Filed To Story: Cursed Legacies Series Free PDF by Morgan B Lee
It’s positively spine-tingling, which is probably why my morbid little blood blossom is smiling to herself as we walk.
Baelfire huffs. “Damn. Where did you get a weapon like that, Stalker Boy?”
“I stole it from Melvolin when I was eight.”
Everett snorts. “Melvolin Hearst was an asshole to all of the faculty whenever he was around, including me, so knowing that almost makes me like you.”
Crypt gags. “Never say that to me again, Frost.”
The screams of legacies punctuate the air nearby, and we all step into formation around Maven as another group of legacies rushes toward us. No—I realize it’s several quintets, and they’re not running toward us but away from something else. They pass by, shouting and darting in different directions to scatter away from whatever horror is slowly approaching.
We’re all confused, but then a strangely lyrical, otherworldly screech fills the air. Maven tenses, her eyes widening slightly.
“A harbinger,” she breathes. “Fuck.”
I frown. “A what?”
She grabs Crypt’s and Everett’s hands, turning to lead us in the opposite direction of the unfamiliar shadow fiend. She mutters something under her breath that I don’t catch—but it must piss Baelfire off because he grabs her arm to stop her with a growl.
“Hell, no. You are not going after that motherfucker alone.”
“Try and stop me,” she snaps back.
Let her go.
This is how we’ll get rid of her, another voice in my head agrees.
Death to the revenant.
I shake my head hard to clear the aggravating echoes. “Why the hell would you want to fight it alone? What is a harbinger?”
In all our studies of monsters and fiends, I’ve never heard of it, and clearly, neither have the others. But the way Maven’s gaze darkens as she looks behind me, toying with her adamantine dagger, makes it clear she’s come across this kind of fiend before.
“Harbingers are incredibly rare because Amadeus drove them to near extinction. He enjoyed using them in his arena because there was no winning for anyone who fought this creature. Either it kills you, or you die when you kill it.” She looks at us seriously. “Anyone who hears a harbinger’s song and slays it immediately dies with it. Which means if it attacks any of you and you kill it in self-defense, you’ll be dead. I’ll take care of it.”
What she means sinks in immediately, and I snarl. “Absolutely not. You’re not going to fucking sacrifice yourself to take down that thing.”
“It’s hardly a sacrifice since I’ll come back,” she rolls her eyes. “I’m literally the only person in this maze who can destroy it and make it out alive.”
“Just let someone else kill it so it thins out our potential enemies,” I growl, grabbing her hand to pull her away.
Maven snatches her hand back, shaking her head as she glares at me. “What if Kenzie’s quintet runs into that thing? They don’t know how it works. They would die trying to take it down.”
She has that same determined gleam in her eyes that she did when she told us about her promise to free the humans in the Nether. Godsdamn it, why must my keeper be so unfailingly selfless when all I want is to keep her out of harm’s way?
“Too bad for them, then,” Crypt drawls. “It’s not worth having to watch you die again, so let’s get on with it, shall we?”
When he, too, makes a move to grasp our keeper’s arm, she moves so fast that we’re all left blinking in shock when she brutally twists Crypt’s arm behind his back and pins him face-first against one of the massive concrete walls with her uncanny revenant strength.
“You all really need to stop trying to fucking manhandle me,” she warns darkly. “It’s getting on my nerves.”
Crypt exhales roughly, resting his forehead against the concrete. “Now isn’t an ideal time for you to give me a boner, love.”
“Right, because that was obviously her intention just now, you fucking deviant,” Everett huffs, repeatedly adjusting the pocket zippers on his uniform. The frost coating his hands has crawled up past his elbows, and I’m fairly certain most of the snow coming down now is his fault. “Oakley, no one needs to kill that thing. Let’s just focus on getting the hell out of here.”
She grits her teeth before releasing Crypt and adjusting her gloves.
“Fine. I’ll leave it be. Let’s go this way,” she nods down another pathway in the maze.
We obediently move down that pathway as she walks behind us, all of us on high alert as we wait to encounter even more threats. The screams and wailing have reached a fever pitch, echoing around the maze—but abruptly, I realize I don’t hear Maven’s footsteps behind me anymore. I halt, closing my eyes.
“Gods-fucking damn it,” I curse.
Maven adjusted her gloves. That’s her tell.
My blood blossom was fucking lying.
Yes, she’s a liar. Let her die, a voice in my head urges.
Another giggles.
No more keeper.
Sure enough, when I turn to glare over my shoulder, our keeper is nowhere to be seen. Baelfire notices, too, and halts, ignoring how Everett swears when he walks smack into the back of the hulking dragon shifter.
“Wait, what the fuck? Where’s Maven?” Bael demands.
“She went to take down the godsdamned harbinger,” I seethe, turning to run back in the direction we just came from.
Moments later, Baelfire, Crypt, Everett, and I come to a screeching stop and shout in alarm when we see Maven race up the arm of a massive, ghostly white, disgustingly spider-like creature. She uses her momentum to leap into the air, and a moment later, the harbinger’s fanged mouth closes around her.
At once, the voices in my head burst into applause and cheers of approval. I cry out at the deafening commotion, covering my ringing ears and staggering.
It’s difficult to perceive much outside of my damned curse. Still, I see Everett drop to his knees, ice spreading everywhere he touches the ground. He chokes out a prayer to Arati, goddess of battles, that Maven will still somehow win. Baelfire roars, sounding like his inner dragon as he claws at his collar and races forward.
Crypt vanishes and reappears a second later on the top of the massive, terrifying shadow fiend. His face is a mask of fury as he lifts his sword, ready to drive it through the creature’s skull in violent vengeance?—
But just as he does, it shrieks horrifically, and Maven’s blade pierces it from the inside out, slashing a gaping hole across its bulbous stomach.
The harbinger screeches one more time before slumping to the ground, its legs twitching and blackening as foam fills its fanged mouth. Baelfire gasps and catches Maven just in time as she falls out of the belly of the terrifying monster, its dark innards gushing around her.
“Maven!” I shout, hurrying to her side.
Her skin is red and steaming from stomach acid, her arms and legs are cut up, and I watch in horror as her eyes white out precisely at the same time the harbinger goes still. She goes slack in Baelfire’s arms. He chokes, muscles in his neck bulging while his eyes shift to those of a dragon’s. Crypt rolls away from the dead creature, dropping to his knees beside Maven.
“She’ll come back. Her deaths don’t stick,” he rasps, but the frantic terror on the Nightmare Prince’s face tells me his thoughts are spiraling in the same direction mine are.
What if this is an unknown way in which revenants can be killed permanently? What if she doesn’t wake up? What if…gods above, what if I just lost my keeper?
The voices in my head cheer harder. The ringing in my ears increases until I grip the sides of my head, gritting my teeth against the darkness creeping at the edges of my vision. The fact that I can’t even fucking think straight in a moment like this curdles my gut.
But then I see that Maven’s skin is healing. Any sign of damage disappears, and she finally jolts awake, catching her breath as she frowns up at us.
“Did someone just scream? What’s going on?”
Baelfire’s head drops forward with relief. “Oh my fucking gods. Maven. You can’t do that to me again, baby. Please don’t ever fucking do that.”
“So dramatic,” she grumbles. “I’m clearly fine, so let’s…”
Her gaze latches onto Crypt’s sword, barely protruding from the harbinger’s head since he didn’t have time to properly stab it, and her face darkens with wrath. She’s on her feet in a split second, gripping Crypt by the front of his leather jacket. Her voice is deadly.
“What the fuck were you thinking? If I hadn’t gutted it in time, it would have killed you!”
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.