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

by Meg Xuemei X

  My power held.

  Ares sprang past the original gods toward me, his spear shaft aiming toward my heart. The sneaky scumbag tried to finish me off while I was engaged with his father and uncles. Zak, Axel, and Héctor lunged and intercepted him, their blades whistling through the air and crashing into the war god’s spear.

  Paxton remained by my side to guard me, his arm holding me steady, lending the strength I needed, while I staggered under the onslaught of the gods’ forces. His other hand thrust his blade before us to dare anyone to come closer.

  Battle roars raged and echoed in the dome, and the caged Titans’ bloodthirsty yowls joined the fray.

  “Die, Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades!” my father screamed. “I curse you to die. Eat dicks and die!!!”

  “Tartarus!” Zeus commanded. “Send them to the black dome!”

  “But, my Lord—” Tartarus hesitated.

  “Now!” the gods all shouted.

  “You dare!” I roared.

  Tartarus gave me an apologetic look before he pounded his hammer into the platform.

  A wind that burned like unholy fire seized my mates and all four Marigolds, then we were falling amid cold, dying stars. The four of me merged into one under the unbearable pressure of the current. I fought against the gravity as I screamed and stretched my hands toward my mates. They screamed my name, trying to reach me in the eye of the tornado.

  We kept falling in nightmares.

  “Ta sun sumac drain rain flame.” Hyperion’s last whispers dropped like the last trace of a meteor shower.

  CHAPTER 14

  __________________

  Walls and iron bars spun around us, and the cold stone ground loomed up to meet my face.

  Héctor grabbed me in the air and shouted. “Cushion for my Lamb!”

  Paxton fell on his back, arms stretching to catch me.

  I was the strongest amid them in the Void, yet my mates remained overprotective of me. They couldn’t change that, no matter what.

  Despite my mates’ best intentions to slow my fall, I didn’t land in Paxton’s arms. A force tore me from a roaring Héctor. While my mates still shouted my name in panic, I fell on my ass in a cell next to Paxton’s.

  Héctor landed in a crouch, one hand planted on the ground, in a cell across from mine, separated by the vast space. Then Zak and Axel also landed in separate cells on either side of Héctor’s. A dark abyss extended forever beneath our feet, while above us the ceiling stretched to the endless gray sky.

  We’d been sent to the pit of the black dome.

  “Hello? Anyone here?” Zak called.

  “Answer me!” Axel demanded.

  Tartarus had mentioned that the black dome held the criminals who sinned against the gods and listed quite a few infamous inhabitants, such as King Sisyphus, who murdered travelers, Ixion, who slept with Zeus’s wife, and Tityos, who tried to rape Zeus’s mistress.

  My enemy’s enemies could be our source of intel.

  We needed to crack the prison system and find a way out. Though Tartarus had said that only his hammer could open the doors, we wouldn’t just sit on our hands.

  We’d always found a way out of any situation we landed in. Unfortunately, we had a habit of getting into trouble again soon.

  “Ixion?” I tried. “Tityos? Dudes?”

  No one answered.

  “King Sisyphus?” I tried again.

  Silence graced us.

  “Answer, pricks!” Paxton roared. “My mate has a question for you!”

  His fuming voice echoed up the dome, and dust fell from above.

  Axel sniffed and sneezed. “Fuck. That’s bone dust. All the prisoners here are long dead. Tartarus let them rot. He must have not checked this dome for a long time. The Titans could sustain themselves without sustenance, but immortals like Sisyphus and Ixion still needed food to survive.”

  I sniffed, then wrinkled my nose at the stench of death and decay.

  “The gods sentenced us to the same fate,” I said, cold dread filling me. The image of my mates and me turning to piles of bones and dust in this dome made me shudder.

  “Lamb, are you hurt?” Héctor asked across the dome.

  “I’m fine. Are you guys all right?” I asked, sweeping a glance at all my mates.

  “Yes, we are,” my mates answered.

  “We need to break out of the Eternal Prison as soon as possible,” Zak said. “The longer we stay here, the slimmer the chance we’ll ever leave this place.”

