by Meg Xuemei X
I sent my vampire mate a furious look before turning to glare at the death god. Hades was stealing my mate’s line, and he made it sound so tacky.
Could people copyright or trademark lines? I should check with an attorney when we returned to the surface.
Persephone yanked her hand back.
“That’s right!” I shouted my approval. “Don’t think Persephone is that naïve. She wasn’t born yesterday. She knows about women’s rights! We’re in a different era now.” I jerked a thumb at my mates. “Ask them if you need some enlightenment, Hades.”
“Haven’t I warned you to stay out of my marriage, Cass?” Hades hissed. “Everyone says you’re the most annoying, vicious brat the world has ever seen. I dismissed them and even punished a few for sullying my heir’s reputation. Now it seems the rumors aren’t as biased as I thought.”
“Who’s everyone?” I challenged him. I was so sick and tired of people calling me an immature brat and slandering my good name.
“The queen is fond of Goddess Cass.” Thanatos offered a cue to shift the situation. “Her Majesty is most gracious.”
A dark glint flitted through Hades’s cunning eyes.
“Of course, my wife is the most generous, loving, and forgiving goddess.” He wheeled Persephone in my direction. “Look at our daughter. She’s ours now. Isn’t she adorable?” His voice was rich, deep, and full of fondness. “She looks just like you, Persephone.”
He could change his attitude seamlessly within a second.
And here he was, telling another outrageous lie! I had nothing in common with the Queen of the Underworld. I flicked my tri-colored hair to show them our major difference. The queen’s silky hair was blacker than midnight.
“And she’s very powerful. She’s our daughter in every way.” Hades smiled at me in a fatherly manner. “I’m glad you came and joined the family, Cass child. My queen is so pleased.”
Persephone flicked her gaze to me, then back to her husband.
“Yet you’re sending her to her death,” she said quietly. “She can’t survive fighting the Olympian gods.”
“She’s different,” Hades said. “Don’t underestimate our daughter. I won’t send her to her death. Instead, I’ll teach her how to win. And she always has Hell to fall back on.” Pausing for a second, he continued, “No matter my intentions for her, it won’t change the course of fate. The Olympians marked her. They’ll hunt her until they possess her or break her. So, why not get her prepared? It’s better she takes the fight to those Olympian fuckers than allows them to tear her apart.”
That was the only truth I’d ever heard come out of the death god’s mouth.
My mates and I shared a look, and we reached a quick understanding. We didn’t trust Hades, but we could exploit him and his resources, just as he intended to use us. After the Olympian gods were gone, we’d deal with him.
One step at a time. One enemy at a time.
Persephone turned from Hades and glided toward me. Now that I was sure she wouldn’t scratch my face, I smiled at her. After all, I owed her mom a debt.
She sat on the empty sofa across from me, and I jumped down from mine and perched at the edge of the sofa like a lady.
My mates lounged around me, as our warriors and Pluto and his sidekick stood guard.
Hades sauntered toward us and sat beside Persephone as if everything was peachy and he’d never gotten slapped by his wife. Persephone didn’t look at him, but she didn’t toss him out, either. I understood the situation. One, she was still stuck with him. And two, no matter how mad she was, Hades ruled Hell. He was always the one who held the reins, and she was at his mercy.
No wonder the goddesses I’d befriended all resented the gods and their unchanging patriarchal traditions and power structure.
Well, I was going to stir shit, and the goddesses knew that I was their only chance for such a revolution. So they were helping me, especially Demeter, a rape victim of Poseidon’s. She also lost her daughter to a kidnapper. The Goddess of Plants and Fertility wanted to settle old scores.
I only hoped they wouldn’t betray me at the last minute.
No matter what, my mates, particularly Alaric, had warned me not to trust any Olympians.
“I’m afraid that my husband might forget to tell you one of Hell’s traditions, Cass,” Persephone said. “So I’m taking it upon myself to inform you. The King of the Underworld has invited you to the realm, and you’ve come as his heir, so he’ll have to grant you a boon. Ask him anything, and he can’t refuse you.”
