by Meg Xuemei X
My fist made contact with Loki’s face. His transportation hadn’t faltered my former action, and I completed it as there’d been no interruption.
He snapped his head back and blinked. “What the fuck, cousin? I was bringing you to my dining room to feed you!”
Well, in that case, I shouldn’t have hit him.
So far, the prince was behaving like he wasn’t my worst enemy.
On the contrary, he’d freed me. He’d even defended me against that sick fuck Ares.
In my current situation, it wasn’t in my best interest to keep pissing him off.
I shrugged. “Sorry, Loki. I thought you were about to push me off the stairs.”
He glared at me. “Why would I do that?”
“You flung me off Smoky from twenty feet in the air, and then you warned me to expect nasty surprises at every turn.”
He shook his head in disgust. “You’re so immature, Celeste. That’s why you harbor a lot of childish thoughts. I didn’t want anyone except for my inner circle to see you, so I teleported us to my living quarters.”
“It’s a dining hall,” I corrected.
He stared at me hard, probably still mad that I’d punched him. “It’s part of my suite.”
I looked around. The hall was larger than a football stadium. Hell had lots of space.
The high ceiling was a vast mural of war and violence. The black pillars contained depictions of carnal couplings that would make any normal person blush. The porn mostly featured horned archdemons fucking horned demonesses, busty human females, and other species I’d never seen on Earth.
Demons were all about carnal fulfillment—greed, violence, and moral corruption.
I tore my gaze from the porn and fixed it on the food laid out on a dark wood table near the center of the room. I hoped that they didn’t serve human meat, which was a staple of demonic cuisine. My stomach felt queasy at the thought.
I’d heard all sorts of stories about demons possessing or eating humans.
Sitting across from each other at the dining table were two gorgeous, giant males. Both had well-defined muscles and battle-hardened lines on their every exposed inch.
I sniffed subtly. They were both level-eight half-demons, one grade lower than Loki.
A thought clicked. These two must be his dukes.
They shared dark features—dark hair, brows, and dark eyes. Dark everything.
The Hell boys stared at me with open hostility. Merciless and Brutal must be their middle names. They appeared to be itching for violence, but they had to wait in line.
I ignored them, pretending as if they didn’t exist, which seemed to piss them off further.
They’d seen that I’d punched their prince. Loki probably wouldn’t have been so incensed if there had been no witnesses.
“It’s a big hall, prince,” I offered. “You live in luxury, even in Hell. I’m kind of impressed.”
“I’m the heir to the realm!”
His anger didn’t recede at my compliment.
I might need to get him into a better mood, otherwise, he might assign me to sleep in a crappy room.
“Oh c’mon, Loki,” I said. “Get over it. It was a misunderstanding that I hit you. You don’t even have a black eye, even though I used my knuckles to smack your face.”
“If I were you, I wouldn’t remind me of that,” he hissed. “I don’t bruise easily. I have to admit that you’ve got some strength in your punch. Use it wisely next time instead of swinging at someone in misplaced anger.”
“Fine,” I said. “Let’s eat.”
I jogged toward the dining table, my focus on the dishes and the drinks instead of the dukes, though I had both of them in my field of sight. My gait was easy, casual, yet my hand stayed close to the hilt of my dagger.
I was golden as long as I had a blade.
The dukes looked ready for some blood, as was I.
But they wouldn’t attack me first without Loki’s order. I, however, didn’t need to play by their rules or anyone else’s.
One of them moved, nearly slamming into my face.
I expected demon stench to assault my nostrils, but it didn’t. It seemed a hybrid didn’t smell like a pure demon. Maybe their human part offered them some redeeming qualities.
“No one sits at our table except the prince and his dukes,” a vicious voice boomed in my ear. “No one shares our food.”
I didn’t care that this dude hadn’t swung a fist yet. I didn’t care if this was another test. I’d suffer no arrogant fools.
This Celeste was going to wreck hell in Hell.
In an instant, my dagger was in my hand, slicing toward him, only to meet a Viking sword that he’d brought up in a hurry.
