by Meg Xuemei X
That was a distraction. I needed to get to Seth and retrieve him quickly. I had used up the reservoir of my magic to rewire the leyline. Fatigue lurked at the bottom of my magic well, warning me that my elemental power wasn’t inexhaustible.
Seth looked up at me, his face swollen with open wounds and dried blood, his nose broken, and his wings but raw stumps on his blood-soaked back.
Vertigo and nausea stabbed into me.
He grinned at me as he struggled to open his once-bedroom eyes which were now swollen into slits. Yet, damaged as they were, they still shone brightly with adoration and wicked delight.
I choked back a sob, rage becoming the only thing I knew.
I roared in fury, my storm slamming into the angel army craning their necks to watch my mate’s execution.
My battleships opened fire at the enemies, and the three angels who came with me charged into the thick of their ranks with my fey warriors, clearing the space for Seth and me.
Pain, disbelief, and tenderness warred in his eyes before his need to protect me dominated all of his emotions.
“Hello, love,” he whispered.
Our mating bond burned like the midday sun, urging me to hold the suffering angel and comfort him with my feminine warmth.
Our atoms burst alive with joy and lust at our reunion, and I wanted to be in his arms more than anything. But it wasn’t the time or place. A hostile force, with every intention of tearing us apart, stood before us.
Seth struggled to stand straight. Two of his household angels came to aid him before I wrapped my arm around his waist to support him.
We were about to take off, but then the angel king and his elite sentinels blocked us. Agro drew his sword, his eyes full of venom.
“You maimed my mate, maggot,” I said. “I’ll return the favor.”
A stream of fire darted from me toward the monster king. He swept his wings and fled into the air, but my fire was faster, and it caught his wings in a whoosh.
I hoped burning his wings would lessen my mate’s pain.
A formidable, vile force surged toward me. The astral image of the Lord of All Angels reappeared on the bridge. The angel lord put out my fire before it consumed his bastard son.
I snorted, “You’re late.”
My flames had metal in them. They burned and cleaved the angel king’s black wing, and I smiled amid his screams.
I conjured a second fire to burn the angel lord for his crime against Seth. But my fire and storm were weak: my magic was nearly empty.
Of course, I wouldn’t let my enemy know that. Clenching my teeth, I threw all I had at the angel lord.
His red wave moved toward me; it felt like a thousand needles jabbed into my chest before it even reached me.
“You’ll not harm her!” Seth roared like the thunder and staggered before me to shield me. His black lightning and white light struck his lord father, the pain on my chest evaporating.
He had my white light, just as I had his black lightning!
The shockwave from the crashing powers threw everyone back. Seth also reeled back, but I stepped up, hurling the last trail of my elemental magic at the most powerful, evil being in the universe. My veins seemed to burst open under the strain, but I would give the last piece of me to protect my mate and my people.
Then, suddenly, it was all over. The avatar of the Lord of All Angels vanished.
Seth and I were falling with the bridge.
He grabbed me, positioning me on his chest with his back toward the abyss during our fall. We crashed to the ground, though it was actually more like a soft touchdown since I didn’t feel the impact as I bounced off Seth’s chest.
White wings hovered above us and curious faces stared down at me.
I snarled at the angels in strange uniforms. One hand held onto my mate, I threw the other at them in defense. Before my remaining magic sent the new invaders flying, Seth grabbed my wrist and turned its direction.
My white light sank into his chest instead. He exhaled and smiled. “Ease, love.”
My magic wouldn’t hurt him, just as his lightning could never harm me.
A big battle-angel, with a black-inked, mystic tattoo that twined up from his neck to his temple, pushed through the crowd. He gave Seth a quick glance, his lips curling up, before fixing his amused green eyes on me.
I noticed the spread of his magnificent black wings, and I hissed at him.
“You’re in ThunderSong, the High Prince’s ship,” he said with a lopsided grin. “Gabriel at your service.”
