Filed To Story: Cursed Legacies Series Free PDF by Morgan B Lee
She’s bleeding. Why is she bleeding, and why the hell isn’t she waking up?” Frost demands as ice spreads across the floor toward Maven and me on the marble ground.
Damn it all, he’s right. Blood drips steadily from our keeper’s nose, rolling over her cheek to drip onto the temple floor. I’ve seen that strain before in other casters who pushed themselves too far—Crane in particular.
Looking pointedly at the encroaching cold, I pull Maven’s siren-like unconscious body into my arms and off the cold ground.
“Keep that away from our goddess. She’s overdone it and desperately needs rest, not frostbite.”
Frost’s attention flicks from Maven to me briefly, scrutinizing. “Look who finally checked back in. Good timing, because I need at least one semi-functional psychopath to help me get us out of here. Those two deadweights don’t qualify at the moment,” he tips his head toward Crane and Decimus.
Decimus is prowling toward a statue of Arati as if about to attack it, wholly animalistic in his blissful ignorance of this conversation.
Crane, however, grips the blood amulet around his neck and glares at us. “I heard that.”
“Good,” Frost and I say at the same time.
“A few more just arrived,” a voice calls down from one of the vaulted windows high in the temple. “Two Voids are with them.”
I realize the redheaded mercenary who Frost hired months ago has climbed up to sit in the stone sill of one of the ornate windows, using a gun to scope through a crack in the stained glass. Whatever he’s seeing out there, it makes Frost swear and drag his hands over his scarred face.
“What mess are we in now?” I demand, gently adjusting Maven’s oversized dark clothing in hopes that she’ll be less cold.
Agony flares through my limbs as my markings light up several times, but I ignore it. That’s been happening long before Syntyche got to me. With Limbo in tatters, my body is paying the price.
“Hostiles are outside waiting to capture us,” Frost replies. “Meaning, my family knows we’re here.”
I narrow my gaze at him. “It was here in New York all along?”
“Apparently,” he grumbles, cranky. “Wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve been moving the damn thing now and then.”
I wasn’t paying much attention to anything beyond the urge to kill in the months before I wound up trapped in my dark memories. However, Frost made me aware that one of the etherium stones Maven used to trap the life forces of the Immortal Quintet went missing just after they figured out how to use them for powerful shielding spells.
Since his entire elite family of pompous pricks also vanished during the Upheaval, along with much of the former Legacy Council and a few dozen other “high society” legacy families, he theorized that they were all together in a secret safe haven for the cowardliest of cowards, so to speak.
Finding it months ago would have been a treat. Even now, the thought of slipping into the minds of those spineless prats and flooding their pampered safe haven with mania is tempting. I’ve no doubt they’ve been sipping champagne while the rest of the world has gone to shit.
But if we’ve accidentally drawn their attention…
I look at my muse, resting deeply in my arms. Her bloody nose has slowed, so I use the corner of my ripped T-shirt to carefully wipe her face as well as I can.
She never minded blood, but I can’t stop touching her even for a moment.
“Tell me who knows,” I mutter.
“Us, the Baird quintet, Douglas…and the fae who got away and informed my family that she’s back and she’s here.” Frost begins to pace, glowering at the double doors at the end of this temple. “The muscle they sent can’t get in, so they’re just waiting. Maven sealed this damn place with holy magic, and transportation magic doesn’t work on hallowed ground, which means we can’t get out.”
“Douglas can help with that,” Crane slurs, having to correct a couple of words mid-sentence.
“Shut up,” the redhead snaps from up above.
“That scútráche is either a saint or highly fabhar
blessed,” Crane corrects. “Whatever rare circumstance, he uses holy maghikae.”
Frost pauses, figuring out the last word before calling up, “Wait. You can use holy magic, and didn’t tell me? What the fuck have I been paying you for this whole time?”
“You’ve gotta be kidding me. Your quintet is a fucking pain in the ass, you know that?” the mercenary gripes as he climbs back down from his perch. Once he’s down, he casts me the quintessential look of disgust before squinting accusingly at Maven. “Your weirdo-ass girlfriend ratted on me, didn’t she?”
A muscle nearly pops in my jaw as I remind myself we might need him alive, for now.
“Mind how you speak about her or I’ll feed your dismembered prick to your hellhound while the other tidbits of you rot here.”
The redhead has the good sense to step back as he realizes I’m no longer the passive, numb phantom drifting in and out of Limbo that he previously witnessed.
“She said nothing,” Crane mutters, flinching away from something in his mind before focusing on us again. “I’m the one saying it. If you can unseal the doors, perhaps we can unleash Bael on those waiting outside.”
“No dice,” Frost shakes his head. “Only Maven can remove his collar. Besides, there’s no way in hell I’m about to watch that asshole dragon snatch her away again. He’s staying exactly like that until we snap him out of it.”
He snatched her away as a fucking dragon?
Gods above, it’s a good thing they have me back. That would never have happened on my watch.
Douglas stretches one of his arms. “Fine. I’ll open the fucking door, but it’s up to you three to have a game plan once they’re open. Last I saw, there were thirty, maybe forty seasoned legacies ready for a fight.”
We’re all quiet in the chilled silence for a moment, considering our options for getting our keeper far away from Frost’s family.
“I heard that, too,” Crane suddenly snaps, glaring at the nearby pulpit.
I fight back an unexpected laugh, egging him on. “You tell them, Crane.”
“Scratch that. It’s up to us two, since he’s not playing with a full deck,” Frost mutters, brushing frost off his hands.
The fae rubs his forehead. “
Quid a tha tem’ah chehn?”
None of us knows what that means, but I finally get to my feet, still cradling Maven. It’s mortifying to realize just how weak I am right now when I stumble slightly on the way to get her to Frost’s arms.
“Your one and only job is to make sure she doesn’t come to harm when we step outside. Don’t dare fuck it up like you did last time.”
The elemental flinches, grief crossing his scarred face, and for the first time in my entire life, I decide I should have tempered my tongue.
Whatever or whomever caused Maven’s purpose to be fulfilled—
that carries the blame. Not him. Considering that Frost kicked me out on my ass the one time I came to him asking to put me out of my misery, and the fact that he kept the rest of us alive against all odds…
In a bizarre twist of fate, I owe him my thanks.
Later. I’ll thank him later, when our miraculous keeper is safely out of harm’s way.
“I’ll unleash as much mania as I can. That should eliminate most of them, and then we’ll pick off the stragglers. Have a transportation spell ready, bounty hunter,” I say, looking at the double doors.
But I can’t seem to make myself move. I look back at Maven. Leaving my darling muse’s side after just barely getting her back feels impossible.
When Frost catches my eye, there’s an understanding on his scarred face. He nods, appearing sympathetic.
How utterly unaccountable.
“I won’t fuck it up this time,” he promises quietly. “I’ve got her.”
I believe him.
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.