A Court of Ice and Wind (War of the Gods Book 3)

by Meg Xuemei X

  A new wave of unbearable pain dragged me away from thoughts of my mates and forced me to stay with the brutes. That was all part of their design. At their skilled beating, flesh peeled away from my bones. The gown on me was but pitiful shreds hanging on my bloody flesh, and soon my flesh would hang in tatters from my broken bones.

  The pain became too great, and I blacked out. I floated to a place of pure silence and whiteness where there were no assholes tormenting me.

  Hadn’t I died? Had I left my broken shell behind? A second later, I realized I was only cut off from the reality. I must hang on. I would have my revenge. I’d fight all the gods to my last breath, to my true death. I would return to my mates, no matter what it took.

  They could tear me apart, but they could never truly break me.

  I was death incarnate. I would bide my time and come back with vengeance, and my enemies would know I was death itself. I’d let the vultures feast upon their bloated, not so beautiful corpses.

  In this temporary white space of peace and silence, I was alone. I decided to stay here until the dark storm of torture was over.

  You aren’t uprooted from Earth, beloved. A beautiful, kind voice brushed over me like the summer breeze as a regal female appeared from the misty light and planted herself in front of me.

  Only my mates call me beloved, I told her. Who are you?

  Your kin. You’ll know me if you search your genetic memory, she said.

  I didn’t need to search.

  Earth? That’s great. I said. Can you take this fucking torque off me?

  You have all Earth’s elements in your well of power, she said. But you never truly claimed them.

  I think I did. I bubbled in my misery. I tried to call the elements over and over, like they were my best friends, to get the torque off my neck. Now that you’re here, you can help me remove this fucking alien thing. The assholes are going to rape me after beating me within an inch of my life. I am now within an inch of life, considering I thought I was dead. I can’t allow them to violate me like that. And I bet you don’t want to see your kin suffer that fate! So, please help me break this cursed torque. It’s super urgent!

  Shush. Will you ever learn to listen? Her voice chided me. If I can reach you up here, then you can reach me all the way down to the deep Earth, to all the Earth’s power beneath. Quiet the noise in your head. Your mind has been forever busy with thousands of useless thoughts and ideas. It’s hard to talk to you and get you to listen. If you weren’t in such great pain, escaping to this space we can share, I doubt you’d have ever heard me.

  Scold me later, dude, I said. I’m running out of time here.

  Even when you’re in such agony that no mortal or immortal could bear, you still hold onto such a bad attitude, she sighed.

  Get me out of here, I said. And I promise I’ll learn all the manners. I won’t even curse anymore. I’ll just be an old, boring Cass.

  I can’t do it for you, for my essence prohibits it. You’ll have to free yourself. Now reach down to Earth. Expand your mind. The sky doesn’t belong to the Olympians. It’s above Earth, and it’s our domain. The alien gods have no claim to it.

  I willed everything in me to reach down, down, and farther down, piercing the sky, air, current, and clouds, until finally I found the blue Earth. I felt its pulse. My pain was reflected on it.

  It felt me. It bled for me. It called to me.

  The land is your birthright. Earth is your birthright, the female in the mist of light whispered.

  I’d felt the intimate connection to the land when I first bolted out of the cage and had my feet dug into the soil. The wind had sung for me, snow had fallen on ShadesStar and graced my lips, and blossoms had filled the night sky like stars.

  Tears traced twin tracks down my face, and I acknowledged the truth.

  I was Earth’s true bloodline. I was the bloodline of Goddess Gaea, the defender of Earth, the mighty opponent to the Olympian gods.

  Earthlings thought that she had faded long ago, after technology had risen and swept to every corner of the planet.

  Now that the gods had destroyed two-thirds of the civilization and invaded her Earth, she’d awoken from an eon of slumber.

  I can sense every living being on Earth—their pulsing color, life force, and energy, I said. I sense its core magic, wounded but deep, wondrous, terrifying, and plentiful.

  Amid the billions of pulses, I tried to locate my mates. I searched and searched, but I didn’t find them on Earth’s ground.

  Panic cut through me, but the primal Earth Goddess pulled my attention back to her.

