Queen of the Underworld

by Helen Scott

  When I couldn’t hold it anymore, I metaphysically pulled on all the webbing I had created. The whole group froze. Everything changed then; the whole dynamic in the space was different. Knox and Emmett decimated the guards, moving like lightning with swords that had appeared from nowhere, or at least, that I hadn’t noticed before.

  Each agent went down almost like dominoes as Knox and Emmett destroyed their hearts, their bodies flaking away, making it look as if it were snowing. After dispatching the agents they had been fighting, they lent a hand to Shadow and Derek, who had become surrounded by another group.

  Only a moment later, all the creepy pale bodies were nothing but dust in the wind. As I felt some of the power come back to me like a weird boomerang effect, I perked up and was able to stand on my own.

  “Thanks,” I whispered to Cass. He reluctantly let go of my elbow only to slide his hand down my arm and lace his fingers with my own.

  “Any time,” he said. Concern pinched his features.

  “Everyone okay?” I asked as the guys stood around for a moment, waiting for the next wave of agents to come busting through the doors.

  When no one showed up, they began to relax.

  “I’m good, angel,” Knox said turning to look at me. A chorus of “me too” sounded from everyone except Hunter, who was bleeding badly from a wound on his stomach.

  “I’ll be fine,” he croaked when he caught the apprehension in my gaze.

  “Are you okay?” Emmett asked, looking me over.

  “I’m good,” I said with a nod.

  “Are you sure, angel?”

  I nodded again and tried to smile, but evidently it looked more strained than I had anticipated, because I was surrounded by my sexy men a moment later. Before they could interrogate me, though, a new wave of agents came through the doors, throwing more knives and seeming much better prepared than the last group.

  My guys spun around and took on the attackers as though they were the first ones they had seen. Their stamina didn’t appear to be flagging at all. I had to help them, but I wasn’t sure how much energy, or magic or whatever, I had left.

  I glanced at Cass, whose expression had gone from slightly concerned to full-on worried. “I’ll be fine,” I said as he opened his mouth to protest what he had apparently guessed I was about to do. I patted his hand with my free one before I turned back to the fight.

  The agents brought their own weapons this time and were more capable fighters than the first round. When I saw each of my men bleeding from various wounds, panic set in. I reached for all the power that had rebounded back to me and yanked on it, hard, before flinging it out and encompassing as much of the group as possible.

  When the fight had first started, the energy had felt like ropes or snakes around the pale demony things, but now it felt no thicker than a strand of silk. I pushed as much energy into the strands as I could and began to clamp down on the agents’ movements, slowly bringing them to a halt.

  I held them there as long as I could until my vision began to fade. Hands clamped around me and held me up. I could feel them; I just didn’t have the energy to open my eyes.

  Shadow

  I couldn’t remember the last time I’d fought so hard when I wasn’t in the ring. Standing in the middle of the now-empty room, looking at the men who were apparently my brothers in arms, I felt good. I felt alive for the first time in forever. Teaching was fulfilling, and I was good at it, but it didn’t send that thrill of excitement through me like a good fight did.

  As I turned, I found Poppy falling to her knees. Cass was next to her but hadn’t noticed, so I stepped in, grabbing her before she faceplanted into the ground. Her smooth skin, which was already fairly pale, had turned a ghostly white, to the point that I could see the fine veins on her closed eyelids. As I lifted her into my arms, I was surprised at how light she was.

  All the guys were around us a second later. I could tell Knox was holding back from taking her from me, as his hands twitched involuntarily at his sides.

  “What happened?” Emmett asked.

  I shrugged. “No idea. I just saw her falling and stepped in so she didn’t hurt herself.”

  “She was using magic or something to help you guys while you were fighting the agents of Hel,” Cass said before running a hand through his jet-black hair. “That’s a sentence I never thought I’d say.”

