Filed To Story: Cursed Legacies Series Free PDF by Morgan B Lee
Crypt, Everett, Baelfire, and I gather around to get a good look at this list.
Crypt grins. “Written in crayon, as all good hit lists are.”
My attention slips to the end, and I nearly laugh. “
Sangfluir, ‘rest in peace’ is a phrase typically used to describe the fate of someone who died.”
“Someone did,” she grins, gesturing at herself like it’s funny.
Gods above.
Crypt coughs like he would laugh if the situation were different. Baelfire and I stare at her, and I’m positive that, like me, he’s considering the possibility that we may actually need to get her into therapy.
Everett pinches the bridge of his nose. “Nope. Too soon.”
Our reactions to her tasteless joke don’t dampen her amusement. My blood blossom just grins wider as she folds the paper back up, giving us a brief glimpse of an intricate sketch of a map on the back before it disappears back into one of her hoodie pockets.
Then Maven grows serious. “Aside from protecting ourselves, defeating Amadeus will change everything for legacies and humans. The Nether can return to what it once was, and monsters wouldn’t try to flee into the mortal realm anymore. It would bring peace for everyone, but especially us.”
She briefly explains some of her most recently returned memories—everything Galene told her about how Amadeus came to be, and how that, in turn, brought about Maven herself.
When she finishes, she waits expectantly for us to agree or disagree about taking on Amadeus, but I’m distracted. Some of her wording makes me wonder if she believes…
“You are far more than a machination of the gods, ima sangfluir,” I murmur. “Tell me you know this.”
She looks away, quiet for a moment before she looks back at us with that beautifully fierce determination that is pure Maven.
“Maybe I was born for a purpose, but I don’t fucking care. No matter how I came to exist, I choose my own fate now. And I choose us. Killing Amadeus is just a fringe benefit and the best way to protect the legacies I love—” She sees our excited expressions and quickly tacks on, “to fuck.”
Such a stubborn ending to such a serious, beautiful statement draws surprised laughs from us. Baelfire wraps his arms around our keeper, spinning her around like a giddy fool.
“Stop being so fucking cute,” he groans, setting Maven down to kiss her forehead. “It’s making me hard.”
I roll my eyes. “Everything she does makes you hard, you oversexed lizard.”
“Like you’re any better, you horny bloodsucker,” Everett scoffs.
Crypt grins. “Now, now. Let’s not pretend any of our cocks aren’t utterly mesmerized by our lovely keeper.”
Baelfire shakes his head. “Way to word it. You say the weirdest fucking shit.”
“Him?” Everett gawks at Baelfire. “Seriously? Am I imagining the time you opened your big fat mouth to ask about the temperature of my sperm, or do you just have no self-awareness at all?”
Maven’s laughter takes all of our attention at once, and my heart picks up its pace when I see the smile curving her beautiful lips. “He asked about your what now?”
Everett’s face pinkens. “It was nothing. Your shifter just doesn’t have a fucking filter.”
“I, for one, still await your answer to Baelfire’s very reasonable question,” Crypt says, patting Everett’s shoulder.
Everett slaps his hand away, growing redder. “Shut up.”
“Boo, tell me once and for all,” Bael begins. “When his popsicle pops off, is it like?—“
Everett freezes Baelfire’s mouth, huffing and adjusting his coat before he faces Maven. “
Anyway, back to the topic at hand.”
“Your sperm,” I suggest, unable to resist.
The scarred elemental glares menacingly at me before turning a far softer look on our keeper. “You really want to kill Amadeus?”
Maven is still grinning about our antics, but nods. “Or whatever the closest thing to death is for him at this point. So long as his reign ends and you four are safe from him.”
She’d be safer, too, Crypt reasons through the bond, but only to me, Everett, and Baelfire.
My thoughts exactly, Everett replies. We’re nothing to the Entity. He would only hurt us to get to her. He must know she’s back now, so it’s only a matter of time before he makes a move.
If he dares try to harm her in any way, his fate is signed in blood,
I chip in, irritated by the very idea of Maven’s Undead would-be father figure trying to get to her ever again.
Baelfire nods.
Our keeper looks between each of us, obviously aware that we’re communicating without her. She’s always been impressively observant, and none of us is particularly gifted at hiding our emotions the way she is, so I’m not surprised when she looks satisfied, easily deciphering our feelings on the matter.
“Good. Then let’s get another pawn on the board.”
She means the cult leader.
As much as I adore my blood blossom’s brutal practicality, I still don’t like the idea of her leaving this apartment. Whether it’s because of my far stronger newlybound urges, or because we’ve just barely started to recover from a hellish six months, I want to keep Maven spirited away here. Here, we are guarded by wards, and we can adore and tend to her to our heart’s content.
Out there…
“If any of the freaks out there do try to hurt you, can I light them all on fire?” Baelfire checks.
“They won’t,” she says confidently, leaving the kitchen to go look for more clothes and boots in her room.
When she’s out of earshot, the rest of my quintet and I regard one another.
Baelfire shrugs. “Fuck it. If anyone makes a move toward her that we don’t like?—“
“If they even so much as look at her in a way we don’t like,” Crypt corrects, glaring out one of the windows as his markings light up repeatedly.
“They’re dead,” Everett agrees.
I nod.
MAVEN
As soon as we step outside our salt-protected apartment, I’m greeted by several dozen ghosts waiting in the hallway. Most look fresh, though some of them are slightly blurry—like the blue-haired young woman ghost who waves at me like we’re good friends as she drifts past.
She doesn’t seem in a hurry to get reaped and move on. I tried telling her my plan to see how long they’ll stick around the other day, when my quintet took off to get my heart without me. I’m not sure how much of my plan was lost in translation, but it seems like she’s been explaining the situation to the other ghosts, because none of them are particularly impatient as they haunt Everbound.
My entire quintet is dressed in regular clothes as we stroll through the hall. Although I appreciate the warmer temperature, I miss Everett’s beautiful frost patterns decorating the windows.
Pausing our trek through the halls, I look out of one of the vaulted castle windows.
Gods. That’s a lot of people gathered outside.
The refugee tent city surrounding Halfton has now spread to surround Everbound Castle. Now that the wintry weather is finally letting up, everyone camped outside seems to be in a good mood. Some of them look like refugees from other areas, here to take cover within Everbound’s etherium-powered wards. Other campers are Nether humans with muted gray skin tones, who are helping one another and sticking to themselves.
Further out, closer to the twisted Everbound Forest, the tents are all black. The figures I see walking around out there are dressed in black, too. Cult members, probably.
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.