Filed To Story: Cursed Legacies Series Free PDF by Morgan B Lee
Maven lifts her chin as she addresses Orlando Coates. “I accept. We’ll attend the celebration, as long as you don’t sacrifice anyone or pull any weird cult shit on me.”
Coates is chuffed to bits at this news. The cult members cheer again, bowing and chattering to each other in fresh excitement. The changeling struggles against its bonds again, hissing in Decimus’s secure grip.
“Everyone! The demigoddess will now give us her blessing,” the cult leader announces.
Everyone falls silent, looking at Maven with wide eyes. She rubs one of her hands as if wishing she could adjust her gloves, and I quickly make a mental note to track some down for her once we return to the castle. She doesn’t need them around us anymore, but it’s an extra measure of protection for my muse against unwanted touch whenever we’re around others.
“Right. I hereby bless you,” Maven deadpans, waving one hand in a big arc.
It’s apparent to everyone here that her gesture did nothing. Decimus barely holds back a snort of laughter. I’m no better, fighting my amusement as Frost shakes his head. Crane keeps a straight face, but gives our keeper a side eye.
“Oh, no, my dear demigoddess,” Coates says, moving just in front of her and getting on his knees again. “A proper blessing may only be completed by you laying your hand upon our heads.”
Just like that, all my amusement is gone.
“She’s not fucking touching you,” I say darkly, giving this caster his only warning.
“It’s fine,” Maven mutters, again going to adjust gloves that aren’t there before she clears her throat.
Decimus growls quietly, and I grit my teeth as she lays her hand on Coates’ head. Again, she makes her face unreadable—and again, I know my muse is hiding her discomfort. I can’t fucking stand her being anything but sated, content, and safely away from the unfamiliar touch of anyone outside our quintet.
Orlando Coates’ eyes widen and quickly fill with tears the instant Maven’s touches his head. She jerks her hand away, obviously creeped out by his show of emotion, but the cult leader bows to her again.
“Such peace. Thank you, Daughter of Syntyche. Thank you!” he sobs.
I suppose it comes as no surprise that a cult leader is full of shit,
Crane huffs telepathically.
I tip my head, recalling what she did to me before she broke me out of Syntyche’s punishment.
He’s telling the truth. Our girl can spread peace through her mere touch now. One of her new abilities, I believe—and it feels almost more incredible than every other touch she gives.
I did notice something like that, Frost frowns.
Maven looks at her own bare hand, studying it curiously.
My mother said something about me bringing pain and peace. If I can create peace just by a touch, it must be the same with pain—maybe that’s how I got Baelfire to shift out of dragon form so easily. Kenzie, too.
That’s exactly what happened, Decimus agrees.
My dragon’s a scared little bitch when it comes to pain.
Curious as a cat, Crane moves between Maven and Coates and tips his head down.
“Tha mi a’faire pacem.”
I don’t speak a word of fae, but he’s clearly asking to experience Maven’s touch next. She says something back to him in fae. When she touches his cheek affectionately, tension flees Crane’s entire body. Emotion floods his face, and he exhales sharply before pulling her close, burying his face in her neck so no one will see him in such a vulnerable state.
I don’t bother teasing him about it, and neither do the others. The lot of us have rarely, if ever, experienced peace like the kind my stunning muse now wields with a mere brush of her hand.
The cultists are buzzing with excitement as they begin lining up, prepared to see what has their leader still openly weeping. I’m not keen on the idea of Maven touching any of them, but I also know her well enough to understand that if I protest, she’ll hand me my ass along with a reminder that she’s in full control of her autonomy.
Crane finally straightens, not meeting anyone’s eye as he rejoins the rest of our quintet. Before more of the blessings begin, Maven glances at Frost.
“If we’re going to have a celebration of sorts tomorrow, we should invite the other Reformist leaders. You mentioned something about them being here at Everbound, right?”
“Most of them are here, actually,” he says, rubbing his neck. “They started to rally to this safe haven while you were recovering from getting your heart back. The Decimuses are the last to join us. Brigid said they’d be here tomorrow morning for a war room meeting.”
“Really?” Decimus perks up.