  It belongs to you, Cassandra Saélihn, the heir. Make good use of it. When Earth magic fills your essence, your latent power from a hidden heritage will awaken. Then, burn the torque.

  I need to find my four mates first, I said. I don’t know where they are. I’m worried. If anything happens to them, I—I...”

  Now, return to your reality, she said. They’re coming.

  My pain-filled heart jerked in alarm. Fuck! Apollo and Ares are returning?

  But then I felt my mates instead. They were near. They were coming for me!

  I snapped back to the present as icy water poured on my head, washing my blood to the ground. The two psychos wouldn’t let me pass out. They wanted me to experience every moment of pain.

  “Don’t worry, brother,” Deimos said. “We’ll break her. After we beat her just to the edge of death, we’ll take turns to plunder her. She’ll beg then, even if she won’t scream for us. Tell her, Phobos, tell her how you’re going to violate her in every way. Pump terror into her black heart.”

  “My brother and I have done some digging into you since my escape,” Phobos said. “We found your dear mother. She locked you in a supposedly unbreakable cage like a rabid animal.”

  Jezebel. Rage pounded within me at the mention of that evil hag. She was probably working with the psycho gods in order to destroy me.

  “Now you’re going to get even worse, little Cass,” Phobos said, malicious lust darkening his violet eyes. “You were once my nightmare, but I’ll be yours from now to eternity. I’ll fuck your little broken body over and over and ....”

  I threw back my head and howled, claiming my birthright.

  Formidable, vengeful magic arose from the deep Earth, broke through air and sky, until it reached me, connecting to me, faster than the speed of light.

  It rolled like an avalanche within my body and boiled like a volcano in my veins.

  “Now you want to scream, bitch?” Deimos said. “We haven’t even started.”

  The gods tore off what was left of the bloody shreds of my gown.

  A raging flame—redder than anything in the universe and hotter than hellfire—leapt from my very depth. My last, latent fire had awoken and arisen.

  I possessed the blood of the Dragon God, from who even the Olympian gods stayed far away.

  I had no time to ponder the wonder and possibility of being his descendant. The dragon fire surged from my arms to my neck, seizing the torque around my throat.

  The brothers jumped back from my roaring inferno, two pairs of violet eyes widening in disbelief and fear. How satisfying to see that I struck fear and terror into the God of Terror and God of Fear.

  “It’s impossible!” Phobos cried in dismay. “Hellfire can’t melt Hephaestus’s torque! Not even the original gods can break it off without the key!”

  “It’s not hellfire. It’s the legendary divine fire of our ancient enemy—the Dragon God,” Deimos said, half in awe, half in hatred. “She’s his spawn.”

  “But it can’t be!” Phobos cried out. “Isn’t she Hades’s daughter? She can’t have two fathers, and besides, the Dragon God departed this world with the whole dragon race an eon ago, after the great dragon war. This doesn’t add up!”

  “That bitch Jezebel hasn’t told us everything.” Deimos fumed.

  “Let’s get out of here before Cass does her nastiness, brother,” Phobos urged.

>   “Not yet. She can’t drain us with her hands bound,” Deimos said. “Let’s end her first.”

  Twin spears appeared in both brothers’ hands as they advanced toward me.

  The sealed door toppled down. My mates—all four of them—charged in, icy rage frozen in their eyes. They each clutched a flaming sword that still sizzled with their blood and the blood of the sentinels that once guarded this dome.

  They’d fought through Apollo’s army to get to me.

  Something clicked in my mind.

  They could kill a minor god now with their flaming swords that were etched with blood runes, because of our mating bond, because of their brotherhood bond, and because I’d exchanged blood with them in a ritual that I hadn’t been aware of.

  My blood flowed in their veins as theirs did in mine.

  Our mixed blood was formidable.

  And they’d found me.

  They’d come for me!

  A dam burst open in my soul, and joy beat in my heart like the wings of heaven despite the pain, which still threatened to shred what was left of me into pieces.

  Tears flowed down my face, carving jagged lines through the dried blood caked to my cheeks.

  Dulcis.” One look at me, and the High Lord of Night was choked by his roiling emotions. I’d never seen him like that—a living incarnation of pure fury, agony, and grief.

