Filed To Story: Cursed Legacies Series Free PDF by Morgan B Lee
“Hello! I’m so sorry, but do either of you guys speak English?”
The legacies are still blinking in surprise by the time I arrive at the little gate in front of Del Mar’s hideout. I get near enough that I could slip through the front bars if they were wider apart.
“What the hell are you—” one of them begins, reaching for me.
The moment his hand is on me, I break his wrist and twist his arm, turning so he’s in front of me when the other legacy reacts by firing off a shredding hex. It kills the one I’m holding as a shield immediately. I drop him, dodge an attempted blow, and drive Pierce into the other guard’s chest.
He collapses, clawing at his bulging, blackening torso. He tries to scream, but I can’t have attention drawn from the house, so I smother his mouth and nose as I search his pockets for a security amulet. I find it just as he stops twitching, the buzz of a fresh kill sweeping through me.
I check to see if I’ve raised any alarm. A couple is just walking around the corner, but one stops to take a picture of one of the charming houses, and the other checks something on their phone. While they’re distracted, I quickly haul both legacies to the edge of the street and toss them over the fence into the ocean.
The human couple walks past several moments later, completely oblivious. Once I’m alone again, I use the lifted security amulet to slip through Del Mar’s front gate as silently as possible.
Most of these houses run together with little to no space between them, but Del Mar’s monstrosity of a safehouse is surrounded by gardens. When I notice a curtain move in one of the windows, I slip behind a large stone fountain.
I can sense the magical hum of powerful wards nearby. The amulet will get me through those. Thank fuck, because even though I have fresh life forces dancing in my veins, I want to conserve my strength for the heart of the fight.
Plus, I’m too fucking tired to do more than necessary right now.
Darling?
Crypt’s raspy, weary voice trickles to me through the bond, taking me by surprise. It’s very faint—I assume because of our physical distance.
I’m safe, I promise, cleaning Pierce on my sleeve out of habit as I wait to ensure I won’t be spotted.
Why can’t I trace your aura?
Probably because I transported. Have you healed?
I wait several moments for his reply, but there is none. That worries me slightly, but this is the wrong time to get distracted by telepathy, so I push down my worries and peek around the fountain to plan the best route into the house. Before I can move, the front door opens. I hide again as voices pass by on the way toward the gate.
“They were just out here. What, did they go to take a piss together or something?”
“Who fucking knows. Garrett just said to look for them out there because Del Mar will start killing people again if he gets his moody hydra ass out of that fucking indoor pool and realizes they’ve gone to buy more conchitas.”
So, Del Mar is currently in hydra form inside.
Good to know.
Once their backs are to me, I round the fountain and slip through the front door, the security amulet granting me access through the suffocatingly heavy wards. I pause, scanning the entry hallway. It must lead back to the indoor pool since I can hear the soft sloshing of water up ahead. I step in that direction, but someone darts down the steep staircase to my left and tackles me with a snarl.
The vampire sinks her teeth into my throat, but before she can tear into me, I rip her heart out. She slumps to the tiled ground, her head smacking audibly.
More security members shout upstairs. The water sloshing gets louder, and a deep rumbling sound precedes several reptilian hisses from up ahead.
All right, fuck sneaking. Let’s do this.
I bolt down the hall, analyzing my surroundings as I skid into the massive, vaulted indoor pool room that takes up this entire level of the house. Two large legacy security guards in gas masks are posted here and shout when they see me.
But my priority is Iker fucking Del Mar.
Amadeus briefed me on the Immortal Quintet’s weaknesses many times. He taught me about the hydra.
Its many heads spew forth poisonous fumes and grow back twice over when cut off. Its great teeth and claws maim, yet forget not the water-abiding beast’s true deadliness: noxious blood. The scent of it alone is lethal to the living.
As much as I enjoy bloodshed, I don’t want to waste more time away from my quintet suffering an agonizing death because I caught a whiff of Del Mar’s hydras’ blood. His blood in human form won’t pose any risk, hence why the tranquilizer in my pocket is really fucking necessary.