  I could agree with him there. Ever since the pale gangly fuckers showed up at the school while I was grading papers, I had been saying and experiencing all kinds of things that I never thought would happen.

  “Our queen should know better. We could have handled them,” Emmett said.

  “You sure about that? From where I stood, the princess here was the only reason we were able to win that fight,” Nolan chimed in.

  It was interesting watching the dynamic between the hounds. I knew Nolan was a recent addition, just like us judges, but he fit well with them. Knox looked as if he were still ready to throw down, and since that would only mean we would fight each other, I decided to stop whatever disagreement they were about to have before it could get started.

  “Is there a bed anywhere for Poppy?” I asked.

  “Yeah, follow me,” Hunter said. “Actually, since the palace is overrun, we should probably stay here for a while until we figure out our next move. Why don’t you all follow me? You can pick out rooms or whatever.”

  I followed behind the redhead as he led us through the hallways. They looked as though they had been carved out of the stone itself, with doorways and stairs made of wood mounted to the rock. It almost looked rustic, but the light, which seemed to glow in a strange yellow color, gave it an eerie feeling. I couldn’t even pinpoint where it was coming from. All I knew was that it was somewhere far above us.

  As we moved, I noticed that we were on a slight incline that spiraled around before it came to a set of stairs. The thick wooden planks, if they could be called that, looked like trimmed tree trunks. The wide, almost regal staircase led us up toward the bedrooms, which seemed to mostly be situated down one long corridor.

  “This is my room.” Hunter gestured to one of the few closed doors. “Knox and Emmett are there, and that is Nolan,” he said, pointing to the other closed doors.

  “What about down there?” Cass asked.

  “Those are open, but I don’t know when they were last cleaned.”

  While they debated which rooms to use, I walked over to the only open door I could find and went in. A large bed covered in cozy blankets and pillows sat in the middle of the wall. The room smelled slightly of amber, which was exactly what the light shades seemed to be made of. How they got electricity down there, I didn’t know, but there it was. I pulled the first layer of blankets back and gently laid Poppy down. She seemed to sink into the mattress. For a brief second, I worried they were going to swallow her whole.

  I went into the en suite bathroom and grabbed a towel, wetting it under the running water, which was something else I hadn’t expected given the roughhewn walls and floors. It wasn’t that I thought this was all crazy, but I had expected for us to be living more off grid, but it wasn’t like that at all. As I left the bathroom, the window caught my gaze. The sheer curtains that hung from floor to ceiling obscured the view, but that only made me more curious. I pulled them to one side, the gauzy material sticking to my damp fingertips.

  A sea of glittering lights was spread out below us. It really was like a city, except for the dead. Although from what the guys had told me, they weren’t exactly allowed free roam, so the city part was more for the inhabitants of the Underworld, which I guess I was now.

  My heart thudded at the realization. Had I seriously just picked up and left my whole life behind? Part of me wanted to run back to the mortal realm as fast as possible, while the other, more rational side of myself demanded to know what it was I thought I was running back to. The kids in my class? The TV dinners for one? My empty condo? Hell, I didn’t even have a plant that I had been able to keep
alive.

  When I had discharged from the army, I had left with a head full of grand ideas about moving back to my hometown and falling in love with one of the local girls I had been sweet on in high school, but that had been ripped to shreds quickly enough. My town had been torn up from the recent downturn of the economy, and the only people left were people who’d lived there their whole lives or were too young to get out just yet.

  I didn’t have any family there, and all my old friends had moved away, so I did the same. The problem was, I never fit. Not until I saw her. I shifted on my feet then, moving back to the bed and climbing on it with Poppy. The squishy mattress sank under my weight, and I was surprised she didn’t roll toward me as I leaned over and gently ran the lukewarm rag over her face, rinsing off the dirt and grime that had somehow accumulated already.

