by Meg Xuemei X
I might be the least experienced partner they’d ever had, yet I didn’t feel lacking. Everyone had to start somewhere.
“No one,” Ash said, as if he’d read my thoughts. “I’ve touched no one’s feet except my mate’s.”
I took another bite of the beef roll, smiled up at him, and again almost moaned. I’d been keeping my action and reaction in check so I wouldn’t trigger my mates. We were like fuel—one lit match and we’d all explode.
And I, self-appointed as the responsible one, wouldn’t let us all erupt before we reached safety.
It’d only be one more day before we arrived at the portal anyway. As soon as we got to the surface, we’d go to Atlantis, talk to Mom and Dad, then find a private place where I could have some alone time with my mates.
We’d indulge ourselves and fuck all night long while my parents arranged the logistics of getting their army to the Underworld.
I’d dreamed about freedom when I was a slave, and now, with my mates around me, I wanted to dream about the impossible. With them, soon the impossible would be possible.
“You’re going to spoil me, Ash,” I said, my toes curling as Ash ran his thumbs in a circle over the middle part of my foot and used the right pressure.
“We want to spoil you every way we can, doll,” Max said, his eyelids heavy and hooded. He’d swallowed his meal, too, so now he was all about ogling me. “When we settle down a little, I’ll give you a full-body massage and relish your every inch.”
My lips parted, and my eyes glinted. I knew what would come after a full-body massage—all the naughty things and more.
Killian came to rub my thigh, begging for a second serving.
“Why the fuck are you always hungry?” Max grunted as he pulled open a backpack that contained meat for Killian. “When we get to the surface, you’ll hunt for your own food.”
“Killian can eat all he wants and however he wants. He doesn’t need to hunt,” I said. I was very protective of my tiger. He’d had a very rough life as a slave beast before he met me in the arena.
Killian sent me a grateful look before he swaggered over to eat his second serving.
“I was just suggesting he should hone his skills, doll,” Max said. “You don’t want a fat, useless tiger by your side.”
Killian paused his chewing, pricked his ears, and growled. After staying with us for so long, he understood part of what my mates were saying. I think the demeaning words “fat” and “useless” got his attention.
“My tiger won’t be fat and useless,” I said firmly.
A tiger doesn’t have the same stamina as a horse. Killian would need to take a short nap after he ate. And then he’d come to demand a scratch before we got on the road again.
At some point, I dozed off while my fae mate pampered me.
~
The women prowled through the desert sand under the sky of endless gray in organized lines. The stronger ones helped the weak and dragged carts of supplies behind them.
I gazed down at them from the sky, taking pride in their discipline.
Then wings, red and gray, appeared out of nowhere, blotting the sky.
Sebastian looked up and shouted. “The demons are coming!”
“Take cover!” Octavia cried in dismay.
There was nowhere for the women to hide or run.
“We fight!” said the petite woman.
“Stand your ground,” Amber bellowed.
The women formed a loose battle formation, with the weaker and wounded huddling in the center.
Every one of them held an angelblade, despite the fact that many of them could barely stand straight. Yet they tried to stand upright and wield their blades.
“Give us Calamity and you’ll all be spared,” barked a demon captain as he touched down on the sand in front of the women, cutting off their path. His eyes glowed red, his horns bent backward, and his red wings shuffled aggressively.
The women remained silent.
I shot from the sky and dropped in front of the women, my Dreamkiss—the angelblade gifted to me by Merlin—tight in my hand.
Crimson runes flashed across my blade.
“I’m here, demon assholes,” I said with a sneer. Without turning my head, I ordered, “Bas, get them to safety. I’ll hold the demons back.”
Red lightning sparked in my fingertips. I was more than ready to fry my foes.
But the demon captain didn’t seem concerned at my display of power that other demons had called the Red Plague in fear. He didn’t even bother to look in my direction.
A few gray-winged demons flew over our heads, scanning the crowd just as I shot my lightning toward them to eliminate the threat to my people, but the lightning passed right through them like a ghost of light.
What the fuck?
Why wasn’t my magic working?
“Captain, that slave girl isn’t among them!”
“Tell me where the slave whore is if you want to live,” the captain commanded, his sloe eyes now training on Octavia.
The petite girl peeled away from the formation and charged the head demon. “She isn’t a whore, you fucking demon! She’s our beloved queen!”
I screamed, “No!”
But she couldn’t hear me. No one could hear or see me. It dawned on me that this might be a very bad dream.
The petite girl thrust her angelblade toward the demon captain, but she wasn’t a match for him. The demon raised his broad blade and cut the girl in half.
I screamed and sobbed in horror.
Octavia and Sebastian snarled in fury and lunged at the captain in sync.
“Fight for our queen! Die for our queen!” Amber shouted, and the women bellowed their battle cries and charged.
The demons from the sky fell on my women like hawks on rabbits.
Angelblades swung and cut through flesh, and my women fell one by one, screaming in agony as their flesh turned to charred corpses.
“Shush, Blossom,” Ash’s voice whispered in my ear as he shook me awake. “You were having a bad dream.”
The wind passed by, smelling of sulfur and acid. Cold sweat soaked my armpits.
