Twisted Soul (Cursed Legacies #3)

14. Maven

14

MAVEN

Starfall Eve is nice.

Once Baelfire is in the shower, Silas returns and gifts me a new concoction he’s been working on—an elixir I can drink to fend off my next episode.

Which means no more fucking needles.

Thank the universe.

Baelfire’s gift is a mouthwatering dinner and several new ice cream flavors to try, which is how I learn that vanilla really is my favorite. Crypt got me a beautiful, scandalous dark red lingerie set that I am one hundred percent sure he stole from a store somewhere in Washington. He also got me a graphic T-shirt with a coffin on it that says, “Get in bitches, we’re going to the Beyond.”

I found it fitting and hilarious, even though Everett told Crypt his sense of humor was more fucked up than he is.

All the gift-giving was great, but it also made me feel shitty. I had no idea gifts were a thing on Starfall, so I have nothing for them. Silas picked up on my frustration and teasingly insisted that kisses counted as great gifts.

Still, I’m going to get them all something as soon as I get the chance.

Now, the fireplace in the little bedroom is flickering softly with pale blue flames as I listen to Baelfire sleeping softly to my right. He tried curling up around me, which was great until I started to break into a cold sweat and couldn’t breathe right after about thirty minutes. He noticed and backed off, instead resting my hand on his chest so I could feel the steady, soothing thrum of his heartbeat as he drifted to sleep.

Apparently, my stupid fucking touch phobia is going to be a bitch to get rid of entirely.

On the other side of Baelfire, Everett looks like a contentedly sleeping angel, the faint blue firelight casting an almost eerie wintry glow to his white-blond hair. I smile when I glimpse some of the hickeys I left behind on his neck, others hidden under his pajama shirt.

Silas is quietly sleeping in the chair in one corner of the room. He fell asleep reading a book he pulled from his pocket void earlier.

Crypt is watching me in Limbo. I’m sure he’s waiting for me to fall asleep.

That makes two of us.

I’m not ready to admit out loud to him or the others that sleep eludes me the more I think about Gideon being here in the mortal realm to hunt me down. Not to mention the looming threat of falling behind on my tasks as the telum . I haven’t even found etherium yet, let alone hunted down another member of the Immortal Quintet. Melchom hasn’t answered calls, and while I would gladly track down another demon to wring answers out of, I can’t risk getting found by a multitude of enemies who would waste more of my time.

Still…even with the dread hanging over me like a cloud, I can’t help tracing the thin, square House of Elementals emblem now decorating the center of my chest like a delicate rune.

I’m officially bound to Everett Frost.

That painfully gorgeous, conflicted, brooding, adorably awkward, perfectionistic snow angel is all mine.

The rightness of it makes me smile, and finally the Nightmare Prince appears. He’s sitting on the hardwood floor, arms folded on the edge of the bed beside my pillow as he rests his chin on them to gaze dreamily at me. There is also an undeniable edge of lust in his silver-flecked purple eyes.

“Restless, love? I’m happy to send you off to sleep. The only thing I ask in return is that you let me slowly devour that sweet little cunt of yours while you bask in sinful dreams.”

Heat floods my neck and pulses between my thighs.

Gods, he’s silver-tongued—and I wouldn’t mind indulging my somnophiliac as much as he wants. The last time he played with me while I was unconscious, I had the most fantastic sex dream and woke up to all of my matches delirious with need.

It’s one of my favorite memories.

Still, I hesitate. “I was with Everett earlier.”

He hums in agreement. “Are you asking me to wake him up to join? If so, I’m for it. I hardly mind sharing when watching you come undone in so many ways is so delectable. Anything you like tonight, my darling, so long as I get to taste you as you dream.”

Fucking poetic incubus. Now I’m really flushed.

I try to play it off by rolling my eyes. “I meant , he finished inside me.”

I showered afterward, but still.

His lips turn up devilishly. “Lucky him. What’s your point, love?”

How is he not getting it? “My point is, you don’t want to go down on me after he’s…”

The Nightmare Prince’s grin widens, and he leans to whisper against my ear on the pillow.

“Don’t I?”

Oh, gods. That raspy voice, his accent, his sweet leather scent, and the way he slowly kisses down my jaw…

Okay, this incubus can have whatever the hell he wants. The effect he has on me is completely unfair.

Clear my throat twice in a row, I finally nod, trying to ignore the burning heat and excitement trickling through my system. The idea of him between my thighs while I’m unconscious is doing all kinds of things to me.

