by Meg Xuemei X
The vampires held the last line of defense before me. They couldn’t get near the river of lava, since heat would damage them.
Ambrosia was assigned to guard Amber outside the cave. I shouldn’t have let my seer friend persuade me to come with us. If anything happened to her—no, I wouldn’t let myself dwell on the dreadful thought.
Lorcan guarded me like I was a frail damsel, terrified of me being hurt or taken. And he insisted on me attacking the enemies from behind the safety line instead of letting me charge to the front line.
But there was no safety line.
Lashing out with my current, I levitated into the air, a ball of blue Earth fire twirling on my left palm and a sphere of red Dragon fire hovered over my right hand.
Hephaestus guarded his workstation, his eyes darting wildly between the battlefield and me as he pulled out the steel to check its state.
At the question in my burning gaze, he mouthed, “Almost!”
A warlock hybrid guarded him and the furnace.
My gaze wheeled to Hades.
Every minute cost lives. If we could cut the head of the snake, the body died.
But I hadn’t been able to find an opening to sneak behind Hades and attack him, and I doubted my powers could easily disable him.
Stalling was what we were doing, until we could take the Blade of the Five Elements.
Alaric and Hades crashed together again. Orange flame roared on the demigod’s blade, and black fire hissed on Hades’s.
Their blades crossed beat for beat, left and right, up and down. There was no room for either of them to make a mistake.
They were equally matched. While Alaric was a better swordsman, Hades had his death power.
I’d never seen Alaric move that fast, faster than lightning. He struck at Hades, his lightning bolts shooting toward the death god, moving in sync with his sword.
Yet Hades deflected the demigod’s every assault. Alaric was the whirlwind of steel, and Hades was the dark firestorm.
“You’re quite dashing, I’ll give you that, my bastard nephew,” Hades said. “Are you trying to impress my daughter? She’s watching us with her jaw dropped and mouth agape.”
I immediately shut my mouth and thinned my lips.
While he was distracted by my gawking for a second, I found an opening at his five o’clock and shot a stream of my blend of tri-fires at him.
I wasn’t at the peak of my power, but a girl’s got to try her best.
A dark gold shield shaped like a catcher’s mitt formed in Hades’s free hand. While he fended off Alaric’s blows, his shield snapped open, swallowing my attacking fires into its pit.
“That’s my little girl’s first gift to her daddy,” Hades chuckled, ducking Alaric’s swing of his blade.
I clenched my teeth.
Well, I’d soon find another suitable gift for him, then.
“Talk less, Death!” Alaric growled and sailed his blade toward Hades’s neck. “I don’t like you annoying my mate.”
Hades brought his weapon sideways and blocked Alaric’s strike.
The impact of the blades made both swordsmen grit their teeth. When they broke apart, Alaric’s blade turned direction and slashed across Hades’s forearm, and the tip of Hades’s sword left a gash in Alaric’s right thigh.
They’d left quite a few cuts on each other’s body. While their wounds healed fast, their armor didn’t.
The demigod and the death god engaged again, flame against shadow, faster than the eye could catch.
A new wave of the demon horde gushed out of the Hell Gate and flooded the bridge.
Our first defense line faltered.
Lorcan rushed to aid them while keeping an eye on me. Where his sword rose and fell, heads rolled down from the demons’ necks by the dozen.
I tossed a blast of red fire toward the demons, sending a squad into the boiling lava. The King of the Underworld didn’t flinch at the lava under his feet, but his minions weren’t immune to it.
Screams rose from the white-hot river until the boiling lava swallowed the demons.
My eyes glowing, I swept my gaze across the battlefield, seeking my next prey.
I found the winged god.
I’d sent my fires his way when he had fought to reach me at his boss’s command to take me to the gloomy and burning Underworld, but his death power shielded him from my flames.
Death gods were different than the Olympian gods. I’d thought of getting near Thanatos to sip his energy, but I might drink death into me.
