by Meg Xuemei X
Hector brought a chair over for me. “You can sit here and interrogate her, Cass.”
I perched on the edge of the chair with a sigh and continued to peek at Jezebel through the crack between my fae mates’ hot bodies.
My ex-mother looked as thin as paper. Her skin was as fair and creamy as usual, but there was a faint bluish circle in the hollow of her haunted eyes. It seemed that she hadn’t eaten or rested for a long time. I bet the only reason she could still sustain herself was her goddess heritage.
“Cassandra,” Jezebel called, her feeble voice full of emotion, and she stretched a hand toward me.
“One step closer to my mate and I’ll behead you,” Alaric said, the flaming sword sizzling and hissing in his grip. “I don’t care if my soft-hearted mate changes her mind and wants to keep you alive.”
I blinked. I was soft-hearted in my mates’ eyes?
Jezebel flinched at the demigod’s menace and dropped her shaking hand. I was glad I wasn’t at the receiving end of his viciousness. He could be very violent and brutal, but of course, he would never turn that side on me.
As Hades had said, albeit negatively, no matter how formidable my mates were, I could always rein them in, every single one of them. I only showed them my submissive side when I needed cakes or sex. I grinned at the thought, since I was a bit pleased with my achievement at landing the four most gorgeous, powerful, and loyal males on Earth.
“Whatever you came to say, spit it out and don’t waste our time!” Lorcan ordered.
Jezebel fixed her gaze on me behind my mates, but I doubted she could see much of me. I bet she saw only one of my eyes as it peeked out at her through the tiny space.
“How did you find me?” I demanded.
“You’re my daughter, my flesh and blood. I always have a link to you,” she said.
I grimaced. I really didn’t want a link with her. After the interview, I’d figure out a way to cut off any connection to her. She sighed sadly, as if she perceived my thoughts.
“How did you get into the Underworld?” Lorcan asked in a hard tone.
“I was here before,” she said. “I’ve always had a free pass.”
Right, she’d banged Hades in Hell, and I was the byproduct.
“Only in the Underworld can Gaea, my mother, not hear me,” she continued. “Cassandra, she might appear a compassionate grandmother to you, but that’s not who she truly is. You need to know what she did to me, what she did to us. That’s why I came here—to tell you the truth that revealed itself to me after all this time. When I fled ShadesStar, I hid in Mount Olympus. Gaea has been searching for me in order to destroy me so I wouldn’t expose her.”
She’d fled the immortal realm once ruled by her late vampire husband and her after they’d failed to terminate me.
“Gaea can’t interfere much in the world’s affairs,” I snorted. “I doubt that she’d set out to slay you. You, Jezebel, on the other hand, are a diabolical, delusional, and murderous bitch.”
She flinched, her eyes twitching.
“What happened in Mount Olympus when you sought asylum there?” Reys interrogated her.
“The gods all wanted to use me and get inside information about Cassandra,” she said. “Ares will lead the gods to war against Cassandra and the earthlings she protects.”
“Did you tell the alien gods every dirty secret about me?” I asked.
“I told them lies wrapped in truth to confuse them,” she said. “I won’t betray my own daughter. And nothing about you is dirty.”
I sneered.
“I’m completely open to you, Cassandra. Search my mind and my heart, my daughter, and you’ll know all I’m telling you today is nothing but truth. You need to know that your grandmother is a sadistic, lying cunt. She lied about everything.”
“Don’t ever call me daughter again,” I said coldly.
She sniffed and nodded. “I can never forgive myself for what I did to you. I can never hope to amend or atone for my actions. I now remember it all. The Earth Goddess, my mother, placed a curse on me by altering my memories, twisting my mind, and making you siphon my power even when you were a fetus in my womb. It’s never been your fault. You couldn’t help it. You were carefully bred through genetic manipulation, and your grandmother made sure you could feed on anything as the very top predator.”
