by Meg Xuemei X
I instantly knew who they were—Mom and Dad. They’d come for me!
Tears streamed down my face. I knew I shouldn’t cry in the middle of the battlefield, but I couldn’t help it.
“Mom, Dad,” I croaked.
At the same time, I swung Dreamkiss and beheaded a demon in one sweep. Ash finished two more demons coming my way, and Killian pinned down one.
King Ares Darken raised his angelblade into the air, then pointed it in my direction and thundered, “Warriors, protect my heir!”
The army he brought with him roared their bloodthirsty battle cries.
Dad jumped from the spaceship and rode the wind. He literally rode the wind, and Mom was right beside him, red lightning ripping out of her.
The Dragonian warriors poured out first. They were bulky, and they didn’t exactly look like my dad with their blue skin and cat-like, luminous eyes. And a lot of them had horns. They resembled Sebastian.
Sebastian was shouting near me. “I’m here. I’m with Calamity—Ayanna. I’m Prince Adam Darken!”
The Dragonian warriors landed in the middle of Azazel’s demon horde, disrupting their battle formations.
Then an army of fae also shot out of the ship. They were Ash’s kind—lanky, strong, and disciplined. They had pointed ears and pale, fine skin. Just as Ash had described, the fae was a warrior race of elegance and power. And every one of them also bore an air of arrogance.
They found their prince in warrior form and roared.
“To Prince Ash and his mate!” the leading fae hollered and they dropped around us.
The fae warriors immediately engaged with the demons around us, and the pressure on my mates and me dropped significantly.
I let out a breath of relief, and gratitude shone in my tearful eyes.
King Ares Darken fought ahead of us. He slaughtered the demons, yet he made it look like a dance. Pride beamed in my heart.
Queen Freyja Darken landed beside me, her red lightning twirling around us.
“The First Witch is here!” a demon shrieked in fear.
Mom had quite a reputation, but she looked not a day older than me.
“Protect my wife and daughter!” Dad shouted, fighting back toward us.
“He’s always like that,” Mom said, rolling her blue eyes. “Overbearing alpha male. He still thinks I’m made of glass, even though I can do this.”
She threw up her hands, and red lightning blasted out of her, dropping dozens of demons who tried to attack us from the sky. Max and Elijah had flown up to meet the attack from the air.
Blood splattered and rained everywhere, soaking the hot sand beneath our feet.
Mom stretched her hand toward me, and I grabbed hers, even though I didn’t know what she wanted me to do.
Power poured from her to me, her magic charging me, as we were of the same powerful bloodline.
“I have a lot to teach you, daughter.” She smiled, light twinkling in her youthful eyes.
Damn, she was my mother.
She raised our joined hands, red waves surging from both of our bodies and crashing into the demons. Where the waves hit, the demons turned to skeletons.
I had never felt so light and powerful.
Mom grinned, her fangs showing again. “Feels good, right, little Ayanna?”
I shot her a wary look. I was taller than her, and I looked even older and rougher than her. “I’m not little anymore, Mom.”
“Nonsense,” she said dismissively. “You’re always my little girl.”
“I think you should encourage our daughter instead of belittling her, beloved,” Dad commented from not far away.
Mom hissed at him. “I did not belittle my own daughter. Why were you even eavesdropping on our conversation? You should pay attention to eradicating our enemies.”
“I excel at multitasking.” Dad grinned while he battled three demons at the same time, twirling and swinging his broad angelblade and cleaving the demon behind him into two without turning to look. “But you’re forever hard to please, beloved. However, you do look cute and adorable when you’re fierce. But remember, nothing is more important than being the best parents to our daughter.”
“I’ve read thousands of parenting books,” Mom said. “I can finally put it into practice, since we’ve found our little girl. I’m more than qualified—”
“Seriously, you two are flirting on the battlefield?” I asked incredulously.
I had a bad feeling about their promise of practicing their parenting skills on me.
Another blast of Red Plague power shot out from the combined forces of Mom and me, with bolts of lightning and fire in it. The demons in the sky plunged to the ground like burned bats with bleeding eyes, their feathers falling like a disaster.
“Ares and Freyja are forever like that,” Merlin said. He was suddenly beside us, as were all my mates. “Freyja never makes things easier for Ares, and Ares loves every minute of it, though he never admits it. For those who don’t know them well, it’ll take some getting used to.”
“Merlin, you bastard! You nearly destroyed my family and my kingdom,” Dad roared in rage, spotting Merlin. “When this battle is over, yours and mine will just be getting started.”
He kicked a demon and sent it flying. While he was distracted by his fury toward the druid, a demon charged him and grazed his forearm with an angelblade.
“Ares, focus!” Mom shrieked. “I don’t want you to bleed. It takes a lot to clean up after you, and we’re short of healing serum!”
She aimed her red lightning at a demon who tried to sneak up on her mate.
I stared at them while tossing my lightning at a nearby demon, unable to wrap my mind around the idea that they were indeed my parents.