PRINCE SETH
“My apologies, Your Highness,” said Racer, the ship’s Second Officer. “We were delayed by your father’s fleet, but it seems we got here just in time.”
So we had landed inside ThunderSong instead of the bottom of the waterfall. No wonder the trip down felt short. Rose was on top of me, gazing at me with a thousand words in her whiskey-brown eyes. She twisted her torso to hiss at the winged beings surrounding us, particularly Gabriel.
I sat up, my hands wrapped around her waist possessively.
“Where’s my army?” I demanded as I scanned the crew.
“Fighting their way through,” the captain said. “The Reapers are sprawled across the galaxy. ThunderSong took a hit in the left wing, but I wanted to get here first to save your sorry ass.” Over my glare, he arched an eyebrow. “And good to see you, too, High Prince.”
Gabriel, who shared the same mentor as me before my father took out our teacher, now stared at my gory, wingless back. Cold fury sank into his eyes.
The crew also stared at my back, unable to avert their gazes.
“We’ll kill them all,” a crew member snarled. “We’ll blast them to hell in the seventh dimension.”
Rose, her arm around my neck protectively, kept growling at Gabriel. I could see why. Most of the crew members had white wings, but Gabriel had a pair of magnificent black wings. In his rage, his wings arched high in attack mode.
She had had enough bad experiences with black-winged angels, who were mostly Victoria’s elite sentinels. And the tattoo crawling down to Gabriel’s neck from the side of his face didn’t mellow his vicious edge either.
I could feel my mate’s desire to attack my captain again.
“Gabriel looks like an asshole, Rose,” I chuckled, “and he might be one, but he’s harmless, so please don’t attack him. He’s a sentimental fool whose feelings are easily hurt.”
No one laughed at my joke. The captain and the crew were too wrapped up in emotions. I knew they blamed themselves for not reaching me sooner. They thought their failure caused the cleaving of my wings.
“Snap out of it,” I said.
The crew snapped to attention. In order to distract themselves from the gruesome sight of their High Prince, they studied Rose as if she were the most interesting, exotic thing in the universe.
I snarled, and they were wise to step back immediately.
“May I ask who this beautiful, fierce creatu—female is?” Gabriel asked as softly as he could manage. No female had ever hissed at him or tried to assault him before.
“Meet Empress Rose, my mate,” I said.
They inhaled sharply and darted their gazes between Rose and me.
Rose glared at them, trying to stare them down. I almost laughed. The future empress would be a hard mistress to my warriors, but she was gentle with her own people. When things calmed down, I needed to have a talk with her about her discrimination.
“Are you a mermaid?” Racer asked boldly. He must have thought this was a good way to break the ice on planet Earth. He had used the same line on many females, and it worked every time.
“Do you see my tail?” Rose snorted. Exhaustion could make anyone irritable.
I gazed at her dotingly and was satisfied at the Second Officer’s blush. “She’s a fey,” I said.
“The most powerful fey empress,” Gabriel said with approval, “now our High Princess.”
Every crewmember bowed at her and said
in unison, “High Princess.”
Rose’s face softened, pink hues flying to her cheeks. How adorable. I could feel my cock harden beneath her.
ThunderSong rocked a little, evidently taking another hit. The crew rushed back to their stations to aid their crewmates piloting the ship and firing missiles and beams in return.
Rose’s eyebrows drew close. “Have you picked up my guards from the bridge?” she asked Gabriel.
“We beamed them all in,” Racer offered.
Just then, Ephraim led the Mysthian guards into the ship’s bridge. Relief washed over their faces when they spied Rose on my lap.
They got down on one knee, their fists on their foreheads. “Empress!”
Rose had indeed taken the crown. I wondered how the emperor had gone down.
Reluctantly, she left my lap. I wanted to pull her back, but we had an audience, and we were in the middle of a battle.
ThunderSong rose, turning and firing at Agro’s army and doing damage.
