Half-Blood Academy 5: Magic Flame: a Reverse Harem Fantasy Romance

by Meg Xuemei X

  “I know who Lucifer is,” Hades snapped.

  “Of course, my Lord,” Tartarus said humbly. “And Princess Celeste—”

  “She’s no princess!” Poseidon interrupted him rudely.

  “Of course.” Tartarus bowed again. “I apologize for misspeaking, my Lord. Celeste, or Icy Dagger, as many call her in Hell since she won that title fair and square in Hell’s pit. She wasn’t fond of the endearments her mates used, including Lamb, Cookie, Rosebud, and Buttercup. However, she tolerated them because of her deep feelings toward her four mates. In Hell, she had a chance to be Icy Dagger. It’s Icy Dagger, not Ice Dagger, as some—”

  “Get to the point, Tartarus!” Hades snarled. “We don’t have all day. We’re in a hurry! So we’re going to nail this affair and get out of here.”

  Maybe the gods already felt the Void draining their powers? That was good.

  C’mon, Void, sap their energy quickly.

  “Speak directly and plainly, Tartarus,” Poseidon ordered. “How did the demon queen get into this dome, fuck one of the most powerful Titans, and breed a demon hellion?”

  “Hyperion seduced her with his honeyed, silver tongue,” Cronus barked. “Let’s punish Hyperion severely for treason.”

  My father snickered. “What else can you do to me? I already had the worst sentence.”

  “We can tear your abominable daughter apart,” Cronus said. “My sons are finally here!”

  “Quiet, Father. Or I’ll make you,” Zeus barked. “We’re trying to solve a thorny issue and an abhorrent crime here.” He turned to the warden, his eyes harsh and unforgiving. “Tartarus, explain.”

  Tartarus ran his hand through his spiky hair as all eyes trained on him again. “Queen Lilith claimed the Ivory Tower and turned it into the fairyland, the only magical realm in the Void. No one knows how she did it. She’s like the wind, coming and going freely to any place in the Void. She’s a mystery. However, she hasn’t showed up in Tartarus for two decades. Another mystery is the whereabouts of Lucifer. Deceived by Celeste, he fell into the Void along with Ares. The God of War is with you now, my Lord, but Lucifer is nowhere to be found.”

  I was wondering where the heck Lucifer was as well.

  “Maybe the monsters ate him,” Poseidon said with a shrug.

  Tartarus wheeled to Ares, quirking both eyebrows. “Prince Ares, do you have any input regarding what happened to Lucifer?”

  “After we escaped the monsters from the valley, we fell into another badland.” Ares shuddered, biting his nail. At his father’s hard stare, he dropped his hand to his side, yet it kept twitching. “As we tried to get out of the place of nightmare, the devil turned on me to ensure his survival, and I returned the favor. My father plucked me out of that horrible place, and Lucifer was just gone. I don’t give a rat’s ass if he died or not. He’s no longer useful.”

  “Maybe he’s united with his demon queen in that tower,” Hades pondered. He had a weakness for beautiful women, too. Even after he kidnapped Persephone and forced her to be the Queen of the Underworld, he kept having affairs with other women. But I’m not complaining because I got Héctor out of it. And Persephone should have fought for her freedom instead of playing the damsel.

  “Nah.” Tartarus shook his head. “Lilith will behead Lucifer if he pops up in her realm. The archangel queen holds a grudge for eternity.”

  Zeus smacked the platform floor with the bottom of his scepter.

  “We’re not here to discuss the demon queen’s sparkling personality,” he said through his clenched teeth. He seemed to grind them a lot. “We’re dissecting the unholy coupling between a Titan and a demon queen, which resulted in this abomination.”

  He pointed his thick finger at me.

  “You’re a very rude old man,” I told him.

  “My daughter isn’t an abomination, you moron,” my father barked. “She’s the better of you, better than any of you.”

  Well, that proud father’s declaration was going to help doom me faster. But then, none of the Titans were strategists. They were so powerful that all of them relied merely on their brute force. That was how they’d fallen and lost the war to the Olympians in the first place.