Crypt leans forward and kisses my forehead. “Use your words.”

“I told you already. You have my full permission to use me at night. That has no expiration date.”

He groans softly, his voice turning ragged. “Close your eyes. I swear I’ll give you nothing but pleasure.”

I do, and a moment later, a deep sleep washes over me.

At first, it’s exactly what I want—what I need . Deep rest laced with wicked dreams, untold desires, and orgasms that flood my subconscious with pleasure again and again, lulling me deeper into a sensual void of perfection.

But then, my chest suddenly goes cold. A hollow darkness creeps into the corners of my mind, overshadowing everything until I can no longer sense Crypt.

Instead, I find myself striding through a stone hallway. Not just any stone hallway—this is the vast entry within the citadel I used to loathe visiting. Is this a memory? I try to place it, but it somehow feels both familiar and unfamiliar.

Finally, I come to a stop in the dream and find myself facing…children. Thirteen children of varying ages, with gray- draped necromancers standing guard around them. Dagon’s voice echoes beside me, sending chills down my spine because I’ve heard his sickly voice far too many times.

“My liege, these are they who survived passing into your great kingdom upon your command. Through the efforts of the liches you sent, these few were able to withstand the Divide…but my everlasting lord, I must still warn you. Mere mortals cannot reasonably survive the things which I shall put these younglings through.”

My gaze catches on a very young girl standing at the edge of the little mortals. Her black hair is a tangle around her serious face. The others are crying, trembling, sobbing at the sight of me, but she is utterly still and watchful with large, dark eyes. Fear is thick in the air except for around her.

A strange pride fills me, but it doesn’t feel like my own.

“Begin with that one,” a rattlingly deep voice booms…from my mouth.

It sends fear coursing through my veins. Pain shoots through my chest, shock sluicing through my system as I jolt awake, shedding the dream in an instant. Immediately, I feel Crypt’s hands cradling my face as he leans over me flat on my back. His silver-flecked violet eyes are wide, panicked.

The others are awake, too, gathered around me on the bed. The only sound in the room is my struggle to breathe and the fireplace’s crackling. I’m vaguely aware of the fact that I’m completely bare from the waist down and still incredibly wet from whatever Crypt was doing with me.

“What just…” I trail off, disoriented.

“I couldn’t get into your subconscious anymore. No—I was pushed out of your subconscious,” Crypt growls, his face darkening with pure fury as his light swirling markings light up faintly.

“A lot of fucking good you are to her,” Baelfire snarls, his eyes shifted into draconic-slitted pupils. “Maybe if you were more focused on protecting Maven’s dreams and less on using her for your sleeping fuck doll fantasy?—”

“Change your tone before I rip your tongue out, dragon. Never has this happened before in all the dreams I’ve walked,” Crypt snaps before turning back to me. “What was that, love?”

I swallow to try steadying my voice, more disoriented when I see sunlight streaming through the small window of this little cabin bedroom. “It was a dream of a memory. But not mine.”

“Whose, then?” Silas demands.

“Amadeus’s.”

They all recoil.

Crypt swears. “I cannot pass through the Divide even in dreams. That must be what ripped me from your subconscious and prevented me from waking you. If you’re sharing a dream state with that Undead bastard, it means your psyche is somehow linked to his.”

Everett stiffens. “Through the shadow heart in her chest?”

“Perhaps,” the Nightmare Prince mutters, tracing the side of my face as he watches me with tender concern.

All four of them look concerned, actually. Far too much.

I sit up, finding my discarded panties and pants to slip into. “We need to go to Argentina.”

Baelfire scowls, his shifter temper flaring. “Are you seriously going to brush this off like it’s fucking nothing? You just shared a dream with the asshole who put you through hell! Don’t act like it didn’t freak you out, too. We need to?—”

“What?” I interrupt, fixing him with a stern look. “We need to what? Spiral and spew theories about why this is happening? Panic? Crack open my fucked-up head to see what’s going on?”

He snarls again, more viciously and far less like Baelfire. His dragon must be fighting hard for control. “Don’t even fucking joke about that right now,” he warns.

“We have bigger problems to focus on,” I point out, looking at each of them as my own emotions spike in the wake of that off-putting dream. “If I don’t get etherium soon, my plan goes to shit. I need to keep you four safe, but if I don’t end another one of my targets soon, Amadeus is going to start killing off humans, starting with?—”

My voice breaks, and I shut my eyes.

“Maven?” Everett asks softly.