She never failed to amaze me with her skill at finding excuses for her abusive, heartless behavior. The last I remembered, she declared that I was her curse, and now it was her mother’s fault. I’d give her five more minutes, and if she disclosed nothing new or interesting, I’d just throw her out.
Wait, I couldn’t let her go so easily. She’d just roam the Earth to campaign on how to kill me again.
“Your grandmother made you my curse,” Jezebel said, and I rolled my eyes. But I’d promised her five more minutes, so I let her go on, though I’d started the countdown. “She tied us together. As long as I was around you, I couldn’t think straight. All I knew was that I had to keep you in that cage I made for you. No, the cage she made for you. She didn’t want you out before you were mature, before you were ready to take down the Olympian gods. She didn’t want you to have a normal childhood like other children. She’s never seen you or me as a person. She needed me to be the vessel to birth you, and you to be the ultimate weapon, and that was all. She wanted you to be completely broken and easy to manipulate when you were finally out of the cage.”
What an outrageous lie! Gaea had saved me many times over. She would never do that to her grandchild. I’d seen the profound sorrow in her eyes when she’d shown me the vision of my inevitable end.
I’d accused her unkindly out of desperation. “You forged me as a weapon. After I’m used, I will soon be discarded, erased, and forever forgotten.”
“I care for you, my flesh and blood,” she’d said in great grief. “If I could go in your place, I would. I’ve been weakened for too long. I’m still not complete.”
She’d trembled in the icy wind as if she was fragile before she vanished.
“When the time was right,” Jezebel continued, “Gaea sent the same vision to the most powerful immortal males on Earth so they would come to break you out of the cage. She knew they wanted to kill the alien gods more than anything, and you’d be her weapon in their hands. Only she didn’t expect your romance and love with them to bloom.
“She didn’t expect them to want or love you, especially after seeing how filthy and crude you were in that cage. When you first got out of captivity, you were like a wild beast, yet the finest males saw the real you inside—the most beautiful, finest being on the planet—and bonded with you. And they changed their minds for you. Instead of wanting to use you as they initially set out to do, they only want to shield you and protect you with their lives. You turned out differently than Gaea wanted you to, because you have the loyalty of these males who love you to a fault.”
My throat bobbed and tears formed in my eyes at the truth of what she’d said about my mates, at how lucky I was to have met these fine males.
“Without you acting as the catalyst combined with the great distance between us, my power finally broke free from the curse my mother placed on me, and I regained my unfiltered, untwisted memories, the real ones. And for the first time in my existence, I can think for myself.” Jezebel blew out a satisfied sigh. “I may not have the kind of power you have, but I’m still the daughter of the Earth Goddess and the Dragon God.”
She tried to get me in her line of sight by turning her head left and right, but my mates didn’t move an inch for her convenience. Regardless of the tears of repentance glinting in her blue eyes, my mates refused to take the chance of letting her face me without them shielding me.
Lorcan had told my other mates how Jezebel tossed curses at me at the vampire court and how the spells had burned me relentlessly for hours. They would have burned my every inch for days and months to come if Lorcan hadn’t fed me with his pure, high-powered vampire blood.
“You can’t image how it feels to finally be free of the curse, yet it only brought me more sorrow afterwards.” Jezebel picked up where she’d left off. “For I remembered every minute of my mistreatment of you. I remembered that sometimes I didn’t feed my own daughter for weeks and abandoned you alone and starved in the cage.”
My mates snarled in rage, as did all of my companions.
“For years you begged me to let you out of the cage, just for a second, just to breathe the fresh air, just to look at the sun, the stars, and the sky for once,” Jezebel said. “I never did. You no longer begged in those last three years. And now those images tear my heart apart and shatter my spirit.”
“I’ll tear you apart myself when you’re done with this confession,” Ambrosia hissed.
“Get in line,” Hector growled.
“Stop advertising your dirty laundry, Jezebel,” I said. I hated that she made me relive the nightmares again. “No one is interested in the graphic details. Now you’ve got three more minutes left to speak before I shut you up altogether. Use the time wisely and get right to the point!”
