Filed To Story: Cursed Legacies Series Free PDF by Morgan B Lee
“Believing that doesn’t make it true,” she mutters, still clutching her scythe tightly as she looks for signs of the worst of the wraiths. “Besides, if Gideon was able to get through the Divide before, you changing the wards wouldn’t have kept him out of?—“
Three gunshots fire off from far out in the woods, drawing our attention.
“Someone needs help,” Baelfire realizes. Then he looks quickly over the aftermath of the wraith attack, and the blood inexplicably drains from his face. “Hang on. Where’s…”
My attention is called by Felix, who’s been healing coyote bites on Vivienne’s leg.
“Commander.” Felix holds up his arm to show that his Reformist scrying brand is glowing. “It’s a distress signal. Douglas just set it off.”
“Quinn,” Baelfire chokes, already stumbling toward the edge of the newly-warded clearing. “She’s missing. So is Lillian.”
Shit.
The rest of us don’t hesitate to rush after him. Even though I want to beg Maven to stay behind in the clearing and help the others recuperate after the horrors of the wraiths, I know my keeper would never willingly send us off into danger and stay behind.
The woods are filled with twisted, dead trees and swirling mist. As twilight shifts fully into nightfall, darkness presses in as the five of us stay close together, running and scanning for signs of anyone.
“Lillian!” Baelfire shouts. “Quinnie?”
The rest of us call for them, too. But finally, I come to a screeching stop when I catch a glimpse of a dead ex-mercenary slumped on the ground nearby.
“Over here,” I tell the others.
When I reach the motionless legacy, I realize others are scattered on the ground, either dead or severely wounded in this thickly wooded area. Two hellhounds are slumped lifelessly to the ground here, too.
With the way some of these people were bitten multiple times and flung around like ragdolls, I’m not surprised when I see Asher’s pet hellhound, Devil, curled up on himself nearby. It looks like he was shot once or twice, but he’s still breathing.
Other motionless ex bounty hunters were clearly shot, too.
“Gideon is nearby,” Maven murmurs beside me, scanning the dark woods beyond the light spell she’s summoned into her hands.
Silas eyes the shadows as he steps over one of the dead bodies, calling his own light spell that glows red. “Either he got into these legacies’ heads, or he got into Asher Douglas’s. If it’s the latter, the mercenary’s distress signal may have been a trap arranged for us by the wraith.”
Godsdamn it. He’s right.
“Nope, no traps. Just me getting ambushed by my friends thanks to that shadowy motherfucker.”
We’re all surprised to see Asher Douglas shirtless, slumped against a tree behind some overgrown shrubbery. He grimaces as he tries to dig a bullet out of one of his shins. It’s not the only bullet in him—he was clearly shot a few times. He’s covered in so much blood, it’s almost difficult to make out all the other tattoos covering his bare torso.
When Maven sees the state he’s in, she glances at Silas. That’s all she needs to do before he crouches to help Asher heal some of the more serious bullet wounds. The mercenary exhales in relief as his body slowly begins to mend under the fae’s blood magic.
“What happened here?” I ask, wary.
What if this is just another wraith trick?
“Saw Lillian and a few others running out of the clearing, so I followed to see what was going on. Didn’t know they were being influenced by a wraith,” Douglas grunts. “My friends went out of their fucking minds as soon as we got into the woods. Dev and I tried to stop them, so now we’re both Swiss cheese. That’s all I know.”
Baelfire squints at him. “And we’re supposed to believe the wraith didn’t affect you at all?”
Douglas can’t answer as he winces in pain when Silas leans him forward to pick out another bullet lodged high in one of his shoulders. Maven tips her head to study the golden phoenix covering most of the burly ex-bounty hunter’s bloodied, bare back.
“So that’s why the wraith didn’t get to you,” she muses. “That’s a blessing, not a tattoo. You were touched by Arati.”
“Way to make the queen of the gods sound perverted.”
“I’m related to her. Of course, she’s perverted.” She straightens, looking around again as ravens croak somewhere in these trees. “Where are Lillian and Quinn?”
The mercenary glances over at his curled-up, bloodied, massive hellhound and whistles. “Dev. Good boy. Let her go.”
The hellhound’s red eyes move to us before he huffs and uncurls his body, moving his dark tail out of the way, too. As soon as Baelfire sees his niece unconscious, huddled against the hellhound’s side, he hurries to her side to check her pulse, ignoring the hellhound’s warning growl.
“Is she hurt?” Crypt demands, looking back at Douglas.
Douglas swears when Silas finally digs the bullet out of his shoulder. “She tripped and hit her head on something when she was chasing after Lillian. Probably just a concussion. She’s safe with Dev and me until we can get her back to Commander Decimus. Dev has orders to guard her with his life.”
That surprises me. That damn hellhound is the only thing this mercenary cares about, besides food, sleep, and money.
“Thank the fucking gods. I owe you,” Baelfire manages as he stands, letting the hellhound guard the little water elemental again.
“Chasing after Lillian?” Maven repeats the mercenary’s words. “Where did Lillian go?”
His face falls. “She didn’t go willingly. The shadows came to life out of fucking nowhere and dragged her away—that way,” he adds, nodding with his chin before looking surprisingly sympathetic. “Her screams cut off before I could finish handling these guys. I’m sorry.”
Fucking gods.
I turn to Maven, already reaching for her, but her inscrutable mask slides on. She turns and takes off through the dark woods in the direction he indicated.
“Maven!” Silas shouts as we race after her.
Even Baelfire is struggling to keep up with our keeper’s pace as she dodges trees, leaps over fallen logs, and scours this part of the woods for Lillian. The light spell in her hands and Silas’s red glow from beside me cast a dim, disturbing glow all around. They’re just barely keeping the shadows at bay.
The darkness in these woods feels almost palpable as Maven veers suddenly to the right, tracking Gideon using her ability to sense fiends. Chills prickle over my entire body when I hear a hissing whisper somewhere in the dead trees surrounding us.
Maven goes perfectly still. The rest of us surround her in the quintet formation we were taught at Everbound, silent and scanning.
“I’ll stay and search for her,” Crypt tries, glancing at Maven. “But if you stay, it’s exactly what he wants. He’s after you, love. Baiting you.”
“I know. He can have me. Not Lillian,” she grits, her face lit ominously by the light in her hands.
“No,” I snap, glaring at her. “Crypt is right. We’re in the perfect place for him to attack. This asshole wants to feed on your fear, but if you leave?—“
“I’m not leaving until I find her.”
I want to protest again, but we all hear the slight tremble in Maven’s voice. It’s killing me to hear her like this.
But we’re not letting Gideon anywhere near her. The things he put me through inside my head in Alaska were fucking sickening. I loathe that he was ever inside my keeper’s mind at all. There’s no way in hell any of us are letting him torment her ever again.
“Boo—” Baelfire begins, equally desperate to get her out of here.
But his words cut off as the shadows thicken and come alive around us within a split second. Darkness crashes over us like a wave of viscous black smoke, concealing everything from sight and snuffing out the light spells Maven and Silas were just holding.
Instinctively, I fling ice toward a shadow I see moving toward Maven, but Crypt shouts in pain instead. Fuck. Baelfire snarls, my keeper gasps, and then the most awfully sickening sound of flesh and ligaments ripping and tearing echoes around us?—
And then warm liquid splatters on my face.
I’ve been in battle on the front lines enough times to know by now that’s what a spray of someone else’s blood feels like.
Oh my gods. Oh my gods. No.
Maven.
I can’t even speak or focus enough to send it through the bond. I’m frozen in horror as blood drips down my face. But I didn’t feel the bond break. So what the hell just happened?
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.