by Meg Xuemei X
“Keep the threats to yourself, demon,” Paxton said coolly. “We’ll act according to how our contract was laid out.”
Pythius looked at us hard. “You’ll hide in her chamber day and night. You’ll be her breeding stallions. You’ll feed her and sate her to the best of your best abilities, and I don’t want to hear any complaints. My prince will join you in training her secretly. Only when she comes into full power will we take the fight to Lucifer.”
“Breeding stallions?” Paxton snorted.
Axel snarled.
“The prince and his dukes, including me, will be more than happy to fill in for the bedroom duties if you have a problem with that,” Pythius said, grinning viciously.
“Say that again,” I said, ready to break his every bone.
Héctor regarded the duke with an unreadable expression that would chill anyone other than us.
“But the princess is too attached to you to want anyone else,” Pythius said. “And Prince Loki respects her will as much as his own. In a nutshell, we’ll end this war, once and for all, not on Earth but in Hell.”
“On that, we can all agree,” Héctor said.
We hurried through the secret, narrow passage, heading toward our beloved mate.
Let us not be too late for her.
CHAPTER 16
__________________
After classes, Angel led me down through twisting corridors.
Loki had said the hellhound was intelligent, so he might be able to talk, just like Smoky.
Angel, where are we going? I pushed my thought into his mind using the demonic tongue I’d acquired via birthright. I felt a click. My thought reached him and settled in his beast mind.
Dorm, he answered.
He was leading me to my quarters.
I had to trust him, then. He was my only guide in Hell’s Academy.
Footsteps rushed after me, and I turned, drawing my blade.
The witch who had defended me in the battle class raised her hands in surrender. Yet Angel still growled at her.
I sheathed my blade and arched an eyebrow at her. At the same time, I noticed Angel also arched an eyebrow—or arched the area of his face where an eyebrow would be if he had them—mimicking me, as he also realized she wasn’t a threat.
“I’m Lisa Leeann Kinsley,” the witch said. “What you did today was amazing, princess.”
“You can call me Icy Dagger,” I said, breathing out frost to emphasize my point.
I must have another new power since I could now blow icy steam in the hottest region of the universe.
She grinned. “I’m Black Widow.”
I nodded solemnly as if I knew what I was nodding about. My demigod mates would never let me have the nickname Black Widow. They’d say, “Over my dead body....”
She gave my red leather outfit an appreciative look. Unlike my battle garb, she was clad in a hooded, red robe. She didn’t look like a warrior, but I wouldn’t judge a book by the cover. Her robe could hide numerous spells. I’d seen her toss one after another at the demons besieging me.
“Thank you for your aid today,” I said. Yet I did not trust her.
“We’ve been waiting for someone like you, a champion, for a long time,” she said.
I hadn’t come here to make friends. I had friends, the best kind, up on the surface. Thinking of Yelena, Nat, Circe, Jasper, and my new friends in the Other Academy, I suddenly found something stuck in my throat.
I missed them so much, but they probably all believed I was dead.
I’d tried to blast my hope to ash so I wouldn’t allow Lucifer and Ares a chance to shatter me, but it looked like I still hadn’t managed to snuff all hope out.
“I’m no one’s champion, and I’m no one’s bitch,” I said flatly. “What do you want, witch?”
“I know it’s hard to trust anyone in this place.” She fretted. “I just want to let you know if you want a friend, I’m here.”
“I don’t want a friend, chick.”
“I’m not a chick. I’m a witch, and I’ll watch your six,” she said. “Oh, if you’re looking for the dorm, it’s the opposite of where you’re going. There’s a vacant room across from mine. And if you want, you can share my suite. My former roommate died in a contest a month ago.”
“No, thanks,” I said. “My hound will find a place for me to crash.”
She trained her gray gaze on Angel. “Isn’t he Loki’s?”
“He’s mine now,” I said. “Loki will have to find another companion.”
Angel pulled my sleeve, urging me ahead impatiently, and I followed him.
The witch trailed after us.
I wheeled to her. “Turn back and go on with your own business.”
“You’ll need me to ward your quarters,” she said. “Your hellhound can’t guard you all the time, Icy Dagger. At night, he’ll need to hunt. Word has spread that whoever kills you gets your awesome power.”
“Do you come for my power?” I asked.
She laughed nervously. “Why would you say that? Didn’t I risk my neck to take your side today?”
“Witches and mages are known to kill for power,” I said.
“As are demons,” she said. “I’m not like them. Every demon will try to challenge you from this day on, thinking they might get lucky. They won’t duel you in the open since they fear you, having seen what you can do, but they’ll attack you as soon as your guard is down.”
“I’ll never let my guard down. And what’s in it for you to help me?”
She bit her lip, not answering the question. Then she sighed. “Let me place wards in the quarters you choose, Icy Dagger, and I’ll give you a reason.”
I studied her for a second. I didn’t want anyone to know where I lived, but the demons would eventually find out. I bet they were tracking me at this moment. What the witch said made sense. I didn’t seek friends, but having an ally or two was better than being besieged by foes from all sides.
Besides, she called me Icy Dagger instead of Princess Celeste.
“Fine, witch, you can tag along,” I said.
“You won’t regret it, Icy Dagger,” she said, and her smile looked innocent.
At the end of the corridor, Angel trotted down the stairs.
“You gotta be kidding me, Angel,” I grunted. “An underground hole isn’t on my list of the best, safest living places!”
He yanked on the collar of my leather jacket and practically dragged me down the stairs. I shoved his head away hard, and his two heads collided.
The witch gasped.
“Quit it, Angel,” I said.
He grinned at me. Apparently, I amused him.
