by Meg Xuemei X
The Burn of the Underworld
Of Shadows and Fire Book 1
Meg Xuemei X
Table of Contents
Title Page
The Burn of the Underworld
Prologue
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
Author’s Notes
SNEAK PEEK: THE DRAGONIAN’S WITCH
More Books by Meg Xuemei X
About the Author
The Burn of the Underworld © 2019 by Meg Xuemei X
Copyright notice: All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.
The novel is a work of fiction. Any and all characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or events or places is merely coincidence. Novel intended for adults only.
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ALSO BY THE AUTHOR
THE FIRST WITCH SERIES
The Dragonian’s Witch
The Witch’s Consort
THE CURSED DRAGON QUEEN & HER MATES
The Fury Queen’s Harem
The Dragon Queen’s Harem
The Fae Queen’s Harem
THE WAR OF GODS SERIES
A Court of Blood and Void
A Court of Fire and Metal
A Court of Ice and Wind
A Court of Earth and Ether
The Burn of the Underworld
Escaping hell is nothing compared to the mating fever. One just feels a lot better.
My name is Calamity.
My past is dust and my future is a life to fight to the death in hell. I never expected this to change, but then three smoking-hot warriors—a primordial vampire, a fae prince, and a Sváva Archangel—arrive in my wrecked world, claiming I’m the lost queen and their fated mate.
They come to return me to the great Atlantis to claim my stolen birthright, despite the fact that no one has ever escaped the Underworld.
I don’t trust anyone, but I can’t deny the terrifying power awakening inside me any more than I can deny my fatal attraction to the immortal males who fight with me.
Warning: This is a full-length reverse harem fantasy romance that features one hell of a hybrid woman warrior and her four powerful mates. It contains battles, explicit love scenes, curses, magic, dark fae, vampires, shifters, fallen angels, and a lot of demon assholes.
Prologue
Maximus
I’m Maximus.
A vampire had no business in hell, but I was sent to bring the lost princess home, to the great Atlantis, where her birthright was stolen.
Legend says that no one escapes hell, but I was motivated.
The lost heir was my fated mate. She was also the mate of my bonded brothers: Ash, the Winter Prince; Elijah, a Sváva Archangel; and Merlin, the bastard.
The only way to get into the Underworld was to be sold as a slave. Elijah, who belonged to the same despicable race as the Emperor of the Underworld, got the best role, acting as our slaver.
Merlin giddily pressed a white-hot iron stick to my left temple and branded the slave symbol of two overlapping squares at a slanted angle on my skin. I hissed at him because of the scorching pain, the humiliation the slave brand would bring me, and the druid demigod’s careless attitude.
“It’s too early to complain, Max,” Merlin said. “This is a great day. You’ll go into the Underworld to rescue our mate.” He waved the elegant, scholarly hand, the one that didn’t hold the iron stick, not caring that the burn was still sizzling on my skin. “You can burn off the brand with your vampire magic when you’re deep in the Underworld, as you see fit.”
He moved toward Ash as if stalking prey, his clean white robe glowing, a million miles from the dirty, tattered slave outfits Ash and I wore. We were also in chains, insisted on by both Merlin and Elijah.
When the iron bar hit the silver-haired fae’s temple, even I winced. Fae were allergic to iron. The metal was their worst enemy.
“Fuck!” Ash cursed, and added a string of new profanities.
Elijah tugged his massive golden wings in as he hovered over us to observe, and he smiled in satisfaction. “No one can see through the fake brand, not even Cain, the Emperor of Hell.”
Merlin nodded at Elijah in agreement, but turned to us with disapproving eyes. “Gentlemen, you two suffered way worse than being branded as slaves when you fought in countless Earth wars. And this is only a very small price to pay for the chance to find our mate.”
“The fucker really enjoyed this,” Ash grunted. “I’ve known him for too long. We gotta watch our backs, Max.”
“He won’t be able to play us this time,” I said. “And he’d better pray that we get out of the hellhole alive, or my vampire army will gather at his door to demonstrate that he won’t have enough blood for them all.”
Merlin flashed a feral grin. “Our interests are aligned this time, my bonded brothers. And before you leave, I feel the need to remind you to be on your best behavior and give our mate a great first impression. None of you have taken any woman seriously before, and I’m afraid you might not have the capability to do so. But this is our mate we’re talking about, so don’t screw it up.”
“Of course you don’t want us to fuck up your covert operation.” Ash snorted. “While we go to the subterranean hole, you’ll be drinking the choicest wine on your warded, luxury balcony.”
“If I could trade roles with you, I would in a heartbeat,” Merlin said ruefully. “You can’t even imagine how torturous and outrageous every second of waiting for Princess Ayanna to return will feel without being the one to protect her and escort her.”