  “Let’s do this,” I said, throwing my hands up and letting my power blast the locks and the doors.

  They didn’t budge. I tried again a few more times to no avail.

  “My power is muted here,” I said, unable to hide the dismay and dread in my voice.

  My mates grabbed the bars to try to bend them or pull them wider, trails of smoke rising from their skin where they touched the metal. The smell of burned flesh hit my nostrils.

  “Stop!” I shrieked, hating to see my mates hurt. “If it could work, the Titans would have gotten out of their dome eons ago. We have to be smarter.”

  Yet Paxton refused to give up. He clenched his teeth, ignoring the acid burning as he tried to pull the bars that separated him and me wider, so he could be with me in the same cell.

  “Paxton! I said stop!” I yelled at him. “Why do you keep hurting yourself, idiot?” I rushed to him, prying his fingers off the bars.

  He narrowed his eyes at me.

  Maybe I could get the bars to bend?

  I remembered that when I touched the bars that held my father, I got only a sting. The warded metal hadn’t burned me. Perhaps I could work around these bars. And as a Titan’s daughter, I had the strength.

  I grabbed the bars, acid burn peeling my skin off my palms. I yelped and let go as it dawned on me that the Eternal Prison was designed to keep the convict behind the bars. I had suffered only a sting last time because I hadn’t been a prisoner, but now I was.

  All of my mates were shouting at me to stay away from the bars, then Zak, Axel, and Héctor scolded and cursed Paxton for not protecting me.

  Always the alpha males.

  Yet we were all trapped here, helpless and powerless. Dread filled my entire being and ice clogged my veins. We’d all rot here, captives of the most legendary prison in the world. My mates would rot here. And Héctor was mortal. My heart stopped. He would die long before the rest of us, my worst nightmare would come true.

  Héctor sliced his palm with his blade.

  “Héctor!” I cried.

  “Don’t fuss, Lamb,” he said. “I’m working on runes to break the door. We’ll get you out of here.”

  Héctor was a master at wards and runes. Mortal or not, he hadn’t lost his touch.

  He dipped his fingers in his blood and started writing runes on the doorframe of his cell. A sizzling sound hissed, and the air smelled of burned flesh. But Héctor kept going.

  I breathed hard, wishing I could be there to help him. At least, I could contribute my blood. Then Zak and Axel cut their palms as well and offered their blood for Héctor to use. My mates were working together again to get me out.

  Paxton shrugged off his jacket, wrapped his hands with it, and grabbed the bars between us again to pull them wider. The fabric turned to ash as soon as it touched the metal. Paxton swore.

  I swore too. “Pax, stop,” I hissed. “If you want to get hurt, I can give you a kick in the head!”

  Then my father’s last warning rang in my ear. “Ta sun sumac drain rain flame,” he’d said.

  I focused on the Titan language, and realized I understood it. The phrase meant Activate the Living Flame.

  Dad knew about the Flame in me, and he’d been telling me that it was the only power the Eternal Prison couldn’t nullify.

  I eyed Paxton intensely with new interest. He’d drawn his sword and hacked at the bars, sparks flying as the clash of metal echoed in the dome.

  Then I advanced on him, swaying my hips like a succubus. T
he sea demigod froze and gazed at me with hunger and lust that could melt my panties to a drop of sizzling liquid. That was always how it went with my mates. One look from them, or one touch from them, I was a goner.

  Our desire for each other burned so brightly we didn’t even need to light a match.

  “Buttercup,” Paxton whispered.

  Even though he didn’t need to be seduced since he was already there, I still licked my lip sensually to tempt him.

  “There aren’t better things to do at the moment,” I purred, “as Héctor is finding a way out for us, so we might as well get busy and contribute in our own way.”

  “I’ll do anything you ask,” he said eagerly.

  “We need to finish the mating ritual. And now’s a perfect time.”

  “How?” he asked huskily, darting his wild gaze at the bars then at me.

  “We’ll just have to deal to our best ability, demigod.” I let my sexy purr roll out of my tongue to keep the mood going while I started to unbuckle the wide belt around my waist—it was supposed to be an alternative weapon. “There won’t be foreplay under the circumstances.”

