Filed To Story: Cursed Legacies Series Free PDF by Morgan B Lee
I used up almost the rest of my magic reserve slipping back through the wards, and Kenzie was too queasy and dizzy to even ask how I managed it. Now, I’m supporting one side of her as we hide in one of Everbound Castle’s many alcoves, waiting for one of the Immortal Quintet’s hired legacies to walk past on their nightly patrol.
As soon as their footsteps fade, I peek around the corner to double-check before we move down the hall, turn a corner, and stop in front of her quintet apartment. I don’t want to knock because that will alert any nearby lackeys about us being here, so I mouth a quick goodnight to Kenzie before she slips through the door.
I turn and move on through the halls, quiet as a shadow once again. It’s beyond relieving that she’s alive and safe with her quintet.
Not that Everbound is the safest place for legacies in general right now, but still. If the Nether has grown stronger after Hearst’s death, I’m sure things have grown worse for legacies outside the wards.
Exhaustion weighs heavily on my eyelids as I pause at the end of one particularly dark hallway to listen for anyone on patrol. Depleting my magic like that and the late hour means I’ll probably be tired tomorrow, too. But a small smile curls my lips as I remember that at least I won’t be waking up in a cold sweat due to nightmares.
I wonder where Crypt got that totem, anyway.
As if my thoughts summoned him, my pulse triples when that alluringly dark presence tickles at the edge of my awareness. I halt and turn around, expecting him to step out of Limbo any moment.
He doesn’t, which makes me frown. Is he not in this hallway after all? Did I imagine it?
“Crypt?” I whisper.
A hand goes around my throat, and I’m slammed against the stone wall, the air knocking from my lungs. A vampire hireling hisses down at me, barely visible in this unlit hall.
“What’s this? A student breaking curfew?” she asks, baring her fangs threateningly. “I’ll be taking you straight to?—“
Before she can finish speaking, something blurs into existence beside us. There’s a flash of silver, and the vampire vanishes before she can even cry out. I blink rapidly as I realize that the flash of silver was a blade of some kind because the vampire’s hands didn’t vanish. They fall away from my neck, flopping onto the marble floor.
My lips curl up.
That was the work of my Nightmare Prince. I still sense him nearby, so I just wait.
Finally, he emerges in front of me in the darkness, kicking the hands aside before reaching out to twist his fingers through the ends of my ponytail. I can’t see him well because of how dark it is, but I’m beaming now.
“You’re back.”
“You’re smiling,” he rasps. “You’ve no idea how much I’ve missed your face, darling.”
“Just my face?”
Crypt moves closer, and I feel his warm breath against my lips, but he’s careful not to touch me. “All of you. Every beautifully broken piece that completes whatever is left of my soul. Tell me, were you harmed at all during my absence?”
I squint, trying to make out his face better. Is that…
“Do you have a black eye?”
He ignores my question and gently brushes aside some of my hair to check my neck, where the vampire’s harsh grip probably left a mark. Of course, the darkness isn’t impeding this incubus’s vision like it is mine.
But who the fuck cares if my neck is bruised because now I’m positive that he’s missing an ear.
Gritting my teeth, I risk the odds of another hireling finding us and raise my hand to call up a common magic light spell. As soon as I do, I swear viciously.
Crypt is missing an ear. He does have a black eye. In fact, he looks like he just went through hell. His clothes, including his leather jacket, are ripped and burnt, and bruises darken one side of his jaw and cheekbone. He’s also hiding one hand behind his back, which means he’s trying to hide another injury from me.
He’s a siphon, and they have accelerated healing and regenerative abilities. That means if he looks like this now, he must have looked far worse earlier.
When I give him a silently furious look, he sighs and looks away.
“I was going to stay in Limbo and see you safely back to the apartment without you seeing me like this, but that vampire chose death by touching you.”
Scowling, I reach behind him and pull his hand forward. His hand is extremely burnt, to the point that I can count bones. If he were human, it would probably need amputation—and it’s healing far too slowly.
Why do my matches keep getting hurt?
I fucking hate it.
I’m so mad I can’t even form words as I put out the light spell and grab Crypt’s unburned hand, marching toward the quintet apartment. He wisely says nothing, but I know we’re both checking corners for any signs of more legacies patrolling for students.
As soon as we step through the front door, Baelfire leaps up from the couch, relief shining on his handsome face.
“Thank the fucking gods you’re—oh, yikes. Crypt looks like shit.”
“I noticed,” I snap, the raw fury breaking my voice. Then I pause when I see Silas asleep on the couch in the nearby TV room. A blanket is haphazardly tossed over him. “Why is he sleeping here? I thought his paranoia prevented that.”
Baelfire looks at me, then Silas, then back at me like he’s trying to decide whether to tell me the truth. “It’s nothing. He’s fine.”
“Why wouldn’t he be?” I ask more menacingly than I intended. Because if another one of them is hurt, I’m going to snap.
Bael glances behind me at Crypt, and I look back just in time to see Crypt shaking his head. He quickly gives me an innocent smile as if he wasn’t just telling the dragon shifter to shut up.
Obviously, they don’t want me getting any more pissed off than I already am.
Smart legacies.
But I still want the truth. When I turn back to Baelfire, he gives me a soft smile.
“Don’t worry about Si. It was fucking nasty to touch his mouth, but I force-fed him a shot of wyvern blood because he told me to, and he’s fit as a fiddle again. Just sleeping. So you can go take care of your psychotic incubus. Even if he doesn’t deserve it because he abandoned you like an absolute fucking jackass,” he adds, shooting Crypt a savage glare.
“Don’t ever accuse me of leaving her willingly,” Crypt warns darkly.
Baelfire huffs, but I ignore both of them as I gather a wide range of ingredients from Silas’s stash in the kitchen. As I walk past Crypt toward the hall, I speak in a voice that leaves no room for argument.
“Come with me.”
CRYPT
After days of being deprived of the only thing I want, I desperately drink in everything about her.
Maven’s anger is evident as she tells me to sit as she prepares her tinctures. I perch on the end of her bed, lost in the quiet pleasure of watching her. Her movements are as bewitching as always while she skillfully combines ingredients I know little about.
My darling shoots me a sharp look that has my heart thrumming. “Enough of that dreamy look. I’m pissed at you.”
I know she is. She’s unhappy with me for getting hurt.
My chest swells, knowing that she was worried about me. No one has ever fretted over me before, and if they had, I would have broken their face. But knowing
Maven is upset on my behalf is damn near giddying.
I don’t know what to do with a feeling like this.
But I do know that I’m going to make her my muse. I want her ingrained in my subconscious just as deeply as I plan to be permanently woven into hers.
Maven brings over three bowls of different poultices and sets them on the bed beside me. She reaches out to gently but firmly turn my head to one side so she can study the spot where a shade bit off my left ear.
It will grow back faster once I’ve consumed more dreams to cull my exhaustion. I mean to tell her that, but she’s standing between my legs, and when she presses the tiniest bit into me, I bite back a groan. I want her far closer.
But pulling her into my lap the way I want to is out of the question. I’ll mind Maven’s aversion to touch until she wants more.
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.