Filed To Story: Cursed Legacies Series Free PDF by Morgan B Lee
“Shh.”
Talking isn’t good for him right now. I wipe at the stupid fucking moisture uselessly escaping my face and carefully move his arm and leg closer to his body.
“Hurts, love,” he whispers, face contorting in such agony that my chest aches. “Wantto numbit but…I’d feelless ofyou…if I makeit stop…”
His words blend together and make no sense. I gently hush him again before getting the others to bring them closer. In my semi-hysterical state, I think that it’s convenient I was given unnatural strength, or else dragging my matches around would be a hell of a lot harder.
The battlefield formerly filled with gunshots and the exhilarating sounds of battle has fallen eerily silent. Anyone left alive is either unable to move and likely falling to hypothermia, or they’re heavily injured and will bleed out before the cold kills them.
Except Asher Douglas.
As I finish struggling to move Baelfire next to the other three, my gaze connects with the bounty hunter in the far distance. He’s managed to sit up and is healing his broken arms with soft green magic while he watches me, his gun in his lap.
He could shoot me right now. Take me to the Legacy Council and leave my matches here to rot.
Instead, he looks away, taking in the massacre around him.
As soon as my quintet members are all touching, I call on the life forces still pulsing in my veins. Dark magic flares around me, and after a brief, blinding flash, we’re abruptly in the same hotel room suite we previously got in Nebraska.
It’s the first place I could think of. The universe is merciful for once and no humans currently occupy this room. Lifting my hand, I double-lock the front door using common magic.
Then I sit and stare at my matches as blood drips from me.
Crypt is bleeding out on the carpet, now as unconscious as the rest of them. Baelfire has silver bullets embedded in one of his arms, and Everett is bleeding from a wolf shifter bite to his shoulder. Silas is only bleeding from his nose, a sign of magical strain on the brain, and he looks awful. They all do.
This is why I have to fight like hell to keep them safe
No—it’s why they should have accepted my fucking rejection in the first place. If they had, they might’ve been perfectly safe and matched to some other legacy by now if they had just appealed to the fucking gods like I told them to.
“I warned you guys,” I whisper angrily, voice breaking.
But my anger is short-lived.
These legacies were always going to be mine. Right now isn’t the time to linger in shock or feel sorry for our situation. I need to help them recover, keep them as safe as possible, and get the fuck on with my plan.
I read Engela’s letter earlier. She doubts the other two members remaining in her quintet will be hiding in the same place. I’m almost certain of where Iker Del Mar may be, thanks to Engela’s detailed accounts, but I’m sure as hell not bringing my quintet with me for this hit.
They’ll need time to heal, but I have to take out another member of the Immortal Quintet before Amadeus harms Lillian or the humans.
Yet the idea of leaving them behind…
Gods. This is going to fucking suck.
Newlybound legacies need time with their matches, basking in the afterglow of bonding and growing closer as the bond strengthens. I’m not a legacy—but damn it, if only we had time for all of that.
Oh, well. Life is a bitch, and so is death.
As I plot out my next move, I work. I’m not a gifted healer with common magic, but right now, there is so much power from the battle pumping through my veins that I harness to stitch Crypt’s arm and leg back to his body. His incubus healing can take care of the severeness of the injuries slowly. I carefully remove the silver bullets from Baelfire before cleaning and bandaging Everett’s shoulder.
Snowdrop
…
I pause to study Everett’s face, but he doesn’t rouse from the stupor that Gideon left them in. With a grimace, I reach behind my head and breathe the necromantic words for healing the worst of the injury there. It’s far less potent without spell ingredients, but the bleeding stops.
Next, I bundle Silas and Crypt in blankets from the two bedrooms to help them recover from the lingering Alaskan cold, place heavy protective wards on the entire suite, and leave all the lights on. I add a few light spells for good measure and slowly back away from them, studying all four of their handsome, blood and dirt-streaked faces.
If I had to guess, they might shake this in a couple of hours. Possibly sooner—especially Crypt, who must have a serious tolerance for true horror, considering his history.
But that still gives me time to get shit done without putting my quintet in more danger.
“I’ll be back soon,” I quietly tell my unconscious quintet as I prepare a transportation spell, unnatural magic humming to life around my blood-darkened gloves. “Get better because I…”
I can’t survive losing any of you.
The words catch in my mouth, and I instead mutter, “Because I’ll be pissed if you don’t. And when I get back, we’re going to Canada.”
MAVEN
I step out of the cuchillería, scanning the streets as I discreetly slip the small knives I just bought into concealed locations on my person. One in my boot opposite Pierce, two up my sleeves, one at the waist of my pants.
It’s taken two hours to prepare, and now the sun is low on the horizon in this part of the globe. As much as I would love to draw this out and enjoy the kill, I need to wrap it up quickly and return to my quintet.
Gods, I can’t stop thinking about them. I know they’re not awake yet, or I would have heard them in my head by now.
Humans are out and about, enjoying the sunset as they stroll the walkways or buy steaming food from street vendors. They mind their own business as I walk toward the coast, where the street I’m looking for will run parallel to the ocean.
Iker Del Mar is here in northern Spain, in this little town.
I’m going to kill him, even though I am fucking exhausted.
After transporting to Madrid and then here, I’m running tragically low on fuel for my magic. The fight in Alaska, the run-in with Gideon, and being unable to picture anything except my matches bleeding out in the snowy wilderness have left my eyelids and bones feeling heavy.
At least I now have everything necessary to take down the immortal hydra shifter efficiently.
I magically mixed the tiniest amount of my nightshade root powder with a tranquilizer I stole from the American embassy security room in Madrid. I had to knock out lots of humans, magic wards, and a few security cameras to get to it, but I managed.
It’s a standard but powerful emergency tranquilizer that authorities are mandated to keep on hand in the event of a feral shifter. It prevents a target from shifting, regardless of size, and will force a shift back to human form.
Laced with nightshade root powder, it should weaken Del Mar so much that killing him off will be a breeze.
Ignoring the exhaustion weighing on me, I slip onto the street described in Engela’s letter, adjusting my sunglasses. I’m also wearing a big black sun hat in the interest of disguise since humans have heard my description on the news.
Beautiful pastel houses rise up the side of the mountain to my right, vibrant in the golden sunset. The street ends abruptly to my left with a road and a small fence before dropping off into the dark blue ocean.
I’ve never seen the ocean before. It’s immense—a beautifully brutal, undefeatable facet of nature.
If we make it through all this, I’d like to visit a private beach somewhere with my quintet, like Kenzie once talked about doing. I can easily see Everett lathering himself and me up in sunscreen while Baelfire cracks jokes about nude beaches. Silas would probably read aloud to me under an umbrella to stay out of the sun. Crypt would go swimming with me and steal my bikini top.
Damn it. I need to get back to them.
I want every possible fucking second I can have with my quintet because I know there’s a limit to what we can experience together before I fade to nothing.
If I could just find a way to exist after seeing my mission through…
I stop a few houses down from a mansion where two men chat outside the front door. They have their parts down perfectly, dressed like human tourists, but I note how they scan the area.
They’re security. Most likely strong legacies.
It’s good that this coastal street is empty except for the three of us.
One of them notices me lingering. As soon as his eyes narrow suspiciously, I rush toward them, waving and shouting because one of the best ways to throw an opponent off is by being as loud and conspicuous as possible.
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.