“I had to come to you,” she said, “to say goodbye, to tell you how Gaea and Hades conspired to use both of us, to break both of us. The God of Death was the master engineer behind the force driving the Olympians to return to Earth. He’s never stopped craving the Olympus throne. He isn’t the type to admit defeat. Since as far back as anyone can remember, he’s been scheming to rise from where he fell.
“Only this time, he became smarter and more patient with his plans. Instead of conspiring with the sea god, the sun god, and the war god, he secretly worked with the Olympians’ old enemy—the most powerful entity on Earth. He didn’t intend to fail again, and he bet all he had on you, the only weapon that could take down the gods. You’re part Earth God, part Death God, and part Dragon God. You’re one of a kind, a tribrid—the most formidable predator in the universe.
“And you’re always hungry. You always want to feed. You constantly drained me when you were but a fetus in me. I think that’s one of the reasons I kept starving you, for in my subconscious mind, I knew something was off, and I didn’t want you to grow into what they wanted you to be.”
“That’s a fucked-up excuse for starving my mate!” Reys snarled. “You aren’t in the clear, no matter what you tell us.”
She shook her head, heartbreaking sadness welling in her blue eyes.
“I didn’t come to seek forgiveness,” she said quietly.
“How did you even hook up with Hades for that one-night stand?” I asked in disdain. I needed to harden my heart so I wouldn’t be swayed by her tears, as I had been before I reached maturity. I’d found tons of excuses for her locking me up in a cage. I’d thought that one day she could love me and give me my freedom.
She looked as if she was being whipped, and then a numb expression came across her exquisite face.
“Your grandmother drugged me and put me in Hades’s bed,” she said in a mechanical, detached voice.
I let my dark power lash out. I didn’t like to get into anyone’s mind, but that was a serious accusation. If she was playing a rape victim—
My darkness, the same kind my despicable father had used to invade my mind, slipped into Jezebel’s head.
She didn’t put up any defense. She let me see all of her—her shame, her guilt, her helplessness, her rage, and her brokenness.
My mother was so beautiful, yet inside, she was shattered to shreds. She was forever damaged goods, for even though she’d gotten her memory back, which only made it worse for her since now she had to carry all the truth and the shame of what she’d done.
Still, my heart didn’t go out to her. Maybe a sliver of pity rose to the surface of my consciousness. Maybe when more time passed, I’d eventually forgive her for everything she’d done to me, whether under the influence of a curse or not, but I would never love her.
It didn’t matter that she was but a pawn in the game and none of it was her fault. My love for her had died a long time ago when she robbed me of my brief childhood and treated me like a rabid beast for over a decade.
However, I no longer held hatred and bitterness toward her. My heart only contained gratitude toward my mates.
Without them, I’d be exactly what Gaea and Hades had planned for me—a heartless living blade and a broken monster who would never have had a chance to taste the fineness of life, to experience friendship, or to understand what unconditional love meant.
My mother was but a pitiful pawn, wasted. I’d escaped that same fate because of Reys, Alaric, Lorcan, and Pyrder.
I might not get a happily-ever-after ending with them, but for whatever time we’d had and the rest of the moments we’d have together, I was forever thankful.
“She spoke the truth,” I said, releasing her from the hold of my darkness. “I’ve seen inside her mind. She bears me no ill will this time.”
My mates were shocked to silence for a second at Jezebel’s revelation, and their fury rippled toward me through our mating bond. Many gods were rapists, so it didn’t surprise them that Hades had violated Jezebel. However, they hadn’t expected the Earth Goddess, their goddess, to harm her own flesh and blood, including me.
I’d started to put pieces together here and there and now had a pretty good idea of Gaea’s intent. Grandmother had planned my death. She’d written the prophecy and asked for my forever death as payment to protect my mates from the Olympian gods. She knew they were my weakness and I’d do anything for them, so she used it against me while she lied to my face, telling me that she cared about me.
