by Meg Xuemei X
The rebel soldiers spread out and formed a protective ring around us.
“Have you and your men ever fought a Sváva before?” Max asked Guy.
“This will be the first time,” Guy admitted, then his expression hardened. “But it won’t be the last time.”
Max gave the soldiers a few pointers on the Sváva demons weaknesses and showed them a few moves. But before he could continue, the demon army arrived.
Instead of attacking us from the sky, the horde landed twenty yards from us, forming battle lines swiftly.
They were the Sváva militants that once conquered worlds. None of them spoke. As one, they tucked in their red, gray, or mixed wings. And then they waited.
A pair of massive golden wings loomed in from the sky, piercing through the depths of the grayness. The sight was so breathtakingly beautiful and formidable that my heart ached.
I felt him, and the icon of dark gold on my forearm pulsed and brightened a notch at Elijah’s nearness. And my heart burned even more, as we would fight on opposite sides.
My free hand grabbed Max’s, and my other hand tightened on the hilt of Dreamkiss, my knuckles bone white. Max squeezed my hand gently to reassure me.
“I’ll handle this, Ayanna,” he said, a fierce light flashing in his amber eyes.
Elijah landed in front of his demon army, more graceful and lethal than anyone had the right to be.
The demon soldiers stared ahead, but a few darted a quick admiring, fearful glance at their lord’s wings as they tugged their own in slowly and purposefully.
“The fucker’s finally here,” Ash spat. “It’s about time.”
Elijah frowned. “I see the Winter Prince is rude as usual. Maybe you should take your wolf form if you don’t know what manners are.”
“High Lord, may I have your permission to open him up from his groin to his neck for his insolence?” A red-winged captain stepped forward.
“Disturb me again and you’ll lose either a wing or a limb,” Elijah said carelessly and coldly.
The demon captain retreated right away, his face paling and his wings shuffling for a second.
Before Elijah tucked his golden wings in, I noticed that their color was fading to pale gold, and the feather tips had morphed to a jagged shape. They no longer shone like when I first met him.
His cropped, blond hair had turned gray, and his cheeks were sunken, as if he hadn’t eaten or slept for a long time.
My heart constricted at how the Underworld had started to deform him. I wasn’t wrong that Hell played a big part in influencing him and was still in the process of further corrupting the Elijah I’d once fallen for. One more week and he’d grow horns and turn into a full-fledged archdemon.
His eyes fell upon me. The blue tone had bleached out of them, and only hard gray remained. The passion in them that was only for me sparked before vanishing. There was no emotion and no warmth anymore in his demon eyes.
My breath caught in my throat, and pain and regret stabbed my chest.
I had given my virginity to this male. I still remembered like it was yesterday how he had kissed me with ravenous hunger, as if I was the most delicious thing in the world.
His palm had rubbed up and down my sex as if he couldn’t get enough of me.
We’d been drowning in each other’s lust.
I remembered how we had fucked raw and hard. I’d squatted on the counter to take him in deeper, and he’d thrust into me with brutal force and white-hot heat. And it wasn’t just a fuck.
He’d claimed me, and I’d marked him in return as mine. My icon had appeared and burned on his chest, and he’d called me his mate with a promise: “After this, I’ll fuck you all night and every night…”
He told me who I was and gave me back my rightful identity.
But right now, as I peeked into his hard gray eyes, I saw only a stranger, as if all our intimate moments were a fabrication. A new wave of pain rushed through me. I shouldn’t have left him and run like that. I could have told him of my plan. I could have asked him to come with me. If only I had put a little more faith in him and us…
It was partly my fault that he’d turned.
“Elijah,” I whispered, hoping he could remember the good moments we had, hoping the bond—no matter how weak it was now—could still pull us together and bring him to me.
“Hello, Calamity,” he said, his musical voice hard.
He didn’t call me Ayanna. My name used to roll off his tongue intimately.
“What wrong did I do to you that you ran from me like a thief in the night?” he asked, then sent Max and Ash a contemptuous glance. “Just so you can be with these two good-for-nothing rogues?”
Max and Ash growled, but they didn’t intervene, knowing this was between Elijah and me.
The rebel soldiers moved closer to me, ready for an assault from the demon army at any moment.
“You know that’s not the whole truth,” I said. “I wasn’t safe. Cain would have come for me, and you’d have no choice but to give me up.”
Elijah snorted. The long scar that reached from the bridge of his nose to his tightened lips darkened from his anger.
“You think I couldn’t protect you?” he said. “Cain is nothing, and now he’s missing. We’ve been searching for him.”
Ash, Max, and I traded a quick glance, unsure what to make of the news. Elijah wasn’t the type to throw out intel like that. It was almost as if he was warning us, despite his irritated tone. I’d discuss the new development with Max and Ash if we got out of this situation.
“You could have had a good life with me, Calamity,” Elijah continued. “I chose you, a slave from the pit. Instead, you unwisely chose to leave me and be hunted as a fugitive.”
“Take care how you talk to our mate, Elijah,” Max warned.
My anger also flared. “A good life in the Underworld under the thumb of Cain, the butcher?”
