Filed To Story: Cursed Legacies Series Free PDF by Morgan B Lee
They assume we’ll work as a team. They see me as the weak one here, so it’s easy to deduce that Silas is right. I’ll probably get more real combat than I usually do in this class because instead of ignoring me, people are going to actively try to kill me.
That puts a small smile on my face as I turn back to the woods.
The whistle blows. I step past the border, and magic whisks me away.
MAVEN
Transportation magic is a bitch.
For a moment, I feel like I’m being pulled in eighteen different directions at once while the world twists in on itself, and then all at once, I stumble to my feet in a section of barren forest floor just as a flag appears in my left hand.
Righting myself, I glance down at the fabric marked with the Everbound University symbol—the colors and signs of the Four Houses with a golden heart in the center, uniting them all. Tucking it into my pocket, I eye my surroundings.
Flurries filter down through the barren canopy above, swirling softly past gray and white tree trunks marred with long scratches from otherworldly creatures. Though the sky is pale far above, the wintry wood surrounding me is wreathed in mist and shadows, hiding any dangers or other legacies lurking nearby. Whenever a breeze passes through the twisted treetops, it turns into spine-chilling whispers, like dozens of ghosts hissing to beware. A few dozen yards away, Everbound River rushes past its rocky banks, white with ice and forbidding rapids.
Utterly beautiful.
I don’t sense Crypt’s dark, chilling presence nearby, and I assume he would have appeared by now if the magic hadn’t affected him. Which means I’m really on my own as I wait for danger to find me.
Just the way I like it.
Climbing up into one of the twisted trees takes only a minute, and then I watch the ground below at my leisure, enjoying the sinister ambiance and the chilly, fresh air. The white noise of the river is soothing.
And as I sit and wait, I mull over my options.
Using Everett to turn the guys against each other is a good plan, one I still intend to use. Acting like a bitch might annoy them a bit, but I’m guessing that I’ll have to do some significant damage for them to reject me completely like I need them to.
Which makes me wonder…
What are their curses?
If I can exploit whatever weaknesses they have, they’ll be pissed. And once they’re disgusted by me and move on, I’ll be able to do what I need to do.
It’s not a pity party when I say they’ll be better off without me. It’s just a fact.
A branch snaps several yards away, barely audible over the river. It draws my attention to a legacy creeping through the woods. Not just any legacy, though. It’s Sierra. She’s sticking close to the trees, on high alert.
I still don’t know which House Sierra is in, but watching her tiptoe around makes me roll my eyes. Poor thing has no idea how to check her surroundings. She’d already be toast if I were a competitive legacy who wanted to up my ranks and took this flag-collecting exercise seriously.
Deciding to get this over with, I slip down from the tree, allowing my feet to thud loudly against the forest floor. She doesn’t turn around. So, to give her another nudge, I fake a sneeze.
That makes her whirl to face me.
There you go. Good job. You get a gold star.
“You,” she jeers.
“Me,” I agree.
She whips her hair back and takes a defensive stance, looking at me like I’m a pile of manticore shit. “Bet you’re feeling pretty good about yourself, huh? Thinking your men will show up in time to rescue you from me? Give that shit up because it’s not going to happen. I hope you enjoyed them while you had the chance, bitch, because you’re not walking out of here.”
I roll my eyes. “Make your move, Miss Steal Your Men.”
“Shut the fuck up,” she snaps, marching towards me. “You’re so pathetic. I could kill you with my bare hands. And that’s just what I’m going to do.”
She’s going for hand-to-hand combat. My favorite.
Her pace is lacking, but the moment her fist flies, I deflect it against my forearm just as I turn, hooking the crook of my elbow with hers and using her momentum to send her spinning away. She stumbles, scowls, and turns again, this time launching toward me with her total body weight, arms reaching for me.
It’s easy to catch her wrists, cross them, and pull until her face connects with my bent knee. A sharp crack fills the air. She shrieks in pain and rears back, broken nose streaming blood like a faucet.
