Filed To Story: Cursed Legacies Series Free PDF by Morgan B Lee
His smile is blinding as he raises his goblet like a toast. “Well done down there, my dear!”
My attention drifts to the god beside him. This one is taller and beautifully graceful. His dark midnight blue skin is striking against his solemn moonlight-colored irises. The white robe he wears drifts slightly as if he’s underwater, as does his long, dark hair. Everything about him is slender and delicate as he offers me a kind, soft smile.
I remember him. Raan, god of the oceans, moonlight, serenity, and a bunch of other shit. With his dominion over water, he was the one who hand-blessed Everett as a baby with his ice abilities. I even remember Raan telling me months ago that he favored Everett because of his gentle spirit and bestowed on my elemental a more mild curse than his powerful capabilities would otherwise demand.
Koa lifts a goblet, as well. “To Maven.”
“To Maven,” the rest of the gods echo before downing their goblets.
“Fate divine, that’s good ambrosia!” Pheli hiccups, going to pour more from one of the goblets. Raan waves his hand, and no matter how Pheli tries to pour it, the liquid won’t go into his goblet. The sun god huffs, looking at the moon god. “Just another sip. We’re celebrating!”
Raan shakes his head with a small, affectionate smile.
“Well, my niece, you’ve done it. You defeated Amadeus and freed the Nether,” Arati announces, popping some kind of Paradisical fruit into her mouth at the head of the table as she, too, raises her goblet.
The others are chiming in to congratulate me more, but I’m distracted as more important memories re-emerge.
I remember the day I finally found that the golden corruinum flower had bloomed. I hadn’t hesitated to turn it into a poisonous potion to drink so I could give up my divine status and return to my quintet.
I remember downing the golden liquid and feeling pain unlike I’ve ever known as I fell careening from the heavens, unsure if I would live or die.
Shaking off those memories, I tune back in and look at Arati. “So?”
“
So is not a full sentence,” she says, sipping her ambrosia again.
“
So then use your brains and read between the fucking lines,” I shoot back.
Whoa. That response came like a knee-jerk reaction, and now I feel bitchy. Did I really argue with my aunt so much in my time here in Paradise that it’s become like second nature?
Koa does a spit-take with his ambrosia, clearing his throat and shooting me a chastising look. “You may not recall fully, but we’ve been over this many times, Maven. You cannot insult the queen of the gods. Have some decorum, if only for your mother’s sake.”
“As if I mind,” Syntyche says without missing a beat, setting down her goblet.
Arati rolls her eyes at her triplet before she stands at the head of the table, towering and beautiful and fierce all at once. She smiles down at me.
“Pheli is right. You did a good job. It’s time for us to finalize the second part of your oath to me, and then I shall fulfill my oath to you.”
“You’re really going to remove all curses from the earth?” I gawk.
“Yes.”
A realization strikes me, and I tense, staring her down. “Even the steward of Limbo’s?”
Arati flaps her hand at me like I’m bothering her. “We’ve been over this, even before we swore the oaths. You made it beyond crystal clear that you would agree to nothing unless that mortal incubus’s curse was alleviated with the others. Or don’t you recall the arguments you made in favor of ending the Legacy Curse and shifting the maintenance of Limbo onto all living incubi?”
Her words sound kind of familiar. I still struggle for a moment to pick the right memory from my head before I realize she’s right. We’d argued about it in this very room.
“The Legacy Curse was made to unite the monsters of old to stop their warfare. That’s what all legacies in the world believe
—but that’s manticore shit,”
I had pointed out.
“Galene herself told me fate picks matches. The Legacy Curse was a way to tame the more violent legacies long ago. It gave them a selfish reason to accept their matches and work together, but now it’s time for you to trust in the humanity of legacies. I can tell you from firsthand experience that the urge to find your quintet is now so ingrained in legacies, down to the fiber of their beings, that having a curse on top of it is fucking ridiculous. It’s antiquated.”
“
Fine,” Arati had snapped at me.
“I’ll lift the Legacy Curse.”
“From everyone?”
“Yes. All legacies living and yet unborn. Let’s just get on with it, then.”
I’d stopped her from cutting her hand to make the blood oath.
“The steward of Limbo needs to be freed, too.”
“What? No. The Limbo must be tended to.”
“I agree,” I’d shrugged.
“But there are thousands of incubi in the world. They can all go into Limbo. Why can’t they all maintain it? Why make only one suffer? If all curses are gone, that burden needs to be shared. My incubus will be freed with every other legacy, or I’ll drop this blood oath right now and good fucking luck finding someone else stupid enough to tie their soul to the Nether.”
It took more arguing, but Arati had agreed.
Relief hits me hard and fast as I refocus on the six gods around this table. They’re all watching me expectantly, but I keep my face carefully unreadable as powerful emotions well inside me.
I told Crypt I would find a way to fix it, not realizing I already had.
I may have sealed my quintet’s fates to the Nether along with mine without asking for their permission, but…I have no regrets.
Galene was right. Coming here was vital.
“All right,” I nod. “Seal my soul to the Nether.”
“I will,” Arati shrugs before impaling something on one of her plates with a golden fork and savoring the taste of it. She smiles, half smug and half amused. “But first, you’ll have dinner with us.
Clothed, this time.”
I stare at her. “I can’t eat. Or drink. Or touch anything.”
Koa glances at me. “We’ve enjoyed watching you in the mortal realm, but despite the rather awful wringer you put us through when you first arrived in Paradise, we’ve…well, we’ve missed you.”
“You will visit us in projections like this in the future, but not often,” Galene adds. “Therefore, allow us to enjoy this small celebration with you before we make such great changes to the world. Syntyche, especially, is pleased to have you here.”
Could’ve fooled me. She looks as expressionless as always as she scoots something across her plate as if she’s bored.
Whatever. If the gods want a one-sided dinner with me before I get my happily ever after with my quintet, I suppose I can suffer through it.
Several angels slip into the grandiose golden room while the gods eat. They start setting up instruments. One of them clears their throat before they begin playing music and dancing.
“Dinner comes with a show,” Arati adds, smirking at me
“And dessert!” Pheli grins, guzzling another goblet of wine. “You’ll be here a while, my dear, and we couldn’t be happier.”
Oh, my gods. This isn’t just dinner and a show. It’s payback for all the shit I put them through when I first came here. There’s no other explanation for these holy sadists wanting to watch such a boring dance routine while I sit here and watch them enjoy dinner together.
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.