by Meg Xuemei X
“I can check the money and interest later,” I said, wiping my tears with the back of my hand. “I warned all of you that I’d cry for no reason, and you said you could take it!”
“We’ll take it, love,” Reys said. “We’ll take anything you throw at us.”
“I don’t want to throw anything at you,” I said. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“This mood swing of yours is perfectly normal, sweetheart,” Alaric diagnosed and nodded in understanding. “It’s only hormonal.” He turned to bark at my other mates. “We’ll just give our little wife more emotional support and make sure she feels safe and cherished.”
Pyrder rolled his eyes.
“Do you want a warm bath, love?” Reys asked in a velvety, enticing voice.
“Okay.” I nodded. “After that, I want to pick some strawberries in the fairy forest. I think our babies crave something sweet.”
Immediate sunshine fell on all of my mates’ once battle-hardened faces. They beamed like proud fathers whenever I mentioned our babies’ needs.
“We’ll gather every kind of berry in the fairyland for you, dulcis,” Lorcan said.
“Some berries can be poisonous, vampire,” Alaric snapped. “We have to tread cautiously when it comes to the wellbeing of our expectant mate.”
“I haven’t finished my words yet, demigod,” Lorcan retorted. “It’s our job to taste every sort of berry first.”
I pouted. “I don’t want any of you poisoned.”
“We vote for Alaric to taste everything first,” Pyrder said. “He has thick skin and a thicker tongue. He’ll be fine.”
Lust swirled in my belly at his mention of a thick tongue. A pregnant woman’s mind doesn’t work like a normal chick’s.
My mates’ nostrils flared, then they were all on the move.
Reysalor carried me, his twin falling in step beside him, with Lorcan on the other side. They always got in a formation like that, as if they were afraid the powerful fae heir might stumble and drop me.
Alaric followed right behind us, carrying a tray of cakes, fruits, and a glass of grape juice. They no longer let me drink wine, not even the pink one, despite my insistence that no alcohol could have an effect on a tribrid goddess. They were concerned that the booze might go directly to the babies.
It wasn’t worth the effort to fight four loving control freaks over a glass of wine.
Whenever we had a disagreement, they’d use hot sex to meddle with my mind. So, in the end, I often forgot what exactly we were quarreling about as I rode the fierce waves of orgasms. My sly mates had figured out the best weapons to wield against me in a domestic dispute—sex, cakes, and more sex.
In no time, I was floating in the vast bathtub that brimmed with bubbles above the warm water. Hands groped all over me, washing me and massaging me.
Soft music drifted through the house.
Tears dried on my face, and giggles escaped my throat.
It didn’t take long for potent lust to buzz on my skin. I was wet everywhere, especially the inside of my heated passage.
“I need to fuck little wife,” Alaric said in a hoarse voice laced with male desire.
My mates carefully rolled me to one side for Alaric to enter me sideways. I hooked an ankle around the demigod’s powerful leg to give him better access to my bare pussy as his massive, hard cock nudged at my aching entrance.
“Hold your horses!” I cried out suddenly.
“Please don’t have second thoughts, sweetheart,” Alaric murmured, his mouth tracing over the side of my neck, his warm breath tickling my skin. “I need you. I need to fuck you to be close to you. I’ll be gentle and careful.”
I didn’t doubt his tenderness. I wasn’t worried about him.
An immense, dark power had just entered Earth’s atmosphere. It was alien but unlike the Olympian power or the dragon power. It was something else altogether, and it was foul.
A threat! The word chimed in my mind.
Every hair on me stood up, a chill slithering up my spine despite the strong, warm arms of my mates, despite the warm water lapping at me.
“Someone or something bad is coming,” I told my mates.
They stiffened, and my mates mind-talked to their elite guards, who watched the perimeter of our manor.
“I’ll go take a look.” Lorcan stood up, letting Pyrder hold me, but I was slipping out of their hands, not by my own will.
“Don’t shimmer out on us, Cass baby!” Reys called.
I wasn’t phasing out like before.
