Filed To Story: Cursed Legacies Series Free PDF by Morgan B Lee
But it’s hard to forget that I spilled my guts to him and Silas yesterday. They know more about my past than anyone else in the mortal world, and it feels fucking strange. What’s even stranger is that they have yet to kick me out of their quintet or report me to the Immortal Quintet.
Maybe…
Maybe they’re serious about wanting me despite everything.
But even though that thought makes my chest feel incredibly warm, it would be too selfish of me to keep them. This has to be temporary because they want to break their curses. Hell,
I want to break their curses.
But that can’t happen if I don’t have a heart.
“Nope. Stop it. I can tell you’re about to try pushing me away again,” Baelfire growls, leaning down to catch my eye. “How can I prove that I’m not fucking going anywhere, Maven?”
I look at him. Really look at him, without any of my walls up.
“You shouldn’t want me, knowing everything you know. And I assure you, you don’t know everything. If my little sob story yesterday made you feel bad for me, don’t. I’m not the soft-hearted girl I once was. They took my heart, but I chose to become the monster I am now. I’m an extremely all-or-nothing person, and that isn’t going to change. You’ve been warned.”
Baelfire examines me for a long moment. “Okay.”
“Okay?” I repeat with a frown, feeling like that warranted more of a reply.
He places the softest, warmest kiss on the top of my head. “Yeah. Okay. I’ve been warned.”
I tense when one of his big hands cradles my jaw, tilting my face up toward him. His voice lowers, and his golden eyes burn me.
“Here’s my own warning, Maven. You’re my keeper. My mate. You could tell me to swallow a fucking grenade, and I’d do it. But the one thing you will never tell me again is that I shouldn’t want you. You don’t get a say over that. You’re all I want, and that’s not changing, so learn to fucking deal with it.”
He lets go and steps away, but the tingling heat of his touch lingering on my skin makes me swallow hard.
“Now, you should really eat something before class because my dragon will lose his shit if I hear your stomach growling. He’s constantly bitching about me not taking good enough care of you. Come on.”
Breakfast is a quick affair—sliced tangy fruit inside another new food substance that Silas explains is yogurt. They both watch as I try it, clearly hoping I’ll enjoy it.
I quite literally don’t have the heart to tell them that most food I’ve eaten since coming into the mortal realm has been worlds better than anything I was fed in the Nether. Of course, I like it because it’s not the cold porridge with a side of pickled greens I ate most of the time growing up. They served meat sometimes, too, but after a certain sickening incident, I decided to never eat meat again.
“Well?” Baelfire asks, raising his brows.
“It’s good.”
When I hear Silas groan, I realize his attention is pinned on my tongue as I begin licking the spoon clean. He rubs his face, muttering something about another cold shower as he heads down the hall.
Baelfire winks at me and leans forward to lick the rest of the yogurt from my spoon. “Gotta remember you’re surrounded by horny legacies, Mayflower. That poor fucker’s already going insane enough without you trying to seduce us.”
“Licking a spoon isn’t seductive.”
Or is it? I’ll have to ask Kenzie that, too.
“Tell that to my boner,” Bael laughs before offering me his orange juice.
Thirty minutes later, I’m strolling down the hall with them flanking my sides when Everett rounds a corner ahead of us, pausing at the sight of us. His glacial blue eyes zip to me before he quickly looks away with a scowl, straightening his blazer.
“I take it you three ate at the apartment instead of the dining hall. Would’ve been nice to know. I was just about to start looking for your bodies. There’s been a few in Everbound’s halls this morning.”
“Did you hear that, Si? Snowflake was worried about us,” Bael croons.
Everett rolls his eyes. “Die all you want, but don’t be late to class.”
“How professorial of you,” Silas snorts as we descend a long flight of stairs. “Speaking of which, why did you return to Everbound as a teacher? Everyone knows you loathed your time here as a student. And you’re hardly an academic.”