“We have to go back to my brother and the women. Now!” I said, trembling.
Ash held me against his chest. “Blossom, you’re safe. We’re with you.”
“It isn’t me I’m worried about,” I said, agitated. “It’s the women we left behind.”
Max was at my side the next second, crouching in front of me, clasping my shaking hands in his large ones.
“Slow down, doll,” he said in a soothing voice. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“I had a vision in a dream,” I said, jumping off Ash’s lap and waving my shaking hands vehemently. “We have to go to them now, or they’ll all be slaughtered.”
“It’s perfectly normal that you’re worried about them,” Ash said, rising to his feet and wrapping an arm around me. “But we can’t go to them. If we do, we’ll miss the chance to reach the portal and be trapped here forever.”
“I know you’re right, but…” I said, tears suddenly flowing down my face. “I won’t go to the Upper Realm just for myself, though I want to see my parents more than anything. And I need an army, so I can save them. But if they’re slain, I won’t have anyone to save and to come back to! My brother and Octavia are with the women too. I have to go back to them now!”
Max studied me, his hard, handsome face looking as grim as Ash’s.
We all knew what was at stake.
They came to the Underworld for me, and I might just doom them if I return for my brother, friends, and the women. Yet I would never be able to live with myself if my brother and the women died because I didn’t go save them while I could.
There were hard choices in life.
“I have to go to them,” I said as Max wiped away my tears with his big thumb. “But I have no right to ask you to come with me. I want you two to return to the surface and tell my parents I’m alive and the reason I can’t make it
home to them. And it’s been good to know you, though I was hoping we’d have more time together.”
I couldn’t bear to say goodbye, and there wasn’t time for that either. I bolted away from the hills, from them, toward the desert. I prayed I would reach my brother and the women before the demons got to them.
Max and Ash caught up with me within a second and raced beside me.
“You think we’ll ever leave you?” Max reproached me.
Ash spanked me while we were running. “This is for having so little faith in your mates.”
My eyes widened at the spanking.
“We’ll catch up with them within a couple of hours at maximum speed,” Max said. “Ease your mind, doll.”
I choked back a sob of deep gratitude and worry and zoomed toward the grey desert.
Killian finished a yawn and trotted beside us.
CHAPTER 3
__________________
My hypersensitive ears picked up the noise of flapping wings before I saw them cover the sky. Blood turned to ice in my veins. No matter how hard I pushed myself, I couldn’t reach the women in time. I was already on the brink of blackout after racing at such a speed.
My red lightning couldn’t stop the demon army either, as they were out of my attacking range.
“No,” I cried, pushing myself even though I couldn’t go any faster.
Max’s wings whooshed out, ready to crash into the demons at full force.
“Take me, Max!” I jumped onto his back.
“Ready to roll, my warrior mate?” he asked.
I tightened my legs around his waist to urge him to fly faster, and guilt slammed into me as his burnout washed over me through our bond. He hadn’t had blood for a while. I’d have to force him to take it from me when this battle was over, no matter how tired I was and how he protested.
Max shot toward the enemy’s formation like a lightning arrow.
“Watch out for our mate!” Ash called and shifted to a large gray wolf and sprang beneath us like a blurry shadow.
Killian roared in dissatisfaction, not pleased to be left behind. He chased the wolf.
The women had formed a battle formation, just like what I’d seen in my dream. They were holding their ground instead of surrendering. Two-thirds of the demon horde had landed in the desert, besieging my women.
I roared to draw the demons’ attention toward me, to bring them to us.
A section of demon soldiers peeled off the main group and shot toward us.
Max bellowed, letting his angelblade sail forward as we crashed into the enemy’s ranks. I threw up my hands and unleashed my red lightning. It wasn’t one-tenth as strong as when I was at my full strength, but still, my magic hit them and dropped half a dozen demons from the sky.
Max cut down two demons in the blink of an eye.
“The queen has come!” A woman spotted me and yelled. “Hold on!”
“Our queen has come!” Many wept and raised their blades in a cheer.
“Hold your ground!” Amber commanded. “Do not falter!”
Octavia and Sebastian fought back to back against the demon captain. A red-winged demon snuck up behind my brother to impale him. I tossed a bolt of my lightning at him and dropped him to his knees.
Amber lunged and thrust her blade into the demon’s chest.
The women joined the fight.
I jumped down from Max’s back.
A twister of sand rose from the ground, surging toward the demons in the sky. It wouldn’t kill them, but the Winter Prince’s elemental magic disrupted the demon horde’s formation in the air and blinded them for a few seconds. And that was all the advantage that Max needed as he beheaded a few demons in rapid succession.
Ash barreled into the enemy’s ranks, his angelblade arching in the air before impaling his opponents. I hadn’t even seen when he’d shifted to his fae form.
Blood soaked the sand.
I fought beside my fae mate.
The women who could fight wielded their angelblades wildly. I made a mental note to have my mates train them after this.
Killian sprang toward a demon, opening his jaw wide, motivated to have some meat.
My lightning had run out, only a trickle of it hissing on the blade of Dreamkiss as I stabbed it into a demon’s gut.
The demon screamed.