  “I won’t complain,” he said gently, then cursed under his breath. “I’ve dreamed of giving you everything I have, Buttercup. I fantasized to make our first time the best experience for you. I want to ravish you for hours and days and worship your every inch, taking my time and making sure you enjoy every second of it. But fates hate and mock me, punishing me for all the wrongs I’ve done to you. It wasn’t ideal to have you in Hell, and fates wouldn’t even let me finish claiming you there and hung me in purgatory ever since. And now, when I can fuck you, it has to be in a prison, with bars between us and bones above us. You deserve so much better. My demigod cousins have all romanced you and claimed you in a remarkable way, but I—”

  I put a fist on my hip. “Do you want me or not?”

  “More than anything. More than the world. More than my life.”

  “Then stop whining and fuck me,” I said. “Lately you bitched even more than Axel. I don’t want our mating to be interrupted again because you won’t stop talking. We need to activate the Living Flame before anything else happens. I know it’s not sexy to lay out the reality, but we need to roll with it.”

  “Everything you say and do is hot and sexy.”

  “Fine,” I said and pulled down my pants.

  Paxton traced my every move, his eyes glinting with pure male desire. No matter where and when, my mates always burned hot for me. I offered Pax a sultry smile, swayed my hips to a good measure, wheeled around and stuck my ass in the air an inch from the rods between our jails.

  He let out a rasped warning. “Stay where you are, Buttercup, and let me do the rest so you don’t get burned.”

  His large hand landed on my lower back. He squeezed my ass with his other hand, then ventured lower to thrust his finger into my heat.

  “You’re so wet, little mate,” he groaned. “You’re ripe for me.”

  I was forever slick for them. He should have learned that by now.

  “No foreplay,” I said. “I need your big cock inside me.”

  We needed a quick, hard fuck to temporarily sate the mating fever and light the Flame.

  “I’ll make it up to you when we get out of here,” he vowed, his finger thrusting in me a couple of more times before withdrawing. A moment later, his hard shaft plunged into me.

  I gasped in pleasure.

  His hands gripped my hips as he thrust into me again and again. Luckily, the space between the iron rods was wide enough for our flesh to connect. Unfortunately, we could only have a shallow joining. It was a testament to Paxton’s impressive length and size, or this wouldn’t be possible.

  Even so, it was agony not to have his entire length inside me.

  Paxton held me with his grip and drove deeper into me. Wanting more of him, I slammed my ass back toward him.

  I hissed at the pleasure the deep connection brought, my pussy clenching his shaft. At the same time, the skin where my butt cheeks hit the bars burned like a bitch.

  “Stop it, Buttercup,” Paxton hissed behind me. “Don’t hurt yourself. I said to let me do the rest.”

  He pinned me firmly, not allowing me to move around. His legs rammed into the bars as he tried to feed more of his length into me.

  While intense pleasure buzzed in me, the smell of burning flesh also filled my nostrils.

  Paxton let out of a muffled groan that conveyed both pleasure and pain and kept pounding into me hard.

  I looked over my shoulder and spotted blisters dotting his legs. He’d dropped his pants to the ankles.

  “Paxton, back off,” I growled. “Don’t get more than two inches into me, or I’ll call it quits.”

  “I’m fine, Buttercup. Don’t quit,” he pleaded. “If you do, I’ll die.”

  “Promise me you won’t hurt yourself, then,” I said.

  “I don’t mind hurting. It’s worth it. I just want to bury myself into you as deep as I can. I need to give you my all.”

  I snarled, ready to conjure up the last strength of my will and pull away to prevent him from burning himself.

  “Okay, Buttercup. I’ll be careful.” He tightened his grip on my hips, his fingers sinking into my skin. “You’re killing me, woman.” He thrust into me. “This is killing me, my mate.”

  I raised my ass higher to give him more access, and Paxton pounded between my thighs with pained restraints.

  “Sweet, cruel torture!” He cursed and groaned roughly in pleasure.

