Filed To Story: Cursed Legacies Series Free PDF by Morgan B Lee
I rub my jaw in bewildered disbelief. I’m one tough son of a bitch, but that punch was no joke. Maven walks away without a single glance back at the three of us, but there’s no way she can’t feel how hard we’re staring after her.
Can she blame us? She looks so godsdamned fuckable in my shirt, the hem riding up slightly around the backs of her beautiful, toned thighs. I can’t rip my eyes away from her delicious ass and the sway of her hips.
Mine, my inner dragon growls with need.
Hell yes, she is.
“Maven just…touched me,” I finally manage, coming back from my shock as a grin splits my face.
“Yes, in precisely the only way any of us ever want to,” Silas mutters. Then he turns and glowers at me. “What did you do to piss her off like that?”
I start to tell him I did nothing, but then I hesitate, frowning.
Did
I do something to upset Maven? Just the idea of mistreating my mate in some unknown way has my stomach sinking, the growl of my inner dragon causing me to bare my own teeth.
I leave them behind quickly, using my shifter speed to catch up with Maven. She’s already stepping out of the woods when I reach her side, fingers itching to pull her close. She looks cold, and I’m always warm.
Before I can say a word to her, my heightened sense of hearing picks up on Sierra Hill saying Maven’s name under her breath, mixed in with a string of vicious cursing. She’s sitting on the grass outside the edge of Everbound Forest, looking like shit and grimacing as another legacy pops her arm back into place. She turns to glare as Maven passes by, but when she spots me, her face turns even redder than it already was.
“Bael,” she whines, blinking away tears. “Come help me?”
Fuck that.
Her family has been friends with mine for years, so I’ve had a front-row seat to Sierra’s manipulative personality and extreme temper tantrums for a while. I hooked up with her once when I was bored and regretted it heavily when she set my room on fire while I was still sleeping. Good thing I’m fireproof, but none of my shit was. She’s toxic as hell.
I’m tempted to scare her straight so she keeps Maven’s pretty name out of her mouth, but it’s a waste of my time when I need to make sure my mate is okay.
Ignoring her to keep up with Maven, I follow her through a concealed servants’ entrance that puts us in an empty, narrow hallway skirting one of the wings lit dimly by fae lights. I’m so distracted by my inner dragon’s sharp need to comfort our mate that I reach for Maven’s hand to gently turn her to me.
“Boo? What?—“
She stops and wrenches her hand away, breaking my hold on her. Although her face is still eerily composed, the flash in her dark eyes as she glares at me has heat curling up my spine.
“Why are you so touch-averse?” I demand. “Why?—“
The words die on my lips as a possible reason crosses my mind. Why else would she hate touching people unless something happened in her past? What if she was…
Stark horror mingles with fury, and I suddenly can’t breathe. My dragon reacts by nearly taking over, and I have to stop and cover my face with both hands, fighting the searing burn spreading in my veins.
“Maven. Tell me it’s not what I think it is,” I manage in a strained voice.
“What?”
She sounds exasperated, but my brain has latched onto this possible reason, running wild with it, filling my head with unwanted images and—oh my gods. I’m going to be sick. My skin tightens, my eyes shift, and fire burns in my gut.
“Baelfire?”
“You don’t want people to touch you. Is it because someone…
did touch you? In the past? Did they?—“
Fuck.
I can’t do this. I’m going to shift any second, my temper running out of bounds and burning me alive. I strain for control because shifting too close to someone else is dangerous for them, and I’d sooner die than hurt Maven.
“Just tell me who I need to kill.”
A couple of seconds pass where I’m in hell before she speaks.
“You’re jumping to conclusions. I wasn’t sexually assaulted.”
Thank all six gods.
The pressure in my chest loosens as relief courses through me. I’m pretty sure I would have burned everything in sight down if I found out anything like that happened to Maven.
Sometimes, I hate how intensely we shifters feel every emotion. It’s an open invitation to my inner monster, especially on days when I haven’t killed something to appease my curse.
After a couple more breaths, I rub my face and clear my throat before regarding her. She’s watching me with her typical poker face in place—and it’s a damn good poker face, but I know she’s not truly emotionless. She’s just an expert at hiding how she feels. She didn’t ditch me just now when I was about to lose my shit…so that must mean something, right?
“Okay, but I’m pretty sure you don’t wear gloves all the time because you’re scared of cooties. So what is it, then?”
“Hmm. It’s odd. I distinctly remember punching you in the face and telling you to fuck off, yet here you are.”
She folds her arms, but when she does, the fabric of my shirt she’s wearing bunches and shifts, and my eyes again drop to her mouthwatering thighs. Yet the hunger pulsing through my veins takes a spot on the back burner when I spot a couple more light burns on her legs.
All shifters have an overwhelming urge to care for their mates, but dragons have it twice as bad because of our naturally obsessive tendencies. I have an instinctual need to covet, and now that I have a mate? All I want is to take care of Maven in every possible way.
“You should have let Silas heal you,” I huff, the sight of her beautiful skin in that condition driving me to take another step toward her.
She takes a step back.
I sigh. “Why were you pissed at me, Boo? Did I do something wrong?”
“Hard to say. Right and wrong are subjective.”
“Why did you punch me?”
She tries to step around me but I cut her off. Lucky me, there’s not a lot of space in this narrow old servants’ hall, so she doesn’t have room to get by my much bigger frame unless she presses against me. Honestly, I’m hoping she’ll try so I can finally feel her.
“Move.”
“Was it because I asked if you’re a virgin?” I guess.
Maven sighs. “I said move.”
“I won’t leave you alone until I know what’s upsetting my mate. For once, I just want a straight answer. Tell me everything you’re feeling.”
“For the last time, we are not ma—” She surprises me by huffing in the most adorable way, half growling with exasperation before narrowing her eyes at me. “You mean it? You’ll leave me alone if I tell you all I’m feeling?”
“Pinky promise.”
I can’t look away from the anger in her dark eyes as she glowers at me. “Fine. I feel frustrated. I feel desperate. I feel like breaking rules. I just fucking feel.”
“And that’s a bad thing?” I shake my head, baffled by my little Boo.
I suddenly wonder if I’m hallucinating when her gaze drops to my bare upper half and heats. She moves closer until we’re less than an inch apart. Every part of me aches to reach out for her, especially when her eyes trail slowly back up my frame, lingering on my lips.
I catch a hint of her mouthwatering scent—that soft, floral nighttime aroma that instantly makes me harder than godsdamn steel. I inhale sharply, trying to get another hit of her delicious fragrance…and I realize there’s a note of arousal.
Fuck.
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.