Filed To Story: Cursed Legacies Series Free PDF by Morgan B Lee
I leave the bedroom and stride to the front door, ready to fling it open and tell whoever it is to fuck off. But when I open the door, I pause at the sight of a young woman with warm caramel colored hair, big brown eyes, and a pink splotchy birthmark that covers half of her face. She looks nervous as hell as she clutches some kind of amulet and clears her throat, glancing behind me.
“Oh. I didn’t realize this was such a bad time. Sorry. I can come back and talk to Everett later.”
I frown. It is a bad time, but I didn’t say that, so how did she?—
Everett appears at my side in the doorway, and it looks like the world just dropped out from under him. He exhales sharply in shock.
“Heidi?”
Whoa. Hold up. This is his sister?
I look beteen them, confused. Where Everett is tall and cold-looking, his sister is petite, curvy, and warm as she smiles with relief at her brother. They look absolutely nothing alike.
He steps out of the apartment like he’s about to wrap her in a hug, but Heidi scrambles back, holding up the amulet like it will ward him away.
“Don’t! Sorry, it’s not you. I—it’s a long story, but…” She trails off before looking curious, gesturing at the left side of her face to indicate his. “Did…did that hurt?”
Everett almost goes to cover his scar before putting his hand back down. “At the time. It’s fine now.”
“Oh—I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up a memory that painful. And dear gods, you’re already so stressed out about your keeper right now, and so tired and frustrated and your quintet is struggling so much and?—“
“You’re alive,” Everett breathes, studying her with the intensity of an overprotective older brother. “How?”
“It’s a long story. My best friend made sure I survived for as long as I did,” she adds, her face falling for a second before she fidgets with the hem of her shirt. “And…well, I came here for two reasons. The first was to thank your keeper and Crypt DeLune for getting me out of the citadel.”
“What? The citadel?”
Uh oh. Looks like Frosty is about to have a fucking aneurysm.
Heidi flinches hard, taking a big step back like his freakout is physically assaulting her. Everett notices and swears, taking a deep, calming breath and glaring at the amulet she’s holding.
“You lost your dampening charm.”
“T—the liches took it away,” she says faintly.
Everett pinches his nose, taking two more deep breaths like he’s trying not to lose his shit. “
Liches. You were around liches. Okay.”
Heidi puts on a smile, but it’s strained. “I’m fine now. Really. I’ll find other things to help with it. And I can tell this is a really bad time, so I’ll come back later about the other thing I wanted to talk to you about, because it’s kind of big. I just…” She trails off again, her brow furrowing as she glances behind us through the doorway. “Wow. She’s really exasperated. Is everything okay?”
Wait. She can sense Maven’s emotions right now?
“You’re an empath,” I realize, feeling stupid for not catching on earlier.
Heidi nods, fidgeting again.
“Tell me what else she’s feeling,” I press, desperate for any scrap of information about my mate.
Everett’s sister hesitates, clutching the amulet close to her chest. “This is blocking a lot, so I can’t pick up on minor emotions, but…it seems like she’s getting impatient. She’s also really happy, I think—but in a hopeful way. Like she has something good to look forward to.”
That’s enough for me to breathe fully again, optimism flooding my system. I thank Heidi and leave the front door, returning to Maven’s room. Everett quickly finishes his conversation with her before rejoining us and pacing in the bedroom.
Silas glances at us from the chair beside the bed. “Who was it?”
“Everett’s sister,” I explain.
“Heidi,” Crypt supplies, still exhausted as he breathes raspily beside Maven. “So she survived after all. Good.”
“At some point, you’re going to tell me how the fuck you know my sister,” Everett warns, glaring at Crypt.
“If she hasn’t shared that tidbit of her life with you, it’s not my business to share,” Crypt drawls before breaking into a fit of wheezing coughs again. He hisses in pain, wipes more blood from his mouth, and lays his head on Maven’s chest to listen to her heartbeat. “I’m going to sleep.”
“What do you mean?” I frown. “I thought you couldn’t sleep.”
The incubus doesn’t bother answering my confusion as he shuts his eyes and murmurs, “If I don’t last until our goddess opens her pretty eyes again, tell her it’s still the best rest I’ve ever had.”
The silence in the room grows heavier with every second that ticks by. Everett paces while Silas and I watch Maven and Crypt lay motionless on the bed. I really fucking hope the Nightmare Prince is just sleeping. I think I still see him breathing, but I can’t be sure. He just looks feverish and pale and…
“Fuck,” I mutter. “He really is dying, isn’t he?”
Silas examines his blackened-fingertip hands. “Yes.”
“And there’s nothing we can do?”
He shakes his head.
Godsdamn it, this is going to hurt Maven so fucking much. Seeing her break over Lillian was pure torture—but now this? Not to mention, the idea of Crypt just not being around to pop out of Limbo and annoy us all the time is just bleak as hell.
After everything we’ve been through, is our quintet seriously about to never be complete again?
“That damn incubus,” Everett mutters, stopping his pacing to rub his face.
The tip of the new scar on the center of his chest peeks out from under his shirt, leftover from Amadeus ripping his heart out. He still hasn’t asked Silas to heal the scar, and based on his face, I’m going to take a wild guess and say he doesn’t really give a shit about how he looks anymore.
More time passes. Finally, I can’t take it anymore and blurt, “What if Maven comes back with bad news? Or what if—fuck, what if the gods refuse to let her return to the mortal realm again?”
“She can’t stay in Paradise,” Silas argues. “She made herself mortal to fall from that plane of existence, and mortals aren’t permitted there. Galene said her soul would return.”
“She also said with the utmost of haste, and that was clearly a fucking lie,” I growl.
Everett adjusts one of his sleeves six times in a row. “I don’t like that it’s taking so long for her to fulfill the blood oath, whatever it is.”
That fun little reminder that she swore something none of us has a clue about makes me want to throw up. I start pacing the room alongside Everett, ignoring the heat under my skin and the restlessness urging me to shift and fly to burn off this suffocating impatience.
It feels like hours pass, but it’s probably only a few more minutes before the strangest thing happens. The air pressure changes around us as the morning light sneaking in through the drapes brightens. My entire body tingles with the same feeling I get when casters are wielding powerful magic anywhere near me.
“That’s holy magic,” Silas realizes, getting to his feet. “It’s so fucking potent. This is gods-level magic at work outside.”
Alarmed, I throw open the drapes so we can see what the fuck is happening.
At the height of our quintet apartment, we have a view over the nevermelt walls Everett built far outside of Everbound. The world in the distance is gray and colorless, proof that the Nether’s reach spread there—but as we watch, lights begin to rain down from the heavens. It’s like a meteor shower in the middle of the day, with thousands of tendrils of holy magic falling to the earth.
One beam of light veers sharply, passing through the window before any of us can react and absorbing into Crypt’s motionless body.
Crypt gasps and bolts upright before scrambling to get his clothes off like they’re on fire.
“What the fuck just happened?” I demand, my heart pounding.
The incubus throws his shirt to the ground, and we all watch with wide eyes as swirling markings reappear on his skin like surfacing ink. Instead of both light and dark markings, these ones are only dark as they cover his body once again.
Crypt lifts his hands, sees the curling markings all over his arms and palms, and looks at us with wide purple eyes.
New Book: Returned To Make Them Pay
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