“You fucking bitch!”
she snarls, scrambling to her feet and baring her teeth.
For a moment, I wonder if she’ll give up on hand-to-hand and shift into something or pull some other surprise attack. Instead, she starts monologuing again. Seriously. She just can’t seem to help herself.
“No magic? It must be weak as shit! Asscasters like you aren’t even real legacies—just fragile little mortals. You probably came here thinking you could fit in with us monsters, but you deserve to be with the rest of the weak, pathetic little humans at the bottom of the food chain. Where they belong.”
Of all the things she could’ve said, it had to be the one thing that genuinely gets under my skin.
Still, I make no expression. Keeping a poker face is second nature since it was drilled into me from such a young age. Instead of a resting bitch face, I have a resting blank face.
“Words are cheap. Take your shot.”
She circles me while wiping blood off her face. “Wonder what it would take to get your robotic plain-ass face to show some emotion. Gods, I can’t even imagine all the awkwardness I’m sparing your matches. Especially Baelfire. Take it from me; he loves to watch a girl’s expression when he’s railing them,” she smirks. “We skipped a couple of days of class to stay in bed a few weeks ago, but that dragon is insatiable. And the hickeys he left all over me? Gods, that was so hot.”
She really doesn’t know when to stop talking. To my surprise, her words are starting to make my skin itch. Which is annoying since there’s a good chance she’s just lying to get me riled up.
“You talk too much,” I enunciate clearly, warning in my voice.
She doesn’t get the hint as she circles closer, hands flexing at her sides. “I’m doing them a favor by getting rid of you. This way, they don’t have to fuck an emotionless, fake-ass legacy for the rest of their lives. It’d be like fucking a corpse! And you? You’re better off dead anyway. Not one person will mourn you when you’re gone.”
It’s just as unexpected for me as it is for her when I find myself straddling her back, having rounded a kick to the back of her knees so she’d fall flat on her face. She wasn’t prepared for my speed, but when she shouts in anger and tries to reach back for me, I grip her forearm, plant my foot on her upper back, and yank.
Her shoulder dislocates with an audible pop. It’s a beautiful sound.
“You’re wrong about three things. Let’s count them together, shall we?”
When I break the radius bone in her forearm, her scream splits through the forest.
“One. I don’t want anyone to rescue me. Ever.”
She struggles underneath me, twisting her other arm back frantically, but I snag that one, too, breaking her wrist and pinning it behind her in one smooth movement. She chokes on pain and fights harder beneath me, but it’s futile.
“Two. Humans are not weak, and they can be just as monstrous as legacies.”
I move my foot from her upper back and land a kick to the side of one of her knees at precisely the right angle, moving the bone out of place and fracturing her patella.
Snap.
Satisfied with her scream tapering off into hysteria as she writhes, I finally let her go, wiping my gloved hands on my shirt. She rolls over, sobbing when she can’t move her arms right to get up, and her knee bone slips to the side under her skin. With her in this state, it’s easy to lean down and snag the flag hanging out of her pocket.
For a moment, killing her is a real temptation. If I don’t, she’ll come for me again. She’ll end up telling others that I’m not the weakling I’ve been pretending to be. I could also use the buzz of a kill.
But I learned from a young age what taking a life means. As annoying as Sierra is, she’s just a jealous legacy who has no idea who she’s been pissing off. She doesn’t deserve death…yet.
“And three,” I sigh, looking out at the misty trees. “There is one person who will mourn me. She’s a real softie and would probably tell me to make nice with you. So, in her honor, you get to pick. Either get the fuck up, walk it off, and never speak to me again…or try me one more time so I can put you out of your jealous misery.”
She gives up on her attempts to get up, glaring at me with a beet-red face as she hisses, “I can’t get up and just walk it off. You fucked up my knee!”
“Be grateful I left one intact. Either limp out of here or pray someone comes looking for you before a manticore has you for dinner.”
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.