  “It’s as good as we can get. Oh yes, Paxton—” Waves of pleasure drowned out my words as he quickened to a maddening pace.

  “When we get out of here, I’ll redo it,” said the sea demigod. “I’ll surround us with walls of impenetrable currents and it’ll be just you and me. I’ll lick your every delicious inch. I’ll feast upon your little, pink pussy over and over. And I want to bury every inch of my cock inside you and fuck you raw and sore.”

  Well, the two inches inside me just had to do for now since there was a brighter future to look forward to.

  I moaned breathlessly, my hand cupping my heavy breast, my other hand rubbing my swollen clit in a circle.

  Paxton drove into me with frenzy, building pressure in me. A few more powerful pumps from him and I’d get there.

  “So good, Paxton,” I groaned, imagining how much better it would feel if I could get some long, hard thrusts.

  “I’ll fuck you hard enough to make you scream my name when there’re no burning bars between us,” he vowed, cursed, and groaned in pleasure.

  It might not be enough to have only a couple of his inches inside me, yet its weight in me, the friction it caused, and the force it drove into me still offered great pleasure.

  His pace sped up, and his cock turned granite hard. The nearly painful stimulation pushed me to the edge. I cried like a feline in heat. And then I noticed that the only sounds in the dome were my moans, Paxton’s groans, and the slaps of flesh hitting flesh. I looked across the dome and saw the same hunger and searing lust in Zak’s and Axel’s eyes.

  They were watching Paxton and me fuck, and their raw and deep need for me crashed into me across space. My other mates wanted to fuck me as well. They wanted to fuck me more than anything. Yet the rift separated us.

  Héctor scribed blood runes on the doorframe like a maniac. He needed to concentrate, yet his body reacted to my mating call just the same. The bulge in the front of his pants made me smile a little. I liked how turned-on he was.

  Paxton’s hard thrusts grew erratic, and my pussy milked his cock mercilessly, and then I peaked.

  I roared my release as I exploded around his cock. Paxton pumped his seed into me and bellowed like a victorious barbarian.

  My barbarian.

  Yet lust didn’t dull a notch in my bloodstream. It blazed brighter for my mates, for all of them. And they whispered my name in response, trying to break the bars and close the distance between us.


  My inherited power from the Void, my gained power from Hell, and my gifted power from my demigod mates roared from my core and infused into a flame.

  It was a spark of ember first, then a flickering candle, then a wildfire, until it turned into the brightest, blinding flame, hotter than stars. Its intricate patterns formed, grew, and solidified, until the flame swirled to the most beautiful, formidable, and lethal living wire.

  The mating ritual was completed.

  An immense power from the origin of the universe returned, beating in me like a pair of colossal wings riding the wind, coursing in my veins, conceding the secrets of every atom, cell, creation, and death. It carried the essence of the seasonal rains, storms, fire, all nature and elements. It was imbued with passion, pain, joy, curiosity, and lust. It was me and I was all.

  I wasn’t an abomination. I was a new beginning of order and chaos.

  I was the demigods’ fated mate, the only woman for them.

  The Living Flame burned through me, scorching away every scar and pain and remorse from my past and baptizing me anew. And I roared and roared.

  I was finally ready.

  Just then, the lock on Héctor’s cell clicked and he booted the iron door open. He’d achieved the impossible with his mastery of runes.

  “Lamb, I’m coming,” he called, his sapphire eyes darting frantically as he tried to figure out how to get to me and to free his mate.

  My Héctor no longer had wings.

  “I don’t need a rescue this time, boys,” I said, unwillingly pulling away from Paxton while he was still hard in me. “Let me save your gorgeous, hard asses.”

  No dimensions could ever define or confine me. I was beyond limitation, my mind finally catching up with reality. Galactic magic churned under my skin as I pulled up my pants. When I released it, a firestorm in a riot of colors blasted out of me, crashing into every cell and shattering every door.

  A platform materialized in front of us, more for my mates’ benefit than mine. With my radiant blue wings sprouting behind my back, I flew to the center of the platform while my mates leapt and landed in a crouch around me in a protective formation.