Filed To Story: Cursed Legacies Series Free PDF by Morgan B Lee
“—your dominion would relate to the things over which I reign,” she goes on as if I never spoke. “You’ve made your choice, so we will never know the future you have forsaken in Paradise. Yet I will tell you this: I have observed death for millennia, and it always brings those who remain two things: pain and peace. As my?—“
“Don’t say spawn,” I grimace.
Syntyche’s lips twitch ever so slightly. “As she who succeeds Death, perhaps you deliver both.”
The memory blurs and ripples until I’m standing inside a seemingly endless vaulted library interspersed with rolling ladders, cozy reading nooks, thriving potted plants, and glowing crystals etched with intricate runes. Every tome, book, and scroll is organized impeccably, softly lit in their never-ending displays. In this memory, I’m already holding a Paradisian tome?—
And suddenly, I can recall precisely what I learned from it. It was full of useful spells for holy magic, but especially one in particular: the incubi muse ritual meant to be performed in Syntyche’s temples. I was memorizing it here.
“A bit of light pleasure reading?” Koa’s voice asks as he approaches, but his tone is nervous. He doesn’t like finding me here. “I do hope you’re not planning on doing something inadvisable to my library as you did to my love’s golden armor.”
In my memory, I close the tome and smile darkly. “Speaking of your love, you and Arati have been together for thousands of years. In all that time, she must have mentioned how she helped that immortal permanently return to the mortal realm eons ago.”
Koa fidgets before sighing. “What need would I have of that information when I’m quite happy to exist here with her for all eternity? I swear upon the heavens that I know nothing about it, so leave my poor library in peace.”
There’s nothing but honesty written all over his light sage green face. That frustrates me in this memory, but this scene is again interrupted when another recollection comes barrelling in, full of raised voices and wrath.
Arati is glaring down at me as I scowl up at her. We’re alone in a grandiose golden room. Her crown of fire is taller than before, her golden eyes blazing with fury.
“You dare try your hand at tormenting us with the same irritating tactics you used on your mortal matches? It won’t work. We’re gods, Maven. You cannot reject this fate.”
“I can and I have.”
“You will cease this nonsense. I told you, your future here is final.”
“Not to be a bitch, but…” Memory Me pauses and hums. “Oh, wait. That’s exactly the fucking point. I won’t stop ruining your Paradise until you tell me how to return to my quintet.”
Arati’s powerful gaze grows more wrathful before she straightens, considering me with a slowly cooling temper as though an idea is forming in her head. “Very well.”
Surprise rocks me in this memory, but I try not to show how taken aback I am to have won this contest of wills.
Instead, I lift my chin. “Great. Then tell me.”
“I will, on one condition. If you want to return to your fate-given matches so desperately, it will come at a price you already know well. You must first…”
Her voice slurs, fading and distorting as I slowly rise out of these memories.
“Snowdrop?” Everett checks softly.
Coming back to the present, I realize I’m still standing in a barren, grayscale city street as those memories settle into place in my head. More ghosts are drifting into this area, but I’ve cleared enough that I’m ready to get back inside and figure out how the fuck I can use this power to get my matches out of Syntyche’s spell.
“I’m fine,” I assure my concerned elemental. “Come on.”
I turn back toward the temple just in time to see four people emerge from an alleyway several yards away. Everett immediately steps in front of me, blocking their view of me and my view of them. Frost spreads out from where my elemental stands, a visible warning as he stares down the newcomers.
The tense silence implodes with the deep, gruff laughter of a man. “Well, well! What are the odds of this? If it isn’t the pretty boy. But you’re not so pretty anymore now, are ya, Little Frost?”
I notice Everett’s fists clench at his sides, prickling with ice fractals.
“
Everett Frost?” a young woman’s voice realizes, glowing with awe.
“Must be a lucky day for us,” a second male voice agrees. “Clearly, you didn’t realize that Arati’s sealed high temple is within the safe haven owned and operated by—” His voice cuts off. “Holy shit. Look, the temple door is open!”
“What? How?” the girl demands.
Footsteps sound as she moves toward the temple. I tense, not wanting her anywhere near my two vulnerable matches. Before I can step around Everett, a gunshot cracks through the air, leaving my ears ringing as the girl screams—but only in alarm, not pain.
