Filed To Story: Cursed Legacies Series Free PDF by Morgan B Lee
Blood oaths are the highest order of binding magic in existence. They supersede the gods and carry on into the Beyond. Anyone who tries to break a blood oath or find a loophole to get out of it is wiped from existence. Extinguished.
“It doesn’t matter what I swore to do,” I shake my head. “I refuse to drag you four down with me.”
The gravity of my words has Silas reaching out, but he stills his fingers before they can brush against my cheek. His brow is furrowed, his dark curls mussed over his forehead as he tries to understand me.
“Or maybe we can help you. Tell us what you swore to do.”
I finally break the eye contact. “I can’t. You’ll kill me.”
Baelfire growls and breaks my rule again, reaching out to gently grip my chin and force me to look at him. The contact makes my skin flush and my breath stagger.
“Is that what you’ve been so afraid of? Us hurting—gods, killing you? That’s never going to fucking happen.
Never. It doesn’t matter what terrible thing you swore to do or how much you try to make us hate you—none of us will hurt you, Maven.”
Please. I’m well acquainted with pain, and I know it’s delivered best in prettier packages. There are so many ways they could hurt me…and they would.
They’d have to if they knew who and what I am.
Crypt senses my disbelief and reaches out to remove Baelfire’s hand from my chin before gingerly brushing my hair away from my face, careful not to touch my skin.
“This oath. Has it anything to do with the anti-legacy movement?” he asks. “Is that why you think we can’t be together, love? You’re in opposition to the Legacy Council?”
The anti-legacy movement? That’s…
Huh. That’s an easy way out.
Why didn’t I think of that sooner? If I tell them that I made a blood oath on behalf of the people who hate the legacies—if I say
I’m one of them…won’t that be enough to make them decide we aren’t going to work? No legacies would want a keeper who is actively petitioning for their kind to be killed off or sent back to the Nether.
Yes. This cover should work.
I nod, not trusting myself to speak when they’re watching me so closely, and I can’t calm my body’s reaction to them. I can feel Everett’s piercing eyes from outside the room. As a professor at the university, I’m sure he’s going to flag me as a dangerous student or something.
It doesn’t matter. I’ll be done with my mission and long gone by the time this fake confession could possibly catch up to me.
The knowledge that I’ll soon disappear from their lives makes my chest ache with hollowness.
“Then I hardly care,” Crypt whispers, his fingers twisting a strand of my hair.
Surprise floods me.
Silas nods. “Good. Then we’re all in agreement.”
“You know what? I don’t care, either,” Baelfire huffs, eyes fierce as he moves even closer. “Like I said, I’m always on your side. Hate legacies all you fucking want—that doesn’t mean we can’t be together. Believing different shit doesn’t mean you’re my enemy, Maven. There’s no way you can make me hate you.”
Damn it. My brain and body can’t agree on the best next course of action. I needed them to accept that lie and choose to reject me for it finally. Yet, at the same time, I’m…relieved. If they’ll get over a fake problem of that magnitude, could they possibly get over the actual truth?
No. That’s like comparing them forgiving a finger prick to ripping their hearts out.
“You should hate me,” I argue, glaring at each of them to try to get the point across one final time. Even Everett, who is still in the hallway, arms folded now. “Because if you don’t hate me now, you will hate me later. It’s inevitable. Being with me will be hell for you because nothing will keep me from what I need to do, not even you four. We’re fighting for such different things?—“
“Says who?” Silas cuts in. “Let me remind you, Maven Oakley, that just as we know little of your past, you barely know us. Don’t be so certain that we subscribe to everything you hate about legacies. I am many things, but not loyally blind. The Legacy Council is corrupt. So is the Immortal Quintet. I’ll bleed them dry if that’s what you ask of me.”
“I’ll burn whoever you ask me to,” Baelfire murmurs.
Crypt lifts the strands of hair in his hand and kisses the tips. “Make us your weapons, darling, and no one will stand a chance against our quintet. Let us be yours.”
Well. That was annoyingly unexpected.
I’m speechless. I’ve never actually been speechless before, but I don’t like it. I need to find some new barrier to put up because all my defenses are failing. How am I supposed to keep rejecting them if they rip down my walls and make me feel this way—as if maybe the obstacles looming between us are scalable?
As if they’re really on my side.
As if I’m worth fighting for.
Damn them. I’m reaching my breaking point when I know that the only person who will ever really fight for me is myself.
You’re on your own. You need no one. You are nothing but deadly calm.
But the mantras in my head are just more white noise when they’re here, determination and hunger in their eyes as they finish ripping down any chances of saving them from me. My chest aches, and my soul has been fucking starved for any kind of connection like this for as long as I can remember.
I’ve never wanted anything like I want them, and now I squeeze my eyes shut as the rest of my walls slip away.
Fuck it. Fuck all of it.
I stop fighting for once and give in.
MAVEN
I don’t know who’s more surprised when my lips brush his, me or Silas. But emotions explode through me when he immediately takes control, commanding my mouth with his, coaxing me to open to him until his tongue slips lightly against mine.
Yes. This.
But the moment his hands move to cup my face, I wrench back as the familiar pinpoints of horror dance over my spine. He immediately drops his hands, but the lust swirling in his red eyes remains.
“
Sangfluir…”
“Hey,” Bael says quickly, concern on his face as he gently takes my gloved hand. “Talk to us. What’s going on in your head, baby?”
“I don’t know how to…” I shake my head, struggling and frustrated at the way my body is starting to react. Exhaling on a rough scowl, I cover my face. “Gods, this sucks. This is another reason you guys should find someone else because I’m too messed up to?—“
“There is none but you for me,” Crypt quietly warns over my shoulder.
He wraps some of my hair around his fist and pulls slightly. The possessive action only adds to my wetness, and now my body is even more confused.
“You’re not messed up,” Baelfire says, leaning down to catch my eye.
My laugh is sharp. “Yes, I am. You have no idea. Another keeper would be?—“
“Nope. You can go ahead and forever scrap the idea of us looking for someone else because it’s not fucking happening. Just tell me yes or no. Do you want us to make you feel good?”
Crypt gently tugs on my hair again. “No one here will touch you unless you want it. If they do, I’ll skin them alive and douse them in acid. You have my word.”
Silas’s fingers trail down my sleeve, tugging at the fabric as he holds me hostage with his intense gaze. “No lies. Tell us what you really want.”
I swallow down the residual fear, mooring myself to how ravenously they seem to want me. They won’t hurt me, not right now. I just have to convince my body that their touch isn’t the end of the world.
“I want you to touch me, even if I can’t stand it,” I whisper, reaching down to tug off one glove. Then the other. I feel so damn naked without them, and I know I’m shaking, but I reach up to brush the tips of my fingers against one of Silas’s curls. It’s so soft. “Get me out of my own head. I need to be overwhelmed until I lose myself.”
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.