“I could easily replace him,” Elijah said leisurely. “I outrank him. I’m the most powerful archangel in this realm now.”
“Do you even hear yourself, Elijah?” I asked. “There’s no good life in this fucking realm as long as slavery and chains are in place.”
“That’s not for you to worry about, woman,” he said. “I’m here to correct your mistake, collect what’s mine, and punish those who dared take you from me. You belong to me, just like any other slave.”
All the tiny hairs stood up on the back of my neck. Rage and fear ran through me, and my stomach churned with a sea of acid. Hell had corrupted him faster than I thought. I wondered if there was still a trace of the Elijah I had known in the creature before me.
What if Elijah was beyond redemption? Did I have it in me to end him? Or was he going to end me?
The dark gold icon on my forearm pulsed, and at the same time, the archdemon pressed his chest as if something burned there. I knew it was the icon I’d imprinted on his chest. We might be more connected than we thought.
Max once said that the mystic power of the mating bond was beyond any other force.
A sliver of hope rose in me despite my nausea. We could try to capture him, and then we’d go from there.
One step at a time.
“You sound like an asshole, Elijah,” I said. “If you want me, come get me.”
I braced my feet apart, ready for him to initiate the first strike.
“I’m not going to fight my own woman,” Elijah said, his pale golden wings spreading, absorbing the dim light of the Underworld. His broad angelblade that had beheaded one of the emperor’s generals and killed numerous foes pointed at Max and Ash. “As for these two imposters who conspired with the rebels and stole my female, they won’t be so lucky. No one steals my woman. They think they can replace me? I’ll bleed them like pigs. And then I’ll take my slave woman.” He flashed Ash and Max a vicious smile that chilled my bones. “When I bring you back to my chamber again, Calamity, I’ll show you how to serve me in every way, as you were born to do. I won’t allow yo
u to moan, but I’ll make you scream. If you think how I fucked you on the counter last time was intense, you have no idea—”
My face flushed in humiliation and fury. How dare he spill the details of our intimacy?
“Enough, dickhead,” Max snapped. “You want a fight, we’ll give you one.”
“This fucker is even more annoying than Merlin,” Ash said.
My three mates lunged at each other without exchanging any more words. I had a feeling that the three of them had probably done this often, even before they declared each other enemies. And this time the battle would be life and death.
How could I stop it?
Their angelblades swung brutally and slashed at each other. Max and Ash sandwiched Elijah, attacking him with a series of jabs and thrusts. Max drove his sword toward Elijah’s neck, while Ash was interested in carving out the archdemon’s heart.
I shut my eyes for a second to calm my fear and angst and get my wits together. I couldn’t let panic control me if I wanted all of my mates alive.
Elijah let out a derisive, icy chuckle as he wheeled like the wind between Ash and Max. Another blade appeared in his hand. His swords parried Max and Ash, again and again, growing more aggressive and menacing.
Max and Ash shifted positions, dancing around Elijah in well-coordinated moves. It seemed that the three of them understood each other’s moves too well.
Then they blurred into one. The only sound was the crash of angelic steel. Even I had a hard time tracing their movements now.
Both armies watched the spectacular battle in awe and apprehension.
“Be careful, guys. Be careful,” I shouted, my heart in my throat.
When they separated, they were all bleeding from multiple wounds, and their blades dripped with blood.
“I said be careful!” I barked in desperation and panic. “Just stop fighting!”
I couldn’t join their battle since I wasn’t on their level when it came to a sword fight, and my magic was spent.
I must figure out a way to break up their fight, or I wouldn’t have any mates left.
Even though Elijah was our enemy, I didn’t want him hurt, no more than I wanted Ash and Max to be injured.
Guy approached me stealthily.
“My queen,” he whispered, jerking his chin toward the direction of the half-hidden tunnel.
I got his intention.
“The enemies will follow,” I said.
“We have bombs for an emergency like this,” Guy said. “As soon as our people are inside, I’ll seal the entrance with bombs. It’s risky, but it’s the only way.”
I considered it, then nodded.
While the demon army stood still, and while Max and Ash distracted Elijah, we could move our people inside the tunnel.
Even if the demons followed, their wings would be a great disadvantage in the narrow tunnel. We could do this.
It was a risk we should take.
Guy withdrew and coordinated with his men, and they retreated slowly.
Max, Ash, a new game plan, I said in their heads. I didn’t dare spill more, for fear Elijah could also hear it, since I was still bonded to him, no matter how our bond seemed to have stretched thin.
I stepped back slowly to show them what I had in mind, and Ash nodded subtly while Max jabbed his blade at Elijah’s throat.
Unobtrusively, Max and Ash also moved toward the direction of the tunnel. Once our soldiers were all in, the three of us would use everything we had to subdue Elijah and drag him into the tunnel with us, then wall off the entrance.
That was the plan.
While the battle between the three alpha males raged on, all of our men got into the tunnel.
Elijah seemed oblivious to or simply didn’t care about our strategic moves, but his army appeared restless, watching us withdraw from the battlefield. Yet without their lord’s order, they dared not initiate an attack.
Guy waved at me anxiously from the entrance, beckoning me to get into the tunnel.