  My power, finally free, roared and struck out. The shackles and chains fell from my raw, abused wrists and ankles.

  Damn, any strength I may have still possessed left with that burst of power. I was going to drop like an ungraceful rock in front of my gorgeous mates.

  But Reys was right there. He caught me before my knees buckled and my broken body could hit the hard ground. “I got you, baby. I got you, my Cass.” He pulled me into his arms as if clinging to a lifeline, murmuring soothing, nonsensical words in my ear. He was better than anyone at comforting me, but I didn’t like the glint of anguished tears filling his turquoise eyes.

  I tried not to cringe in Reys’s tender embrace as I peered at my other mates with the one eye that could still open a slit.

  They stood around me, shaking with rage, their knuckles bone-white from their grip on the hilts of their flaming swords. My men looked ready to murder anyone, or everyone, in their path. Anyone but me.

  “Hi boys,” I said, twisting my split, swollen lips and grinning at them in an effort to lighten the tense atmosphere. “Just so you know, I also rescued myself.”

  None of my mates smiled. While Reysalor held me and shielded me, my three other mates lunged at the two gods, murderous wrath evident in every line of their taut bodies.

  “Shit!” Phobos cried. “Let’s go.”

  Bellowing in fury, Alaric leapt into the air and wheeled around with lightning speed, his flaming sword finding its target and piercing Phobos’s armored chest before the Terror God escaped.

  Deimos pushed tidal waves of fear toward my mates, their faces twisting in agony under his power, but my mates waded through the unseen sea of fear toward the god, refusing to falter or fall back, their flaming swords hissing as they closed in.

  Lorcan and Pyrder reached Deimos and struck, one from each side. Deimos cast away his spear, which disappeared into thin air. Then he had a longsword in each hand, and steel met steel. Up, down. Left, right. Again and again, both sides lunged, swung their swords with brutal force, ducked, charged, and crashed together again. The clang of crossing blades ricocheted off the bronze walls, hurting my eardrums and increasing the pounding in my already throbbing head.

  It alarmed me that the God of Fear was an extremely skilled swordsman.

  While the others fought, Reysalor inspected me. He was careful with me while containing his rage and grief to the best of his ability. I tried not to wince at his every touch, even though he only brushed over me with gentle fingers. I just didn’t have a piece of intact skin on me.

  My power had only now broken free. It’d take time for my body to reboot and regenerate.

  Reysalor’s hands shook.

  “Uh, Reys, I’m sorry you’re forced to see me like this,” I said in a low, hoarse voice due to the damage caused by Deimos’s punches. “I know I look bad, really bad, but I’ll become pretty again, you’ll see.”

  Tears rolled from Reys’s turquoise eyes. “Cass baby, no matter however you look, you’re always the most beautiful woman to me, to all of us.”

  I smiled. “Isn’t that supposed to be a secret?”

  Reys turned his head and shouted. “Alaric, your cloak!”

  “No need,” said a quiet, melodious voice, and a mature knockout strode toward us, her pale gray eyes inspecting me, roving up and down my substantial injuries.

  She flicked a finger, and a silky robe covered my nakedness.

  My genetic memory flashed.

  “Goddess of Plants and Fertility,” I whispered.

  She was the tallest female I’d ever met. She stood over seven-feet tall and looked like a homemaker superstar in a green garden gown. Despite her status as a goddess, she must do a lot of gardening or something, as her hands and fingernails showed remnants of soil

  I liked her.

  A smaller female passed by Goddess Demeter and rushed towards me.

  “Cass!” my best friend cried. “Oh Cass. The bastards tortured you! They’re so horrible!”

  My good eye darted around wildly. “Amber, what are you doing here? It’s too dangerous. We need to get you away from here!”

  “She’ll be fine,” Demeter said. “Your seer is under my protection. I brought her here. I brought all of them here for you.”

  “I had a vision,” Amber chimed in. “And then Goddess Demeter came and opened the path for us.”

  “Uh, that’s very kind of you, Goddess Demeter. And I thank you for your assistance,” I said. “But you’re a goddess. You—you protect earthlings?”