My fae mates whipped their swords around Thanatos to stop him from getting to me. They were the fence between the fearsome death deity and me. I sniffed a little at how my mates defended me, at how every warrior formed solid lines between our enemies and me.
Reys fought in the front most of the time, and Pyrder was obsessed with hacking at his opponent’s massive black wings.
Nasty Thanatos wasn’t shy using his spike-like wings as weapons to propel the twins away. I hoped Thanatos didn’t dip his lethal wings in poison before he came out of the Hell Gate, but my mates were smart enough to not allow the enemy’s wings to touch their fine skin.
Reys sailed his blade toward Thanatos’s neck, lethally accurate, and Pyrder dropped his height and veered his sword to cut off Thanatos’s ankles. The death god avoided both strikes at the last second, snarling.
He thrust his daggers toward the fae twin’s vital organs. At the same time, his wings struck.
Pyrder twisted away, and Reys parried.
While Pyrder wheeled back and lunged at the death god again, Reys leapt into the air, his hunting boot landing on Thanatos’s wing, his other foot slamming into the side of Thanatos’s face. I heard the sound of his neck breaking, but Thanatos snapped his neck back in place and charged Reys in rage.
Increased shouts and cries rose from the bridge. I’d thinned the demon horde, but what poured out of the Hell Gate now weren’t demons but things between solid form and shadow.
“What the fuck are those?” I hissed, still levitating in the air.
“Wraiths,” Lorcan snarled, rushing back to my side to defend me.
The wave of hell wraiths hit Hector, Xihin, and Celeb first.
Celeb charged to meet the freaks, bellowing, his longsword piercing a wraith’s chest, but the wraith moved through his blade and slammed a clawed hand into Celeb’s jaw, sending him flying toward the blistering lava.
A fae warrior dashed toward Celeb in a futile attempt to save him from being cooked alive. He was too late, but I wasn’t. My icy air rushed out, lifting Celeb before he hit the lava and placing him on the bank. Celeb turned to me with a grateful glance before charging back into the fray.
My tri-fires blasted toward the host of wraiths, burning them to nothingness.
But a couple of seconds later, they popped up again.
“Your fire can’t really harm them in this realm, Cass,” Hephaestus shouted from his station. “You can only hold them back in the Underworld as their princess.”
I blasted another wave of fire at the wraiths, incinerating them, but they reappeared after a couple seconds. A yellow-horned demon used the chaos to lunge at Hector from the fae warrior’s blind side, ready to bury his axe between Hector’s ribs. I tossed him into the river, and Hector dragged his blade out of a demon’s chest, wheeled, and buried the blade into another demon.
The warriors fought an excellent fight, but the enemies’ numbers were endless. The wraiths soon breached our defensive lines and flooded everywhere.
Lava spewed into the air. The smell of sulfur poisoned every breath we took in. The warriors coughed while they bravely fought the demons and wraiths.
We wouldn’t last, not while we couldn’t kill the fucking wraiths. We couldn’t even hold them at bay, and we were largely outnumbered.
I turned a frenetic glare to the God of Blacksmiths, but he shook his head ruefully.
Three more minutes, and then we still have to etch the runes, he mouthed.
We didn’t have three minutes. We couldn’t even retreat now.
“Hades! Stop!” I screamed.
Then I saw both Celeb and Xihin fall. And then more warriors were cut down.
Tears traced down my face, licked by my fire.
22
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My power, which would never harm my mates, passed right through Alaric and smashed into Hades.
A black wind from Hades blasted toward me like an atomic wave. Alaric raised his wall of lightning to counter it, but the hell wind toppled the web of lightning and sent the demigod flying backwards.
“Alaric!” I shouted.
My flames met the death wind. They collided, and time froze for a second in the cave.
My father and I reached an impasse. A surprised expression flitted by his darkly handsome face. He hadn’t expected me to equal his power, but I wasn’t just any hybrid. I was a tribrid, a weapon made of careful genetic calculation. In my rage, my power surged.
