by Meg Xuemei X
We collapsed onto his bed, nearly toppling it, with me still riding him and him calling my name.
When he carried me, fully dressed, back to the main cabin, he stayed with us. He was no longer brooding but grinned like a school boy who’d just touched his first boob.
“The shit-eating grin,” Pyrder grunted.
Lorcan gave me a look. He’d come to the common room to wait for me. I sent him back a sly smile.
“Listen,” I commanded, my hands on my hips. “All of you go to sleep and make up for the sleepless nights while I was gone. You’ll need your strength to protect me, so I won’t be taken again. You know that Ares and Apollo will return to try soon.”
The gods weren’t like any other races. They never gave up their hunt. I could easily picture how pissed the sun and war gods were right now.
“And to be honest, guys,” I continued. “You all look like shit, and that’s no way to attract your mate.”
They didn’t look like shit, but I had to lie to get them to take me seriously.
“Do you have any additional words, dulcis?” Lorcan arched an eyebrow and stretched a hand toward me. “If not, then come.”
He could wait no longer. Hunger, lust, and impatience swirled in his eyes, turning them a stormy grey. I’d satisfied all of my mates except him.
“Our mate has become so bossy since she returned,” Alaric said. “In my long immortal years, no one else has dared to give me orders.”
“Get used to it,” I said.
Lorcan flung me over his shoulder and stalked out of the room.
Reys chuckled. “We’ll stay up, waiting for you to have cakes, and then we can all go to sleep together.”
I squirmed in Lorcan’s arms. “Cakes? How could I forget that?”
But the High Lord of Night’s long strides had already carried us into his room, where he shut the door firmly.
I raised my head from the upside down position, my eyes blinking once, then twice.
Fresh dandelions paved on the floor and the bed, illuminated by the candle light. I’d once collected the flowers from a field every morning for him, hoping the dandelions’ loveliness and strength could knock some sense into him and wake him the hell up from a coma.
He’d remembered, and now he was romancing me with dandelions.
My light and fire blazed for the High Lord of Night. When he placed me in the center of the bed, above the dandelions, I saw the same light and fire ignited in his strongly beating heart.
Our lust merged. Our bodies joined. And our bond glowed.
14
Everyone—my mates, their warriors, and Amber— gathered in the main cabin, sharing breakfast and cakes with me to celebrate my return.
The gods would retaliate. They must be hunting me now, but at this moment, it was all joy.
I talked non-stop and laughed at my friends’ and family’s jokes, even when some of their jokes were pretty bad.
Boone placed a big cake on a porcelain plate in front of me.
“You sure you can finish it all, Cass?” Hector taunted, arching both eyebrows. “You need some help?”
I pulled the cake closer to me in a defensive position, and the warriors chortled.
“Don’t make my mate panic,” Pyrder said. “We just got her back.”
I debated for a second, and then cut my cake in half and put the other half on a spare plate. “That’s for all of you to share, for this occasion only. Don’t expect me to give up my cake every time. And don’t forget to save a piece for Amber.”
The seer looked at me gratefully from across the table. The cake Boone made for me was always the best. He didn’t just use his special recipe; he poured his friendship and affection for me into making that special cake.
The warriors all knew that. While they eagerly divided the half cake among themselves, I told them about the gods’ endgame.
“We’re the collateral damage,” Alaric concluded, “just like last time. But this time, they have no intention of sparing Earth. They don’t care if we go up in flames when they leave.”
“They don’t want to damage their own world.” Pyrder sucked in a breath. “So they picked Earth as their next battlefield. We’ll show them where we stand. If we go down, we’ll drag them down with us.”
“It’s better we don’t go down,” Lorcan said, sending me a doting glance. “We must plan our next steps carefully and strategically. Now that we know their true intentions and what they’ve planned for us—thanks to our mate—we have a better chance to deliver our blows to their very heart.”