It wasn’t my curious babies shifting us to visit Hell, either.
A force, more powerful than anything, tore me away from my mates while I shouted, “Enemy!”
Chapter Two
I landed in a crouch, wet and naked.
Sea ice extended beneath my feet; the distant mountains were all made of ice. I’d been dragged to the North Pole.
I’d wanted to visit the Northern Hemisphere with my mates, but not like this.
My breath steamed white before me, and rage burned worse than hard ice in my veins, especially when I saw a winged being appear several yards in front of me.
He towered over me, his obscenely powerful, large body clad in black armor. A red cloak fluttered in the frosty wind behind him, and his massive black wings stretched menacingly out of his shoulders.
His silver hair outlined his pale, hard face, and his obsidian eyes fell upon me like fathomless pits, probing me with greedy interest.
He wasn’t from Earth. He wasn’t even from this galaxy. Cavernous power oozed from his every pore, and my sensor told me that it surpassed that of both Zeus and Hades.
This was a primordial predator, ancient as the cosmos, and evil beyond measure.
A chill clawed up my spine again, not from the snow, ice, or the rigid wind but from this alien being who held a crimson abyss in his eyes.
He regarded me as his prey and leered at my nakedness.
“Fucking pervert!” I hissed as I flicked a finger. A set of leather armor instantly covered my nudity.
“A foul-mouthed creature,” the being said unfeelingly. “Just as they warned.”
I was too mad to even care which fuckers had slandered my good name.
Shooting first and asking questions later was my new style.
I blasted him with my dragon fire without giving him a fair warning, but a crimson liquid instantly formed around him, faster than a thought.
My red fire fizzled out on meeting his reddish shield.
That was no good.
“What the fuck is that?” I demanded as panic spread over me, turning my limbs cold.
I hadn’t felt such icy fear in a long time.
And now my every instinct screamed for me to run back to my mates, to safety, to home, to protect my unborn babies, so I did so without a second thought.
I was most powerful and confident with my mates around me. Together, we could take down this being. I bet he’d done some research on me before he crawled out of whatever hole he’d come from, and knew my mates were my strength and shield. That was why he got a pregnant me alone in the middle of endless ice, like the coward he was.
He probably also learned that while I carried children, my power was erratic and unpredictable. Which pregnant woman wasn’t vulnerable?
As I tried to teleport, I found that I was held immobile. I flung all I had at the unseen cage in my blind panic and rage, but a power, evil and mightier than the universe, locked me in place.
“What the fuck?!” I snarled, and I immediately reached out toward my mates through our mating bond. It had gone deaf. The beaming light connecting us had winked out like a shorted fuse.
This being had also hijacked my mating bond.
No one could have done that to me before; not even Hades’s massive power of darkness could achieve that.
“Are you trying to call your mates, little Cass?” the being asked, slanting an unconcerned look at me. “They won’t come for you. No one will com
e for you. I’ve made sure that it’ll be just you and me on this land of pure ice.”
This ancient being had truly marked me as his prey.
As unquenchable fear exploded in me, and the babies started kicking inside me violently. I stretched a hand forward, trying to grab something—anything—so I wouldn’t double over at the sharp, tearing pain caused by my babies’ wild thrashes.
I breathed in and out heavily, trying to calm them.
Mommy’s fine, babies. Mommy won’t let anything bad happen to you. I sent them my thoughts, and the kicks stopped for a second. Yet their fear, anxiety, and restlessness rippled through me like shockwaves.
The monstrous being in front of me had terrified my babies. I’d make him pay!
“I selected this location for a reason,” he continued, his voice sounding like the abyss in the dark space that existed to swallow any life form. “I remember a time on Earth. It was all fresh and lush, with vibrant colors flowing through continents and bright sunlight bathing my wings. I came to seek the Earth Goddess, but she was hiding deep in the core of Earth, and I couldn’t reach her. And now here you are—her granddaughter, who’s even more powerful than her. The potent Earth magic in you is the purest nectar in the universe.” He half-closed his inky eyes and sniffed my scent in the wind.
