Filed To Story: Cursed Legacies Series Free PDF by Morgan B Lee
Moisture trickles over my temples as I fight like hell for another breath. “I need you to do something for me.”
Everett’s own tears drip, leaving clean streaks through the ash and dampening the bandages over one half of his face. He gently touches my face with trembling fingers, but his normally chill body temperature doesn’t even register to my nearly lifeless remains.
“Anything. Anything for you,” he whispers.
“Take care of the others for me.” I swallow and shut my eyes. “Please.”
“You’ll take care of them. You’ll stay. I’ll find a way to fix this—godsdamn it, there has to be a way to fucking fix this if you just keep breathing and?—“
“Everett.”
He buries his face in my neck, sobs wracking his shoulders. I can barely hear him when he speaks.
“Okay. Okay, I…I promise.”
Whatever else happens after I’m gone, I trust this beautiful snow angel. If I had a heart, it would belong to him—to all of them. I don’t even know how to express the newfound, overwhelming, unspeakable pain inside my hollow chest until the quiet words are already leaving my lips.
“I love you.”
Damn it. I was so right to be terrified of this consuming emotion. It’s destroying me. Still, what a shame it is that I won’t get to explore this beautiful destruction with them.
Something stutters and then evaporates inside my chest—and at once, I feel the bonds snap.
I thought I knew suffering before, but I had no idea agony like this existed.
Everett cries out. Far overhead, a roar of pure draconic anguish splits the air, so loud that even my malfunctioning ears ache. I can no longer sense the others trying to reach me telepathically. I can no longer sense anything, but I know they’re hurting.
It makes me despise the gods even more. How dare they give me this quintet just to take it away?
“Stupid fucking gods,” I choke as everything goes dark.
Yet even as my not-life fades away at last, I hear it. The smooth, quiet voice of a woman who sounds almost…amused.
“Quite the finale. Come along now, Maven.”
A strange whistle fills the air, and for the first time in countless deaths, my soul is reaped.
MAVEN
Some Time Later
Gentle warmth permeates my body. I open my eyes and stare at a rich blue sky filled with dancing constellations. Sunlight glows around me, highlighting golden flowers and long strands of grass that wave slightly in a soft breeze, brushing against me.
I feel strange. Not only because I don’t know where the fuck I am, but also because…
I’m not sure who I am.
Sitting up, I take stock of my surroundings. To my left is an orchard filled with trees hanging with some kind of spiral fruit I can’t put a name to. Tiny, faintly glowing winged figures flit about. I watch as a massive elk with silver fur and golden antlers ambles peacefully through the orchard, golden flowers blooming wherever it steps.
To my right is a picturesque cottage with a gold-thatched roof, a blooming garden, and oversized butterflies everywhere. It’s so bizarrely idyllic that it takes me a moment of staring before I realize a young man is lounging on a massive flower in the garden, reading from a leather-bound grimoire.
His hair is white, the top tied up in a knot and the rest shorn. I think his face is handsome, but what the hell do I know? I can’t remember anything to compare it to. His skin is a pale sage green, and he wears multiple necklaces, bracelets, rings, earrings, and a shiny septum piercing studded with emeralds.
When I catch the man’s attention, his face lights up. He stands and drops the grimoire. It hovers safely to settle on the flower, which closes around it and disappears into the ground.
Pretty sure that’s not fucking normal.
But again, no memories for comparison. So whatever.
“At last! You’re awake,” he says with a brilliant smile as he approaches.
No shit. “I don’t remember anything.”
“Ah. That would be a side effect of apotheosis. I’m afraid that turning into one of us has a learning curve—but don’t worry, I expect your memories will start to return soon after your mother arrives. I’ve already sent a magical summons announcing that you’re conscious.”
My mother?
I don’t understand, but I glance down for the first time to see that I’m wearing a plain white dress with no sleeves. No shoes, no jewelry, nothing of note on my entire person—except for the tip of a scar that appears to run down the center of my chest. I stare at it because something about it feels wrong. Like it should be different.
Or more like something is…absent.
“I feel strange,” I repeat aloud.
“Again, another result of your arrival here.”
“Which is where, exactly?”
The man smiles gently, offering a hand to help me stand up. I start to accept, but when his fingers come near mine, I jerk my hand away. I can’t explain why the idea of touching him makes my nerves clench, especially because nothing else about him makes me feel uneasy, but I opt to stand without his assistance.
“Your rightful home,” he replies to my question, gesturing at our ethereal surroundings. “And you’ve certainly earned it. The others have had so many opinions ever since you entered the mortal world—especially our dear queen. But I want you to know that I, for one, am exceedingly pleased that you qualified.”
I stare at him deadpan and wait, because surely he knows how vague and unhelpful that was.
The man throws his head back with a bright laugh. “My word, you really do take after her! How amusing. Forgive me—you deserve an introduction. My name is Koa. You could call me Uncle Koa, if you like, for I am the lover of your aunt.”
Yikes. I was not a fan of that last sentence.
I still don’t know what’s happening, but I do know one thing: with every second that passes, I’m starting to feel torn. Because while this place is gorgeous, and I feel oddly safe and at ease…something still feels odd.
I frown at the dancing stars in the sky. “I’m missing something important.”
Or is it multiple somethings? My chest aches, so I rub the scar there.
“Your memories,” Koa suggests with another kind smile. “But as I said, those will return in short order. Your soul has been through so much that it is only natural that you will need time to settle in this plane of existence. For now, please come with me. We’re all so eager to greet you, dear Maven—we’ve watched your progress, after all, and it’s been nearly three millennia since we welcomed a new goddess to Paradise.”
New goddess? I don’t need memories to instinctively know that idea repels me.
“Fuck, no. Hard pass.”
A tinkling laugh nearby makes us both turn, and I watch as a woman in a flowing white dress approaches. Her golden hair falls in cascades well past her hips. The closer she gets, the more I can see that her eyes are a bizarre kaleidoscope of swirling colors, constantly shifting through the full spectrum of the rainbow.
She’s almost nauseatingly beautiful, yet also oddly familiar. Have I ever seen her face before?
“You’ve never seen my face, my fearless one,” she replies to my thoughts matter-of-factly. “I’m afraid I had to have some method of disguise in the mortal realm.”
I stare at the woman for another second and then glance at Koa. “You summoned her?”
Meaning…this is my mother?
“No. He summoned me,” another woman’s voice says from behind me.
And I know this voice because, with a jolt, I remember hearing it when everything else faded to black. Memories of who and what I was begin returning to me, so by the time I turn to face the owner of that voice, I’m not surprised to see the Reaper herself push back the hood of her cloak.
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.