Hades sent the queen a reproachful glance before looking at me with a fatherly expression. “Anything within my power, I’ll give it to you. How about I give you this magnificent palace as a boon? I’ll have Thanatos transfer the title into your name right away.”
The bastard had tried to cheat me out of Hell’s unbreakable tradition!
“Thanatos.” Hades snapped his fingers. “Bring the ink and documents. Let’s get the paperwork done.”
“No, no way,” Reys said. “That won’t be a boon.”
“Exactly.” I clasped my hands and turned to gaze at my mates one by one with affection. “What should I ask, mates?”
“Ask him to leave you alone and never bother you again,” Pyrder offered.
“We might need him,” Lorcan countered.
“Ask him to transfer half of his power to you permanently,” Alaric said. “And fight on the frontlines against the Olympian gods with his demon and wraith army.”
Hades glared at Alaric.
“I have an idea what to ask,” I said. “I consulted you guys first because I want to show democracy in our relationship. What I’ll ask is supposed to be part of my bargain with Hades. It’s better to make it a boon, so the King of Hell can’t go back on his words.”
The hall hushed, and everyone was waiting for me to open my mouth again. The only sound came from the hellhound licking the back of my hand. Somehow, he had perched at my feet when both Hades and Persephone sat down with us.
“I hope you’re germ free, Cerberus,” I told the hound before fixing my gaze firmly on Hades. “I’m asking for the freedom of Pluto, the former Lord of the Underworld, and the freedom of Jonah, his aide.” I heard gasps behind me from Pluto and Jonah.
Hades shot to his feet, his dark eyes emitting a sinister light that could swallow the stars.
The entire hall shook with his angry, ominous energy. I didn’t flinch. My mates sprang to their feet and stood between the death god and me, their hands ready to summon their flaming swords.
“I haven’t finished yet,” I said, remaining unmoved. “You’ll also return the souls of my warriors slain by your demons and wraiths.”
Persephone smiled. “Sit, my king. You got this. After all, it’s family business, as you said. And look at our daughter. Isn’t she adorable and fabulous? She’s such an unselfish child. She makes me so proud.”
Hades furrowed his brows as if he’d bitten into a lemon, but he sank his ass down and leashed his threatening power.
“Indeed, she’s our kid in every way,” the queen continued. “Don’t you want to make her happy before you send our brave daughter to war?”
“Cass, ask for anyone but Pluto,” Hades said. “I can’t cut him loose. He’ll be a pest and a threat to my realm.”
“You’ll grant me this boon,” I said firmly. “Pluto now belongs to the heir of the Underworld, which is me. It’s only fitting that he’s a member of my future court. Since he’s bonded to me, any trouble you have with him, you can come to me.”
I glanced over my shoulder and caught Pluto and Jonah in tears. They dropped to one knee. “We’ll serve you to the end, Goddess Cass.”
Hades released a dark, aggrieved sigh. “Fine, but you should know it’s not in my power to return the souls of your perished warriors. It’ll destroy the equilibrium. They were dead. Hell is their dwelling place now.”
My heart sank.
“Except for Celeb,” Pluto piped up. “He’
s a half-demon, so he can walk in both realms when the heir of the Underworld summons him.”
Hades shot Pluto a venomous stare.
Good thing I’ve got a Hell expert on my side.
“Then I ask for you to return Celeb to me, King of the Underworld,” I said. “As for the souls of my perished warriors, they’ll be given accommodation in the best section of Hell and enjoy their afterlife.”
“That will be Elysium,” Pluto chimed in again, “a place for demigods and heroes. Achilles resides there, too.”
“Anything else you want, my heir?” Hades nearly hissed.
I counted down my fingers. “Slow down. Let me think about it.”
“I need to get you into training right away instead of indulging you on petty matters,” Hades said, rising to his full height. He towered over me. “We don’t have a minute to lose.”
I jumped to my feet and told Persephone, “Thank you, P.”