“A few goddesses are on our side,” I said. “They have their own scores to settle against the male gods.” My eyes burned. “We can turn all the goddesses against the male pigs! We can start a revolution from there. I’ll do it.” I waved my fists at the warriors after I inserted a spoonful of cake into my mouth. It melted on my tongue. “All the sexists, misogynists, male chauvinists, and supremacists will go the fuck down!”
I scanned the warriors in the dining room, waiting for a challenge.
Pyrder chuckled and raised both hands in surrender. “Sorry to disappoint you, Cass baby. There aren’t any male pigs here. Let’s focus on killing the gods and winning the war.”
“They’re the god race,” Alaric said. “They don’t think like us. They never will. No matter how hard some gods and goddesses try to be your friends, we can’t trust any of them, but we will use them.”
Lorcan nodded. “They’re more fickle than humans.”
“First step, we need to locate the elemental shifter who led Cass into the trap,” Reys said. “He also left a clue as to where to find the ancient scroll that reveals how to kill the gods.”
I stuffed my face with another piece of cake. “Who the fuck knows where the rabbit hole is? There must be thousands of holes dug by rabbits, and we can’t go check every hole, can we? We don’t have enough manpower to do just that. Finding the shifter dude isn’t easy, either. He’s damn fast, and he can turn into to smoke. Puff, and he disappears.”
“I can help you with the puff part,” a voice sounded from the open kitchen. Celeb, Alaric’s half-demon warrior, leaned on the counter.
All heads turned to Celeb.
“I caught a glimpse of the fucker when you chased him,” Celeb said. He hadn’t slept much, either, judging from the dark circles under the hollow of his haunted eyes. “I tracked him after you were taken. It took me awhile to piece it together, but I finally figured out that he’s a messenger from the Underworld.”
The room sank into complete silence before someone murmured grimly, “We’re fucked.”
If the elemental shifter had been sent by Hades, my quite possible biological father, then what did that mean? I darted a wary glance between my mates.
Had Hades also learned about me through Phobos’s betrayal? But the terror god had sold me out only to Apollo and his dad Ares.
Hades was one of the cruelest gods. He hungered for power more than anything.
Phobos’s mocking voice rang in my ear. “Hades will come for you, and when he does, he’ll take your power and cage you. The God of Death doesn’t show mercy, even to his own blood, and he hasn’t had any for eons.”
I swallowed the bile in the back of my throat. I was thankful that at least I had finished the cake before we came to this part. Reys, who sat beside me, took my cold hand in his large warm one and kissed my temple. “We won’t let any of them get to you again.”
Rage and determination formed on my other mates’ faces. Alaric wrapped an arm around my waist on my other side and kissed the crown of my head. And just like that, defiance surged in my veins and expelled the fear. My mates would protect me, and this time they were prepared.
“You can’t know for sure that shifter is Hades’ messenger, Celeb,” Pyrder said.
“I didn’t say he was Hade’s messenger,” Celeb said. “But he’s from the Underworld. Cass said he changed to smoke. No other shifters can do that in any mortal or immortal realm
on Earth’s surface. Only those from the Underworld can do such a thing.” Celeb snarled in distaste. He hated that half of his heritage. “I’m a half-demon, and I came from Hell. So I know. A lot of you may not know that the Underworld used to have another lord before Hades swept in. When all the Olympian gods returned to Earth, Hades took the reins from Pluto. We don’t know the messenger’s alliance, but he could have been sent by Pluto. I’m sure the former Lord of the Underworld wants to see the gods dead as much as us.”
“Then why didn’t Pluto reach out to us?” Ambrosia questioned.
Ambrosia was brave in the battlefield, but she always had tunnel vision.
“The Underworld doesn’t work like the surface.” Celeb shrugged. “The former lord ruled his dark worlds for eons without any contest until the Olympian gods returned. No one stood a chance against the gods, no one until Lady Cass Saélihn showed up. News and rumors spread like wildfire. How Cass killed two gods and then captured the God of Terror in the Misery Twist club reached every corner of the Earth.”