  “Okay, it’s time for me to clarify a few things, though I don’t need to explain myself to the gods or anyone,” I said. “Lilith, my mother, was an archangel, one of the firstborns of the angelic race. She pursued freedom for her angel sisters and brothers. When she lost the war—good didn’t prevail, unfortunately— her opponents cast her out of heaven and condemned her as a fallen angel, aka demon. If you’re truly into this origin thing and want to get the facts right, you should realize that the angelic race is pretty much equal in rank with the godly species.”

  “Blasphemy!” Poseidon yelled. “Silence now, abomination!”

  I secretly reached for the Void power inside me, letting it expand from my belly and flow through me like electricity.

  “Don’t fucking call my mate an abomination,” Paxton snarled. “And she talks whenever she likes.”

  “This bunch of asswipe losers call me names because I’m powerful,” I said. “Given time, I’ll be way mightier than them, so they can’t take it.”

  “Pathetic,” Axel agreed.

  Héctor chuckled, showing the gods his utter disdain.

  “Enough!” Zeus thrust his hand toward my mates.

  My mates made strangled noises, and then they couldn’t speak anymore.

  “What did you do to them, fucker?” I roared. I thrust my palms toward them, the nullifying magic of the Void lashing out in waves.

  The original gods trained their signature weapons on me at the same time, not missing a beat.

  Our powers collided.

  The gods’ combined powers of thunder and lightning, death fire, and ice were more potent than I’d imagined. My Void magic could only cancel out a fraction of the onslaught. It was too much.

  I staggered back. My mates held me to support me, desperate to lend me their strength, but their demigod powers were neutralized in this realm.

  “Drop your offense and we’ll cease, too,” Hades said. “You’re no match for us, little girl.”

  Maybe not now. But eventually, I’d get the upper hand as the child of the Void. I needed more time to master my Void magic, but time was the only commodity I didn’t have now, and it always seemed that way.

  I was running out of time forever.

  “Drop your power now, if you don’t want me to damage the demigods,” Zeus said. “Behave yourself, and I’ll make sure no one gets hurt during the trial.”

  The god king wouldn’t hesitate to hurt his own son. He’d killed a few of his sons in the past.

  I slowly retreated my power and raised my hands in the air in a gesture of surrender. They nailed my weakness, and I still hadn’t figured out theirs, or if they even had any weaknesses.

  The Olympians also withdrew their attack.

  Ideas wheeled in my head like a riot, and I knew through our bond that my mates were working on all angles to get us out of this madhouse as soon as possible. When gods and Titans collided, disasters ensued, and we were stuck between them. I didn’t want my mates to be collateral damage. We had to find a way to escape before the situation escalated further.

  “Order is established,” Hades announced in his dark, booming voice.

  Cronus clapped his giant hands, and his goons followed suit and cheered.

  Morons.

  “Titans are forbidden to mate with demons,” Zeus said. “That’s been the universal law since the beginning of the worlds. The light shall never consort with the dark. Yet Hyperion chose to have a sexual relationship with a demon queen and used the darkest, foulest magic to breed an offspring that will bring destruction and chaos to all worlds.”

  “I have no use of dark magic,” my father shouted. “My amazing union with Lilith shouldn’t have produced a child, which is impossible in all of the textbooks, yet a miracle happened. My daughter is a wonder, the most u
nique, beautiful being in the universe. She’s superior in every way. She’s more than any Titan, any god, any demon, and any angel. Embrace her pure, supreme existence, which is the joy of the future and light of all worlds. Don’t let your fear of greatness blind you and lead your soul to destruction, if you have one.”

  Some Titans cheered him while others scoffed at his speech.

  Though I was grateful that Dad fully supported me, I had to admit his oration was a bit off. But then, he was a Titan.

  “You’re hypocrites, all of you,” I said clearly and loudly, my contemptuous stare aimed at the gods. “You’re afraid and jealous of me because I can unmake the gods and the universe, though there’s no reason for me to do that. But you won’t allow anyone to be more powerful than you, so you’re trying to snuff me out while I’m still in my budding stage. Trial, my ass.”

  “Your vile birth is forbidden,” Zeus hissed. “We’ve destroyed monsters less illicit than you.”