She patted my head with an equal measure of sadness and fondness. “If I’d been given the chance, I’d have cared for you as if you were my own.”
The Queen of Hell wasn’t what I’d expected at all. She would have been a good mother to me. Well, anyone was better than Jezebel. It was just my luck that I had been stuck with her.
Yet I wouldn’t change a thing from the past.
If I had been raised in Hell, I might never have met my four gorgeous mates.
I’d rather be locked in a cage for a millennium if that was the price to pay to have a life with them.
CHAPTER 14
The God of Death and I were alone in a sealed room illuminated by blue diamonds.
How had that happened?
“My heir and I need to be alone in the room,” Hades had said after he teleported us to the peak of the highest Hell mountain, encircled by a mist of fire.
Believe me, Hell wasn’t all fire, lava, swamps, or rivers of forgetfulness that screwed you all up. Hell had everything the surface had, but it was a dark, gloomy, and depressing version. Depressed people should never come to the Underworld since they wouldn’t survive it, but then Hell waited for almost everyone in the end.
Hades had told me that he usually came to the mountain to meditate and strengthen his power. The gods weren’t in their prime anymore. Their powers were fading after endless years and a lack of stimulation. One of the reasons they had returned to Earth was to find a way to return themselves to their old glory.
“There is no chance in Hell we’ll let you be alone with my mate,” Alaric had said cuttingly.
All of my mates had issued fierce objections, and Reys had thrown Hades a few colorful insults, since he’d suffered the most under the death god’s treatment.
“If it weren’t for my daughter’s sake, all of you would be my bitter enemies,” Hades had hissed. “I only informed you of this condition out of courtesy toward my daughter. None of you would survive the death power my heir and I are soon going to unleash; not even the former Lord of the Underworld could get out in one piece.”
Hades had sent Pluto a disdainful look before scanning my formidable mates again. “That’s why I built that Diamond Room, and it must be sealed while I train my heir inside. If you insufferable hot-heads insist on joining us in the room, be my guests. But if you perish, my heir will be overcome by grief and thus become useless when the gods come looking for her. You know how unpredictable Cass is.”
My eyes had flashed darkly at his low opinion of me, but then why should I even care what he thought of me? I’d found it bewildering that his words could hurt my feelings.
Hades wasn’t bluffing.
“We survived the Court of Ice and Wind just fine,” Alaric had countered, “and your Diamond Room won’t be any different than the ancient temple set in the past.”
Hades had snorted. “You want a bet, bastard son of my brother? I’ve given you the warning, and I wash my hands of your inevitable demise.”
“Hades,” I’d said hotly. “I don’t appreciate how you keep calling my mate bad names!”
“He’s called me worse, daughter,” Hades had said, then he’d stepped into the windowless room built by his Hell power and hadn’t glanced back.
I’d stopped my mates from following me into the room. I wouldn’t risk their lives, and I believed this was a different case than that of going together into the Rabbit Hole.
It’d taken me batting my lashes and using all my wits and wiles to convince them I’d be safe. After all, Hades wouldn’t waste his most effective weapon before I battled the Olympians.
Still, despite my reassurances, my mates threw some serious threats in Hades’s direction before letting me enter the room. Hades, in return, slammed the door in their faces.
“That’s really mature, old man,” I said.
His dark wind slammed into my face, making me feel like I had been cut by a sand storm.
The fucker had lashed out at me without a fair warning.
I understood that he’d had enough of me and my mates, but it didn’t excuse him the rudeness and lack of class.
“You asshole!” I threw up my hands to erect the shield, my tri-fires of blue, black, and red coming alive and weaving walls around me. This dark mass was my natural shield. It had once protected me from Apollo’s sun beam. But Hades’s power was darkness, so I doubted the dark power I inherited from him would be useful to beat its master.
A spectrum of my blended fire shot toward Hades in revenge.
“Eat dirt, Hades!” I shouted, then realized I’d yelled it wrong and quickly corrected it with, “Eat fire!”