“I didn’t kill Enyalius and Ichnaea,” I protested, remembering the minor God of War, his red cape billowing around him, and the Goddess of Track and Trace, a tall brunette dressed in armored bra and skirt down to her thighs. The bitch had shot an arrow of lighting and fire at me. If Lorcan hadn’t shielded us, Reys and I would have been dead. Lorcan had nearly died from the arrow impaling his chest.
Now they both were dead, but we were still here.
I jerked my thumb toward my mates. “They killed the bad guys.”
My mates’ eyes sparkled, as did Celeb’s.
“The tales about you have gotten out of control,” Celeb said to me. “Many witnessed what you did with the most powerful mages’ collective magic in the Academy. Neither Hades nor Pluto is blind to such a power on Earth.” He turned to speak to all of us. “So Pluto might choose to reach out now, not to us, but to Cass. The messenger picked her when she was alone in the shopping center and lured her to pursue after him. He must have learned that Cass loved the chase.”
My face flamed in humiliation. Right, I’d been easy prey to lure into a trap.
“The messenger didn’t work with Apollo,” Alaric said, his arm still wrapped around my waist as if he never intended to let me go. “Cass is sure about that. So, there are two possibilities. If the messenger was sent by Pluto, he would want my mate to kill the gods, particularly Hades. If the messenger was sent by Hades, he may also want Cass to kill the Olympian gods, particularly Zeus. Hades tried twice to overthrow Olympus when the gods were on Earth last time. He’s quite bitter to be shackled to his eternal position in the Underworld, either in this realm, or any realm he goes.”
“Apollo and Ares want me to kill Zeus, too.” I glanced at my mates and said dryly, “It’s awesome everyone wants me to be their blade.”
My mates had also planned for me to be their executioner’s axe before they’d found me and discovered that I was their fated mate.
Lorcan looked mournful. “They won’t achieve that, dulcis. We won’t allow it. No one uses you.”
“We’ll guard you at every turn, with our every breath,” said Xihin, the giant vampire with darker-skin. He was the only vampire guard I liked.
I waved at him. “I don’t need more guarding.”
“They’ll have to crawl over our dead bodies to get you again, Cass,” Hector said, and his cadre nodded vehemently, their hands moving to the hilts of their swords.
Somewhere along the way, they’d all warmed up to me.
“Uh, no one dies,” I said. “Or I’ll be pissed!”
“The messenger has delivered the message,” Lorcan said. “And now we’ll find this Rabbit Hole.”
“According to the myth,” Celeb drawled, “it’s in the shifter’s realm, Moonshine.”
15
We stood in the center of the shifters’ rustic assembly hall.
The hot-blooded shifters seemed to prefer a simple lifestyle, unlike the vampires, who were all about lavishness and modernizing. I thought it was because vampires were unnatural, except my vampire mate, and shifters were the opposite. They drew their shifting magic, strength, and speed from Earth. Their kind was even closer to Earth magic than the fae.
But I didn’t voice my humble opinions. I had no idea what might offend the shifters. My mates had told me that the shifters mostly kept to themselves. They didn’t like other species and they didn’t cooperate well with other races.
“They’d better get in some kind of training and learn to work with others,” I’d said. “The war’s coming. Everyone must bring something to the table. We aren’t going to be the only ones putting our asses on the line for everyone!”
When it came to that day, we would put our asses on the line, though.
Reys even made me promise not to antagonize the shifters.
“I understand your penchant for kicking doors down and being a badass, Cass baby,” Reys coaxed. “The shifters aren’t like the vampires, though both species are strict on hierarchy and social rules.”
I glared at him. “I’m not in the habit of kicking doors. It would hurt my toes more than the door!”
He chuckled. “We’ll see.”
Standing in the shifters’ hall, Lorcan and Alaric on my left side, Reys and a golden panther to my right, we made quite the impression. Our elite warriors—Hector and his cadre, Xihin the vampire, and Celeb the half-demon—posed like solid walls of muscles behind us. And Amber planted herself between the fae like a cute, short tree.