  “Not all of us are the bad guys,” Demeter said. “Not all of us want to go through the ninth war of the gods. And not all of us treat other races as playthings.”

  I blinked my one relatively good eye. “Ninth?”

  “Well, on Earth, this will be the second,” the goddess clarified. “Artemis sent me. I’m sorry we were late, and that it caused you to suffer a great deal, Cass. I hadn’t expected the fear and terror gods to take advantage of Apollo and Ares’s absence. But then, it leaves a perfect opportunity to pin your escape on them. I have an eon-old score to settle with the misogynists.”

  “Pigs!” My shivering lips blurted out the word, yet I didn’t curse.

  Demeter nodded. Ice and steel made a sudden appearance in her piercing grey eyes. “Hades and Zeus abducted my beloved daughter. I wouldn’t let the same fate befall you, child.” She sniffed the air. “And I sensed your Earth essence. I’m an old friend to your family.”

  “I have no direct family,” I said. “I denounced crazy-ass Jezebel.” I jerked a thumb at Reys and the other three magnificent males, who were still battling the two gods. “My four mates are my only family now.”

  Phobos had pulled himself from Alaric’s blade and now crossed swords with the demigod. It was evident that Alaric allowed that in order to keep punishing the God of Terror. Phobos was pushed to the corner, and Alaric hacked at him, brutal swipes slashing him here and there.

  He was repaying Phobos for what he’d done to me.

  “Well, my extended family also includes my mates’ warriors, my best friend Amber here, and—”

  A small smile ghosted the goddess’s lips. “I meant your grandmother,” she said. “We were once like sisters.”

  I knew I was Gaea’s bloodline, but I hadn’t expected her to be that close a relation.

  “If Persephone had had your fire and spirit,” the goddess said bitterly, “she’d never have accepted her fate in the Underworld.”

  “Wrap it up, brothers,” Reys shouted as he carefully folded me into his arms. “We need to go.”

  Almost as one, my mates pinned down the two god
s.

  Alaric raised his flaming sword high, ready to behead the God of Fear.

  It wouldn’t work. Deimos’s head would just grow back.

  11

  “Stop, Alaric!” I barked.

  My demigod mate narrowed his dark brown eyes, a storm raging inside him. I was afraid it would never stop.

  “You want to show this motherfucker mercy?” he snarled. “No one who ever lays a finger on you with harmful intent should take another breath.”

  I rolled my one eye—the golden one. “You know you can’t kill a second-tier god that way, so we try my way. And I need to feed first. I’m hurting all over!”

  Huh, we were having a lover’s quarrel on the battlefield.

  Reys kissed my head, attempting to ease my pain, before he turned to snap at Alaric. “Why did you raise your voice at our mate?! Don’t you see how hurt she is?!”

  Alaric swallowed, his throat bobbling. He’d never cared for anyone before he met me, and when he’d charged in, seeing me chained and tortured, he’d lost his shit.

  He dipped his head, icy rage still distorting his every feature. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.” He tried to soften his coarse voice, which sounded like a broken phonograph, and failed. “It’s my fault.”

  He pressed the tip of the flaming sword to the center of Deimos’s throat.

  My demigod mate had me worried. I’d need to do something to bring him back to his normal self.

  Pyrder and Lorcan, who had the God of Terror held down, weren’t any more forgiving. After they snarled at Alaric, they stomped on Phobos’s face in turn and delivered brutal kicks to his ribs, again and again.

  The two gods spat blood and cursed. With a burst of fear and terror energy, they pushed my mates back a step. Before they could bolt for the door, and before my mates cut in to stop them, my black light shot out like vines and caught them.

  “Going somewhere, boys?” I asked. “Little Cass is hungry.”

  Phobos screamed for mercy. Alaric punched his face with his bare knuckles to shut him up.

  I turned my focus to Deimos and drank of his godly life force greedily. I gasped at the pure, blissful shot of energy as his essence flowed into me, replenishing my power and speeding up the healing of the damage to my severely beaten form. The two gods had shattered every single bone in my body and tore open my inner organs. It was a wonder I could still lean against Reys.