When he fixed his eyes on me again, greed and lust swirled in them, with red rings forming around his irises.
My heart rammed into my ribcage. At the same time, my blood ran colder than an eon of glaciers in the North Pole.
I knew what he wanted now.
The fucker had come to harvest me. He coveted my power, particularly the Earth magic in me. After he reaped and eviscerated me, Earth would be a wasteland, and this being would be even more powerful.
I hit him with a new wave of storm and my tri-fires that once nearly blasted Apollo apart, but my formidable power once again failed to penetrate his shield of crimson liquid.
What the fuck was it made of?
My magical sensor came back with nothing to offer me. The being’s shield power wasn’t from Earth. It wasn’t like half of my kin, the dragons and the Olympians, either. My sensor couldn’t classify it.
The creepy being smiled like a serpent, then he raised a hand, and a cascade of red waves sped toward me, meeting my fires.
In front of my eyes, the red waves absorbed my firestorm and assimilated my magic.
Shit, the fucker was a power eater. He could devour all powers and digest them.
The being started feeding on me, and the more power I sent to attack him, the faster he took it in and turned it into his.
I staggered back, feeling cold damp under my armpits as increasing fear soaked me.
My adversary laughed in glee, and his giggles sent terrible chills to my every bone.
I’d met a power mightier than me.
I’d once thought I was the ultimate predator.
I’d become the prey.
My babies started kicking again, feeling my panic.
Don’t kick. I sent them a stern order. Mommy needs to think.
The kicks quieted, and I was thankful for my babies’ cooperation.
I couldn’t overpower this great evil in front of me, but I might still be able to outwit him.
“Quadruplets?” the being asked, his eyes narrowing to slits in greed.
“It’s really a classy act to take advantage of a pregnant woman,” I said flatly.
He smiled again, like the black wind from the foulest place. “All the better. Your babies are powerful, and their new powers will be added to my collection beside their mom’s.”
I wanted to claw his eyes out.
But I needed to stay calm and clever.
Before I found this great foe’s weakness, I needed to stalk him.
“Who the fuck are you?” I asked.
“I thought you’d never ask,” he said. “I’m Lord Atlas. You can call me High Lord of All Angels. We’re the Sváva race, the superior conquerors of the universe.”
I searched my genetic memory and received a vague impression. There were three species that the Olympians tried their best to avoid: the dragons, the Sváva angels, and an unnamed one hidden in the veil.
“Never heard of you, alien dude. You aren’t as famous as you think,” I said as I sneakily sent my darkness to probe his liquid crimson shield to seek a crack, to seek any weak point. “What’s your purpose in trespassing in my realm?”
He sneered. “The universe is a big place, and you’re bound to this tiny Earth. It seemed Gaea had never warned you of me, or you’d have hidden like your grandmother.” He gave me another leering look. “No matter. Now we’ve met, you’ll become part of my power. And don’t you worry, little Cass. A slice of your consciousness will prevail and watch everything I do, just like the others. You’ll have a chance to perceive the wonder and expanse of the universe.”
My insides turned to ice all over again.
He would absorb my essence and swallow my babies.
The Sváva being blinked, suddenly aware of my dark mass taking a bite of his crimson shield. He scooped off a handful of my darkness—probably only this being could turn abstract matter into solid stuff—and studied it.
An alarm rang in my head, and I urgently called back my dark power. My dark mass might be my last defense line against this being, and I had no intention of letting him figure out or devour my darkness.
Instantly, my darkness slipped through his fingers like smoke and escaped his grasp.
“Interesting,” the Sváva said. “I couldn’t consume this power as I did the others. What is it?” His covetous gaze on me pierced my flesh and drilled into my bones. “As a tribrid goddess, you can mutate power and keep evolving. I’m thankful that I found you before you evolved further, or you might be too powerful for me to subdue.”
I pushed a new wave of storm and ice at him—not too much, just enough to keep him distracted, so he wouldn’t notice a trace of darkness twirling behind the back of his head.