A scream from the mouth of the cave broke the stalemate and stillness.
A massive, three-headed hellhound flew past me with Amber between its jaws, flailing her limbs in the air in utter terror. Ambrosia stumbled into the cave, her face mauled, her armor in shreds.
“No! Leave her alone!” I cried, drawing part of my power back from fending off Hades to halt the hellhound.
“Cerberus is immune to magic, Cass!” Hephaestus yelled.
A flash, and a black panther rose from where Reys had been and shot toward the hellhound. Only in his panther form did he have a chance to catch up with Cerberus before the beast reached the gate.
Reys knew what Amber, my first mortal best friend, meant to me. He knew I would never allow her to be taken, especially to the death realm. He knew I wouldn’t let those I cared about bear the same scars I bore from when I’d been in captivity. So, he was doing this for me.
At the onslaught of Hades’s dark power, my flames started wavering. He was an ancient death god, and I was a new goddess. I couldn’t compete with him in strength, not yet, not while I hadn’t mastered my powers.
He grinned at me, predatory and all white teeth. “Surrender, Daughter,” he ordered, “or this won’t end well for you and your tiny army.”
The battle still raged on around us. A pillar of lava erupted somewhere.
Fire and smoke and sulfur.
Lorcan fought by my side, hacking at the enemies with all of his formidable fierceness, keeping them from getting to me. Alaric joined him in protecting me.
While our warriors had a hard time fighting the wraiths, my mates, who had my blood of fire running in their veins, had no trouble keeping the wraiths at bay.
Though, seemingly none could vanquish the wraiths for good. Only dismiss them temporarily.
The black panther rammed into Cerberus before he reached the Hell Gate, forcing the hellhound to drop Amber. Reys shifted back to his fae form and lunged to pick up my friend. Before he could teleport her to our side, Hades waved a hand at the fae prince.
An iron chain with sharp spearheads on both ends pierced Reys through both wrists, then the host of wraiths and demons were upon him. Reys whipped his flaming sword at the endless horde, cutting and slashing, but they soon overpowered him, latching onto him.
Rage burned in my veins; fear turned my blood to ice.
I couldn’t afford to lose him.
“Reys!” I shrieked, pulling part of my power from warding off Hades to peel the horde away from Reys.
But my power wasn’t enough.
They dragged him toward the Hell Gate in chains.
Lorcan and Pyrder lunged onto the bridge toward the gate. Their vampire and fae warriors charged after them, blades raised high.
Alaric and I had joined hands on the ground, his lightning and my flames having merged to resist Hades.
“You can’t win, Daughter,” Hades said. “You aren’t there yet. You have much to learn.”
His black wind turned into a hurricane, slashing at us, tossing us backwards.
Alaric reached to catch me, but I’d flown past him, my hair being pulled wildly in every direction in the violent wind.
I crashed into granite hard enough to leave a crater behind.
Alaric was at my side the next second, pulling me to my feet.
I ignored my trembling and the bone-shattering pain and lashed into the air, shooting toward Reys and Amber.
Death wind filled the cave, twirling, blinding everyone.
The surviving warriors stumbled, shouting, and covered their heads.
For a second, I could see nothing but the black wind and burning lava spinning inside a forming tornado.
The ground rumbled. The cave was going to give in.
I pushed against the force, my own wind lashing out.
“Reys! Amber!” I screamed, searching for them.
“I have what you want the most, Daughter.” Hades’s voice resonated in the wind. “You’ll come to me willingly. The Olympian gods will be here soon. They’re sure to have spotted the strong power burst in the region. I suggest you don’t linger, unless you want to lose more mates.”
A red-hot blade flew toward Hades. Somehow Alaric had dragged the unfinished Blade of Five Elements from the Hephaestus’s furnace just to try his luck.
The burning blade pierced into nothingness then buried into the cave wall.
The tornado vanished, as did Hades and his horde.
Lorcan and Pyrder stood at the other side of the river, bellowing in rage, their knuckles bone-white on the hilts of their swords.