Dad chuckled as he sliced off a demon’s arm before he sent Mom a doting look. “My ever-loving queen.” He then glanced at me with a different doting look. “This is a good day. We found our daughter and I got some good exercise. However, next I need to check which ones are candidates to be my future sons-in-law. The bastard druid mentioned in his message while we hurried back to Earth that there were several of them. We’ll have to go through a strict review and vetting process. I won’t just let any half-witted male hitch a ride and get it on with our only daughter.”
Oh my gods, was he serious?
But all of my mates fought vigorously and bellowed their battle cries, competing to make a good impression on my dad.
Max pierced two demons at the same time with his long angelblade, his wings tossing away two more foes. Dad looked slightly impressed.
Elijah showed Dad the head of Commander Azazel and tossed it into a pile of demon corpses. Dad nodded in approval.
Ash, in his terrifying, huge warrior/wolf form, spun in the air and chased the fleeing demons.
The battle died down.
The black sea, tainted with blood, churned under the hovering spaceship.
The leyline shimmered, calling us home.
A shadow passed overhead. It was the black owl, gliding his silky wings toward the portal. A white light blasted out, catching his wings right before they brushed the portal, and an angelblade pierced through the bird’s heart.
“Why?” I cried, turning to Merlin and Elijah.
Merlin had struck the poor bird with his light, and Elijah ended the owl with his blade.
“He just wanted to go to the Upper Realm, like all of us. You don’t need to—”
The black owl dropped from the sky with one last scream, morphing into Emperor Cain. His horns plunged into the sea of Styx first, then his body vanished into the black ocean.
“He’d been following us this entire time,” Merlin said. “I detected his demonic essence the first time I spotted him.”
Now that I recalled it, my tiger had nailed the black owl as our enemy. He’d been trying to tell me just that and wanted to eat Cain, but I’d stopped him.
When Merlin arrived in Nightingale, the owl had tried to avoid the druid, knowing how powerful the de
migod was. And all this time the enemy stayed in disguise in order to follow me into the Upper Realm, where he still had an army hidden somewhere.
I’d let my worst enemy get so close to me and those I cared about. If anything had happened to them—
A chill spread through me and sank deep into my bones.
I got lucky this time. That coward had only thought of seeking an easy way out instead of causing death and havoc in Nightingale. But then thinking of the bombs in the sheltered city and the lost lives, pain and guilt speared my middle.
Hell was where he forever belonged, despite his every effort in escaping it. He’d stay here for eternity with his demons as part of Morgan’s collection.
The King of Hell had known that the black owl was Cain as well.
I looked around. Morgan and the Guardians of the dead were nowhere around. The dragon was gone, too, taken by him.
We wouldn’t forget and we never forgave.
Merlin would return to Hell for Skye.
And the King of Hell and his Guardians should never come to the Upper Realm, because they could be killed up there and we’d be waiting for them.
CHAPTER 23
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The early afternoon sunlight glinted off the golden tower in Atlantis, which seemed to be floating in the air. The sky was so blue my heart soared in delight.
Dressed in silk like a proper princess, I stepped onto the marble bridge, waterfalls running beneath. Ash, Max, and Elijah accompanied me, laughing with me and bantering among themselves.
Dad hadn’t been kidding when he announced that all of my mates had to go through a strict review and vetting process to be allowed to partner me, even though Mom approved of my mates right away. Thankfully he’d skipped the background check, since my mates had roamed the universe long before Dad was born.
After Dad deemed Ash, Max, and Elijah worthy, he still had a tough talk with each one of them. My mates tolerated him for my sake, but they didn’t back down too much either. They were, after all, formidable alpha males. They’d have killed anyone else for the kind of threats Dad issued, but then they also agreed with what Dad said about breaking every single bone in their body if they broke my heart.
“It’s time for us to move to the Twilight Realm,” Ash said, running his hand through his silver hair. Among all of our mates, only Ash had the same color hair as mine, but mine was curlier, so I often braided it in the Viking style, as I had done back in the Underworld.
He darted me a pleading look that bordered on desperation. “Ares and Freyja will understand, right?”
Max paused in the middle of the bridge, tilting his head as if listening to the chirping of birds amid the sound of the waterfalls. Sunlight danced on his silky black wings.
“They might need a bit more time with Ayanna,” he sighed. “But indeed, we’ve stayed in Atlantis for too long.”
It wasn’t that long. It was less than a month, and my people were building a new life here. Dad’s assistants were great at placing them in different stations according to their skills. They were gradually merging into the Dragonian community.
It wasn’t all peachy, though, due to some racial conflicts.
But I agreed with my mates that we should have our own lives. I wasn’t just a princess heir to Atlantis. I was a mated female now. For all my mates had done for me, I should follow them to the home they chose. They were where my home was.
I’d visited the Twilight Realm of Mysth once, the only immortal realm on Earth. I’d love to live with my mates in the ivory city encased by enchanted forest of ancient trees with silver blossoms and red leaves. The air rippled with magic that scented like the finest wine. Even the wind there was brighter.
“Mysth is all pink and pretty,” Elijah said, frowning at Ash, his golden wings draping behind him. “It’s now yours, since Rose left with High Prince Seth for his home planet. But bear in mind, this isn’t a permanent solution. Sooner or later, we’ll have to take our mate and leave for Max’s and my planet. We’ll rule from there.”