The Sváva spread his arms, threw his head back, and half-shut his eyes as he kept absorbing my storm and hail, drinking them in ecstasy.
My heart hammered and my bones ached, yet I kept feeding him.
“Yes, little Cass, more! More Earth magic!” the being groaned, his eyes glowing eerily in the land of pure ice, his black wings moving back and forth. “I haven’t tasted anything so delicious for a long time. Indulge me.”
I fought not to throw up.
My babies stirred inside me, their terror channeling into me. They’d also felt the feeding of the enemy.
My throat went dry as fear kept rising like a tidal wave, threatening to drown me in it.
I couldn’t run away. The fucker had made sure of it. All I could do was let the foul being drink from me and let him drain me as slowly as possible while I tried to sneak my darkness into his head.
This was the most formidable, cruelest foe I’d ever met.
“I once got a small taste of the First Witch, the Wicked Witch, and the Empress of Mysth.” The Sváva opened his pale mouth again, in a reminiscent mood. “Yet none of their powers can compete with yours. As soon as I have you in my collection, little Cass, I’ll be invincible in every time frame and in every universe. And then I’ll right the great wrong my former heir did to me. I’ll be stronger and more powerful as I return to my glory.” His voice turned acid and hateful. “My son, the so-called Sky Power Seth, and his fae mate will pay!”
The creep was chatty as if he hadn’t been able to get the bitterness off his chest for a long time. I’d keep him talking while fattening him up to make him lower his guard. Once I got past his shield, I’d find a way to drain his power and return the favor.
“How did you find me, Sváva?” I asked. “How have you even heard of me? As you said, Earth is isolated, and we haven’t found a way to take part in space travel.”
“The humans are primitive. My army doesn’t even bother to conquer them.” He flicked out the tip of
his red tongue as he savored the taste of my magic. That was gross, and I tried not to get any more distraught. I needed to focus and keep my wits, and in the end, beat this fucker! “I met the Olympians in a galaxy controlled by the dragons. You sent them all to the past, and my past self encountered them.” He put his hands in front of him and studied them as if to inspect if there was a missing finger. “My son shattered my essence in my future, which is your past. However, I found a loophole—the only opportunity to rewrite the cosmic history—after my past self had an interesting conversation with Hades, your father, and Ares, your ex-boyfriend.”
My mates would shred this being to pieces just for calling the God of War my ex-boyfriend.
And the Olympian assholes had sold me out. I’d thought I’d gotten them, yet they’d still gotten their revenge. I shouldn’t have gone easy on them. I should have kept some of them, like all the original gods plus Ares, in the eternal prison in the phantom zone and only released the rest of them to fight the dragons and my grandmother.
“So, I—my past self—travelled to Earth’s future to meet you. Your power will help me fix everything. You see, I must seek justice for myself, as no one will do that for me. Everyone only looks out for themselves.” He sighed at the disappointment of the world before uncanny hunger blazed once more in his charcoal eyes. “You’re indeed what they said, little Cass. Your deep magic is immense, probably second only to me. I always sent my faithful minions to inspect my targets in the past, but I came in person for you.”
“Uh, I’m so honored, Sváva being,” I said, feeling shards of glass in my air passage. I still needed to keep him engaged in our conversation to stalk him and distract him. “So tell me, how did you develop this ability to assimilate others? I doubt you were born with this gift.”
He couldn’t be like me. I’d been carefully bred through genetic manipulation to be a top predator that fed on anyone and anything.
“I’m one of a kind, just like you.” He smiled at me like a big, bad cat contemplating a mouse. “You’ll have plenty of time to learn about my origin when your consciousness and powers become a part of me—the greatest Supreme Being in the universe. I know you’re stalking. I’ve allowed it so far. But I won’t make the same mistake the Olympian gods made by underestimating you. You’re one sneaky tribrid goddess, Cassandra Saélihn. Now, we must speed up the process before you can pull the rug from under my feet.”
