Twisted Soul (Cursed Legacies #3)

36. Everett

36

EVERETT

I can't say I mind waiting in the car for hours when Maven is sitting in the passenger seat beside me in that tight black crop top, gloves, and dark leggings. A jacket waits for her at her feet, but I'm purposely keeping the vehicle toasty just so I can have this view.

It's before dawn. We're in an unmarked SUV parked down the street from the luxurious safehouse where Maven thinks Natalya is hiding out, based on Engela's detailed letter.

Baltimore is practically abandoned, with all the buildings on the historic roads left lightless. At first glance, the emptiness might seem like it's just because it's the early hours—but nobody else is parked out here on the street overnight. This is typically when humans would be getting up and leaving early for work to get ahead of city traffic, but the roads are empty.

A light snow flurry settles on the defrosting windshield as Silas and Baelfire talk quietly in the back seat. Crypt is unseen but probably hanging around in here somewhere, if he's not busy eating the dreams of anyone who ignored the evacuation warning and stayed in Baltimore.

The Garnet Wizard mentioned you bought something from him for an empath years ago, Maven muses through the bond just to me.

I tense. What else did that old eccentric tell her? If he brought up the whole thing with Silas?—

It was for your sister, right? She glances at me.

My keeper is always so sharp. I nod.

That's a rare gift, she notes.

I make a face. Not sure she'd call it that.

You seem protective of her.

I am, I admit. She went through a lot as a kid. Had it much tougher than I did. As an empath, she experienced everyone else's emotions constantly, even when she was a baby. Empaths tend to overload and get severe panic attacks. Most of the legacy community accepts that and has been raising awareness about it for years to end the negative stigma about empaths being weak, but my parents never got the memo. They punished her anytime she couldn't handle everything she felt from others, which was way too fucking much in that house. So, as soon as I had the means to step in, I did.

Maven studies me, her expression soft. You keep saying you're not worthy of me. That's bullshit. The reverse is true.

I'm about to argue when Crypt appears suddenly in the backseat between Baelfire and Silas, making them both swear in surprise. The incubus leans forward to peer between Maven and me, his piercings glinting in the dim light from the dash.

“I'm fucking bored.”

“Stakeouts aren’t known for being exciting,” I grumble.

“Yes, except for the fact that we have the sexiest woman alive with us.”

“Not alive,” Maven corrects without missing a beat, squinting through the windshield even though nothing is happening at the safehouse.

“Yet you have an aura, like all living things.”

“But no fucking heartbeat, like all dead things.”

He grins. “Very well, then—the sexiest revenant in the world.”

“I'm the only one, so that checks out,” she shrugs. “Silas, has anyone tripped the undetectable wards you set around the premises?”

“Not yet, sangfluir .”

My phone buzzes in my pocket. I check it to see another text from Ian and squint to read without my glasses.

Everything's in place.

I type a reply.

Even the transportation?

Yup. No eyes on any of it. Smooth AF from here on. You're welcome for being the best in the business. Sending you the invoice. Btw one of your polar bear dogs shit on my carpet so I'm billing you for that too.

I roll my eyes and pocket my phone, tuning in to realize that Baelfire is now arguing with Crypt about some past birthday.

“...and you were twelve, meaning you’re seven years older than me, which makes you twenty-eight. If what you said about other stewards of Limbo kicking the can at thirty is true, that gives you about two more yea?—”

“I lied about being twelve,” Crypt drawls.

“What the fuck? Why?”

“You were a dyslexic little five-year-old who confidently told me the legal drinking age was ‘one-two.’ You'd caught me drinking from your parents’ hidden liquor stash, so I played along and said I was that age. None of you ever bothered asking again, and I obviously didn't and still don't fucking care.”

Silas frowns. “You're not the oldest?”

“Everett is the oldest,” Maven offers.

Baelfire frowns. “How the hell did you know that before us?”

“Like I said, Kenzie stalked you four online. Apparently, her sleuthing is more solid than your ability to have a single conversation without arguing over the span of nearly two decades.”

“Damn,” Baelfire shakes his head. “I would’ve sworn on my family name that Crypt was seven years older than us.”

Our keeper makes a face. “Us? You're twenty-one.”

“Yeah, like you.”

She shakes her head.