  My mates bared their teeth at Zeus, yet they still couldn’t let out a sound.

  “However, we’ll give you a chance to prove your innocence,” Hades added, slanting his son a glance before turning his covetous gaze on me again. “Just as we’ve given every defendant a final opportunity to acquit their guilt.”

  I snorted. I didn’t need to prove anything to these motherfuckers. However, I also knew if I didn’t play their games, we wouldn’t be able to walk away. My power couldn’t match up to the combined forces of the original gods yet, and my mates’ powers were all muted.

  “Don’t take their bait, Celeste,” my father warned behind me.

  I had no choice.

  “Bring it on,” I said. Bitches, let’s play.

  “We’ll let you walk away with one mate. Only one,” Hades said with a cruel smile. “The other three will spend the rest of their lives in the Eternal Prison in your stead.”

  My mates all tensed around me, waiting for me to choose one of them above the others.

  “No,” I said, barely containing my rage. “I won’t choose.”

  Hades sighed. “How about we make a compromise, just this one time? You take three with you, but leave one behind. I’ll even make this easy for you. If you leave Héctor behind and let him go, I’ll take my son with me, and all of you walk away from Tartarus.”

  I swallowed and glanced up at Héctor. He looked right back at me, misery in his sapphire eyes. Then, a second later, he nodded, wanting me to take the deal.

  That was the best we could get from the gods. Hades was giving me an easy way out. All I needed to do was to abandon Héctor to his father, and the rest of my mates and I would walk away free. Héctor wouldn’t be imprisoned either. Hades might even make him immortal again. As the God of Death, he held that power.

  Anyone would think that I’d be a fucking idiot to walk away from this offer.

  But I was Marigold, and I was damn stubborn.

  I had hopes that all my mates and I together could give back Héctor his immortality. We didn’t need anyone else. And I would never give up on him. I remembered those heartbreaking, bleak hours when I’d thought I’d lost my Héctor. Just thinking about eternal separation from him gutted me.

  “Héctor is my soul,” I said. “I won’t lose him.”

  “Then pick a mate who means less to you, and we’ll take it,” Hades said testily.

  I bit my lip as silence prolonged, tension whipping the air. Everyone held their breath, waiting for me to choose. It was like the worst reality show humans had once been crazy about before the era of the Great Merge.

  And now the gods and the Titans were enthralled with a show humans no longer remembered.

  This had nothing to do with giving me an opportunity to prove my innocence. The gods just wanted the entertainment of my pain, and to break the bond I shared with my mates.

  Maybe I should give them my version of the show, even though Dad had warned me not to take any deal the gods offered.

  “Feel free to leave my son behind and take the others,” Ares offered, joining the play eagerly. “My ungrateful brat is a notorious playboy, a black sheep in the family. If you don’t want him to bring more women into the bed you share with all your other males, you would be wise to dump him now.”

  The God of War wanted to bruise his son like that.

  A low rumbling vibrated from Axel’s chest. He couldn’t speak, but he definitely didn’t want to be left behind. He’d always wanted me to choose him.

  “Axel was my first crush,” I said. “I won’t leave him for the world.”

  I stole a quick glance at him, and his golden eyes shone with gratitude and adoration for me. There was also wrath beneath his love for me. He wanted to kill the gods for putting me through this. Deeper than his anger, misery lurked in his heart at his father’s cruelty.

  My mates’ dark emotions rocked my walls through our mating bond. They were devastated and furious that they couldn’t protect me from their fathers, and they’d been the most powerful males working the Earth. Rage kept building in all of them. Anytime, it could ram open the floodgate and shatter Zeus’s binding on them.

  “So that leaves my bastard son and my brother’s,” Poseidon said. “Interesting. Zak was an unfeeling zombie for eons. Somehow he came alive in your bed. Or maybe he’s still the same, a bore. I think my king brother won’t mind bringing him to Olympus to discipline and reeducate him. As for my bastard son I hadn’t known existed, I could probably use him. At least he can carry things for me. So who’s it gonna be? Will you leave Zeus’s half-breed or mine? Pick now, demon spawn. Time’s running out.”