Hades’s darkness thickened, until his living, creepy darkness dominated every inch of the room. My flames faltered under the unceasing assault of the unfathomable darkness; the pressure in my chest felt as if it would shatter my ribcage and grind it into powder.
The last flicker of my flames shivered out.
I staggered back, then I no longer stood in the Diamond Room but in the whirling, churning eye of a tornado.
I’d never seen anything this powerful.
Panic choked my throat, closing my air passage. I’d thought myself invincible with my power from the three mightiest bloodlines. My confidence was misplaced.
And now, I was out of my depth.
I opened my mouth to call pause, but no voice escaped my throat.
The darkness held me captive and rendered me immobile.
And I hated nothing more than being caged. Yet I watched helplessly as the foreign darkness poured into my mind without care, invading me.
This dark mass was like nothing I’d ever encountered, even though that dark essence was also part of me. I remembered the spark of amber that rose from infinite darkness and transformed me into a dragon. I remembered the terrifying, enraged darkness roaring in my dragon mind amid the sea of fire. But this darkness was worse than anything.
It was completely alien and evil. It intended to destroy and devour the last light in the world.
The eater of the world, it whispered.
I broke free for a nanosecond and yanked all I had from my deep well of power, except for my own darkness, and flung it at the foul mass.
I was desperate to light a path, to see, to feel, and to escape.
I failed once again.
My sinking feeling started to fade into the background as I slowly grew numb and melted into the darkness, becoming part of it.
Apollo’s seduction hadn’t worked on me. Ares’s force hadn’t moved me. Phobos’s torture hadn’t broken me. But where they’d all failed, Hades was going to succeed.
I started to change, to lose myself, and to become what Hades wanted me to be.
Illusions, dreams, and memories I’d never had latched onto my mind, burrowing into my every fiber. Lies and truths no longer mattered, as they all blurred in my consciousness and meshed.
I’d be Hades’s pawn and tool, and nothing else.
I was trapped in the endless darkness where my last spark of amber turned to ash. A shift stirred in me
, and then I existed no more.
Cass Saélihn was no more, and in her place, the darkness birthed Cassandra Saélihn.
Was there even a difference?
Fuck yes, and fuck no.
“Cassandra Saélihn?” Hades called me from the edge of the dark storm—his incarnation, his monster, and his creature.
“Yes, Father,” I answered obediently.
Hades smiled, his white teeth flashing like a shark’s.
“What a magnificent predator you are, father,” I said, my voice dripping with admiration.
“Tell me what you see in your new self, daughter,” Hades ordered.
“I’m the darkness inside fire,” I recited. “I’m the eater of the world. I’m the glorious destruction the world has yet to see. I was bred to be a monster, a perfect weapon for you, and the living blade to kill the gods. I’m Death, as are you, but I’m more. Now that you’ve bound me, Father, your command is my wish.”
“I expected you to put up more fight,” he said. “But then you’re still very green. I don’t blame you, though. You’re a fetus compared to all the other gods.”
I blinked in confusion. “Do you want me to resist you, sir? I can do that.”
“No. You’re doing fine. Actually, it’s perfect.”
“I felt you switch something in me, Father,” I said. “I hope you can enlighten me.”
“Another time,” he said. “Now, my heir, listen carefully.”
“I’m listening carefully,” I said cheerfully.
“Don’t speak until you’re spoken to!” he said sternly.
I stood to attention. “Yes, sir!”
“You won’t show this new, strange timid side to your mates,” he instructed. “You won’t let them suspect that you’re under my authority, my perfect, submissive weapon. You’ll act how you usually do, which is obnoxious and incredibly rude, until you kill Zeus. Then you will stab each one of your mates right after, since they’ll no longer be useful to me once the Olympians are gone. Only then do I want you to reveal this final sensitive information and the pact between us to your mates, just before you eliminate them.” He chuckled to himself. “I can’t wait to see the look on the face of the bastard demigod in particular. He’ll lose both his father and his mate in one day.”
