Filed To Story: Cursed Legacies Series Free PDF by Morgan B Lee
He’ll be in agony as a living corpse until the spell fades and his heart stops. The adamantine has already nulled all his powers, so he’s a nonissue now.
Less than an hour later, I sit on the curb outside a gas station on the route back to Everbound University. Snow falls softly from the night sky, and a brisk wind blows, but I ignore the cold and glare into the dark distance as I wait.
“Devils and dicks, look who it is in the flesh. You’re a mite smaller than I expected, telum,” Melchom says as he steps out of nowhere using dark transportation magic and hunkers down beside me.
I spare him a passing glance. He has a strongly hooked nose, beady eyes, finely groomed facial hair, and that same malicious sparkle in his black eyes that all demons do. And, of course, he wears a hat over his long black hair to hide his horns in the mortal realm. His tail is tucked away unless he went the extreme route and cut it off to try to blend in with mortals better. Some demons do that.
When I make no reply, he snorts. “Yikes, you’re a lot more lifeless in person than you were on the phone.”
I stare at him.
Melchom blinks and then throws his head back in a sharp, resounding cackle. “Wow, sorry—insensitive much? But really, you look like you just went through some shit. What’s got your gooch? Wanna talk about it, telum?
“
As if I would confide in a demon.
Changing the subject, I ask flatly, “Who’s Kevin?”
He blinks several times. “What?”
“You mentioned a Kevin on the phone.”
The demon huffs. “He’s the cuntfaced asswipe who stole my girlfriend.”
“I thought your girlfriend was out of town.”
“Yeah. With him. Lying bitch thinks I don’t know, but I do.” Then he tips his head. “Gotta say, I think you’d be the type to get into the nitty gritties of someone else’s personal life.”
I hardly care about his personal life. Or his life, for that matter. I just want any kind of distraction from the pit in my stomach that’s only gotten worse since I made my exit from the inn earlier.
Ever since before arriving at Everbound, I knew legacies were grossly competitive. In their world, might is right, and brutality is rewarded. They do what it takes to survive and excel. So why the hell didn’t I put it together sooner?
Of course, my rejected matches had ulterior motives. That should have been my first thought when they refused to let me go after I rejected them. No wonder they were so hard to shake—they weren’t after me at all. They were after their prizes. They were interested in besting one another, another chapter in their long list of spats since their childhoods. I was an object in their game, nothing more or less.
Why should I be surprised? I always knew quintets were bullshit.
Letting them in, even briefly, was my fault. And now I’m paying the price of naiveté.
It won’t happen ever again.
The intimate, pleasant moments I thought I had with them are like acid in my chest, so I quickly distract myself by reaching into the bag at my feet and withdrawing Lykoudis’s still-beating, still-bloody heart. It pounds steadily in my hand, and Melchom’s brows shoot up.
“Infernal hells. You really did it. Not that I ever doubted you,” he adds quickly when I arch a brow. “That’s just…damn. Ever thought about joining the black market? You’d make a killing. Pun intended.”
“Shut up and give me the powder, Melchom.”
He makes an inhuman hissing sound and darts his gaze around. “Stop, stop, stop. No more using my name, okay? Here, here’s the fucking nightshade root powder.
Over a gram, I might add.”
He clearly expects me to be impressed as he hands me the tiny bottle of violent fuchsia powder. I’m not. I’m just tired and want to get out of here before any of them manage to track me down.
I look the demon in the eye. “If I find out this shit isn’t real, I’ll hunt you down and reach down your throat to pull out your heart instead.”
Melchom takes the beating heart from me, studying it with fascination. “Huh, that’s not a bad threat. D’ya mind if I steal that one the next time I talk to good ol’ Kevin?”
“Knock yourself out.”
“Good doing business with you, telum. If you need anything else?—“
“I won’t. Don’t cross my path again.”
He takes my dismissal without argument, offering a mocking little bow before vanishing once again using his dark magic. It leaves a pungent scent in the air, and I glare down at the bottle of powder in my hand. This ingredient will make fulfilling my mission a breeze. Then, I just have to disappear…and move on to the next one.
And never see them again.
Make us your weapons, darling, and no one will stand a chance against our quintet. Let us be yours.
Damn them for using such pretty words to ruin me like this.
I need to move on quickly.
MAVEN
I slice the blade across my palm and watch the dark blood droplets drip.
This kind of forbidden magic is therapeutic.
Once enough of my blood is in the bowl full of rare ingredients, I sprinkle in the tiniest bit of nightshade root powder. It singes against my skin and scalds my nose, but I cover my mouth with one of my long sleeves and wait until the concoction finishes sizzling.
And then I dip my adamantine dagger into the bowl and wait. Everbound Forest is dark and forbidding around me, with the distant sounds of strange creatures and haunting whispers sending delicious chills skittering down my spine. Dawn is half an hour away, and I haven’t slept.
I don’t have time for sleep. I could be done with my mission and hundreds of miles away before any of them return to the school.
Let go. Lose yourself in us. Let us be yours.
I shake my head. I need to purge any trace of them from me and do what I came here for.
My pocket vibrates as I wait for the blade to absorb the deadly spell. I groan. I haven’t figured out how to turn it off, and it’s been exploding for the last couple of hours with threats from Silas about tracking it. Which is impossible, since I asked for Kenzie’s help in disabling that feature immediately after he gave me the damn thing. I’ve also gotten dozens of texts and calls from the rest of them, even from Crypt.
I’m sure he’s finding it impossible to track me down in Limbo, thanks to the potent concealment spell I placed on myself. It took a lot of magic, but it was worth it. Once I’m done here, they’ll never see me again.
I can’t comprehend why they would try to talk to me at all. They got what they wanted from me already. They should go argue about their bet and let me slip away forever.
When it buzzes again, I grit my teeth and yank it from my pocket before squinting at the unknown number. I try to hang it up, but my technologically impaired fingers somehow end up answering it.
“Shit,” I mutter, annoyed.
“Hello? Minerva? Are you there?” Luka’s voice demands through the phone. His voice is urgent.
Ugh. This is probably about lifting his hex. He’ll have to find someone else to lift it. Preferably someone whose name he actually knows.
“Where the hell is K—” he starts to ask, but I finally manage to hang up. Then I smash the phone to pieces under my foot and bury it under a clump of dirty forest floor snow with the toe of my boot.
There. Now I won’t be bothered.
Thirty minutes later, I finish scaling the side of Everbound Castle to the headmaster’s office. The sun is just beginning to rise far in the misty, wintry sky, and the school is going to start coming alive for a new Monday morning. Which means Headmaster Hearst will be in his office soon.
I’ll assassinate him quickly and silently. Then I’ll disappear.
I stand on a thin lip of stone to the left of the headmaster’s office balcony, my back pressed against the cold side of the castle and my hair moving softly around my face with the light breeze. It’s frigid out here. I’m dressed almost head to toe in black, my mouth and nose covered so my warm breath plumes against my face.
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