  Cold rage rippled off Zak in spades, and Paxton pulled back his full lips, baring his teeth like a feral panther.

  “Perhaps we should let our bastard sons have a say in the trial, too,” Zeus suggested.

  The gods’ intention was clear as crystal now. They were working on tearing apart the sacred bond between my mates and me.

  Zeus waved a hand to return the voices to my mates. “Be a hero. Any of you who step out and denounce the demon spawn will be absolved of all your sins and transgressions.”

  Axel bellowed, “Fuck you! Get the fuck out of here and leave my mate alone!”

  Héctor, Paxton, and Zak snarled like caged animals.

  “I know this is beyond your understanding, despite that you’re gods,” I said softly. “You wouldn’t know what true love, devotion, and loyalty were even if they all hit you in your arrogant, insufferable faces. The thing is, my mates will always choose me, as I’ll always choose them, all of them.”

  “You can’t have them all,” Hades snapped. “We’re gracious enough to let you have three of the demigods and walk away with them. You’re only one woman. Marriage should be between one man and one woman. We, the original gods, are the law of the universe, and we frown upon polygamy.”

  I narrowed my eyes. Weren’t these hypocrites full of contradictory shit?

  That’s right. The gods had one partner in marriage according to the law, so they just went around raping women who caught their eyes and refused their sexual advances. I’d give them a piece of my mind as soon as I could extract my mates.

  A ray of light shone in my mind, and an idea formed.

  When I watched the naked succubi and nymphs advance toward my mates through the spyglass, I’d wanted to charge into every room where each of my mates was placed at the same time. I’d felt a rush of power beating in me when I thought of splitting myself into several Marigolds to handle the situation.

  “So one woman can claim only one man in your ideal world?” I asked.

  Hades’s eyes sparked with dark amusement and vile intention. He enjoyed playing the cat and mouse game with me.

  “Unless you can slice the pie and produce four of you.” He winked, and the others chortled as if sharing an inside joke. “Then each of you can take home a mate.”

  “Are your words binding as much as Zeus’?” I asked coolly.

  He set a trap for me, and I’d love t
o return the favor.

  “I’m the Lord of the Underworld,” Hades hissed haughtily at my challenge. “My words are gold.”

  I roared, and my fury and magical command ricocheted off the walls and arose from the abyss.

  “Stop it!” Zeus shouted, but he couldn’t seal my voice. I was the firstborn of a Titan, just like him, plus I had extra juice from Hell and Heaven. No god could silence me.

  Power blasted out of me. The gods instantly formed a shield around themselves, but I wasn’t attacking them.

  Pain tore through me, and hot and cold tears burned my eyes, blurring my vision until I saw stars.

  When the pain and tears passed, three new Marigolds had appeared beside me, and they all looked exactly like me, from my lavender hair to the hidden dagger in my boot. Each of me linked an arm around one of my mates, who stared at the various Marigolds with wide eyes.

  “This awesome male is mine,” each Marigold declared. “I’m claiming him.”

  Silence stunned the entire dome, shutting up the gods and the Titans.

  “You cheating whore!” Ares shouted, breaking the shocked silence. He was never a good sport. The dude forever carried a loser mentality.

  “An abomination of the universe,” Poseidon barked, waking up from his stupor. “Aberrant of all nature and laws.”

  “We’re leaving, cock lickers,” all the Marigolds said in unison.

  “You’re not leaving, demon spawn!” Zeus thundered, believing he was the ultimate law and righteousness and all. “You’ll never leave this prison.”

  The gods had gone back on their words in front of everyone. They readied their weapons again.

  “Eat shit, you lying cocksuckers!” we roared.

  Our powers collided, and my mates charged the gods, brandishing their blades, ready to cut down any force that tried to harm me. With or without their demigod powers, they weren’t afraid of the original gods—their mighty fathers.

  My mates were worthy warriors through and through.

  The gods’ merged powers—tidal waves like icy blades, piercing lightning, and dark fire hotter than the inferno—slammed into the four of me. With my quadrupled shield covering us and my mates, I sent out my own airwaves and ice and fire.