woman. Make it sexy.”
“Of course,” I nod sagely. “Because phones can be sexy.”
She grins. “
Anything can be sexy with a little imagination.”
“Especially your imagination. Plenty of ammunition,” I smirk.
Kenzie throws her head back to laugh before sashaying to one of the tables with her quintet, leaving room for Baelfire and me to sit once we get our food. But when I turn to order, Baelfire is staring at my mouth with laser focus.
“Damn it, Boo. I want that.”
“A smile?”
“
Your smile. I’ve decided that’s my new mission in life, so buckle up.”
I pick out whatever foods look the most bland while I try to come up with the bitchiest thing to say. Because as much as it isn’t sitting well with me, I have to make these guys decide I’m not worth all this hassle.
Before I can come up with a withering retort, he reaches beside me, carefully avoiding touching me, and piles more food on my plate, including a pile of hot wings. When I make a face at him, he winks.
“Gotta keep my mate well-fed. If you don’t want it, toss it to me. I’m always ravenous, especially around you. Oh, and heads up? Your other stalkers are waiting for us,” he adds, popping a mini roll into his mouth as he scoops up our plates.
Sure enough, Silas and Crypt are sitting at the table beside Kenzie’s quintet, who look like they’ve lost their appetites in the presence of the Nightmare Prince and the notoriously cutthroat Crane. Kenzie looks like she’s trying to lighten the mood as Baelfire approaches, but I can’t hear whatever they’re saying because a group of legacies passes by, cutting me off from them.
Someone taps on my shoulder, and my nerves go tight, but I calmly glance over my shoulder.
It’s Harlow, who has swapped her nose ring for a diamond stud and styled her short purple hair into an array of spikes today. She has one hand on her hip as she looks me over, popping the gum in her mouth.
“You know, I thought you looked like a weak-ass pushover when I first saw you at the Seeking.”
“Thanks.”
She guffaws. “What I meant is, I was clearly wrong. I hear you mangled Sierra during combat training.”
Is that what this is about? I suppose I should have anticipated Sierra’s friends getting pissed off. I’m sure Harlow is just another legacy who would like to see me dead. She’s probably approaching me like this to get a better read on me, trying to study me up close to decide a good way of killing me off later.
Good luck with that.
“Yes, I did. Do you have a problem with that?” I ask.
She surprises me by grinning. “Fuck, no. I respect the hell out of that. Any asscaster who can take on a high-ranked fire elemental and live to tell the tale is good in my book.”
Is she…complimenting me?
“I mean, you’re still just an asscaster and not worthy of your matches, but whatever,” she adds.
There we go.
“Great talk,” I mutter dryly, turning to go to Kenzie’s table, where Silas and Baelfire are staring at us with frowns. Crypt has vanished, but I still sense him nearby, and I realize he’s probably been listening in to this little chat with Harlow.
“Hold up, Oakley,” Harlow says, stepping around me and extending a…blank piece of crumpled paper. She winks. “I’m sure you’ll figure out what to do with this.”
Gee, I wonder. Maybe throw it in the trash?
Before I can say that, she drops the crumpled paper into my hand and leaves the eating hall. Barely a second after she’s gone, Crypt appears directly beside me, tipping his head.
“You mangled a fire elemental? I didn’t get to see that,” he pouts his lower lip.
“Odd, since stalking me seems to take up so much of your time.”
“Not nearly enough of it, darling. By the way, what do you want in exchange for taking down those dreamcatchers? I haven’t even tasted your dreams, and I already crave them.”
I scowl at him. “You really do just pop in and out of existence like a case of bad acne, don’t you?”
He laughs and drops back into Limbo as if to underline my point.
I’m starting to think he is a bit unhinged after all.
When I reach the table, Silas immediately demands, “Did that girl just threaten you?”
“Nope.”
“Are you sure? What’s on the paper?”
I hold his eye contact and tuck it into my pocket as I sit between Kenzie and Baelfire. “Not a damn thing.”
That clearly annoys him, but his neck twitches, and he grimaces, shooting mistrustful looks around the room as if he expects shadow fiends to leap out any moment. Then he just stands and stalks out of the room, clutching his bleeding crystal. Kenzie is distracted chatting with Vivienne and Dirk, but I arch a brow at Baelfire.
“Is he finally going to leave me alone?”
He rubs his neck. “Nah. Silas is just paranoid. There’s no way in hell he’d ever admit it to anyone, but it’s getting worse, especially lately. He’s probably leaving so he doesn’t accidentally kill someone and tip everyone off about how unbalanced he really is. Doesn’t want to appear weak.”
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.