Filed To Story: Cursed Legacies Series Free PDF by Morgan B Lee
This isn’t the beast at all. It’s him.
“Baelfire,” I breathe as relief crashes over me like cold water.
He’s trembling with rage and shock, covered in a sheen of sweat, and wildly disoriented as he drops to his knees beside me on the cold asphalt. He pulls me tightly to his incredibly warm chest.
“Boo,” he rasps, burying his blood-smeared face in the side of my neck to inhale deeply. “Fuck, are—are you really?—“
“I’m here. I’m alive.” I hug him back even tighter, desperate for these next words to stay with him even when his dragon takes over again. “I love you.”
“Y—you…” he starts to echo in bewildered disbelief.
“I love you,” I repeat firmly. “I should have told you sooner.”
A sob tries to work its way up his throat, and I know I’m not imagining the moisture on my neck. It’s fucking brutal to see him this broken as he clings to me, agony in his voice.
“I love you, too. So fucking much. Please don’t leave me again. Ever, Maven.
Please.”
“I won’t,” I whisper. “I promise.”
After a moment, Baelfire makes a hoarse sound. When I pull back to see what’s wrong, his face is a mask of torture as he grips his head. His pained, miserable golden gaze meets mine again.
“I’m trying to stay,” he chokes. “But I—I just can’t get a fucking grip. I can’t?—“
All at once, his words cut off as his pupils elongate into slits. He’s gone as the dragon takes over to bare its teeth at me, inhuman feral madness eclipsing my match’s face.
But thank the fucking universe. Baelfire is still in there.
He knows I’m back.
I cradle his face. “I’m going to fix this.”
In response, the feral dragon nips at my hand, managing to draw blood. I break away from him, stumbling to where Everett still lies in a stupor.
Crouching, I try to get his attention, but his confused, pale blue gaze won’t latch onto me.
“You’re okay,” I assure him anyway, glancing around at the aftermath of the fight.
The male caster remains frozen. Both the female caster and the fire elemental now lie dead in puddles of blood with their ghosts hovering above them, wide-eyed as they stare at me. With fiends on the loose, it’s only a matter of time before the wind changes and carries the scent of their blood to monsters that will be drawn here.
Walking to the spot where my blade fell, I scoop to pick it up. It’s already in scythe form when I face the ghosts of the two legacies.
“May your afterlives suck ass,” I tell them before reaping their souls.
Moving back to Not-Baelfire, I take his leash and lead him into the temple, where I find Asher Dougas trying to heal his own arm, his forehead beaded in sweat and blood splattered all over the marble temple floor around him.
He sees Baelfire beside me and swears. “Keep that fucker away from me. Is Frost still alive?”
I nod.
“Good. I’d hate to lose a good paycheck after all this shit,” he grunts, grimacing.
Rolling my eyes, I drop Baelfire’s leash to go back out for Everett. “Watch my dragon.”
“Hey. No. That freak nearly ripped my arm off. Don’t fucking leave me alone with?—“
Ignoring his protests, I return to Everett and help the discombobulated elemental stumble back into the temple, where he collapses into one of the pews. Once we’re all safely in here, I turn toward the doors, take a deep breath, and try to use magic to seal them once again.
I don’t know holy magic spells, but casting in fae seemed to work a bit.
“Ima guth sigillum,”
I recite.
Heat pulses in my veins, and the doors glow white briefly. When I try pulling them open, they remain locked, movable only by my voice.
I don’t realize I’m beaming at the proof that I can figure this shit out until Douglas grunts, “Your pet dragon just pissed in the corner. Pretty sure your aunt’s gonna smite him for that.”
My aunt?
Oh, right. As one of the three celestial triplets, Arati would be Syntyche’s younger triplet, alongside Sachar.
The thought of the queen of the gods being my auntie is too fucking weird, so I once again ignore the bounty hunter and hurry to Silas and Crypt.
Silas still sits as if he’s fallen into a dark meditation, eyes shut as magic slithers over his skin. Meanwhile, Crypt remains in a bizarrely restful state as the malediction ravages his mind.
Taking another deep breath, I will my holy magic to work as I step into the spell.
CRYPT
Crane gets sick all over my subconscious as one of our keeper’s worst memories-turned-nightmares plays before us. Wretched hands squeeze her throat as she lies naked and vulnerable in a barren bed, thrashing as tears leak over her temples.
“Anything else,” Crane demands raggedly, wiping his mouth and swatting at something that exists in his head, as he keeps doing. “Remember anything else but this.”
“One fluffy unicorn-filled prance through Paradise, coming right up,” I reply blankly, trying to numb myself further when the Entity himself arrives as a faceless shadow in this dream of a memory.
But it’s futile. My keeper’s past sobs seep through the emotional barricade, cutting me.
At this point, I’m too dream-starved and weak to numb myself properly. I’ve not bothered to ask Crane how he waltzed in here, nor how long I’ve been in this twisted abyss of unrelenting memories, since none of that matters. However he came to be here, there’s no escape for either of us.
Death, I would’ve embraced, for it would have brought me to her.
The goddess of reaping must have known that, because this punishment for harming the temples of the gods and their servants is far worse.
“
Anh hoc uair tempore, shut up!” Crane shouts, ripping at his dark curls and staggering slightly. The blood-red aura around him flickers like a candle on the brink of going out.
Mad as a fucking hatter.
I might’ve found his meltdown hilarious if I felt anything at all right now. Instead, I watch him and feel nothing as the scene around us changes to the first time I slaughtered predators disguised as foster parents, before Hearst tracked me down and put me through hell for it.
I merely exist in this void of emptiness with a madman at my side until I see it.
That heart-stopping aura.
Only now, it’s ever so slightly different. It’s more of a dark, vibrant violet than shadowy mauve—but still shimmering and so magnetic that the metaphorical barricade guarding me from this web of misery trembles, weakening further.
Was Crane spewing truths earlier despite his madness, then?
Deep down, I’ve craved that aura.
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.