Filed To Story: Cursed Legacies Series Free PDF by Morgan B Lee
And that was before he messed up my family.
“The plan is to sweep Maven off her feet,” Bael says, drawing my attention again. “I overheard Kenzie mention she’s going to Pennsylvania for a wedding. We’re going to hijack her trip and turn it into a fun getaway. Maybe she’ll be more willing to open up to us in a human environment like the one she grew up in. We can do normal human shit with her, take her on a date or something. I’m sure adjusting to Everbound and the way legacies do things has been hard enough on her, and we’ve been making it worse by giving her no space to adapt.”
For a beat, that sinks in for all of us. He’s right. She only discovered she was an atypical caster, and our culture and world are utterly foreign to her. While I suspected she might be trying to reject us because the idea of a quintet was odd to her, I didn’t consider how her life turned upside down when she manifested her magic.
It makes me want to soothe her somehow, to hold her hand as she comes to terms with being lumped in with the legacies now. But if I tried, she would probably tell me to fuck off.
Again.
“I’ll book transportation for us and somewhere nice to stay,” Everett mutters, studying the floor. For a fraction of a second, he looks torn. “I mean…I’ll book somewhere for all of you, somewhere Maven will be comfortable, but I won’t be go?—“
“Shove it, Snowflake. We’re all fucking going.”
The professor scowls, loosening his tie. My brows bounce up when I see the silvery frost at his fingertips. That’s a definite sign that he’s panicking about something deep down. Whatever it is, there’s little chance he would ever share it with the rest of us.
“Have it your way,” the ice elemental finally mutters before leaving the apartment.
“Moody fucker,” Baelfire shakes his head, and then he checks his phone and growls. “Not much time left before midnight. I’ll be back.”
No doubt he’s going to go hunting to appease his curse.
Disbanding now is a good idea. The slight buffering of the fae mead I had is wearing off, quickly giving way to oily suspicions slinking through my veins. My head throbs and I walk out of the apartment before Baelfire does, intent on returning to my private dorm’s uncontested safety before the voices in my head get too loud.
But my feet have a mind of their own, directed by the longing that’s strangling the core of my being, and soon, I find myself standing outside of Maven’s dorm, staring at her door.
The door that I warded to keep out everyone but her…
And me.
When weaving the spells, I gave in to the twisted temptation to be the only one with access to her space. After threatening both Baelfire and Crypt not to cross Maven’s lines and to give her privacy…now here I am.
I’m a possessive, obsessed, fucked up hypocrite.
But I’m not sorry for it.
Laying my hand on the door, I can sense through the magic wards that no one is in the room. It’s disappointing, and I’m immediately wondering where on earth she could be. Spending time with her lion shifter friend? Some secret anti-legacy meeting? Simply trying to avoid us?
The temptation to glean what I can about my keeper from her private space is far too potent, and I open the door.
It’s minimalistic and extremely tidy. Some might see it as unwelcoming or not cozy, but I can easily picture Maven in this space.
My attention drifts to the minor light spells steadily warming several pots of indoor plants, all thriving and luscious, on her desk. I still have yet to see my little atypical caster actually cast, but I still smile at the thought of it and move closer, eyes sweeping over everything else.
Black curtains. Black sheets and blankets. Not a single display of decorations, pictures, or even our House banner to be found. The only colors come from the green plants and the blood-red dreamcatcher I wove for her hanging by her door. It fills me with gratification that she’s using it despite the fight she put up.
Running my fingers over her dresser, I give in to my curiosity and pull out the top drawer. The only thing in here is gloves…and a notebook.
I shouldn’t open it.
Oh, please.
As if you would stop your snooping now.
The voices are right. I’m already too far gone, too desperate to figure out my keeper.
Gingerly opening the notebook, I flip through several blank pages before finding any writing. Maven’s script is a tidy, beautiful swirl of ink, but it takes me a moment of staring for the words to make sense because…what the fuck?
Make Them Hate Me
-Bore them to tears. (Easy. Just be yourself.)
-Be mean. (Again, easy.)
-Ignore them.
-Figure out how to be clingy and high maintenance.
-Annoy them. (Too time-consuming.)
-Act like a bitch at every chance.
-Play head games. (Use Everett to make the other three jealous. See if Sierra’s plan to seduce them worked, and if so, rip her apart limb by fucking limb pretend to be heartbroken. If all else fails, try to stomach kissing Coach Gallagher to see if that finally pisses them off enough.)
-Figure out how to prey on their curses. (Step One: Figure out what their curses even are.)
After reading the list and then incredulously reading it one more time, it finally sinks in.
Gods above.
All along, Maven has been trying to make us hate her.
She tried rejecting us, and now she wants to lose us. She really thinks we would ever give her up and appeal to the gods for a different keeper. Whether it’s because of her involvement with the anti-legacy movement or some other reason I can’t fathom, she is trying to make us hate her.
And the way she’s been going about it, all these tactics and mind games, even going so far as to contemplate preying on our curses, has just been…
Diabolical. She’s utterly vicious.
Fuck me.
A smile curls my lips, and my heart begins to pound. She intended to make us hate her, but now that I know she’s possibly as cutthroat as I am, she’s never getting rid of me.
“Game on, my vicious little minx.”
CRYPT
When Maven leaves her dorm, I watch her every move from the end of the hall. She zips up her coat, pulling on dark leather gloves and tossing a wary glance over her shoulder—but not in my direction.
Over the last few days, I’ve carefully tested within what proximity she can sense my presence in Limbo. If I stay a fair distance away, I can still obsess over my keeper at my leisure without her being any the wiser. Though the fact that she can ever sense me at all in Limbo is intriguing. Not even other incubi can see or sense me most of the time.
Just another reason that my darling is so fascinating.
As soon as she vanishes down the stairwell at the end of this hall, I launch up through the ceiling, passing through four stories of Everbound until I come out on the gabled rooftop where Decimus is sitting at the edge of a turret, legs dangling as he gazes out over the mist and snow-wreathed grounds surrounding the school. When I step out of Limbo beside him, his brows bounce up.
“Our pretty raven has left her nest,” I confirm.
The plan is for me to follow Maven’s road trip progress, unseen, while he flies ahead to where Crane and Frost already are. They traveled separately last night to Connecticut to get things ready. I must admit, when working together, we don’t make an abysmal team.
Decimus pulls out his phone and shoots that update to the others. Crane ensured that I have a phone to use for this particular venture, too, since they’ll be relying on me for updates. He used some overcomplicated spells on it to ensure it will work after going in and out of Limbo. It can’t be used there, but it should be connected to my ability to walk between planes. Every other electronic or living thing I’ve tried to take into Limbo with me doesn’t survive the trip back.
Decimus stands and stretches before warning, “Don’t you fucking dare lose track of my mate. And keep us updated so Everett will know when to?—“
We’ve already been over this, and he’s annoying me, so I shove him off the edge of the roof.
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.