Filed To Story: Cursed Legacies Series Free PDF by Morgan B Lee
I ignore him, knowing he won’t be able to resist his bone-deep instincts to take care of his “mate” now that I’ve brought up food. “Everett, make this room less godsdamned freezing so our keeper won’t catch hypothermia when I bring her back. Crypt, go get reverium from Limbo to ease your curse or I’ll hex your cock with impotency so you won’t be able to please our keeper for weeks.”
“As if there aren’t plenty of ways to please our girl without a fucking cock, you obtuse bloodsucker,” he calls after me.
I can hear him swearing in irritation before I leave, the front door of the apartment closing behind me. I stride down the hall, ignoring every looming shadow and the paranoia my mind is steeped in. If Everett thought Maven was with us, and we thought she was with him, she obviously made us all believe something different so she could do something without our knowing.
Probably to keep us from worrying.
As if that’s fucking possible.
I’ll worry about Maven until my final breath. My beautifully vicious blood blossom will just have to grow accustomed to us being overprotective, hovering, anxiously attached madmen for her for the rest of our lives.
If space is what she wants, she’ll have to use her godly powers to separate us from her.
A giant spider made of shadows crawls past in this frozen corridor. I pause, trying to decide if that was real. Since I can’t be sure and suffocating suspicion is slowly climbing up my throat, I decide it’s best to conceal myself.
Yes, hide, the voices in my head hiss.
Calling on the remainder of my blood magic from the last time I fed on Maven, I shroud myself in a simple but effective cloaking charm and pass through the empty halls unseen.
According to Everett, there are dozens upon dozens of people camping outside Everbound Castle’s front doors. I didn’t see them when we arrived because I was in the thrall of my curse, but Nether humans, Reformists, reporters, and several others were gathered outside, hoping to get a glimpse of the demigoddess who was just revealed on live television.
We managed to get in unseen through an ancient servants’ entrance that Maven knew about. Still, it irks me to know so many await her outside.
Not her. They’re here to kill you, demons in my head whisper and titter, echoing on repeat.
Soft whistling and the glow of a lantern catch my attention. Lillian rounds the corner, bundled heavily against the cold as she seems lost in thought. She passed me on her way back to her rooms for the night, but I decide it’s likely she was just speaking with Maven, so I follow the direction she just came from.
It’s not long before I pick up on two voices. My blood blossom’s, and Kenzie Baird’s.
“—you going to actually use all this salt Lillian brought you?” Kenzie is asking.
“Salt wards off ghosts,” Maven explains. “They’re everywhere here. I grew up listening to the whispers and wails of restless spirits every night, but tonight I just want to sleep.”
“Oh, my gods. That gave me secondhand PTSD just now, monk.”
“That’s not traumatic,” Maven grumbles. “What’s traumatic is having the freshly dead parents of one of your quintet members haunting you and trying to get sent to the Beyond. The Frosts are so fucking entitled, even in death.”
Still cloaked and invisible, I emerge into an alcove where Maven and Kenzie both sit on an old stone bench beside a flickering lantern. Maven is freshly showered, hair still damp despite the wintry chill, and she holds a large bag of salt. She glances at a place in the cold alcove where I see Everett’s birth parents and several other strangers standing and glowering at her.
Either their ghosts followed her here, or they’re in my head, too.
Everyone in this alcove, living or dead, is plotting against you, my father whispers.
Pathetic, useless son. You’ve signed your death in your own blood.
You’ll bring me down with you when you fall,
Maven’s voice whispers in my head.
I rub my temples, resisting the urge to snap back at the voices.
The blond, curly-haired shifter is eyeing the bag in Maven’s lap. “Is it weird that I’m craving salt like no one’s fucking business, now that it’s staring at me?”
“Be my guest.”
Kenzie opens the bag, tastes the salt, gags, and hands it back to Maven. “Never mind. Gods, I still cannot believe you were almost burned at the stake on live TV by your rich in-laws. I’m so fucking glad you went all demigoddess on their asses because watching that stupid fake trial was awful.
You would not believe how much I was crying—and Vivienne was a total wreck, too. But now that everyone knows you’re back, my quintet and I are fielding a bajillion questions and trying to keep all of the Halfton refugees from storming the castle and…oof. It’s just pure chaos. Felix was right that people are not handling your return well. I mean, a lot of them are thrilled you’re back, but they’re being so weird about it, too. I’m pretty sure some of them are trying to, like…worship you.”
Maven makes a face and pulls her etherium knife from her boot to fidget with it. “Thanks for dealing with the shit show.”
“Anything for you,” Kenzie answers brightly, tossing her hair and adjusting her scarf. “Besides, I’m willing to take one for the team. Now that you have all of your guys back, you probably need to get back to having wild, unhinged sex with them, right? Come on, spill the deets,” she teases, elbowing my keeper lightly. “Crazy person sex is the best sex—how nasty do you guys get in bed now that they’re missing a few marbles?”
Maven spins her knife, glaring at the ghosts in the corner again. “I wish I knew. But too much just happened, and they need time to process. No matter how much I’m aching for them, I can’t just jump their bones whenever I feel like it.”
SILAS
She’s aching?
Thank the gods. That makes five of us.
Even with my fragmented ability to piece things together at the moment, I haven’t missed the way my other quintet members have been stealing looks at Maven, aching for her despite our conditions. We’ve all been reigning ourselves in.
Personally, I’ve managed to keep my hands off her for this long because I remind myself I’m a threat to her, but I’m honestly impressed the others have behaved themselves.
Even with our curses and the fiasco we’ve been going through, after six months, it’s a fucking miracle we haven’t ripped her clothes off yet.
But if our keeper has also been holding back, I may as well share the good news with the others.
Filthy, deviant abomination to the living, someone whispers in my head.
My birth mother’s voice makes a rare appearance.
How lascivious you have become, son.
“Not to mention, they’re all in such rough shape,” Maven goes on with a sigh. “And I have a plan to follow, so now isn’t?—“
Kenzie holds up a hand. “Hang on. You just got your quintet of Maven-obsessed, sanity-lacking, gorgeous-albeit-cursed, morally super dark grey matches back, and you haven’t started fucking the ever-living daylights out of them every tiny chance you get? Girl. What the hell are you doing? I’ll ward off the weirdos outside as long as you need me to, but go get on that pronto—and by that,
I mean their penises.”
Their conversation is creating an excited thrum in my veins that moves steadily lower as I observe my blood blossom fidget, clearly flustered as she clears her throat.
She’ll be the death of you, a voice reminds me.
I ignore it.
“The timing is wrong,” Maven mutters.
“
The timing is wrong?”
Kenzie bursts, throwing her manicured hands in the air before making a sound like a buzzer going off. “Excuse denied! Look, no matter what my quintet and I have gone through so far, we’ve prioritized our bond and staying intimate in every way, and that’s made us so much stronger and everything else so much fucking better. Your quintet needs to feel close to their keeper, and you need it, too, you traumatized little reaper baby. I promise. Now go get some DP action going or something. Rile them up, explore some kinks, and celebrate having them all back!”
The shifter’s first suggestion makes me so flushed that I break out into a small sweat despite the cold and the fact that I never remembered to put on clothes. I’m practically leaning forward to gauge Maven’s reaction to that erotic idea, but she just tips her head with a slight frown.
“DP?”
Godsdamn it all, she has no idea.
So excited over sharing a whore, someone scowls inside my head.
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.