Damn, he was fast too.
The blades crashed, the impact forcing both of us to step a pace back. I regarded my opponent. He looked like a Chinese hotshot with fine skin and three dark horns.
Maybe he wasn’t Chinese. Maybe he had Japanese blood or some other Asian heritage. But he was half-demon, half-human for sure, like the other duke, who remained at the table and watched us fight with keen interest.
The other duke didn’t have horns. He looked half-Latino with a powerful, angular jaw.
The aggressive Asian demon duke and I lunged at each other in a blur. Hack, duck, slash, swing, sidestep, then attack again. I was tired and hungry, but I didn’t give him an inch.
Vaguely I heard Loki call, “Don’t kill each other. Not yet.”
When we separated again, blood dripped from my right shoulder and left thigh, but there was a gash on the duke’s neck.
I raised my dagger across my chest, ready to charge again as I regarded his horns—my next target.
He was two heads taller than me, but I could leap high. It could be done, though it wouldn’t be as easy for me as it had been for my death demigod when he’d severed a demon’s horn on that Manhattan street.
A violent wind pulled me backward, and Loki stepped between his duke and me.
“Enough,” the prince said.
“The wench tried to behead me!” the Asian half-demon yowled.
“I plan to slice off your lovely horn and use it as my toothpick, halfling,” I said.
The Latino half-demon from the table roared to laughter.
I shook the demon blood from my blade before I returned my gaze to his horns.
The Asian half-demon pointed at me, sniffing, and accused. “She isn’t even a human!”
“Took you this long to figure it out, demon?” I snorted. “And you need to improve your skills when it comes to complimenting a woman.”
He glared at me. “What are you?”
“Asmodeus, meet Princess Celeste, my little cousin,” Loki said and then turned to me. “The one who enjoyed Irish whiskey while watching you fight is Leviathan, the Duke of Envy. Pythius, the Duke of Deception, is on a mission. But you’ll meet my spymaster soon.”
I’d learned about the ranks of demons in Esme’s class Demon Mythology and Powers.
“So the dick who nicked me with his longsword is the Archdemon of Vengeance and Wickedness?” I asked, ignoring Asmodeus’s hissing. “I thought demons weren’t fond of swords. The ones I met and killed on the surface preferred other kinds of weapons. Axes and chainsaws seemed to be their favorites.”
“Only Lucifer, my dukes, and I use swords,” Loki said. “And my dukes prefer the title of duke rather than archdemon.”
“Sounds the same to me,” I said with a shrug.
Asmodeus bared his teeth again.
“You look very scary pulling your thin lips up, Hell boy,” I offered. “Keep it up, and I might shake in my boots with fear one day.”
Loki sighed and spread his arms in resignation. Leviathan chuckled again. And Asmodeus shook his head in disgust and stormed back to his seat. The wicked duke tore a chunk of meat from a roasted animal thigh and shoved it into his mouth.
My belly grumbled.
To my surprise, no one made fun of the n
oises my stomach made.
“No more brawl,” Loki said, giving his dukes a warning look as he pulled up a chair for me at the end of the table, and he took the seat at the head. He was treating me almost like his equal.
I picked up a roll of dark rye bread from a basket, pleased that it was warm. After pasting butter on it with a knife, I started eating. There were all sorts of drinks in front of me, but I went for a bottle of water and tried my best to avoid anything red. For fuck’s sake, this was a demon lair. Any red liquid could be human blood.
“Is this the female you promised us, Your Highness,” Leviathan asked, “a mate who can match us in strength and sate us all?”
I sneered before I swallowed a mouthful of bread.
Leviathan grinned. “She’ll do fine with us. She can survive us.”
“The question is if you can survive me,” I said.
Leviathan laughed.
Asmodeus glared at me. “She’s like a bad kitten ready to pounce at anyone. We need to clip her claws before she scratches our expensive furniture.”
“Come to clip me, pretty boy,” I said, forking a diced apple while I was ready to throw my butter knife at his left eye.
