Filed To Story: Cursed Legacies Series Free PDF by Morgan B Lee
His voice breaks, and he clears his throat, looking away. “Look, I was pissed when I found out Luka was such a dick to her before, and I was all for it when Kenzie told me about you hexing him. But then I realized Luka is just like…really, really bad at expressing himself. He’s not a bad guy. Definitely not nearly as bad as the rest of his family—I mean, his brother Levi was probably the most disgusting asshole in the world.”
“Was?” I note. I’m only tolerating this small talk because chatter is infinitely preferable to him getting weepy again. “Is he deceased?”
“Yeah, he was found burned to a crisp less than a month ago. Even though they weren’t close, it’s been pretty brutal on Luka. He’s still in mourning.”
Well. This is awkward.
Now that I think about it, that vampire I killed when I first came to Everbound did have some striking similarities to Luka. Maybe I should come clean to Kenzie about that incident after I find her.
Please let me find her.
Vivienne returns and triumphantly holds up a plastic bag that contains one pale strand of long, curly hair.
“Will this work? I found it on our bed.”
“Yes.” I accept the bag from her, careful not to touch her fingers. I can’t wait to get another pair of gloves from my room. Slipping the bag into Baelfire’s sweatshirt pocket, I turn to leave.
But just as I do, Luka opens the front door and blinks at me in surprise. He’s holding several bags of warm food in both arms. I don’t miss that he glances over Vivienne and Dirk protectively as if he’s worried I somehow hurt them in the brief time I’ve been here.
The fact that he’s wary is good. Maybe Dirk is right, and he’s not an unmitigated douchebag after all.
He sets the food on the nearby dining room table and glares at me. “You got a reason for being here? If it’s to lift that damn hex you put on my dick, don’t bother. The healers finally got rid of it, so fuck you very much.”
I take it back. Douchebag is a mild term for him.
“Luka,” Vivienne sighs. “Don’t be rude.”
He folds his arms. “Whatever. What are you here for, Minerva?”
“I just said don’t be rude!” the petite air elemental chides.
“I wasn’t,” Luka huffs. “I was just asking a fucking question.”
Dirk snorts, leaning down to scratch one of his calves. “Calling people by the wrong name on purpose is rude, man.”
Luka looks so confused that I could almost laugh. But the longer I stay, the longer I go without knowing whether Kenzie is alive, so I hold up the bag to show him the single strand of pale, curly hair.
“I’ll do a spell to look for her.”
“We already asked another caster to try that shit,” Luka gripes. “It did nothing.”
Probably because they were using common magic, which I can barely use in general. Fortunately for Kenzie’s quintet, I’m far more skilled at other types of magic.
Specifically, the forbidden kind.
“No harm in trying,” I muse, turning.
But Vivienne grabs my arm to stop me from leaving. Even through Baelfire’s sleeve, the familiar discomfort skitters over my body, prickling the back of my neck as I go stock still. She doesn’t notice that I’m immediately desperate to escape her touch. This is Kenzie’s most gentle match, who was just bawling her eyes out, so breaking her hand for touching me is probably not the best course of action.
“Wait! I just remembered that Kenzie and I got something for you. A dress. We went on a shopping spree a couple of days ago, right b—before she…”
Her eyes water again, and now I’m really uncomfortable. Trying to ignore the cold sweat breaking out over the back of my neck, I slip away from her grasp and retreat closer to the door.
“Thanks, but I’m good.”
“But she said it was perfect for you for the Matched Ball, and that’s tonight! I’ll go get it. She was going to leave it in your dorm room as a surprise when you got back from Pennsylvania, so she wrote a note for you and everything,” Vivienne adds before rushing out of the room again.
A note from Kenzie? I hesitate.
My skin is crawling from all the unintentionally nauseating touching I’ve been subjected to, but if I find out that Kenzie is gone for good…
I’ve never been sentimental, but suddenly, I want to read anything she left for me. After all, these may be her last words to me.
When Vivienne returns with a large pink shopping bag and a note, I accept the note first, trying my absolute hardest not to visibly flinch when her bare fingers brush against mine this time. I read quickly over the bubbly scrawl of words.
SURPRISE!
Okay, so I know I just bought you a dress a couple weeks ago, and you totally haven’t even worn it, but this one is so freaking gorgeous, and you are going to SLAY at the Matched Ball in this. It’s so your style, and it’s going to show off how hot you are (yes, I said it, you hot little monk), so please, please, please wear it even if it’s just to watch your guys’ jaws drop (yes, I said it again, they’re totally your guys even if you keep denying it).
Love, your favorite pale-assed bestie
P. S. I call dibs on doing your hair and makeup! Let’s get ready together while we watch that sexy human-legacy forbidden love drama I told you about.
P. P. S. Just wait til you see my dress… 😉 It makes my tits look WOWZA.
I crack a smile.
It makes my tits look wowza.
Of course, these would be Kenzie’s final words to me. Screw sentiment—this is much better.
When he sees my grin, Luka blanches. “You’re smiling? That’s fucking creepy. What did she even write to you?”
He reaches for the card, but I quickly slide it into the bag and take it from Vivienne, grabbing it from the bottom so as not to touch her again.
“Thank you,” I tell the elemental sincerely. “I needed that.”
Then I excuse myself and leave because it’s time to track down some ingredients for forbidden magic.
It takes breaking into twenty-three locked storage chests in a forgotten archive of the eastern library before I find what I need.
Flinging open the top of the chest, I wave away the dust and thank the universe when I see a bundle of vibrant orange phoenix feathers. They’re an annoyingly rare ingredient.
I grab the bundle and slip it into the bag thrown over my shoulder, which I grabbed from my dorm earlier. I also took the time to change into my own clothes, including a pair of soft leather gloves, so now I feel more like myself. Once again, it’s just me on a mission.
Well. Me and the incubus who I can feel watching my every move from Limbo.
I can’t see him, but Crypt hasn’t left my side even once since I left my dorm. At least he’s giving me the illusion of space, but something about his presence feels darker right now—as if he’s on edge as much as the others, liable to snap any moment.
The threat of that is oddly thrilling.
Best not to linger on that.
Quietly shutting the wooden storage chest, I double-check that I left no trace, aside from disturbing the dust in this barely visited room. Satisfied, I ascend a long flight of winding steps to the main level of the eastern library. It’s empty right now, with not even a faculty member in sight. No one cares about the library when the entire school is in an uproar over the lockdown and the Matched Ball tonight.
Fifteen minutes later, after avoiding all high-traffic hallways, I’m back in my dorm room, sitting on the floor with the lights off and a candle lit on my desk. I stare at the ingredients in front of me. Phoenix feather, Kenzie’s hair, hag’s root, onyx dust, a dagger, a bowl for collecting my blood…and all my thriving potted plants.
Which I’ll have to sacrifice for this spell.
I sigh as I slip off my gloves and brush my fingers over their leaves. I don’t like killing the plants I worked so hard to cultivate. Lillian is the one who got me into botany—at the time, she’d fussed over what she’d called the “barbaric, inhumane” way I was being raised, with no respect for the sacredness of life. She helped me build an indoor garden so that I would learn to appreciate the effort it takes to simply live, even for a plant.
But it didn’t take me long to figure out that plants can fuel my magic, too. I don’t get the same buzz of power as I do when I take the life of a monster or legacy, but it’s enough to get by when I have limited options.
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.