Filed To Story: Cursed Legacies Series Free PDF by Morgan B Lee
Not you, too. You cannot nickname me, I protest telepathically.
Just call me Maven or Oakley like usual.
As we discussed, your last name isn’t Oakley.
For the last time, I will not be named after a motherfucking flower.
But it’s symbolic. I put a lot of thought into it, unlike Baelfire with his ridiculous string of nicknames. If he gets to call you everything under the sun, at least let me call you ‘Snowdrop’ and ‘mine.’
Gods. What the hell am I supposed to do with all these fucking nicknames? It’s ridiculous.
“Back to the subject at hand,” I mutter, realizing I’ve zoned out while the Garnet Wizard sips his tea. “What knowledge do you want in exchange for etherium? And more importantly, what will you do with anything you learn from me?
“
The Garnet Wizard smiles. “I see you’ve learned to ask the right questions, Maven. You are from the Nether, are you not?”
“I am.”
“Do you have any idea of the confusing theories permeating the secular world about the Nether? It has long tormented me with its mystique. I want to know the truth about it.”
“Meaning, you want to know about the Entity.”
He snorts. “Not unless you deem it interesting information. No, no, I’d much rather know about you, actually, and what you think you are. You strike me as one having a plan of her own, not to mention quite the story to share. Tell me everything simply to satisfy my curiosity, and I promise you may have all the etherium you like.”
It seems too easy and too good to be true. What if he wants all this information to turn around and tell the Immortal Quintet and Legacy Council? Not that he seems fond of those groups, but still.
My suspicion must be evident because the wizard nods and stands, gripping his walking cane and gesturing that I should follow.
“Not one to be taken in easily, I see. I applaud your reluctance to trust, for it is the best mode of survival. Come, then. Let me show you something as a show of good faith.”
We leave the study through a set of double doors, and the Garnet Wizard chatters casually as we walk down a long cobblestone path toward a colossal wall of hedges with a gate in the center.
Blood blossom, Silas reaches out telepathically, just to me so Everett won’t hear.
Tell me you’re still breathing. Now, please.
So bossy. I thought your paranoia was gone, I tease.
I will never feel sane in your absence, not to mention your very existence drives me mad with need.
Where are you now?
We pause in front of the gate, and the Garnet Wizard mutters about his lousy back before giving me a look.
“You seem the action type. I warn you not to react rashly.”
“Noted.”
We’re just walking into a garden. No big deal, I report to Silas.
When the gate to the garden opens, I stare at the couple sitting together on a bench in front of an enchanted koi pond.
One of them is a vampire, judging by the trickle of blood dried on his chin as he rests his head against the woman’s shoulder. He’s handsome, with a shock of red hair and an abundance of freckles. He brings the woman’s hand to his lips to kiss the back of it.
When he looks over and makes eye contact with me, I don’t look away despite the disconcerting chill that washes over me. It reminds me of the feeling I get when I sense death nearby—or when I’m tapping into Amadeus’s abilities to see the future.
But my interest in the vampire and that feeling shifts quickly.
Because the woman is Engela Zuma.
She’s dressed in an old-fashioned-looking dress. When she sees me, she remains still, as if she doesn’t know who I am and what I’m meant to do to her.
What the fuck?
What is it? What’s wrong?
Silas asks immediately.
Are you hurt?
Everett demands.
Oops. I didn’t mean to send that through the bond.
I’m fine, I say quickly before blocking them out because all this telepathic communication gets distracting.
This wizard knows I’m the telum, and therefore that I’m supposed to kill this immortal…yet he’s introducing us?
“A moment of your time, Engela?” he calls.
The earth elemental monster leaves the garden, stopping in front of me. Her neck has noticeable recent puncture marks. Whenever I ran into her at Everbound University, she gave off an odd, unsettling feeling—but it’s gone now. She seems more present somehow, more focused as she looks me over without hostility.
“Who is this?”
I frown at her. “We’ve met.”
Her gaze turns distant as if she’s trying to remember. “We have, haven’t we? I believe…you may be the one they are hiding from. Natalya and Iker, I mean.”
“And you’re not hiding with them?”
Engela shakes her head, her expression sad and wise at once. “No. I only escaped once I saw my chance. If I return to them, Natalya will only meddle with my mind until I feel and think nothing, just as I have for the last few centuries. I would much rather spend my last days with the one I truly care for before I finally am taken to the Beyond. If you are who I believe…I accept my fate. I only ask a few more days with my Bertram before you do what you must.”
Well, then.
This is really fucking unexpected.
I glance at the vampire who waits on the bench patiently. If he knows I’m supposed to kill his girlfriend, he doesn’t react. He just watches, giving off that same off-kilter energy that I can’t figure out.
“So, you’re fine with dying?” I reiterate, looking back at Engela. “You expect me to believe you were being mind-controlled by your keeper when you stabbed my dragon shifter with a fucking mountain?”
She studies the twilight sky, which is streaked with even more hints of the aurora borealis. “I apologize if I did injure him, though I do not recall it. But whether you believe it or not, truth is truth. I have not been within my own untarnished mind in so long that I can barely remember when the tarnishing began. I know it was after I met Bertram, at least,” she adds, looking over her shoulder with a small smile. “I thank Arati that he returned to me after losing him for so long.”
She looks back at me. There is still a slight inhuman stilt to the way she speaks, evidence that she is no standard elemental but one from the Nether.
“I have lived hundreds of mortal lifetimes with monsters who made me feel nothing. I have seen atrocities that they made me forget and been forced to do things that I wish they would make me forget. In all the nothingness of my existence, finally experiencing mortal love is the only thing that has brought me…this. Serenity. I don’t need lifetimes of it, telum. Mere days would be enough, for it is more than I have hoped for in far too long. And when you deem it time, I shall gladly depart this life.”
I examine her at length. She doesn’t seem to be lying, but just to be safe…
“Prove it. You know what I’ll need.”
Engela’s smile is soft before she pulls something out of one of her dress pockets.
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.