  From the first moment I saw her charging through those double doors and taking on that agent of Hel as if he were nothing, I knew she was my home. She had been the piece I’d been missing. Every time I saw her in action, my heart pumped a little faster. I wanted her, and even more surprising, I already cared for her. We knew next to nothing about each other, just a few small tidbits we had discovered over the last few days, but it was enough for me to be excited to get to know her.

  I felt as if she were my first love all over again. Only this time, I wasn’t going to fuck it up.

  3

  Poppy

  I jolted awake next to a thick wall of muscle. The heat radiating off the body curled behind me wasn’t as much as I was used to with Knox or Emmett, or even Nolan. It was gentler, more like the first truly beautiful day in spring, when the sun beat down with promises of what was to come with summer. I pulled up my mental image of the bonds and tried to figure out who was where and if the attack was really over.

  Most of them were scattered all around me. Knox’s purple and Emmett’s red were across the hall, while Hunter’s blue wasn’t too far away on one side, and Nolan’s green was on the other. Cass and Derek were further away and appeared to be pacing, while Shadow was with me in bed. And oh my God, the bed was fan-freaking-tastic. I felt as if I were on a cloud.

  As I slowly shifted onto my back, an arm came up and wrapped around my stomach, tugging me closer. He smelled sweet, like an apple orchard in autumn, but with something sharp and spicy in there too. I couldn’t help but turn toward him, inhaling his delicious scent as his thigh nudged between my own.

  I was still in my clothes from when we had arrived, but I had no idea how long I’d been out. We must have been safe, though, for Shadow to be asleep with me. As I finally let myself relax, I realized that this was the first time I had the chance to look at him without needing to be anywhere or do anything. Even though I should probably be fretting about how I was going to get to the throne and claim it, whatever that meant, I couldn’t bring myself to waste this opportunity.

  My eyes started at the top of his head, taking in the thick, disheveled hair that resided there. It was a rich deep-brown color, coarse and thick, perfect for grabbing on to. Not that I was going to do that any time soon. I am getting to know them first, I reminded myself.

  Thick bushy eyebrows sat atop what I knew were stunning blue-green eyes, even though they were hidden from me in sleep at that moment. His closed eyes were framed by a thick layer of dark lashes, which drew my gaze even further down. A long, elegant nose sat above his peach colored lips. The bottom one was bigger than the top, which made me want to bite it. The scruff he’d been sporting since we rescued him was starting to turn into a full-grown beard.

  Below a stunning face was a body that any straight woman would drool over. His biceps and pectorals were firm and perfectly proportioned to the rest of his frame. The only reason I could attest to such a thing was because the gods-forsaken man had taken his T-shirt off at some point. A small, thick patch of dark-brown hair sat in the middle of his chest before fading out on each side. It was accompanied by a yummy line of hair that ran down his stomach before spreading slightly below his belly button and disappearing behind his dark pants.

  I bit my lower lip, curiosity tugging at me, while my imagination ran wild with images of what those pants contained. After wrenching my mind out of the gutter, I snuggled closer and received an appreciative rumble from Shadow. I wasn’t sure whether he had done it in his sleep or not, because when I looked at him, his eyes were still closed.

  My mind drifted back to the other guys. Everyone had been at least slightly injured during our skirmish, and I hoped they were okay. I couldn’t help but wonder about what claiming the throne entailed. I knew that Alpha, the organization I had been approached by to rescind my claim on the throne and who had ended up kidnapping Derek, had said something about needing my blood, but was that just because they were planning on me not being there, or did I actually need to use my blood to activate the claim? I hoped my guys would know.

  Lips connected with the top of my head and startled me out of my thoughts. “How are you feelin’, Poppy?” Shadow’s sleepy voice asked, sending shivers running through me.

  “Tired but good. How are you doing?”

  “Good. I got to wake up next to a kickass lady who also happens to be a knockout. What more could a guy ask for?”

  I laughed and looked up at him. “Oh, I don’t know . . . Maybe not being attacked by a group of undead whatever they are? A cheeseburger? A million bucks?”