“The Earth Goddess we saw in the Court of Ice and Wind represents her true nature,” Alaric spat. “That two-faced bitch. We’ll never let her get near our mate again.”
Jezebel pressed her hand over her heart and let out a breath of relief. “Thank you for listening to me. Do not trust her. A tigress doesn’t eat her own cubs, but Gaea will consume hers. She’s damaged and broken me. She won’t hesitate to sacrifice you on the altar in a heartbeat to serve her own interests. She’s a worse enemy than the Olympian gods.”
“The Olympians are just as bad,” Alaric said. “They’ll never stop hunting my mate.”
“They’ll have to get through us to get to our mate,” Pyrder and Reys said in sync.
“Not all the gods want my daughter dead,” Jezebel said.
“We need to find a way to get rid of the Earth Goddess,” Lorcan said. “She’s become a threat to our mate.”
“I’ll make sure my daughter survives them all,” Jezebel said enigmatically.
My mates appeared dubious at her promise, and none of them relaxed in her presence.
“It’s our job and privilege to protect our mate,” Reys said. “As long as you don’t get in the way, we’ll let you live, if our mate agrees.”
“Can I see my daughter face to face before I leave for good?” Jezebel asked.
My mates hesitated.
“That’s unnecessary,” Lorcan said, trying to harden his voice.
“I didn’t ask to see her alone,” Jezebel said, widening her blue eyes. “I don’t deserve her. I don’t deserve to have any time with her, but please, just let me see my daughter one last time.”
“It’s okay.” I rose from my chair and tried to push through the space between Reys and Pyrder. “She won’t harm me. Even if she tries, I can overpower her easily now.”
“We’ll allow you to see our mate briefly,” Reys said. “But you’ll have to stand in the far corner.” He pointed north. “Don’t try to get closer to her. Even though Cass gives you a go, we can’t trust you, considering your history and that you’ve just come from Mount Olympus.”
Their demands were ridiculous, but my mates wouldn’t compromise. When it concerned my safety, they were unreasonable. But no one is perfect.
Jezebel gazed at me from the other end of the room, with my mates and our companions lined up on either side between us, ready to jump in to shield me if she so m
uch as looked at me wrong.
“Punish them, Cassandra Saélihn,” she said, tears streaming down her face. “Punish them all. Destroy the Earth Goddess. Do this for me, my daughter.”
“Where will you go?” I asked. She had no one left.
“I can never make up for what I did to you,” she said, “but I can give all that’s left of me to strengthen you.” She smiled a little, and that was the saddest smile I’d ever seen. “I’m a powerful hybrid goddess, after all.”
And then, without warning, she began to glow like the sun.
My mates snarled, cutting in between us.
Alaric lunged at her.
I screamed for them to stop.
Everything happened at the same time.
Jezebel was no more. She morphed into a shimmering light and a swirl of colors. She became a swirling rainbow.
We can choose any form, she said. And you can absorb anything. My power and essence will be yours.
“What the fuck are you doing, Jezebel?” I yelled. “Stop this foolishness. I’m not going to fucking eat you!”
That’s the only good I can ever do for my daughter, she said. I’m glad I still have one last chance to be useful. With my essence enhancing you, your power will overcome all. You’ll prevail, and you’ll live.
The spectrum of rainbow colors flew toward me. I threw up my hands, my dark fire pushing toward it, trying to freeze it.
“Turn the fuck back, Jezebel!” I cried. “Don’t do this! You don’t need to do this. I forgave you already. I might eventually love you again. I’ll help you heal, and you’ll become whole one day.”
I love you, my daughter, my Cassandra.
The rainbow was so powerful it pierced my dark fire, until its every color and light sank into my skin. I arched my back and gasped as the energy, more beautiful and powerful than anything in the universe because it came from a sane mother’s pure, unconditional love, settled in the deep well of my powers.
I doubled over and cried. Now I didn’t have a chance to make it right with her, to make it right for her— my mother.