I needed protein, but in Hell, I’d better stick to vegetables and fruits. Who knew what kind of meat they’d serve here?
“She doesn’t look like the One,” Asmodeus complained.
I got his point. I could imagine how I looked without peering in the mirror. I’d lost weight. I was now paper-thin from months of torture and starvation and being locked in an iron coffin.
I was almost thankful that Loki had stopped the fight between his duke and me. If the combat had kept going, I’d have collapsed. By the end of it, I’d already been swaying. It was only by sheer will that I’d held myself together.
Even now, my head was pounding with pain, and waves of vertigo assaulted me.
With a thin face, my green eyes must look huge, and my wild lavender hair didn’t look too far away from a bird’s nest.
Back on the surface of Earth, I’d never looked tough either. My mates had taken good care of me. And no matter how many trainings and battles I’d gone through in the Half-blood Academy, I’d never looked battle-hardened. And I’d never lost the baby fat on my roundish cheeks until I was in Hell.
I didn’t look the part of the daughter of the Queen of Hell.
Compared to these brutes, I looked like a tender flower.
But that didn’t mean flowers wouldn’t kill. The cannibal kind could turn these Hell boys into fertilizer before they even saw it coming.
“She’s exactly my type,” Leviathan said. “But we need to fatten her up.”
I was a bit surprised that the dukes spoke to their prince so casually. Demons followed a strict hierarchy, even more so than the Dominions.
As if reading my thoughts, Loki let a faint smile ghost his lips. “Only when we’re alone. My dukes grew up with me. Their loyalty is unquestionable.”
And he’d let me share his table with him and his inner circle.
“You aren’t a stranger, Celeste,” he said softly.
If he was trying to get me to trust him, he was wasting his time. I was never one to trust to begin with, not even with my demigods. I’d come a long way toward completely trusting and accepting them, and I’d still kept the secret of my dark origin from them until the last second.
I shoved away my regret. It wouldn’t help me survive in this place, just weaken me.
“Will we get to ride her tonight, Loki?” Leviathan asked, lust swirling in his eyes.
I leaned back and drank my water. A wave of cramps twisted my stomach. Despite my hunger, I should have taken it easy. I’d been starved for too long, and now I was having indigestion.
I waited for the cramps to be over, keeping my face a blank mask.
“Not if you want to keep your dick attached to your balls, Hell boy,” I said. “And I’ll make sure your little pinky penis won’t grow back.”
Asmodeus bellowed with laughter this time.
“What?” Leviathan’s face reddened in anger. “Let me show you, and you’ll know the size of my cock.”
Loki waved a hand at him to stop the Duke of Envy from unzipping his fly.
Asmodeus snickered. “She’ll do that. She almost beheaded me, and she pondered severing my horns. This chick walks on the wild side.”
He was regenerating faster than I was, but then I’d been weakened for months. My bleeding had stopped, but my energy remained low. A hunger that couldn’t be sated by food gnawed my insides.
If I didn’t get a proper feed, I wouldn’t survive tomorrow’s trial, whatever it was. In the past, I had needed to mate with my demigods for a full recovery.
“Females have to wrap two hands around my dick,” Leviathan said, unable to let it go. I guess males were like that whenever a woman criticized the size of his manhood.
“Then go fuck them or yourself,” I said.
Yet I didn’t feel the aversion I’d thought I would feel toward Loki and his dukes. The other demons I’d met all had repulsed me.
Was it because in Hell my demon blood dominated my Titan heritage?
“This isn’t the night to debate dicks,” Loki snapped. “Treat Princess Celeste how you want to be treated. And she’ll treat you the same. She has the capacity to do just that.”
“I don’t give a shit how they treat me,” I said flatly. “And I don’t expect any more from demons.”
Loki gave me a look. “They’re also half-human, including me. I thought you were mature enough to get over hating the demon part of you. Believe me, princess, you’ll need the power of your demon blood to come out on top in this place.”
He was right. I was just being mouthy. Wherever I went, whatever I went through, the attitude was the one thing I couldn’t shake off.
