Filed To Story: Cursed Legacies Series Free PDF by Morgan B Lee
Irritation prickles over me. I can take a lot of shit, but not jabs at my family. My family is anything but dishonest. I bare my teeth at him.
“I said it’s not. Fucking. Happening. You should have already groveled your ass off for Maven’s forgiveness for ever suggesting that bet in the first place, you insensitive prick.”
“I did.” He pins me with scarlet eyes. “Fine. If you refuse to honor the first agreement, name another price.”
Name my price?
Wow. He must be really desperate.
That gets my attention, and I glance ahead to check that Everett and Maven are still out of earshot. We’re almost out of the woods as we pass a smoldering, charred section where a fire elemental or fire spell got out of hand. We skirt a couple of lumps of charcoal that might’ve been legacies at one point.
“Why the hell do you want them so bad?” I demand.
“That’s my business.”
“Does it have something to do with your curse? Maven? Some random spells you want to try? Just spit it out.”
Silas clenches his jaw and looks forward. “I can’t.”
“Because you’re a shady little prick,” I huff.
“Because I swore I wouldn’t, and I can’t tell a lie.”
I flip him the bird. “My scales, my rules. I’m not giving you jack shit until I know what it’s for.”
“I hate you,” he mutters.
“Right back at you.”
MAVEN
It’s difficult to ignore the fresh wave of intoxicating, destructive magic humming through my veins while Coach Gallagher begrudgingly awards us points for winning against the rival quintet.
Other matched quintets emerge one by one from Everbound Forest, most heavily injured and exhausted and some missing entirely. I’m aware that my blood-splattered appearance is earning some suspicious looks, just as I’m aware of how Silas subtly steps in the way to block me from their sight. He’s clearly put together that I don’t want other legacies to know how dangerous I am.
Finally, combat class is over, and everyone limps back to the castle. Some are carried or dragged by their quintet members. As they do, I spot the real Monica with her quintet out of the corner of my eye. She leans heavily on a fae girl with lavender hair and cries quietly.
Whatever happened, I’m just glad she’s alive.
I still need to track down Harlow and get answers, but that will have to wait until tomorrow after I’ve safely gotten Kenzie back.
As we step back into the vaulted stone hallways of the castle, Baelfire flags, pausing to brace himself against the wall like his head is spinning. Seeing him weak from the attack makes my fists clench. The puncture wounds all over his skin have healed, but he makes for a gruesome sight, with shredded, red-soaked clothes and blood all over. When a couple of legacies passing by take notice and approach, trying to talk to the overwhelmingly popular Decimus, my dragon shifter snarls at them, and they scamper away.
My dragon shifter.
I glance at Everett, who has been scowling since I mentioned leaving tonight, then at Silas, who quietly hisses at Baelfire to keep walking and not make us look vulnerable. Ever since I lost my temper and decided to stop fighting this, a sense of rightness has started seeping into my bones.
It’s incredibly fucking selfish of me, but they’re mine now.
Even Crypt, despite his bothersome absence. I’m starting to detest the fact that I don’t feel him stalking me from Limbo nearly all day long.
When Baelfire finally insists he’s okay, we return to our quintet apartment. Bael mutters that he needs a “long-ass fucking shower” and heads down the hall. Silas starts rummaging through random spell ingredients in the kitchen, and surprisingly, Everett follows him inside and checks the fridge.
He catches me observing him and grumbles, “You need to eat dinner, and I highly doubt your pet lizard can manage cooking tonight.”
“There’s a dining hall,” I point out.
“The one full of legacies who would try to kill you in a heartbeat? Yeah, that’s not happening.”
I give him a deadpan look. “I just gave you all a front-row seat to the fact that I excel at homicide. Shocking as it may be, picking up food is well within my wheelhouse.”
But when I turn away, a foot-thick sheet of ice crackles into existence, blocking the front door. Everett hasn’t even looked up from digging in the fridge.
“There you go. Accuracy. Now you should go and get that cut on your face cleaned.”
I open my mouth, ready to tell him to?—
“Fuck off,” Silas snaps before I can as he levels Everett with a surprisingly savage glare. “You shouldn’t have even followed us in here. Get out.
Now.”
“I can at least be allowed to make sure she’s fucking eating,”
the ice elemental grits out.
“Those who care about her will do that. So get. The hell. Out.”
Everett’s jaw flexes, and he slams the fridge closed as he turns to face Silas, but it’s like someone opened the freezer instead because abruptly, my breath comes in white plumes in front of my face. For a moment, Silas and Everett go toe to toe, looking equally pissed off as icy flurries drift through the kitchen. Then Everett’s expression transforms into the same miserable, defeated one he was wearing earlier…when Silas chewed him out for getting aroused after tackling me.
I study the interaction until things click together. “You guys think Everett is somehow a danger to me. Why?”
Everett winces and turns toward the front door. “Forget it, Oakley.”
He storms out, the ice block shattering at his fingertips before he slams the front door behind himself. Such a strong reaction…but then it’s slowly becoming clear that he’s putting up a facade where I’m concerned.
I’m going to make his facade shatter just like that ice.
Silas mutters something in fae about Everett being a selfish ass and turns to me. “Here, sangfluir.”
“You can’t heal me, remember?”
“I know. But you can use your own magic now,” he says carefully, studying me as if he’s worried I’ll react badly. “After you ended the others, you were able to use potent magic on that last rival. Perhaps you’re more a siphon than a caster because, to me, it seems as if you…fed.”
By killing.
He doesn’t say that part out loud, but it’s just as true unspoken.
When I don’t deny it, he gently takes one of my gloved hands, presses the healing ingredients into it, and then places a kiss near my temple. I tilt my face up toward him. For a moment, he seems captivated by my eyes and the cut on my cheek. Then he steps away, giving me space to breathe after all that nearness and…touching.
“Heal yourself, ima sangfluir. I’ll return later.”
“You’re leaving?”
“If you’re intent on leaving the wards tonight, I insist on crafting an extremely potent concealment potion to mask our scents and magic footprints. I’ll be back soon.”
Placing one more feather-light kiss against my temple, Silas leaves. I hear the shower running down the hall as Baelfire washes away all the gore. Otherwise, it’s silent as I sit at the dining table and crush moonflower petals. Twisting the tiniest amount of necromancy into healing magic, I create something that will actually work on me.
By the time my face is healed, Baelfire reemerges from the hallway with nothing on except the leather collar and a black towel around his waist. His cuts have healed, leaving nothing but golden skin and endless muscles.
Very smooth, lickable muscles.
My face heats. He’s too damn attractive for his own good.
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.