Ash and less than a hundred of his fae warriors, who had come to the Underworld to fight for us, were the last of their kind on Earth now. The rest had followed their queen and her consort to the far galaxy.
“Mysth is still fading,” Max said. “Its glory days are long gone, partly because of the rise of the humans and their polluting technology. I give it less than three years before the Twilight Realm is no more. We should travel in space before that, and we need to plan soon.”
“But we just got here,” I said, my voice nearly shrieking as slight panic rose in my throat. “Can we not talk about leaving so soon?”
I still couldn’t get enough of the sunshine, the ocean breeze, the fairy forest, and the perfume in the air in the Upper Realm.
Ash nodded. “We’ve been here for a long time, but our mate is still new to all things Earth.”
“I understand that,” Elijah said. He was always the hard one. “But Earth isn’t safe. The wars between species are exacerbated every day. Humans will dominate this planet soon and methodically eradicate every subspecies.”
I sighed. My mates just had to shatter my illusion, but then they didn’t think like me, and there was a gap of millennia of knowledge and experience between us—in fact, eons.
But Elijah was right about the rising war and racial tensions on Earth. Even Atlantis would fall one day.
“We’ll stay until the Twilight Realm bleaches out,” Ash said forlornly. “Ayanna will need more time on her own planet.”
It’d be hard for both him and me to leave our homeland forever.
“And don’t talk about leaving in front of Mom and Dad just yet,” I warned. “They’re still very clingy. The last thing I want is to hurt their feelings.”
They’d been acting like I was still their precious little princess and wanted to make up for my lost childhood and their lost time with me. I winced at the prospect of having to tell them that I wanted to live with my mates in Mysth. Dad had laid out all the plans and schedules to groom me to be the future ruler of Atlantis.
Max chuckled at the clingy part. All my mates had seen how my parents were, especially my mom—the youthful-looking yet mighty First Witch.
“They can’t treat you as their little girl forever,” said Elijah, who had less sense of humor. “You have your own life with us now. You’re a mated female to us all.”
“Reason with them on that and see how it goes,” I said.
Elijah nodded. “Let’s see.”
“I’m being sarcastic,” I said.
The gorgeous archangel studied me. “You are?”
But as soon as they mentioned being mated, the pictures of our mated life swirled back into my head. We’d tangled under the sheets every night.
Heat came to my eyes as I thought of riding their big cocks.
Mating fever sparked, charging the air. Instantly, my nipples became taut.
Ash, Elijah, and Max roved their hungry gazes over me, their eyes full of pure male lust.
“Will it—the mating heat—be like this forever?” I whimpered.
I wasn’t complaining, but sometimes I wanted a little break, especially when I was pondering serious stuff.
“It’ll only get more intense as our bond deepens, doll,” Max said with a big smile.
“We’ll learn to manage it better,” Elijah comforted me.
“There’s nothing wrong with that, Blossom,” said Ash. “We’ll satisfy your every need, anytime, as your males.”
My eyes raked over their handsome faces, their sensual lips, and their perfect male bodies. I wanted to lick each one of them everywhere before fucking them.
Ash was quick to pull me into his arms, dipping down his head and kissing me deeply.
I felt hot liquid dripping down my legs, even though I was wearing panties.
“Not here,” I whispered urgently, afraid of caving in to carnal need and mating with them in the open.
I was a princess, after all
, and our guards trailed me everywhere, though they gave us some privacy by maintaining a certain distance, mostly because they didn’t want to piss off my fearsome mates.
The mating need heated my blood to fever pitch.
“Please,” I begged. This time I wasn’t sure if I was begging them to fuck me right here, right now, or not to fuck me right here, right now.
Elijah pulled me from Ash into his arms, spread his golden wings, and took flight while he cuddled me. Max immediately shot into the air, chasing us, his massive obsidian wings carrying the wind and the sunlight.
“Fuckers,” Ash howled.
He tossed out his ice and wind magic and rode the storm.
“Princess! Princess Ayanna! You can’t leave. Their Majesties will be worried. Please come back! Prince Ash, Max, and Elijah…” the guards shouted from below in panic.
None of them had wings or could ride the wind to come after us.
CHAPTER 24
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The archangel flew me at great speed, Max on his left and Ash on his right, riding the wind as if he was surfing. The Underworld had suppressed their powers, but on the surface of Earth, they were unstoppable.
We passed by the cities and tea rose-colored forest in a blur. I no longer paid attention to the vibrant colors flowing across the continents.
“Where—where’s a bed?” I whimpered in need in the wild wind.
“You’ll see a bed soon,” Max offered with a chuckle.
An ivory city loomed under the twilit sky.
“Must we travel so far for a mating?” I whimpered again.
My mates all chuckled. “We want you to scream as much as you want. You can’t do it while your parents monitor everything in Atlantis.”
I sighed, then my heart picked up speed at the anticipation.
My panties were soaked.
We flew through the shimmering fire that warded the magical realm until my mates brought me to the deep forest, where magic hummed.
A dozen enormous silver-red trees embraced a vast house. The wind chimed, singing with magic.