When he said her name, it was like a caress, unlike how he talked about anything else. It annoyed me.
“She wouldn’t be called Ayanna in the Underworld,” I said harshly, without any sympathy toward his dilemma. The druid would have to be left behind for the plan to work. “None of us has any idea what she looks like, so how are we going to give her a great first impression?”
I checked the hidden angelblade in my boots. The chains made clanging sounds where they hung from my wrists.
“I’ll knife the motherfucker if I ever find out who sold our fated mate.” Another string of swear words charged out of Ash’s hard-lined mouth.
Merlin appeared uncomfortable for a fleeting second, his eyes turn
ing dark and haunted as he gazed into the empty space in the hall of his manor.
“We’ve gone over this.” He sighed in exasperation, tossing the iron stick into the fireplace. “Look for the mark on her body.”
“A brilliant idea.” Ash chuckled mockingly. “We’ll just undress every girl in the Underworld who looks between the age of seventeen and twenty-five to find a mark on the top of her left breast.”
Ash rose from the cushion, his chains rattling. He gave it a look of loathing, even though Merlin had custom-made a set of steel shackles for him instead of the iron ones.
“Not just any mark,” Merlin offered, “but the mark of the Queen of the Night—a flame inside five white petals.”
“And four mating icons on her inner forearm,” Elijah chimed in, his golden wings arching over his shoulders. A look of longing flitted across his marble-like face and brightened the scar that crossed from the bridge of his nose to the corner of his mouth.
We were all battle-hardened, cold-hearted immortals who had lived for millennia without finding the right woman. I’d ridiculed the absurd idea that there was such a thing as a fated mate—until a week ago, when Merlin, the demigod druid, had summoned all three of us and shared with us his vision.
Her face was hidden from us in Merlin’s revelation, but her voice, sweet and enticingly husky, called us like a firestorm in our souls, beckoning us to her.
The demigod smiled enigmatically. “The mating icons are identical but of different shades. Only when she mates with a destined mate will an icon manifest and her power awaken.”
Ash looked dreamy before he narrowed his eyes at Merlin. “And you think we’ll just trust everything you say? What if we go to hell for nothing? What if there’s never a fated mate for us? And worse, what if when we find her, she turns out not to be my mate?”
“Merlin has never been wrong in his visions,” Elijah said.
“You’re more than welcome to bail out, Prince Ash,” Merlin said, stalking toward the fae warrior, blue light glowing in his palms. “Shall I relieve you of this bond?”
Ash bared his teeth and snarled, icy steam—the fae’s signature magic—puffing from his lips. Merlin arched an eyebrow, but he stayed a certain distance from the pissed-off Winter Prince.
“I’m going to hell, for better or worse,” Ash said, “and no one’s going to stop me.”
“Just remember: you won’t win your mate by bitching when you get there,” Merlin said.
“Enlighten us again, Merlin,” I said. “How is being a slave gladiator going to help us meet her?”
~
A sudden descent, then a bang hammered beneath my boots. Reaper, the slave smuggler airship, touched down in the bowels of the Underworld.
Two gray-winged Sváva guards in dark green uniforms saluted Elijah and called him Lord before leading us down the hallway that connected to the bay area, toward a metal hatch.
Every Sváva knew that Elijah came from one of the twelve great Archangel bloodlines.
My heart hammered at the sight of the open door. As soon as we left Reaper, we’d hunt her. It’d be like seeking a needle in an ocean of hay, but we would find her.
I’d gone on with my bleak existence for too long without finding my equal. In less than a decade, I’d enter stasis should I fail to find my mate.
We stepped down the ramp, followed by hundreds of unfortunate slaves. The majority of them would die in the gladiatorial arena. Judging from the frightened looks on their faces, they knew that already.
My face hardening, we prowled on. The sounds of the rattling chains from our feet, the cruel slavers’ cursing and whipping, and the slaves’ groaning and cries of pain were a hoarse cacophony in my hypersensitive vampire ears.
I surveyed the jagged, parched landscape, my first view of the Underworld. Trails of fire and smoke swirled into the desolate sky from distant hills.
The air reeked of sulfur and smoke. I wrinkled my sensitive nose. Then something else caught my attention. A perfume of honeysuckle and lily and pure flame permeated the bad smell.
I inhaled again, deeper. I’d never smelled anything quite like that.
I snapped my head toward the fae prince, who swaggered beside me, despite his chains dragging between his feet. He held my gaze, then his shoulders stiffened.
Ash was a fae shifter. His sense of smell was as acute as mine. Elijah, however, fell short when it came to distinguishing scent, but he made up for it with his superior hearing and sight.
The fae and I turned our heads to the source of the scent, and we found the person of interest—a hooded figure crouched behind a boulder, watching us with piercing, dark green eyes.