Douglas only fired a warning shot.
Not much fun, but it did the job.
Everett’s voice is simultaneously lethal and diplomatic. “I’m not here for trouble. We’ll be gone soon, so turn around and forget you ever saw me.”
“Ah, come on, Little Frost. You know that’s not how this is gonna go,” the first man laughs. “You know they’ve been wanting to see you—probably’ll want to see your new face, too. Tell your friend in the temple to come out, and we’ll take you to safety, nice and easy.”
I wonder why Everett hasn’t frozen them all solid already. When he shifts slightly, obviously agitated as he adjusts his coat sleeve repeatedly, I can see around him and barely glimpse a shielding spell in place around the legacies, thanks to the female caster.
The one reasoning with Everett is a bald, burly elemental with fire dancing on his fingertips. The fourth legacy with them is a fae woman with pointed ears and long luminescent purple hair. Her attention drops to me in this fleeting second, and her eyes grow huge.
She points. “T—that’s the telum! That’s Maven Oakley!”
“What?” the second man barks, trying to see past Everett. “Impossible. Everyone knows that bitch is dead!”
The fact that everyone knows my name is still fucking weird. I grip my knife more firmly. Since I’ve already been spotted, it’s better to get this over with quickly so I can get back inside to help my matches.
I step out from behind Everett. He swears under his breath as I pin the hostile legacies with the same look that used to make challengers in Amadeus’s arena forfeit before the fight began.
“That bitch is giving you three seconds to walk away before your disemboweled guts become snacks for the ravens.”
If this situation weren’t so tense, I’d enjoy how blanched and horrified they look. The purple-haired fae woman calls a transportation spell in the blink of an eye, vanishing and leaving the others behind. Meanwhile, the other three legacies are so aghast that they don’t move despite my warning.
I arch a brow. “One. Two. Th?—“
“Wait!” the bald fire elemental cuts me off, raising his hands as he sputters. “Please, just wait. I don’t know what’s happening here, but if you’re really back, they’ll want to see you immediately. They’ve got the power to pardon you. Come with me, and?—“
Before he can finish speaking, the other male turns out to also be a caster when he panics and sends a magical attack hurtling straight toward me. I tackle Everett, rolling us both out of the way just before the attack chars the place where we were just standing.
Shards of ice explode around us as Everett’s temper slips, but he’s not the only one they just pissed off. I’m on edge enough with three of my matches out for the count without having to deal with idiots who don’t take my threats seriously.
Time for them to learn how seriously they should take “
Maven Oakley,” because I didn’t come back just to let people fuck with us.
I roll back to my feet, bolting toward the three hostile legacies. The girl caster launches an attack that I dodge before rolling under a burst of flames that the elemental directs at me. Grabbing the fire elemental’s still-extended arm, I twist it sharply to maneuver him in front of me—just in time for him to become a living shield for a cutting spell the male caster flings in his blind scramble to escape.
The bald elemental screams as deep cuts rip through his stomach, spilling his innards. I drop him and realize the panicked male caster has already been frozen solid by Everett, since he stupidly fled outside of the protective spell.
The remaining caster launches a stupor spell that slams into Everett before he can reach us. He collapses. That only stokes my fury as I run toward her, hurling my etherium knife at her protective shield. It bounces off, but spells like this can only absorb so much impact before collapsing.
From the direction of the temple, I hear Douglas shout in pain before a snarl rips through the air. I don’t have time to focus on it as I crash through the fleeing caster’s spell—but an electrocution hex flies from her fingertips, burrowing into my skin. Tingling numbness tears through my limbs, forcing my knees to give out as I nearly bite my tongue off.
I grimace, trying to shake off the daze of painful electrocution that is still sending miniature spasms through my nervous system. I manage to roll over and look up just as the girl extends her hand over me to cast a fatal spell.
But something blurs behind her before her head is yanked back roughly, exposing her neck for Not-Baelfire to rip her throat out with his teeth.
She drops dead. The shifter flings her jugular aside before his eyes connect with mine, and?—
His pupils are round.
Oh, my gods.
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.