“Three enemy battleships approaching,” Racer warned from his post. “They came through Earth’s portal after us.”
“Let’s get out of here,” I said. I had a hard time walking, Rose and I were drained, and ThunderSong needed repair. Today wasn’t the day for the final battle. “Take the ship to Mysth.”
The Mysthian lead guard—what was his name? Something between Hack and Hater—barked an order onto his carry-on radio that copied the angels’ technology. He called for the Mysthian ships to retreat. From the conversation, I learned that the Mysthians lost two ships rescuing me. Rose was going to grieve that loss.
ThunderSong cleared the way for the Earth battleships and followed them into the portal.
Traveling in the leyline had a similar feel to a hyper-jump in space, but much slower.
The enemy ships that had slipped through the Earth portal were suddenly on our tail. They pursued ThunderSong into the leyline and opened fire on my ship. ThunderSong retaliated.
My father’s aggressive battleships had boosted the morale of Agro’s army. A company of bloodthirsty angel warriors immediately entered the leyline and gave chase.
A hit in the hull rocked ThunderSong.
“Shields down sixty-seven percent!” the Third Officer cried.
Rose stood beside me at the view window. Even now, all I wanted was to touch her. Reading my need, she wrapped an arm around my waist, half to support me and half to show her own desire.
“I won’t let them enter my realm,” she said, turning to me. “How much power can you lend me?”
“Not much,” I said, “but you can have it all.”
“Even a trickle of your power amplifies mine,” she said. “I knew it when you first fed me when we were in the sky.”
That was the first time I’d fucked her. I’d taken her to the sky. When I’d thrust in her with savage hunger, my power had poured into her.
“Kept all the secrets to yourself, eroma?” I grunted.
“Here’s another one.” She tilted her head to gaze up at me. “Our mating bond.”
My heart skipped a beat. “I thought you would never acknowledge it.”
“Because you’re an idiot,” she snorted.
Gabriel smirked. No one who had called me dumb was still alive. Should I be stern toward my mate in front of my soldiers to keep up my hardened image?
“Let me access your Sky Power,” she said and leaned in to kiss this idiot.
I kissed her back deep and hard, not caring who watched, until I noticed how long Gabriel stared at us. I waved him away, but he didn’t move.
I could feel the heat rising to a fever pitch from both my mate and me. My hard cock pressed against her soft form.
Rose broke the kiss, her face flaming furiously. “It’s not for that! Not yet. But look.”
The thread connecting us shimmered. An ancient fairy song flowed from it, and a band of night stars rose, extending to eternity.
Our mating bond.
I sucked in a breath, then poured all I had—my strength, my commitment, and my love for my female into our bond. Rose gasped and arched her back as my remaining power streamed into her.
The Empress of Mysth glowed. The ThunderSong crew gasped in awe. And everyone, except me, momentarily shut their eyes. My mate was too bright to gaze upon.
I grinned. I was immune to her light.
Rose flung her hands into the air, light blasting from her, phasing out of ThunderSong, and surging toward the enemy’s battleships.
The leyline trembled; ThunderSong shook.
“This path is not stable!” Ricer shouted. “It’s going to collapse.”
“Shit!” Gabriel called. “Go faster!”
“Come and you won’t return!” Rose roared.
I wrapped an arm around her waist, never breaking our connection. When the last trickle of my power entered my mate, I felt it expanding and magnifying in her. Then she stopped. She’d touched the bottom of my draining well.
“Take it all,” I ordered. I would give everything to her. My life was nothing without her.
“I won’t take everything from you, but what’s yours is mine,” she said. “And what’s mine is yours.” She pressed a hand against my face, streaming her power back into me.
Our powers melded.
Fire? No, it was hotter. A river of lava erupted and surged toward the battleships and the angels behind us.
My formidable mate had opened the Earth and summoned its most heated element. The pursuing ships turned crimson and vanished in the ocean of lava. The black-winged angels behind the ships didn’t fare better as the lava swallowed them whole.