He frowns. “Twenty-two?”

“Twenty-three as of two days ago,” she corrects.

What?

We all turn to glower at her at the same time.

“Do you truly mean to say that we just barely missed your birthday, and you chose not to fucking tell us?” Silas demands.

Maven looks at each of our pissed-off faces and smooths her gloves.

“No?” she tries like that might be the right answer.

Godsdamn it.

“We could have celebrated with you,” I gripe. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

“I forgot,” she shrugs. “Besides, birthdays celebrate another year of life, which isn’t applicable here. I only keep track of my age because Lillian made a big deal out of it. She liked to make me feel as human as possible and insisted on singing to me on the same day every year.” She pauses, her expression turning wistful. “I…miss her voice.”

We fall quiet at that, and then Baelfire sighs.

“Well, I can't wait to meet this Lillian, but from now on, we are fucking celebrating your birthday, got it? As a matter of fact, the second all this shit wraps up, and the humans are safely in the mortal realm, I’m planning a party so we can spoil the hell out of you.”

The Nightmare Prince leans forward again to grin deviously at Maven. “But for tonight, I believe twenty-three birthday orgasms are in order.”

She chokes. “Twenty-three? Hell no. That's not even poss?—”

Silas tenses as red magic flares around his blackened fingertips. “Someone just tripped the perimeter ward entering the safehouse from the south.”

We're all immediately ready for action, following Maven’s plan. Crypt disappears. Baelfire exits the car to stroll toward the rowhouse we're targeting. I turn off the car to follow him while Maven and Silas split off to try deactivating wards in the basement entry.

We all have talismans Silas made to keep Natalya out of our heads. He claims they’ll work well for the next two hours before the magic tapers off. After that, Natalya will be able to sense our proximity from our thoughts alone.

As Baelfire and I near the front of the rowhouse, Silas updates us through the bond.

We got into the basement .

Nice. Let's see if our Angel of Death was right about this bitch hiring a bunch of fire elementals, Baelfire says cheerfully.

The cocky shifter has been in a damn good mood ever since he finally bonded with Maven. For once, I understand him.

I stand back and watch Bael kick down the front door of the fancy rowhouse to storm inside. Immediately, fire engulfs him, shattering windows as it explodes throughout the first floor. Security alarms begin to peel through the otherwise silent streets. I glimpse Baelfire snap a fire elemental’s spine through one of the front windows. His clothes have burned off, but of course, the fireproof brute is unharmed.

The once-luxurious rowhouse starts to go up in smoke. I take a deep breath and send a massive wave of snow into the building, putting out the worst of the fire as steam hisses all around.

No one upstairs, Crypt updates. Well, no one alive, at least. It seems Natalya's been draining any human stragglers she's come across.

You got in? I frown. Why don’t they have dreamcatchers set up?

That is the question, isn’t it? Gods above, that alarm is irritating.

Baelfire finishes with the last elemental as I walk into the ruined rowhouse.

Silas, Boo? Where's that update? the dragon checks telepathically.

It's quiet for long enough that I start to get concerned before Maven replies, her voice urgent.

Our target isn’t here. Abort.

Fuck. I immediately turn toward the stairs leading down toward the basement where they're supposed to be, but Baelfire stops me.

“She said abort. Come on.”

“But—”

Get the fuck out of here, Maven reiterates. She set traps. It's empty down here except for a hairpin hex we just triggered.

What the hell is that? I demand.

Baelfire and I abandon the smoky building, backing away on the road as we wait and watch. The blaring security alarm abruptly cuts off, most likely courtesy of our incubus.

Think of it as a mine. Only if one of us steps out of place without carefully diffusing it, the hex will dismember us, Silas supplies in a strained voice. Maven's destructive magic will only set it off.

Fuck. That's one of the ways Maven can permanently be killed. Obviously, Natalya knows that and planned for it.

I grit my teeth as Baelfire paces up and down the road, swearing viciously as he drags a hand through his hair.

For one moment, I'm pissed off—and then the sound of a gunshot goes off at the same time a bullet lodges in my stomach. I grip the gushing injury and stagger back as more gunshots ring out. Baelfire tackles me to the ground, rolling and dragging me until we're in a small alleyway between buildings where the falling snow is building up. No bullets are flying here.