Everett flips him off, clearly having no intention of answering. I’m only half-listening to their conversation as I watch for other legacies in the hallways we traverse. But as we pass an unfamiliar passageway, I sense that the air is thick with fresh death. Backing up and pausing, I tip my head at the sight before me.
Several mutilated corpses are lined up in a row. As I watch, a door opens, and a faculty member drags another lifeless legacy out to line him up. This corpse has pointed ears. They all do, I realize.
I don’t realize my matches have joined me until Silas swears creatively and mutters, “Of course, they’re going for the fae first. They love that we can’t lie. Those scútráchae.”
The faculty member glances up, and her brow furrows. “Please hurry along. You can’t be here.”
“What the fuck is going on?” Baelfire demands.
She grimaces. “Things have…escalated. The Immortal Quintet has commenced interrogations among students. These legacies all said things which were found to be, uh…treasonous, so they were executed.”
I glance at a nearby corpse which looks like it’s been drained of blood. By treasonous, she probably means too honest.
“Executions may only take place with the full vote of the Legacy Council,” Everett says coldly.
The faculty member wrings her hands. “Y—yes, Mr. Frost, but…as I said, the situation has escalated. I highly suggest getting out of here before you catch the attention of?—“
“Who do we have here?”
We all turn to face the voice, and I find myself looking up at Somnus DeLune. His black eyes settle on me, and his perpetual sneer deepens into disgust. I keep my poker face perfectly intact.
Silas’s hand settles gently on my waist, eager to get me out of here. “We were just on our way to class.”
Somnus ignores him. “If it isn’t his pathetic little slip of a keeper. You’re somehow even less impressive up close. But then, that whoreson deserves to be stuck with something so worthless.”
“Are you the whore you’re referring to? Crypt is your son, after all.”
Silas tenses, Baelfire casts me a don’t-piss-off-this-guy look, and Everett continues to frostily regard the incubus.
Somnus sneers, showing off his curved fangs. “It was nothing but a few bland pumps in a sub-par cunt, and yet for the rest of time, I’ll be plagued by having that unmanageable abomination, that mistake, referred to as my son. He’s nothing but a punishment sent by the gods themselves.”
An influx of emotion swirls in my gut, so sharp and sudden that it takes effort not to sneer back at him. I’m not used to this emotion, but I think I’m…offended. Deeply offended that he would talk about Crypt like this.
Does he verbally abuse his son to his face, too? Has it always been like this for Crypt?
It’s decided. I can’t wait to kill this one. He’s next.
“I would offer you my condolences at having him as a match, but it would be a waste of my breath since a filthy human-born like you can’t possibly survive much longer.” He passes by us. “Get to class before I decide to kill all four of you.”
The door shuts behind him, the faculty member scampers away, and at the gentle urging of Baelfire, I finally unclench my jaw and follow them down the hall.
“Should I be concerned that Crypt has been gone this long?”
Baelfire snorts. “Wherever his keeper-abandoning ass is, I’m sure he’s fine.”
“He’s like a cockroach,” Silas agrees, making a sound of distaste. “My parents consistently tried and failed to hunt him down after he killed their keeper and my uncle. The human government hired bounty hunters to go after him two years ago after he slaughtered an entire courtroom of humans, and he was never caught or punished for it. Wherever he’s run off to, he’ll be back. Unfortunately,” he adds spitefully.
I knew about the courtroom thing, but hearing that Crypt killed Silas’s family members makes their apparent hatred toward one another much more transparent.
In Fiend Studies, Professor Crowley discusses the Undead, discussing their aversion to sunlight and fire, inability to speak, shocking speed, craving for flesh, etcetera. It’s all shit that I learned firsthand by the time I was seven years old, so I spend most of class plotting how to get Kenzie back.
Class ends, lunch passes as uncomfortably as the day before—except this time, I refuse to touch any mystery foods—and finally, it’s once again time for combat training. All four of us trickle out into the training fields along with dozens of other legacies.
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.