Maven smiles. “Good. Then get that changeling somewhere it won’t escape. I already have an idea of how it will come in handy, but I may be here a while.”
***
It took until nearly nightfall for Maven to briefly touch the heads of each of those obsessive, reverent cult members. She missed dinner to get it over with, which made Decimus incredibly sulky. By the time it was all done, I was nearly suffocating with the overwhelming newlybound urge to have my muse in bed again, safe and sound and stuffed with cock until she wept with pleasure.
Which is precisely what happened.
Now, most of my quintet snoozes peacefully on the quintet-sized bed in our apartment—except for Crane, who’s meddling with some potion in the kitchen.
Maven sleeps deeply and peacefully beside me, as irresistible as ever as her restful body draws me like the most captivated moth to the most beautifully twisted flame. The memory of her whispered admission of love is enough to make my heart bang about my chest in giddy chaos.
In life or death or in between, you’re all mine.
She has no idea what words that pretty do to an already-rampant obsession like mine. I would blissfully fall under her spell for the rest of time, were it an option for us. Dreaming of and with her for eternity is a luxury I would do anything to experience.
Technically, I could sleep now, if I wanted to. When Maven made herself my muse, it granted me the ability to rest whenever she does. I can now open my psyche to hers and bask in her subconscious as she experiences my own. They say for incubi, it’s an unparalleled pleasure.
But I was trapped in a nightmarish, sleep-like hell for three months. Not to mention, no matter what kind of permanent future I crave at her side, I only have so many moments remaining in this plane of existence.
Therefore, I’ll be staying in the mortal realm to hold Maven as much as I can get away with, until the end finds me.
Gently running my hand over Maven’s naked body, I relish the soft, smooth feel of her bare back as her head rests on the pillow beside mine. My beautiful dreamer needed no help from me to fall asleep tonight. Although blessing all those people didn’t seem to affect her, she must still be recovering from the spell that sealed her heart back inside her lovely chest.
My quiet adoration of the woman I love is interrupted when I sense a nightmare unfurling quickly nearby. Even though I’m in the mortal realm, I can sense the acrid heaviness of it. The cold, heart-rending fury.
I’ve sensed this same dream before. Frost used to get it almost every night, after the battle. At the time, I was too numbed and empty to do a thing about it if I ever came across it—instead, I carried on with my murderous plight.
But knowing he’s reliving the moment he lost her, all over again…
With a quiet sigh, I kiss Maven’s forehead and allow myself to fall back into Limbo, allowing her to go on resting comfortably on the bed. Turning, I grasp the tendrils of the raging nightmare beside us and delve into Frost’s nightmare.
He’s holding her as the world plunges into ice and snow. Nearby, Crane is going mad. I’m somewhere in this recollection, and royal blue flames are quickly eating up the battlefield in the distance as Decimus goes feral.
I know this is just a dream of a memory, but I still can’t bring myself to look at Maven’s motionless body again. I recall that moment all too clearly—returning with the head of the one who hurt Frost, only to find her hauntingly beautiful eyes left open as she stared lifelessly at the turbulent sky.
This horrific memory haunted me, too, inside of Syntyche’s punishment.
Frost’s agony is making this dream tremble as he tries to wake himself. His subconscious is doused in the grief and helpless despair I saw in him every day after she was gone. Deciding to be done with it, I ignore the pain in my limbs and the clenching in my lungs as I twist his dream, reframing and re-weaving it.
Finally, Frost is left blinking as he finds us back in the small cabin where he first bonded with our keeper, back when our quintet was on the run.
“Feels like an eternity since we were really here,” I note, flicking one of the branches of the small tree we’d brought inside for Maven’s first Starfall Eve.
I can tell he’s caught up to his new surroundings when he sighs hoarsely, rubbing his scarred face. “Fuck. Thanks.”
I could leave, but then again…I owe him something.
Getting around to it is more difficult than I thought, so I end up sniffing the air and frowning. “You must have a strong memory because your dreams are oddly crisp. Fresh as a mint.”
Frost shoots me a look. “I didn’t ask. Now, are you going to say whatever shit you’re sticking around in my head to say, or what?”
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.