Disengage now! I shouted in Max’s and Ash’s heads.
“You won’t get away,” Elijah sneered as he commanded his army. “Kill them all, except my slave woman.”
The demons charged with bloodthirsty bellows. The Sváva were much faster than the rebel soldiers, and they shortened the distance between us in seconds.
“We need more time to subdue that fucker,” Ash hissed.
“We don’t have time,” Max said. “We have to leave my brother behind.”
Max and Ash threw Elijah off with a combined outburst of force and sent the archdemon flying back. I stared at him hopelessly as he careened away from us.
Elijah balanced himself in the air and landed in a crouch instead of falling on his ass. No other could pull it off like he did.
Hot tears burned my eyes as I stood at the entrance of the tunnel. How could I leave Elijah behind once again, even if he wasn’t the archangel I knew anymore, even though he’d ordered his army to kill my other mates and keep me as his slave girl for his pleasure?
I must have had that kind of heartbroken look all over my face, because Elijah smiled at me enigmatically, as if nothing and no one concerned him anymore.
“Ayanna.” He whispered my name through his lips.
“Elijah,” I cried, not sure how to handle my feelings toward him and this messed-up situation. Tears kept streaming down my face.
“I’ll find you,” he whispered again, either as a threat or a promise.
“Doll, we can’t linger anymore,” Max said softly.
“We must go now, my queen! Please,” Guy begged.
Ash wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me into the tunnel as my hand stretched toward Elijah in desperation and need.
“We can’t just leave him behind,” I cried out. “I can’t do that to him again.”
Ash pulled me with him, and Max blocked the entrance, destroying my hope of taking Elijah with us.
The demon captain who had been scolded by Elijah reached the entrance first, then Elijah dashed toward us before his army, his sword aiming at Max’s back.
“No!” I screamed.
Guy roared and tossed the explosives at the entrance, the impact driving us back further into the tunnel and at the same time throwing Elijah and the demons near the entrance backward.
Elijah and I locked gazes as the rocks from the ceiling tumbled down like heavy hail and blocked the entrance.
“The tunnel’s crashing down!” Guy yelled.
“Get going!” Max roared.
The Thorn Rose warriors were far ahead of us and picked up their speed. Ash carried me, running through the tunnel and ducking the falling rocks. The last ounce of his ice magic was used to shield me.
Max picked up Guy, threw him over his shoulder, and raced behind us. After we’d gone a mile, the rocks stopped falling. Max put Guy down, shoved the rebel team leader ahead, turned, and raised his blade.
Two demons had gotten into the tunnel. One of them was the demon captain.
Max lashed out with his angelblade, and I heard screaming. The falling dust obscured my vision, and I shouted for my vampire mate.
“Put me down, Ash,” I called out urgently. “We need to go back for Max.”
“I’m here, doll.” Max’s voice sounded beside me the next second. “I killed them.”
“We’ll return and seal this route completely after we escort you to the city, my queen,” Guy said. “We’re now on the safe path.”
I didn’t tell him that no path was ever safe in the Underworld.
As we prowled through the tunnel, my heart bled all over again at leaving Elijah alone to his horrific fate.
CHAPTER 11
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Nightingale wasn’t what I expected. I’d thought it was a large underground city, but it was more like a subterranean area adorned with clusters of camps, where the seven clans resided.
Guy debriefed us about their seven Protectors in the tunnel. The leader of the Alpha Power team
led us past varieties of tents, and the native citizens all stared at us.
“Is that the queen?” An elder woman pointed at me. “Our promised queen?”
“Clear the way!” Guy’s second-in-command yelled for the crowd to part to open a path for us.
“They’re just curious,” I reminded him.
“Yes, my queen,” he answered. “But they should not block the road.”
We continued padding down the muddy streets and left a few low buildings behind.
Everything down here felt old. There wasn’t a single plant. There were barely any bushes above the ground, and this place was even bleaker and dimmer. At least above the ground, we still had a gray sky.
These people had lived down here for centuries. They weren’t living. They were surviving. Sympathy swarmed in me, even though my former slave life hadn’t been any better. But here, they at least had freedom. They had no fear of someone sending their daughters to the whorehouse or to the emperor as his playthings.
“Where are my brother and the women?” I asked anxiously.
“They’ve settled on the other side of the camp,” Guy said. “I’ll lead you to them later.”
He gave my mates and me another glance, obviously noticing our exhaustion and injuries. He and his men were also spent, though they were in better shape than us.
“I’d take you directly to your quarters, my queen,” he said, his face darkening a little. “But the Protectors insist on your presence, and Lady Raven, our seer and your advocator, is currently out of town.”
Judging from the dark, bitter expression on his scarred face, I assumed trouble lay ahead. He’d warned me earlier that not everyone would cheer for me in Nightingale.
“Let’s get it over with then,” I said.
Guy guided us along a cobblestoned corridor that led to a large structure similar to an ancient temple. His second-in-command moved forward and pushed the heavy wooden door open. The wood creaked.
“My queen,” he said, inviting me in.
But Ash strode in first. I followed, my tiger trotting beside me. Max brought up the rear, his wings spreading and covering my back.