It was hard to tell if the person was a male or a female, but judging from the silver Viking braids draping over slender shoulders, he could be a boy.
Dirt and mud smeared his face. Three black stripes on each of his cheeks made it more difficult to determine what he looked like.
My nostrils flared. It was absurd that a young man could smell so alluring. A moment of confusion washed over me. I’d come to look for my mate, not some slave boy.
You saw him, too? Ash asked in my head. We could communicate telepathically as blood-bonded brothers.
And he smells like— I stopped.
Honey, lily, flame, and home, Ash articulated.
That one can’t be our mate, brothers. Elijah snorted in our heads. You can’t just go after the first person you see in hell. He added a sardonic chuckle. I didn’t expect you two to be that desperate.
The boy widened his green eyes in shock and panic, as if he hadn’t expected us to spot him.
Something clicked in me. He might have cast an illusion.
Look carefully, Elijah, I warned. It appears we’re the only ones who can see him.
Elijah wheeled around, staring hard at the guards, and they snapped to attention. None of them registered the existence of the boy twenty yards away.
Can you sense his magic, Ash? I asked. He could be a girl in disguise.
He’s too far away, said Ash.
Let’s bring him in for questioning, Elijah said, stalking toward the slave boy.
The boy stared at Elijah with hatred where he’d formerly studied Ash and me with curiosity. Before Elijah made the second step, the boy bared his pearl-white teeth, spat, and bolted toward the distant hill.
He was too fast for a human.
The hell wind blasted his scent toward us, and Ash staggered, as if struck by lightning.
It was a female’s scent. It exploded in my veins like a song of heavenly fire, calling my soul home.
Elijah shut his eyes for half a second and cursed.
Ash and I lunged in the direction where she’d gone, but several spears lashed out, pressing against our throats. Cain’s red-winged royal guards had just arrived to escort Elijah to meet the Emperor of the Underworld, and they weren’t too keen on us escaping.
Ash and I were about to smash our chains against the Sváva and possibly kill them, but Elijah raised a hand to signal us not to act. He flicked the spears away from us and snarled at the guards. “These two slaves are mine. How dare you discipline what is mine?”
He struck the face of the lead guard for overstepping. The guard staggered back, bowed, and apologized. Elijah raised his whip, not to hit the guards this time, but let it whoosh and land on my back, then on Ash’s.
“You won’t step out of line again, slaves,” he hissed in warning.
Ash didn’t retaliate, nor did I.
I sensed a spark amid an abyss of darkness and dullness, Ash whispered in our heads. I believe it’s the pulse from our mate.
CHAPTER 1
Calamity
I saw the two of them first.
They were above six foot six, with hard bodies and mountains of cut muscles.
They were too arrogant, too handsome, and too well-fed to be slaves, yet they wore chains just like the other slaves.
I crouched behind a thorny shrub that barely concea
led me in the rocky plain, my gaze trailing a path after them as the gladiator slaves trekked down the airship’s ramp.
Behind me, a few bushes scattered across the bleak landscape where the Reaper had dumped the new slaves. I’d been smuggled to this realm on that very ship before I was a toddler.
Maybe I was waiting for someone to come for me. Silly, because I knew no one would come for me. But hope was a strange thing, and it had kept me going in this hellhole.
Sebastian, my dragonian brother, had begged me to quit this dangerous obsession for years. He was terrified of me being caught and cut down, or worse.
I kept assuring him that I’d return to him in one piece, for I had this small gift—somehow, I could camouflage myself in any environment.
“But what if one day you meet a powerful Sváva and he can see through all your tricks?” Sebastian wasn’t convinced, and his bluish face hardened with worries. “Have you ever thought what it would do to me if you perish, Calamity?”
“I won’t get caught. I’ll slay any Sváva before he kills me.”
He snorted.
Right, I didn’t even stomp bugs to death.
In my brother’s eyes, I was forever his little, innocent sister who needed his protection. He was only three years my senior, but he acted like he was a decade older than me.
I grinned at him. “You worry too much, Bas. In two years, you’ll look like an old man.”
My adoptive brother looked so different than me, blue-skinned and horned, but he was all I had.
I turned my attention back to the two knockout gladiator slaves. The slightly taller one wore rusty black armor that exposed his muscled biceps and powerful legs. A swirl of inked waves and runes slithered up his right arm and rippled across his massive shoulder until they vanished into his broad chest, covered by leather.
I wished I could get closer and study the drawings. I wanted to lick the tattoos on his taut, powerful muscles.
What a reaction!
How could I be attracted to a stranger just because he had nice tattoos?
But that wasn’t all he had.
He had bronzed skin that no men in the Underworld possessed, and his medium-length chestnut hair was speckled with gold. Once again, I was struck by the notion that he didn’t come across as a slave. None of us slaves could afford to groom our hair like he did.