“She won’t survive the first few minutes of the trial,” Asmodeus said. “She fought well against me, but it won’t be one-on-one in the pit. Hundreds of the contenders will swarm on her at first sight. She looks exactly like the perfect meal for a pureblood demon. They’ll enjoy tearing her apart.”
“Then it’s our job to make sure she lives through tomorrow,” Loki said. All playfulness left his darkly handsome face. “First, you’ll need to feed properly, Celeste.”
CHAPTER 8
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I crouched in a corner, my back pressing against barbed-wire fences that were over fifty feet high.
Only through Loki’s connections had I gotten this corner instead of being dumped in the center of the pit where the slaughter had unfolded.
The pit was enormous, hot, and bloody.
Ares and Lucifer sat in the royal balcony at the top center of the spectator seats, sipping demon brew or Olympian wine and enjoying the best view.
Realizing Hell’s Lord was watching the battle, the contenders grew more excited and bloodthirsty. Overhearing the whispers of guards outside the fences, I’d learned that Lucifer had never attended the trials for the initiates before.
But today both he and Ares had come—to watch me. If I survived to be in the top one hundred, I’d be enrolled in Hell’s Academy as their champion, but if I lost, they’d toss my body away like trash.
I wasn’t sure if the savages here would end me. But if they decapitated me, it was possible that I wouldn’t have the power to grow my head back.
I darted another hateful glance in Lucifer and Ares’s direction. Cold fury burned in me.
My immortal enemies were here.
For a second, all I could think about was finding a way to charge up to the balcony and kill the motherfuckers. But rage wouldn’t help me achieve my goal. It would cripple me. As a “baby Titan,” even if Lucifer and Ares hadn’t bound my power, I wouldn’t be able to take down the god or the devil, let alone the two of them together.
I dug my lower back deep into the sharp fence, letting the spikes cut into my flesh, letting the throbbing pain remind me where I was and to cool my h
ead.
The fences caged me in.
“No initiate has ever fled the pit,” Leviathan had warned me after the dinner last night. “Right outside the fences is a force field. Anyone who touches it dies right away.”
I leashed my rage and forced myself not to look into the royal seats. With cold detachment, I observed the bloodbath in front of me.
Blood flew and spritzed the air as dozens of candidates were stabbed, then killed and dropped in a heap, their parts littering the pit. Hell barely had daylight, but the blood moon overhead shone on the arena, illuminating every detail.
A fight happened to be so close to me that a stream of blood almost reached me. I shifted left and avoided the gray matter that exploded from a witch’s open skull. I didn’t aid anyone. I had no allies here.
All were my enemies.
Within five minutes of being dropped into the arena, five hundred contestants had been cut down to four hundred. Only when one hundred strong remained would a gong toll to signal the end of the culling, and the battle-to-the-death trial would end.
Until then, I hoped I’d be safe here in my corner. But I doubted it.
Several groups led by demon alphas constantly darted their crimson, bloodlust gazes my way. All of them were over seven feet tall with long horns. Most of them carried axes and chainsaws.
It took me a second to figure out why they hadn’t come for me yet. They wanted to spare me for later, allowing me to watch them tear the weaker combatants limb from limb in such a brutal, grotesque manner.
Demons relished inflicting pain and tormenting their prey before allowing the final death to befall them. They planned to pump terror into my veins before coming for me.
They expected me to shit my pants in trembling fear.
I sneered coldly.
As I took in the whole picture, scanning individual fights around the arena, I also noticed that the majority of the contestants were pureblood demons, and they focused on cutting down the half-breeds first. Huh, racists were everywhere, even in Hell.
If demons hated the half-bloods, then there must be a fierce power struggle between the pureblood archdemons and the half-bloods, like Loki.
The prince and his dukes hadn’t told me about their unpopularity in Hell, but suddenly I understood Loki’s position and how hard he must’ve fought to be where he was now. His title of “heir” must have been built on endless battles and bloodbaths, and it could be stripped off any time if another one fought to the top and proved themselves to be more powerful.
