Filed To Story: Cursed Legacies Series Free PDF by Morgan B Lee
Her voice fades before I suddenly remember free-falling—plummeting from the heavens, careening out of control as agony pumped through my veins just before I blacked out.
I jolt back to myself, bracing against the broken altar as I try to catch my breath, my pulse pounding in my veins. No matter how hard I struggle to remember more, I can’t. It’s infuriating to have this glaring gap in my brain. I obviously fell from the heavens to crash here, but I don’t even know where here is.
I do know where I’m going, though. I need to find my guys. It won’t be easy, with our bonds broken?—
Oh, fuck.
Fuck.
Our bonds broke. That means their curses would have returned worse than before.
Damn it, how long was I gone?
Straightening, I take in the temple once again, finally registering the freakish cold and the dismembered husks of worshippers who seem to have turned on each other. Reaching up, I feel the left side of my neck. Even though my emblems are gone with the bond, I can still feel the slight divots of the mating mark Baelfire left on me.
It’s comforting, but it only reinforces my need to track down my quintet as soon as possible.
First things first, though. I need to find some actual fucking clothes before my fingers and toes snap off. Trying to ignore the pervasive chill and the agonizing soreness in my limbs, I again grip the scythe—which promptly morphs into a dagger.
It’s almost a twin to Pierce, but the blade is etherium instead of adamantine.
I grin, tilting my new toy from side to side to admire it better. “Not bad, Mother.”
At least in this size, it will be easier to stash, sort of like Crypt’s enchanted lighter sword. The thought of my incubus makes my smile disappear before I turn to stalk between the pews, stepping over frozen husks. I pause as I’m stepping over someone who died wrapped in a thick, fluffy black shawl.
I mean…it’s not like they’re using it.
Or their shoes, which seem almost my size.
A few minutes later, dressed slightly warmer, I manage to break through the ice and force open one of the tall double doors of Syntyche’s abandoned temple to slip outside. It’s difficult to make out the landscape through all this hazy snow and the wind biting through this shawl, but a low, throaty squawk pulls my attention.
A raven is perched on a broken statue of Syntyche nearby, and it’s not alone. Other large black ravens have gathered outside the temple despite the freezing temperature, and they’re all staring right at me.
Yet somehow, it doesn’t feel malicious.
Instead, it’s the best kind of unsettling. It almost feels like these glossy-feathered, beady-eyed creatures are…waiting.
On me.
Gods, I hope I’m not about to feel stupid for trying this. I wrap the shawl tighter around myself and clear my throat.
“Know if there are any living people nearby?”
All of the ravens flutter in a swarm before flocking closer to me. In synchrony, the feathers on their heads and necks fluff out before one of them squawks at me, tipping its head.
I stare at it before trying again. “Take me to the nearest warm place.”
Several crows take flight, winging their way to settle on telephone lines in the distance that I had missed before. They’re in disrepair, but they’ll lead me to something sooner or later.
Moving hurts, my chest keeps burning, and I feel weak as fuck as I trudge through the thigh-deep snow to follow the lines, ignoring the birds that flutter along nearby. After only a few minutes, the cold makes my hands and feet so cold they burn, so I pause to try casting a basic fire spell. I’m shit at fire spells, but at this point, I’ll take anything.
Yet the incantation I recite does nothing. I don’t even feel the strained fizzle of magic I used to get when I had nothing to fuel my death magic.
I try again in fae. Still nothing.
Maybe I need to kill something. Pausing, I study the ravens that are still fixated on me. As if they pick up on what I’m thinking, they all croak and shriek, flying away quickly.
Whatever. I can find something to kill after I track down warmth and a map. I’m shaking too damn much to try wielding my knife, anyway.
I glance up at the sky. “How about some divine providence before I freeze my ass off?”
No response.
Nice to know that divine nepotism isn’t on the table.
cEP
MAVEN
After nearly fifteen minutes of stumbling in the same direction as the telephone lines with cold sinking deeper into my bones, I spot a house on the lightly forested horizon. As I approach, I note that the lights inside aren’t on. Maybe it’s abandoned.
But then I see the car parked haphazardly in the front yard. Very little snow has accumulated on the top of it, so it must have been driven recently. On top of that, the house’s front door has been left open.
A couple of ravens flutter to a tree nearby, croaking ominously at me as if to say this isn’t safe.
They’re right. When I silently move closer, I sense it: fresh death sitting heavily in the air. Just before I reach the front door, chills run over my skin. My nerves tighten as each sense goes on high alert.
Somewhere in this house, danger of the Nether variety lies in wait.
How…convenient.
I did want to find something else to kill, after all. I just hope it’s something alive that will fuel my magic, instead of Undead or banshee or some shit. Lowering into a ready stance despite the screaming soreness lingering in my limbs, I slip soundlessly through the front door.
Bloodstains saturate the white entry carpet, with more red smeared along the wall and up the stair railings. The corpse of an older man lies crumpled at the foot of the stairs. My attention zeroes in on the puncture marks on his broken neck half a second before I register the slight squeak of a wooden door to my right.
I leap aside immediately, narrowly dodging a Nether vampire. Its fangs snap in the place my neck just was before it whirls on me again, black eyes gleaming with inhumane, predatorial thirst. My etherium knife is in my hand immediately as I dodge another attack.
It’s almost as fast as I am, which makes this an appealing combat opportunity until another vampire appears at the top of the stairs. The second one blurs down to join the fight at the exact second I plunge my knife into the first vampire’s neck.
The first vampire screeches as its throat gurgles, overflowing with blood as it collapses—and simultaneously, I shout in pain when the second vampire’s teeth sink deeply into my right shoulder. I throw my elbow back hard to knock the monster away, but Vampire Number One is still not completely dead, and I hiss again as it bites down hard into my right ankle.
The pain that explodes there is far worse than the bite wound on my shoulder.
Fucking vampires.
Still, with the pain comes adrenaline pumping through me, filling me with the usual dark thrill of a fight.
I dodge another attempt by the second vampire before plunging my hand into its chest and ripping out its heart. It drops dead. The first vampire is now twitching on the ground, blood pooling around its head. Typically, I would end a monster quickly just for the fun of it, but that ankle bite will be annoying to deal with, so I let it suffer.
Tossing the heart aside, I check my bitten shoulder and try rolling my ankle.
Gods, that hurts.
The first vampire finally goes still. I pick up my knife, ready to kill whatever else may be in this house, but then I halt.
Both vampires are now dead. Their deaths are on my hands.
So…where’s the buzz?
Once again, I test my magic, trying to heal my shoulder. Once again, nothing happens.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I grit, glowering at the sky I can’t even see.
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.