Many more foes rushed at me, and all the women fought toward me to defend me, and many of them fell under the blades.
“Fall back!” I called frantically. I didn’t need them to fight. I wanted them to survive. “Amber, lead them back to safety. That’s an order!”
My tiger went for a demon’s throat, and another demon thrust his angelblade into Killian’s rear. I roared in rage as my tiger also cried in pain and fury. I buried my blade into the demon’s gut.
A gray-winged demon hit me from my blindside. Just as I turned, he swung a sword toward my middle.
A furious hoot sounded overhead, and a black owl swooped from the sky, faster than a flash. Its sharp beak bit into the gray-winged demon’s hand, and the demon yelled in surprise and dropped his weapon.
With rapidly beating wings, the owl shot up and poked an eye out of the demon’s socket. I blinked. The owl was fiercer and more lethal than my tiger.
The demon shrieked in pain. My sword followed and beheaded him in one sweep.
I didn’t have time to ponder the oddness of a deadly owl joining us. An angelblade was the only weapon that could maim and kill a Sváva, yet this owl could blind a demon.
The bird landed on my shoulder, like a defender. Even as I lunged at a demon who came toward me, he perched there like a steady rock, his head moving to and fro to spot whether any enemy of mine posed a great, immediate threat to me.
The owl shot toward a demon to my left and attacked while I cut another demon down with some difficulty. I was so tired, and I didn’t know how long I could keep it up.
Suddenly, a black wind swept over the battlefield, and all the tiny hairs on my body stood up.
The demon captain shouted for retreat, took flight, and fled. The surviving demons took off and zoomed away.
Max landed beside me instead of chasing the demons. We didn’t have time for that.
The women gathered around me. I gestured for them to part the path and let me check the wounded.
“This first wave was from Commander Azazel’s army,” Octavia said. “We heard that Elijah’s army will be coming next.”
My heart skipped a beat.
So far, I hadn’t encountered Elijah’s army. He hadn’t attacked us. He hadn’t come to rescue me either, ever since I’d fled the emperor’s court.
Had he turned to the dark side? According to my adopted father, an angel became a demon within a week in the realm of the Underworld. Had Hell corrupted Elijah already? Would he fight my other mates and me on the battlefield?
I swallowed hard and darted a dismayed glance at Ash and Max.
“We need to get moving, Ayanna,” Max said. He’d tucked his wings in, his hand gently touching my arm.
Both Max and Ash were the ultimate alpha males, but they wouldn’t command the women, since I was their queen now. I checked a few wounded, but my magic was too weak to heal them. And then I saw the petite girl’s corpse.
She’d died just like the vision in my dream. I’d arrived too late. I shouldn’t have left them in the first place.
I squatted beside her and closed her sightless eyes with my shaking fingers. And then they curled into fists.
“As a warrior queen, you’ll always suffer losses,” Max said. “It’s part of life.”
Ash had joined Sebastian and the women to help the wounded onto the carts and collect the angelblades from the dead demons.
“My queen, what’s your next order?” Octavia asked.
I rose, scanning the women. “Let’s bury our dead quickly, mourn and pay them respect, and move out. My mates and I will escort you to the sheltered city.”
“But Queen Calamity, what about
your mission to the Upper Realm?” Amber asked in hesitation.
“I won’t lose any more of you,” I said softly. “We’ll leave for the surface as soon as you are safe.”
“We’re a burden,” Liz said.
“You’re my people,” I said. “If you die, I’ll have no one to come back to.”
Tears burning in their eyes, the women dropped to a knee, then rose and quickly went to carry out their duties.
We buried the dead under the gray sand and said our farewells and prayers.
We soon moved out, with Octavia, Ash, and me in the lead. Liz and Sebastian guarded the middle, and Amber and Max brought up the rear.
Killian was still eating a demon. I wouldn’t worry about him. My tiger would catch up with us.
The black owl landed on my shoulder again, its talons nearly sinking into my flesh.
Ash regarded the bird. “Where did it come from?”
“A black owl!” Octavia said. “We’ve never seen such a bird before. It defended the queen. It must be a good omen. Our ancestors have long said that owls are the harbinger of a new beginning.”
The owl hooted as if in agreement with Octavia.
“An owl is a nocturnal bird of prey,” Ash said. “We have plenty of white and yellow owls on the surface, but I’ve never seen a black one.”
I reached to ruffle the shiny feathers on the owl’s head, and it rubbed its short, hooded beak against my wrist in affection.
Killian suddenly roared from behind and leapt to swat at the owl. The bird flapped its fluffy plumage and shot into the sky. My tiger would have run me over if Ash hadn’t moved, faster than a sin, grabbed him, and pinned him down to the ground.
“Behave, tiger,” Ash growled. “You nearly made your mistress fall.”
“Killian, the owl isn’t food for you!” I scolded.
“Your tiger is jealous and territorial, Queen Calamity,” Octavia said. “It’s typical animal behavior. He doesn’t like other animals getting too close to you. He considers you his.”
Ash watched the growling Killian thoughtfully before releasing him. “Maybe there’s a good reason the tiger doesn’t like the owl. The black bird came out of nowhere.”