Reys and Amber were gone. Hades had taken them.
Where the iron Hell Gate had been was a column of erupted lava, its sound the shattering of broken glass.
I dropped to my knees, not caring that they landed on the blobs of lava, threw my head back, and roared my hot fury and icy fear.
The God of Death had taken my mate and my best friend.
The image of iron spikes piercing Reys’s wrists flashed before me again and again. The fucking death god, my despicable father, chained my Reys and dragged him to hell.
Alaric dropped to his knees before me and pulled me into his lap, wrapping me in his arms.
Lorcan and Pyrder guarded on either side of me.
Pain and devastation fogged their eyes. They’d fought side by side since ancient times. They’d gone through the first war of the gods, then the great dragon war, then numerous wars against other supernaturals and mortals.
They’d formed the brotherhood. It had been broken and re-forged.
They’d found me, their mate, and we should be the unbreakable five.
They’d just gotten me back, and now we’d lost Reys to Hell. And Amber, one of our pack members and my best friend. She’d taught me to read and write.
I searched and searched.
I was Earth’s heir. I could sense all living things, but I couldn’t find Reys and Amber because they were no longer on Earth’s surface. They were out of Earth’s realm.
They were in Death’s domain, on the other side of the veil that I couldn’t reach.
“I can’t find them,” I said, my voice cracked and caught in my throat.
My heart was broken, but I refused to be so helpless.
I threw up my hands and blasted my tri-fires at where the Hell Gate had been until no fire came out of me. Until the deep well in me was exhausted.
“It’s been sealed,” Hephaestus said near me. “The gate is now beneath the Earth. You won’t be able to blast it open without the hell power. You’ll have to go through the main gate as the heir to the Underworld. That’s what Hades meant. That you’d go to him willingly.”
“Let’s go to the main gate then!” I said, struggling to get up from Alaric’s lap. “What are we waiting for?”
“We’ll all go and get Reys and Amber back, sweetheart, but not today,” Alaric said, steel and grief in his voice, terrifying menace rolling off him in waves. Hephaestus stepped away from us.
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“Let’s bring our wounded and dead back home,” Lorcan added. “We’ll regroup and plan before we strike.”
We’d lost many good warriors. A lot of them became my friends. I’d seen Xihin being cut down, and Luke, too. Had Celeb survived? Last I’d seen, a wraith had thrust his claws into my half-demon friend’s chest. I needed to check on him. I needed to help all of them.
I needed to pay respect to the dead.
But I couldn’t move as grief paralyzed me.
My mates surrounded me, channeling me their strength, love, and determination, but none could diminish the hollowness in me.
Agony drowned me. A piece was missing from my soul.
“He isn’t gone,” Pyrder said. “Your mate—my twin—isn’t gone. We’ll get him back. Come back to us, Cass baby, we’re here.”
All I could see was the chains piercing Reys’s wrists.
My mates conversed with each other and the warriors, coordinating the retreat. Their words passed by my ears, their meanings lost to me.
“The Blade of the Five Elements is done,” Hephaestus said. “We need to burn the final runes on it.”
“I said I’d take care of the runes.” Alaric snarled. “Hand me the blade, now.”
“I need to make sure the blade is properly done,” Hephaestus insisted. “I’ll go with Cass and all of you. I’ll swear a blood vow to never betray her.”
“Dulcis,” Lorcan said with heartbreaking gentleness. “We have to go before the gods come.”
Pyrder carried me outside the cave.
A shimmer conjured by Alaric appeared in front of us.
We tore through the veil.
Harsh wind from the dark space howled, calling me.
In response, a dark storm arose in me, whirling. It was so dark and violent that nothing else existed. Then, in its depth, a spark of ember emerged, expanded, and stretched to distant galaxies.
My bones ached, twisting, enlarging, and transforming.
Pain sank its fangs into my every fiber. My flesh tore. My soul split.
A terrifying monster that I’d leashed under the ice lake broke through.
