Filed To Story: Cursed Legacies Series Free PDF by Morgan B Lee
It was drawn to me even in Paradise, with no way to reach me.
A tall shadow appears next to me in this memory, and I glance up to see Syntyche hold out a scythe—Cuttrina.
“The memory-yielding scythe you requested. Consider this a reward for being far less annoying than most offspring I have witnessed,” she says with no expression.
“Don’t get sappy on me,” I tease as I stand to take the wickedly sharp etherium weapon.
My mother’s attention moves to the small sprout. “Falling from Paradise will be a pain unlike any you have experienced.”
“How do you know?”
She looks out over the sea of clouds. “Years ago, I asked my brother to venture into the Beyond and ask the fallen angel about it. Even in his peaceful afterlife, the angel shuddered to recall that pain.”
I stare at her, slowly putting it together. If she went far enough to find out from someone in the Beyond about this process…
“Oh my fucking gods. You were considering falling from Paradise to live a mortal life with Pietro Amato,” I realize aloud, gawking at her.
Syntyche says nothing for a long time before she pulls her hood back up, preparing to go down and reap more souls. “In all possible attempts, Galene only foresaw my demise, for fate knows my path is one of immortal reaping. You carry more humanity within you, so perhaps your outcome will be more favorable.”
“Darling?” Crypt’s voice checks softly as I jolt back to the present.
As the memories fade, I realize I’m still standing on the stairs leading down into the dungeon. My incubus is standing on the step below me, pulling me close as he studies me as obsessively as ever. His scent, like sweet reverium and leather, is comforting.
“Remembering more of your attempts to piss off the gods?” the Nightmare Prince asks, grinning.
“Something like that,” I manage.
Maybe later, I’ll tell them that I essentially poisoned myself with my own ichor to fall from the heavens. But that’s not important. The point is, I survived and now all I have to do is end Amadeus and figure out what the hell I swore to do—and then we have our entire future in front of us.
But as if the universe wants to mock me, Crypt tries not to grimace as his markings light up yet again. He’s kept his leather jacket on all day to keep me from seeing more of his markings slowly vanishing.
I saw them last night, though. So many of them are gone.
My pounding heart aches. Maybe I don’t have a future with him.
“Tell me why your markings are fading,” I demand.
“My love, now is not the time to?—“
“
Tell me.
“
Crypt studies my eyes before looking away. “Historically speaking, only one incubus at a time can bear the markings of the gods. As the current stewardship draws to a close, the steward is freed of their holy marks just before the next incubus is born into the curse.”
That’s a delicate way to put it very bluntly.
My Nightmare Prince is losing his marks because he’s dying faster than I realized.
And the fucking curse doing this to him can’t be broken.
My stomach churns so suddenly and angrily that I try to get out of Crypt’s arms. He tightens them with a sigh. “Be angry at me, darling, but allow me to hold you. Or if my touch bothers you?—“
“I’m going to be sick,” I warn him, gagging.
He quickly releases me before I turn and vomit on the stairs. It takes a moment before I can straighten again, wiping my mouth and swallowing down the remaining visceral reaction to the thought of one of my matches dying.
I refuse. I won’t let it happen.
Somehow, there has to be a way to fix this. I’ll find it.
Crypt pulls me back into his arms immediately, holding me so tightly I feel like it could almost put me back together as he murmurs against my ear. “I’m sorry for being such a godsdamned fool and speeding up this cursed process. You’ve no idea how sorry I am. How can I help you forgive me?”
“I won’t,” I finally manage, pulling away to glare up at his beautiful violet eyes. “I already lost Lillian. I can’t do this. If I lose you, I’m never going to fucking forgive you for leaving me. Understand?”
They’re angry words. I probably don’t mean them all.
He nods anyway, gently cradling my face and looking more serious than I’ve ever seen him. “I understand.”
“No, you—that’s not—” I huff, so frustrated I can’t even put it into words.
My incubus exhales, brushing a light kiss on my forehead. “I need this, darling. Every shade of your anger, your bliss, even your terror. Every fragment of you. I want everything I can get with you, so I ask that when I do give up the ghost?—“
“Stop,” I snap, wiping at my face because why the fuck is there moisture on my cheeks?
Crypt presses on anyway, his whisper bordering on desperate. “My darling, I only ask that you hold back from reaping whatever I have for a soul, when the time comes. Whatever I’ll be after this, I’ll belong to you just the same. Keep what’s left of me in a bottle, if you like. Let my wretched soul haunt you and hate me if that’s easier, but please just keep me.”
If I could be sick again, I would. The idea of Crypt being one of the many ghosts that follow me everywhere is too much.
But at the same time, I already know I will never be able to let any of my quintet go. If anything happens to us in this battle, they’re still mine. They’ll have no choice except to haunt me until the day I pass on—and if my mother tries to reap them, so fucking help me, I will fight her myself.
Taking a deep breath, I nod. It’s all I can seem to do.
Crypt smiles sadly, resting his forehead against mine briefly. “What a brave muse I have.”
I can’t stand feeling all these feelings, so just like I used to do when I was young, I lock them in a box inside my chest.
There’s a way for us all to survive this. I just have to find it.
CRYPT
“Boo, tell Professor Popsicle that I need a turn,” Decimus huffs.
Ignoring the crippling pain in my joints and spine, I smoke reverium and watch Decimus and Frost say goodbye to Maven before dawn. The sky above is dark and starless above this courtyard where the greenhouse sits in peaceful silence.
Frost holds Maven even tighter, breathing out slowly as he tries to get a hold of himself. “Just another second. I just…I can’t yet.”
If it were Crane or myself hogging our keeper before this battle of all battles, I imagine Decimus would have already set us ablaze from sheer impatience. But Crane already said his goodbyes before he left with a group of Reformists to direct his Undead army—and the last time we were all in a battle together, Frost faced the brutal final moments with our dying keeper all on his own. We have a silent understanding that he gets a pass this time.
“We’ll meet up in the citadel,” Maven reminds the elemental, rubbing his back as his erratic breathing only worsens.
Our quintet will be separating at the beginning of the battle. I don’t envy the others the fact that they’ll set off with resurrected changelings that Crane ordered to imitate our keeper. Decimus is moving in at a northern angle with the Decimus family. Crane and his Undead army, along with all the ghosts Maven has summoned into this mortal realm, will move in from the south. All other Reformist troops have their orders to move in following the strategy Maven finalized with Brigid Decimus.
Maven and I will be passing through Limbo directly into the citadel. My obsession is dressed in simple black combat clothes, but the fact that they hug her delectable body has me constantly distracted.
I myself wear combat attire for once, but I also carry a simple, secured pouch. Within it is the jar that used to hold Maven’s heart. Now, it contains a dark, humming shadow heart. Crane spent hours crafting it yesterday before passing out from pure exhaustion.
Our mission is to get it inside Amadeus before killing him. I’ve overheard my darling obsession and Crane discussing the logicistics at length over the last few days to know that unlike Maven’s shadow heart that constantly revived her, this one is a temporary spell. A mere tool to give the immortal Entity a weakness.
“Okay, we have to change the plan,” Frost finally announces, still holding onto Maven as if he expects her to drift away any moment. “Crypt, you take a changeling. I can’t do this.”
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.