Filed To Story: Cursed Legacies Series Free PDF by Morgan B Lee
But I can’t lose consciousness now. There’s no way I’m leaving my survival odds up to this feral beast, which is already practically crushing me in its hand. I can barely see through the scales encompassing me, but I realize it’s dipping low over the top of Everbound Forest, close enough that its back legs skim the tops of dead trees.
If I die this way, I’ll find a way back to Paradise to haunt you assholes,
I mentally warn the gods before struggling to get the etherium knife out of my pocket. Gripping it tightly, I jam it between two scales of the dragon’s hand.
Hot blood gushes from the wound when I rip the knife away. A snarl of pain rips through the night air, but it does what I want.
It lets go of me.
I immediately crash through treetops that barely help break the fall, and then the air is knocked out of me again when I land at exactly the wrong angle.
Crack.
Shit.
Covering my mouth, I try to muffle the sound that tries to escape as angry warmth flares down my left arm. If I had to take a wild guess, that was my humerus snapping, and it fucking hurts.
Weakness and unconsciousness pool at the edges of my vision as I struggle to breathe in despite the brutal cold burning my throat. Snow is clustered all around me in this dark, foreboding forest, but after a long, grueling moment, I finally manage to sit up and use my good arm to pack some of the snow around my broken bone to help numb the pain and slow the swelling.
The dragon roars somewhere above the forest, and then I go still when I hear trees breaking and a loud thump in the distance. The shrieks of harpies echo through the woods before cutting off with a flash of blue fire that I can just barely make out from here.
But the universe must be showing me mercy, because I’m downwind from Baelfire’s dragon and its heightened sense of smell and hearing.
As silently as I can, I cradle my broken arm against my chest, grab my knife from where it fell, and shuffle backward until I’m supported by the trunk of a twisted, barren tree. I listen carefully for other threats here besides the beast hunting me. Tuning out the pain in my arm and the weakness weighing down my limbs, I try to devise a plan.
But I can’t get around the hope welling in my chest. My dragon knew where to find me. It knew to come to Everbound.
It wouldn’t know any of that if it didn’t have access to Baelfire’s memories, right?
He has to still be in there.
I need to find a way to get through to Baelfire and pull him to the surface. I refuse to believe this beast has replaced him completely. When I defended myself against Kenzie, my holy magic forced her to shift. Could I do that with him?
Maybe. If I don’t get roasted first.
And if my body doesn’t shut down from the cold.
And if some other monster in these woods doesn’t chow down on me.
And if?—
The healthy stream of pessimism in my head is interrupted by the low croak of a raven. I realize several have gathered around me in the dimness of these frigid woods lit only by a quarter-waned moon. The largest of them hops up to perch directly on the shoulder of my unbroken arm.
I’m about to shoo the chicken of death away, irked that these things have been following me. Then I pause, recalling something I read while studying fae scrolls in the Nether years ago, before a particularly brutal examination meant to prepare me to enter the mortal realm one day.
Of all fowls of the mortal sky, most fateful are ravens, those dark heralds of prophecy. Ill omens they are, carrying upon their midnight wings the souls of those to be harvested by she who reaps.
She who reaps.
Syntyche.
If any of that was true, and if I inherited abilities, then these birds are following me for a reason. Holding my breath for one moment, I listen to the cracking and groaning of trees in the distance as the giant golden dragon prowls through the woods in the wrong direction. It hisses and rumbles, clicking now and then in a strange reptilian way.
I whisper to the big raven on my shoulder, low enough that the dragon won’t catch it. “Lead my elemental to me.”
The raven immediately takes flight, winging toward the castle.
If Everett shows up, I’ll know I’m on to something with my demigoddess abilities. Until then, it’s just me and my shifter in these haunting woods surrounded by deadly dangers.
Normally, that would make for a fantastic date, but the throbbing in my head and arm remind me that he’s feral and a hundred percent capable of killing me right now. When a roar cuts through the woods again, I take advantage of the sound and rise slowly, slinking from tree to tree as I baby my broken arm.
I trained for years to have the light-footed stealth of a seasoned assassin, but I’m struggling. Sweat beads on my brow, and tuning out my broken bone is getting difficult. Shivers wrack my body as my hands and feet burn from the cold.
And then the wind changes, carrying my scent in exactly the wrong direction. Baelfire’s dragon roars immediately, and I hear trees breaking as it charges after me.
“Fuck you, too, Pheli,” I mutter at the god of the wind.
Thunder rumbles in the wintry night sky. I can only assume it’s laughter, so I flip it off.
Turning to face the oncoming beast, I brace myself. The knife in my good hand elongates into scythe form just as the dragon crashes through the last cluster of twisted trees, all gleaming scales and golden magnificence.
The dragon’s snarl is muffled thanks to the dead manticore clamped between its jaws. Flinging the limp creature aside, the dragon stalks forward slowly, golden eyes trained on me. Smoke rises from its nostrils, its tail slithers from side to side, and its teeth are bared in warning.
“Such a deadly beast. I’ve missed my dragon,” I tell it.
And I mean it. I’ll confess to loving Baelfire and his dragon—but not this feral version of it. This isn’t him. It isn’t even reacting to my words as its mad, slitted gaze follows my every move.
When I take one step back, the beast growls and snorts a burst of royal blue fire into the air in warning.
Everything is swaying around me, but I stare up at the dragon. “I want Baelfire.”
It makes that strange clicking sound in its throat again, its wings unfolding as if to look more intimidating as it stalks me.
“I know he’s still in there.”
It’s a bluff. I don’t know for sure—not when this monster is hunting me like I’m its next dinner, and there isn’t even the tiniest spark of understanding in its eyes. But if Baelfire still exists anywhere in that draconic head, I’ll find a way to get through to him. I need him to fight for me the way I’m fighting for him.
“Baelfire,” I whisper. “I need my mate.”
There’s nothing. The dragon’s head lowers as it gets closer, its tail curling around to trap me. The second it gets close, I swing my scythe with my good arm and quickly find that the etherium easily cuts through the dragon’s scales.
That tiny nick angers the beast. Its long neck and head snakes forward until it roars right in my face, so loud and brutal that my vision wavers and my ears ring in protest.
Ugh. Dragon breath is a real thing, and it’s fucking horrible. Like slow-roasted rotting decay, smoke, and sulfur.
But its show of inhuman, animalistic anger pisses me off, bringing fury to the surface so quickly I almost choke on it. If this beast really took over completely and destroyed anything left of my mate?—
No.
No.
Standing my ground, I meet the dragon’s ferocious display with my own, shouting at full volume with all the desperate anger boiling inside my scarred chest.
“Give him back!”
The beast snarls and tries to snap at me, but I move quicker, slashing my scythe across its snout. It roars furiously, tail whipping harshly—and effectively tripping me.
I slam into the cold, hard ground, the scythe falling out of my hands. More pain ricochets up my broken arm beneath me, making me cry out. The dragon snarls as the glow of fire rises beneath the scales of its long throat, preparing to turn me into a charred skeleton.
On blind instinct, I reach out with my good arm. Adrenaline and desperation mix in my blood as I touch the scaly tail beside me, and then a surge of blazing power courses through me. It’s the same sensation I experienced with Kenzie, uncontrollable and fierce as strange magic flows freely from my fingertips.
The fire dies in the dragon’s throat. It roars in pain instead, spasming from just my touch before falling to the ground to writhe. Unfortunately, all the thrashing sends its tail flicking into me one last time, knocking me back into a snowdrift.
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.