The hydra’s nine heads screech in harmony. The sound is hideous, just like the rest of him. He’s not nearly as large as Baelfire’s dragon, though he is big, scaly, and serpentine.
Just as those nine heads open their mouths and begin to spew a greenish gas into the air, I launch myself into the incredibly large indoor pool where Del Mar’s beast is half submerged.
The water turns tumultuous as the hydra whirls, trying to crush me with its draconic legs. Its serpentine tail whips through the pool in search of me, but I latch onto it. Struggling to keep my grip on the scaly appendage underwater, I uncap the tranquilizer from my pocket and drive the long needle deeply between the scales of the beast.
Del Mar shrieks and finally shakes me off, sending me spinning underwater. My forehead smacks against the pool’s edge, and then dagger-like claws slice across my back. Searing pain explodes through my spine, and water floods my mouth when my body’s reflex is to scream.
Pivoting underwater, I kick up to finally break the surface, coughing up water and gasping for air. By now, the hydra’s fumes have dissipated enough, but Del Mar’s nine heads are still screaming, hissing, and gnashing their teeth. He staggers, less focused on me and more focused on what I just did to him.
One of the legacy guards standing just outside the pool aims at me with a spell. Ignoring the burning pain in my back, I grip the edge of the pool to launch out of the water and roll away from the attack. Whipping wet hair out of my face, I withdraw Pierce again and drive it through the sorcerer’s neck.
A pulse of elemental air slams into me, sending me smashing into one of the house’s walls. I hear the distinctive crack of my ribs breaking, but I can’t waste time processing more pain. Instead, I launch several dark magic attacks in quick succession.
One hits the air elemental. He screams and falls into the pool, drowning while the hydra continues to thrash and screech, fighting the effects of a forced shift.
My vision blurs from pain and exhaustion, but another buzz fills me.
Two of the security members from upstairs race into the room. I hear the now-familiar sound of a gun cocking and dive aside just as the woman opens fire. Using my unnatural revenant speed, I dash around the pool to get to her, but not before one of the bullets lodges in my thigh.
Ouch.
I snap her neck. She drops like a ragdoll.
I wanted to keep this swift and professional—but between the rush of fresh kills and the pounding of a fight inside my veins, I can’t stop the unhinged grin that spreads across my face when the other security guard turns and tries to flee. Pulling out one of my new knives, I hurl it at his back. It sinks deep where his heart is, and he falls forward, lifeless a moment later.
Another wave of dark, delicious force floods through my system. My vision dips again, but this time, it’s because my berserker side wants to break free.
If I weren’t so determined to get back to my quintet as soon as fucking possible, I would let it.
Instead, to stay in control, I recite the list of mantras that Amadeus and the necromancers drilled into me as I approach the pool where the hydra shifter is now shrinking to his human form.
“I feel nothing. I’m on my own. I need no one.” Wiping blood from my neck, I take a deep breath and check my broken ribs, which aren’t as bad as they could be. “I am but a weapon who is one with death. I am nothing but deadly calm.”
Repeating these old mantras staves off the berserker as I crouch beside the pool. Iker Del Mar finally bursts from the surface with a ragged gasp, left naked from the shift.
He lurches forward in the water to bare sharp teeth at me, ready to attack. I beat him to it, sending a silver dagger into his right shoulder. He screams, struggling to tread water through the pain and the effects of the nightshade root powder.
Gripping him by the arm, I yank him onto the pool’s edge. The immortal hisses and tries to bite me, but I have a smaller knife already ready that I slice through his mouth, straight across his cheeks.
He hisses in agony.
“
Telum.”
He sprays blood when he speaks, his forked tongue flicking in and out as he grimaces in pain. “This does nothing. You cannot kill?—“
“Oh, right. Your life link. Slipped my mind, but give me a moment.”
I slit his neck. He gurgles and twitches before going still.
The buzz doesn’t fill my veins, of course. I need to destroy his etherium anchor first. With a grimace, I pick the bullet out of my leg and do a basic necromantic healing spell on my leg and back, ignoring the throbbing in my head as I go to look for Iker’s life link.
It’s a ring. Engela described it in detail, along with all the ways he tends to hide it.
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.