Then the leyline, filled with the storm of lava, rocked ThunderSong like a bug.
The ship’s alarm went off, and Gabriel and his crew cursed profusely. The Mysthian guards looked like they were ready to jump on their empress to shield her from the lava outside the ship. I sent them a warning look.
“We have it covered!” their empress said in an exhausted voice.
Our power shielded the ThunderSong, though it still swayed like a leaf about to fall.
The moment our ship leapt out of the leyline, Rose and I threw out powers to seal the rift in the magic wall. Where the storm of lava had been was but ashes and smoke in the sky.
“That was damn close,” Gabriel said, wiping the sweat off the tattoo on his temple and staring at my mate with renewed interest.
That was enough! I didn’t want him to stare at her any longer. But the Mysthian warriors were staring at her, too, pride etched on their faces.
“Let’s go home, Prince,” Rose said with a smile, as if she’d just baked me a cherry pie. A sheen of sweat coated her nose and deep shadows were half-moons under the hollow of her eyes.
She was completely spent.
I caught her in my arms before she collapsed. “I got you, baby.” But I was no better.
Her warriors rushed in to pick us up.
I allowed them as ThunderSong touched down in the twilight realm.
EMPRESS ROSE FAYLINN
I had him.
I had my mate back.
I lay beside Seth, watching him sleep in the nude.
My male smelled as I remembered—the scent of faint pine in the winter and fine wine under the summer sun and the spring rain in Mysth’s forest. I once puzzled how an angel—my enemy—could have the scent of my home.
Now I knew. He was home. He was always home to me.
Seth had slept for two days. He had fought to keep his eyes open, believing he needed to be there to protect me, but the healers had used magic to entice him into deep sleep so he could recover faster.
“I dare you…take me from…my mate…” he had growled at them, but they hadn’t let him finish his threat.
I had helped clean him. The healers had tried to drive me away, but I’d snarled at them.
I wished I had a healing magic, but I only had a destructive one.
Could my temperamental magic fight off the Forbidden Glor
y?
Luckily the angel horde hadn’t attacked after we’d rescued my mate and returned to my realm. Seth needed all the time he could get to heal.
The healers had made him lay on his side. Though his wounds were everywhere, his back was the worst. I had wept as I watched the healers examine him.
Where his wings had been were ragged stumps. After the angel king had gotten tired of tearing out my mate’s feathers, he had cut off Seth’s wing ridge. The monster had nearly opened Seth’s back.
The healers had gagged at the gruesome sight and murmured they had never seen brutality like this. An average angel would have been dead from the blood loss alone.
I regretted that I had burned the sadist angel king’s wing too fast, but there was always next time. And I wouldn’t use my fire first. I would use my metal to jigsaw his remaining wing slowly and then summon my water element to soak his wounds with salt water before sending my flame to burn him inch by inch. I would then bury him under an ocean of lava.
I would avenge my mate in the cruelest way.
“Will the prince ever get his wings back?” I had asked the healers.
They had averted their gazes.
“Will he grow back his wings?” I had pursued, knowing I couldn’t bear to ask the question in front of Seth. Nothing was worse for an angel than to lose his wings and be denied the freedom of roaming the sky.
“We don’t know,” the head healer had said quietly. “He’s an angel. We have no experience healing his kind. I’m sorry, Empress, but we simply don’t know.”
I swallowed back my tears as I inspected his wounds again. He had healed faster than anyone could be expected to. The gaps had closed and the wounds were clean. I restrained myself from touching his stumps despite my need to soothe his pain.
I turned to the side, studying my male.
They’d deformed him, yet he was still the most magnificent being I’d ever seen. My eyes roved over his mighty shoulders, broad chest, the hard plane of his abdomen, and dipped lower to his golden pubic hair. My blood heated as I beheld his gorgeous cock.
