Filed To Story: Cursed Legacies Series Free PDF by Morgan B Lee
He hesitates. “I’m not certain.”
“But you’ve known about this.”
“Yes. It’s an inevitable side effect of my?—“
“Were you ever going to tell me?” I demand roughly, crouching to yank Pierce out of the corpse. I angrily clean it on one of Parker’s sleeves, trying to ignore the sting in my eyes.
Crypt is dying, and he wasn’t going to fucking say anything.
He told me his curse differs from other curses because it can’t be broken. That means bonding with him won’t change this. Even if the Garnet Wizard manages to preserve my heart to keep all their other curses at bay, Crypt’s will still eat him alive.
I fucking hate the gods right now.
He crouches beside me, gently tipping my chin so I’ll have to look at him. Which is annoying because he’s gorgeous and mine and dying, and there is not one godsdamned thing I can do about it.
I despise feeling helpless, but especially when it comes to them.
“It is what it is, love,” he whispers, smiling wistfully. “I didn’t want to sully the precious time we have together. Besides, with all the world against us, there are far better things to spend such lovely tears on.”
“I’m not crying.”
Crypt reaches out to brush away a traitorous teardrop, pressing it to his lips for a taste. “All right. You’re not crying.”
“I’m mad at you.”
“I accept.”
Someone shouts in the distance. It’s Ross, and he’s running toward us. I look over my shoulder at my other matches. Silas is finishing healing his arm, Baelfire is frowning deeply at the ground, and Everett watches me with a soft sorrow in his pale blue gaze.
Ross grinds to a halt when he sees Parker’s dead body. “Oh, heavens. What happened?”
“We killed him,” I mutter, looking away in case he can tell I was just fighting tears.
“Yeah, but I mean, why…” He trails off, shaking himself. “Forgive me. You don’t answer to me—and besides, I believe I know why. Parker told me he would offer you up on a silver platter to the Legacy Council. When I tried to alert the Garnet Wizard, Parker got me with a paralysis hex, and…
please forgive me for not preventing this.”
The caster seems genuinely upset about this. Meanwhile, all four of my matches give him the evil eye. I have no idea why he’s so respectful to me, but I stand, sheathing my dagger on my arm strap again.
It’s good that he showed up right now. If I have to linger on Crypt’s predicament or the fact that I can’t think of a single fucking thing to do about it…
Something inside me cracks.
I lift my chin, forcing composure onto myself like a shield.
“Is that why you ran over here?”
“Oh—no, actually. I had no idea Parker was here. My mentor sent me to let you know he has something for you.”
The etherium must finally be here.
Good. More to focus on instead of the anger and helplessness.
I step around Ross to march toward the Garnet Wizard’s favorite study, not surprised when my matches follow. Given what just happened, it’s no surprise they refuse to let me go alone this time.
And honestly? I don’t want to go alone. I want them beside me.
Our quintet has always been on borrowed time, but I feel that truth like an anvil on my shoulders as we walk down one of the cobbled paths, the sky overhead the deep royal blue of a polar night.
As we walk, the final symptoms of the poisoning fade, ultimately useless against the tolerance I built up over the years. When we turn down a path near the brook, I decide it’s time to address that little incident back there.
“I can’t get pregnant,” I inform them quietly.
Everett gently takes one of my hands to slow my pace a bit. “You’re right, it would be the worst possible timing. So we’ll take all the right precautions?—“
I stop to look up at all four of them, shaking my head. “No, I mean that I can’t. It’s physically impossible. Think about it. The Undead can’t reproduce because they’re dead.”
“You’re not dead,” Baelfire interjects angrily at the thought.
“I’m also not alive. As a semi-existing thing, I’m…sterile.”
I hesitate, picking at the hem of my black shirt. This isn’t something I’ve ever lingered on. It just became fact after my heart was taken from me. I never considered how this might bother my matches—but everyone knows that legacies prize having heirs.
“If that’s a dealbreaker for you guys—” I begin with a frown.
Everett interrupts. “Do you want children?”
“We just went over this. They’re not an option.”
“But if they were. If there was a way, would you want that, sangfluir?”
Silas presses.
I’ve never given it thought before. Daydreaming about a future family isn’t a luxury I’ve had, not when survival alone seemed unlikely. Not to mention, trying to picture me in a maternal lighting is laughable.
But if miracles did exist, my life continued, and my matches wanted to be fathers…
I shrug. Curiosity aside, it’s a moot point.
“The only thing I want right now is every possible moment I can get with all of you.”
For a moment, I worry that’s not the answer they want, especially Baelfire. After all, he’s a shifter, and his family has been struggling to continue their lineage.
Instead, he beams. “Hang on a second. That kinda sounded like a confession of love to me.”
“It certainly did,” Crypt grins when I scowl.
They all tease me as we continue to the Garnet Wizard’s study. Part of me is profoundly relieved that they don’t seem disappointed, but they’re also clearly trying to lighten my mood from everything that just happened.
It’s sweet, but I want to kick their asses for teasing me so much about this. Talking about feelings is one of the purest forms of torture. How do they not get that?
Silas opens the study door for me, and I see that the Garnet Wizard is now middle-aged and jotting down notes of some kind with a quill and ink pot at a desk in one corner of the study. He glances up and motions at a briefcase on the coffee table beside the same stack of books I noticed before—although now they’re filled with bookmarks.
“Please do help yourself, telum. I have something for you once you are done.”
We walk into the room, but I realize Crypt is stuck outside the threshold. A dreamcatcher hanging beside the desk keeps him from getting any closer, even in Limbo.
“I’m not inviting that one in here,” the wizard says without looking up from his writing. “Though truthfully, I’m surprised I’m allowing any of you shirtless, dirty, gore-smattered barbarians indoors. One would think you were raised in a barn, Silas.”
“Barnyard animals might’ve taught me more manners than you ever did,” Silas retorts.
The wizard laughs good-naturedly as I unlatch the sides of the briefcase and open the top, studying the velvet-wrapped pieces of smooth, glass-like etherium. The pieces are in various shapes and sizes. Just like the first time I saw this element in Amadeus’s crown, something about it draws me in.
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