We stood facing three alphas on a dais.
They were all massively built, with broad shoulders and very narrow waists. The stark contrast was considered attractive for male species. I bet their fit physique had a lot to do with shifters’ metabolism.
They stared back at us, their expressions unreadable, so I couldn’t tell if they’d be friends or foes. Their minion shifters, however, surrounded us along the far stone walls. Only fools would believe what they saw, assuming that the shifters were giving us space. They could reach us in a blink of an eye with fangs and claws if a fight ever broke out.
The alphas sat on identical thrones made of some incredibly rare wood. Pyrder had told me beforehand that it was African Blackwood, as if I could register the significance.
“What brought you to Moonshine, Prince Reysalor, Prince Pyrder, King Alaric, and—” the alpha lounging on the left throne paused for a heartbeat and asked, “High Lord of Night?”
Vampires and shifters were natural enemies since the beginning of time.
The speaker had wheat-colored hair straight down to his shoulders. His face was relatively kind compared to the other two, and he carried the air of a scholar. I thought he must be Dustin, the only shifter in the High Council of the Academy. He’d voted against making me carry a magical bomb as a punishment before Apollo had abducted me.
I hoped he was on my side again today.
“It’s a visit long overdue, Alpha Dustin, Alpha Wyatt, and Alpha Cadmar,” Reysalor said formally. “We also brought our mate, Lady Cass Saélihn.”
My lips curled up. I liked him introducing me as a lady rather than a goddess.
“I want to see the view,” I said.
The shifter perching on the right throne grinned at me. He must be Cadmar. His intense brown gaze held too much interest for my liking.
The curly blond looked younger than the other two alphas and more handsome. He didn’t put on full formal attire but left his well-defined chest on display. His trousers hung low on his hips. That was convenient if he ever needed to shift.
Unlike my fae mates, the shifter kind had to shift naked if they didn’t want to have their heads trapped in their pants by accident.
Cadmar kept looking at me, as if nothing else interested him.
Lorcan hissed. Alaric growled. Pyrder, the golden panther, bared his teeth.
Reysalor’s smile didn’t touch his eyes, and when he smiled like that, it was never a good thing. He usually snapped the
neck of his opponent the next moment.
I knew I needed to remind the boys of the fact that we shouldn’t start a bloodbath before our mission was accomplished.
I sent my question to them through our mating bond. Our real target is the gods, right?
I hoped they received that. We were still practicing mind communication.
“Is there something about my mate that interests you, Alpha Cadmar?” Reys asked.
“Yes,” Cadmar said, smirking. He even had a dimple to go with it, but his dimple couldn’t hold a candle to Alaric’s. “I like what I see.”
Dustin cleared his throat in warning.
“We can discuss that later,” Cadmar said dryly. “I think my brothers have something they deem more important to say first.”
The three alphas were also bonded brothers, so they co-ruled the shifters in the continent.
“Do you enjoy the view, Lady Saélihn?” Cadmar opened his mouth again. He just couldn’t help it. I’d said earlier that I came to see the view of the Moonshine, and he believed he was it.
“What view, Alpha Cadmar?” I snickered.
My mates were like arrows nocked on taut bowstrings, ready to strike their target mercilessly.
Dustin clasped his hands. “Bring refreshment for our guests.”
He finally offered us seats and snacks. I hoped the shifters were good at baking. If any cake was good, I would ask for the recipe and bring it back to Boone.
We settled down on a row of chairs before us—the only chairs in the hall.
Our guards took standing positions behind us.
“We don’t have all day for this meeting,” the alpha in the center throne said curtly. “If you came here to persuade us to join your army and fight with you, you’re wasting your time and ours.”
He must be Alpha Wyatt then. His dark, slick hair was combed all the way back, very much like a mafia boss in the old movies. I debated if I should tell him that his hairstyle went out of favor a few years ago.
He was also good-looking like all shifters were, but his lips were too thin and cruel for my taste. I decided I didn’t like him much.