“Shit,” I hiss, freezing over the injury to stop the gushing blood. Aggravating heat spreads from the bullet, slowly morphing into pain as my system catches up with the impact.

It fucking hurts. How did Maven brush off getting shot by bounty hunters like it was nothing?

It's an ambush out here, I warn the others.

“Stay here, Snowflake,” Baelfire says before rushing back out into the street, which is now filled with the clatter of gunshots and shouting.

The damn shifter is going to get himself killed.

At least, that's what I think until I hear the unmistakable, ear-splitting roar of Baelfire's dragon. I wince when my ears start to ring. Any stragglers asleep in all of Baltimore are wide awake now if their eardrums didn’t just fucking burst.

Getting to my feet, I lean against the brick alley wall, wiping my bloodied hand on my now-ruined coat.

Crypt? Do you have eyes on what's happening? I check.

All the lackeys once at Everbound are here for a party. They also appear to have a Void on the way. Still no sign of the immortal blood-guzzling bitch.

Damn it.

Everyone knows about Voids. They’re rare and don’t fit into a House. They absorb magic, their presence nulling any existing enchantment—meaning the talismans Silas spelled will be useless once the Void gets close enough.

Maven? I press, anxious as I peek around the corner in time to see Baelfire’s massive golden beast step on a group of screaming legacies in the dim light of early dawn.

Silas is almost done, she answers finally.

I hear the rustle of fabric behind me and turn in time to impale a knife-wielding siren through the chest with a saber of ice. He falls. I summon another blade as I slip out of the alley, still clutching my stomach where the bullet burns under the soothing frost.

Luckily for me, Baelfire makes one hell of an ally now that he and his dragon aren't playing tug-of-war with his brain. He snarls and bends his neck down to snap a leopard shifter in half, flinging the other half into a trio of casters launching spells at him.

A few of their spells bounce off his golden scales, but a summoned magical weapon lodges under one of Bael’s wings. He hisses and opens his mouth, his long neck glowing with molten royal blue light from the inside out as he prepares to burn them to ash.

But we're not here to burn down Baltimore. I lift my hand to send a wave of ice spikes into the casters before they see me coming, leaving them impaled high above the ground before I turn to freeze another.

And another.

The threats keep coming as legacies pour out of massive vans that screech to a stop down the street. Others arrive in bright flashes of transportation magic, while more come running from gods know where, armed to the teeth for this obvious ambush.

I only realize Crypt is helping with the fight when I turn to defend myself against two vampires and see that they're both ripping into each other's skin, hissing and cackling like killing each other is the most fun they've ever had while blood starts to drip out of their ears.

Some other legacies are turning on each other, but as I look around, I realize just how fucking outnumbered we are now.

Maven was right. Natalya prepared for us. All of these well-trained legacies were lying in wait—and now bounty hunters are joining the fray, their hellhounds at their sides as they take aim.

I lift my hands to raise an ice shield against a spray of bullets before sending another solid wave of ice and freezing a nearby siren just as she begins to sing. Baelfire snarls at some other attack and sweeps his tail through the growing sea of enemies. Crypt continues to send maniacal, homicidal chaos throughout the crowd.

But it still seems like we’ll be lucky to make it out of this with all our limbs attached.

Amid the flashes of magic, snarling shifters, deafening gunshots, and howls of hellhounds, a dark cold sweeps through the street, which has become a battlefield. I tense until I see Maven stalking out of the ruined, smoking rowhouse with daggers in both hands, her hair tied up, looking every bit as deadly as she did in that photo on the news.

Especially because she's smirking like she actually stumbled across a party and not an oversized attack.

“The telum!” a nearby vampire shouts. “Atta–”

One of her daggers plants itself in his throat. I grimace as his head falls back at an unnatural angle.

As soon as they know my keeper is here, all forces target her. She deflects several blasts of magic, rolls away from a shifter, rips out an elemental's heart, and kills off a hellhound within a matter of seconds.

It's impossible not to watch as the woman who owns my heart and soul steps into the slaughter like she owns the damn place. The way she moves with lethal agility and kills as naturally as breathing is both spellbinding and fucking terrifying.

Or maybe the terrifying part is her smile…except I really like watching Maven enjoy herself.

“Arati, bless my beautiful maniac,” I breathe.