“Starting with Lillian,” I finish, trying to compose myself. “I can’t let that happen. I just…can’t. So yes, I’m brushing this off for now.”

It’s quiet for a moment, and I feel that same uneasy excess of energy that I always do when I wake up. I would love to slip into my regular morning routine to burn off the anxiety—or gods, I could kill for a good fight.

Finally, Silas nods, rubbing his face. “All right, ima sangfluir . Let’s figure out a way to get to Argentina without using magic. The last thing we need is Douglas tracking us from here to your new lead.”

Everett suggests we could charter a selection of private planes to take us there, but Baelfire is still testy and snaps that he isn’t flying unless it’s with his own two wings. Silas tells the dragon shifter to get over himself as he begins slipping any relevant belongings into his pocket void. Crypt glowers silently, still pissed about getting kicked from my dream.

Baelfire tenses abruptly, his head whipping toward the window.

“What is it?” I ask, slipping my hand under my pillow to find that Pierce is there. They all know I like to sleep with my favorite dagger close at hand. I wonder which one of them put it here.

“Howling,” he grits.

Hellhounds.

Immediately, we’re all getting dressed for combat as fast as we can. I don’t realize I’m smiling until Everett sees me and blinks.

“Dear gods. Please tell me you’re not excited for this fight.”

I grin. “Why lie?”

Crypt kisses my cheek on the way out of the room, calling over his shoulder, “Let our girl have her fun. But if she’s injured, I’ll gleefully kill all three of you.”

Everett huffs and crouches down to tie my combat boots.

“I can do that,” I protest.

“I know you can. Just let me, please,” he grumbles, evidently crabby first thing in the morning with an ambush on the way.

Baelfire tips his head, his shifter hearing picking up far more than we can. “They’re getting closer.”

Maybe if you stay in here … Everett begins telepathically, shooting a pleading look up at me.

And let you four have all the fun? Not a chance.

Silas captures my free hand to kiss my fingertips.

Keep in mind that we’re all on a thin ledge right now, sangfluir , he says through the bond. You want us to work as a team, but with only half of us bound to you and Bael quickly losing control…

He trails off, but I see his point.

“You four could stay in here while I deal with it,” I suggest. “There’s just a high chance I’ll lose control, which means you’d have to kill me to snap me out of it once I start?—”

The angry roar that breaks from Baelfire is entirely inhuman, and then he grips his head, grimacing in pain. “Nope. Hell no. That is not a fucking option.”

I study him, noticing the tightness around his eyes and how he grits his teeth. Typically, he fights with his inner dragon on and off, but right now, it’s like a continuous battle.

My cheerful, charming dragon shifter is struggling a lot more than he wants me to know.

If only I knew the reason Everett, Silas, and I were bound, I could try to break his curse, too.

Even if it’s only temporary.

“Fine. Let me handle Douglas,” I tell them, trying to push that aching thought away as I slip on gloves and grab anything we may need in the event of a quick getaway.

Not three minutes later, the howling outside becomes noticeably louder, and then the entire cabin is surrounded by the chilling chorus. Magic flashes outside. I sense their attack on the magic wards a fraction of a second before a hellhound crashes through the living room window.

Everett freezes it immediately, but then they’re coming through the front door and the other windows, howling outside as bounty hunters shout and shots fire. Since chaos has broken loose, I spare no time dashing outside and spotting the leader.

He’s a large, burly redhead who immediately takes aim with his metallic weapon and fires.

The bullet lodges high in my left shoulder. I jerk back, glancing at the stinging wound. Lillian told me about guns years ago, but this is my first time seeing and feeling them in action. I suppose it would hurt more if I weren’t a certifiable monster who trained to tolerate high levels of pain for over a decade.

First impression? Guns seem so inelegant. What’s the fun of a fight if you can’t watch your enemy’s flesh part and their blood ooze around a knife, up close and personal?

A hellhound launches at me from my left, and my instincts send me into action. I duck under the monstrous hound, dodge its slashing claws, and then turn and fling myself over it, straddling it to get my arms around its neck.

Snap .

It drops dead as a fresh buzz floods my veins. I roll to my feet, breaking into a dead run towards Douglas. I expect him to panic, shout for help, or try some other idiotic strategy, but he stands his ground, keeping his sights set on me.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Three shots, all to my stomach. They hurt, but with the familiar rush of adrenaline that comes with a fight, I tune it out to keep my pace. As soon as I get close enough, I launch forward, grabbing his weapon and sending it back into his face.

Crack.