  “I would just ask for you anyway,” he said quietly as he placed a gentle kiss on my forehead.

  “We barely know each other, though,” I protested even though my heart fluttered at his words.

  “Sweetheart, I know more about you than you think—uh, that sounded creepy. I didn’t mean it that way.” He grimaced.

  I tried to stifle a giggle.

  “What I mean to say is that ever since I first saw you at the school, when that dickhead had a knife pressed to my throat, I knew that you were it for me. A woman who would storm into a deadly situation, kicking ass and taking names, all while looking hot as hell? I didn’t stand a chance. Besides, once we bonded, it was like . . .” He trailed off in thought, and I waited, not wanting to disrupt our most intimate conversation yet. “It was like foggy glass clearing. I could see everything that I needed to. I knew where I was going, what I was doing, and who I would be doing it with. It was one of the best experiences of my life.”

  Damn, what was a girl supposed to say to that? After a brief pause, I said, “Here’s to hoping for more amazing experiences together.” I smiled and scooted up for a moment to brush a light kiss over his lips.

  “I’m sure there will be many more,” he said, his voice a low growl as his head dipped to my own.

  Our lips brushed once more, and I felt tingles of lust rush through my body. I tried to clamp down on them, but it seemed that they had a mind of their own. When the hand that had been wrapped around my waist slipped further south, I had to hold back a moan as he grabbed my ass, pressing me into him. His lips crashed on mine then, as though the moan had been aloud anyway. He teased my lips apart until his tongue was tangling with mine.

  I pulled away, breathless from his kisses. “Don’t you want to get to know me first before we do this?” I gestured back and forth between us as I spoke.

  “I know everything I need to know,” he breathed as he rained kisses down my neck. “I already signed up for eternity with you, remember?”

  That simple fact repeatedly continued to blow my mind.

  My hands wove in the thick locks of his hair and pulled his head back up to mine so I could look him directly in the eyes. As he stared at me, I almost forgot what I was about to say. The stormy blues seemed to swirl as I watched, and I knew if I wasn’t careful, I would be completely entranced. “We don’t have to rush this, you know?” I breathed, barely able to get the words out.

  “I know, but I want you, Poppy. I have since we first met, and I don’t want to wait, not if you’ll have me.”

  I grinned at him, seeing the pure sincerity ra
diating out from his eyes. “I’ll have you,” I whispered.

  His hands were on my waist as he rolled onto his back, pulling me on top of him. I sat back, resting my core against his rapidly hardening length, while my hands slid up and down his chest, feeling the little hairs tickling my skin.

  “We seem somewhat uneven here,” he said, a slow smile spreading over his face as his grip remained steady on my hips.

  “Oh? And what would you suggest?” I teased coyly.

  Shadow’s hands slid under my shirt, pushing it up devastatingly slowly until I gave up and tore it over my head. His hands moved to my breasts, cupping and squeezing them. I let out a low moan and rocked my hips, making him gasp.

  His fingers found the clasp at the front of my bra, and within seconds, he had it unhooked and my breasts were completely exposed. I shrugged out of the material and leaned down to him, capturing his mouth with my own. He teased my lips open and swirled his tongue in, while his hands stayed glued to my breasts, making tingles erupt all over my body.

  Without removing his hands, Shadow rocked his hips and rolled us once more so that he was on top. His weight pressing me into the soft bed was delicious. He began kissing a long line down my chest, ignoring my nipples, which was actually kind of refreshing. When he got to the waistband of my pants, his hands made quick work of the button and zipper and pulled the thick material down over my hips and legs, leaving me completely exposed to him except for the small black thong I was wearing.

  He growled in appreciation as he took in my almost naked form. A wicked smile curved his lips and promised more than a little pleasure in my future. Like an animal stalking its prey, he climbed onto the mattress, positioning himself over me, before he lowered his mouth to mine.