He went down a few steps ahead of me, stopped, and both his heads looked at me over his shoulders. I sighed and trailed after him.
A sigh of envy arose behind me. I glanced at the witch over my shoulder.
“‘Beast and the Beauty,’” she said. “That’s one of my favorite childhood stories.”
“We’re in Hell, Lisa,” I snorted. “There aren’t fairy tales here. Disney shut down two centuries ago. And it’s ‘Beauty and the Beast.’”
“I hope we can go back to the old world.”
“Keep dreaming and you’ll be killed faster.”
“But I have you now, Icy Dagger.”
I shook my head and ignored her.
We trudged on through underground corridors in utter darkness. I could see well in the dark, but Lisa had a hard time. She fixed that by pulling out a witch light from her robe.
Illuminated by the light, the shadows from our movements danced around creepily.
“This is a no man’s land, princess,” she whispered. “No one dares to live here.”
“Then I’ll take up residence here.”
“I heard this is a haunted area of campus,” she warned.
I laughed. “You deal with demons on an hourly basis and you’re afraid of ghosts?”
She blinked. “Ghosts are unpredictable.”
A do
or came into view ahead. Angel stopped before it, rested on his haunches, and stared at it, waiting for my move.
This is the place you choose for me, Angel? I asked.
Your dorm, he said.
What’s special about it? I asked.
Special, he said.
Did Loki have you pick this room for me? I pressed.
Special, he repeated.
I sighed. My hellhound wasn’t a hound of many words. But somehow, I trusted his judgment. In this place, pure instinct was necessary to survive. I’d been born with razor-sharp intuition, and in my teen years, Vi/Esme had helped me refine it.
I pushed the thought of Vi to the edge of my mind. I wouldn’t allow painful memories to mess with my head. In this fucking place, I needed cold clarity like I needed my most treasured blade.
I couldn’t find a doorknob, but I didn’t want to kick the door down since I’d need it if I wanted to claim this hole as my new quarters.
Angel lifted his front paw and slammed it into the door, and the door swung open with a puff of smoke and an eerie sound.
I stared at the hellhound. “You have magic, Angel. Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
I’d have respected him more.
“He’s also immune to others’ magic,” Lisa said behind me. “And he can walk through hellfire just fine. His species—which he’s the last of—was originally forged in the inferno.”
Maybe that was why he liked me. We were kind of kin. To test Lisa’s assertion, I conjured my hellfire and blew a stream of it toward his snout.
Angel inhaled the fire, taking it in and sighing in satisfaction. Then he gazed upon me, expecting more treats.
“Don’t get addicted,” I snickered. “I need to preserve my energy to burn my foes, not to feed you. You’ll have to find another food source.”
The witch laughed.
Angel growled but not at me.
“Oh, no! Incubi!” Lisa blurted out, her face paling, even as her eyes widened with pure lust. “They’re going to drain us, but in a very good way.”
Two extremely attractive demons strode toward us from inside the room. Their every pore exuded intense sexual energy, their sexual power charging the air with crackling electricity.
The delicious scent of sex flared under my nostrils and filled my lungs.
Damn, I wanted to have sex now more than anything.
Lisa started stripping behind me, moaning and touching herself. Soon she’d beg these two dudes to fuck her. She was already murmuring on and on about needing two big cocks inside her, penetrating her to kingdom come.
The witch had a dirty mind and a filthier mouth.
“I’m going to take it slow eating the human girls.” A darkly gorgeous demon giggled, his bedroom eyes sparking with vicious amusement. “It’s rare anyone comes here, and the wenches have just delivered their tight, pink pussies to our door.”
The other, who looked like a supermodel from a magazine, sniffed. “This one with weird lavender hair isn’t a human,” he said, pointing at me rudely. “She doesn’t smell like anyone we’ve drained. Cade, you can have the witch. I’ll try this one.”
Incubi and succubi fed on sex and could drain their victims if they chose to. I shared part of their nature. I’d fed from my mates, but I fed from them exclusively. And instead of draining them, I gave them maximum pleasure and boosted them afterward.
It was more like an energy exchange between us, and both parties benefited—though it had taken me a while to figure out how to give back to my mates.
Paxton had called me “Queen of the Succubi,” and these two hunky punks thought they could harvest my life force. My new witch friend, however, was vulnerable to their power. As long as she was with me, though, she was under my protection.
“Who is she?” Cade said, sniffing at me rudely, too.
I really hated being sniffed at. Nothing good had ever come of it.
Lisa moaned lustfully, yet had the presence of mind to warn me, “Run, Icy Dagger. Danger.”
But she stayed glued to the ground, unable and unwilling to move an inch. The demons’ will superseded her own now, and they commanded her to crawl toward them in her nakedness.
“Why don’t you take off your clothes like your friend, sugar?” the dark incubus enticed. “Don’t you want me to bury my big cock in your tight cunt?”
“And you’ll beg,” the other incubus ordered.
“Gross,” I said as I panted, ignoring the intense sexual need beating in me. “You aren’t my type, creeps. Get your punk asses the fuck out of here and don’t make me do a countdown. This lair is mine now.”
The incubi giggled sensually but inhumanly.
“I believe we’ve just met our match,” one said.
“But she isn’t a succubus. She’s—” Cade widened his eyes. “Fuck, she’s royalty.”
“Then we both take her at the same time,” the other incubus said, greed and lust swirling in his eyes, which suddenly turned crimson.
They stalked toward me, and Angel lunged at them.
I was faster than the beast. In a flash, I thrust my blade toward the dark incubus while my palm pressed against Cade’s chest.
The dark incubus staggered back with a sword buried into his heart, and poor Cade screamed as my hellfire engulfed him.
Angel pinned down the demon that hadn’t been incinerated, snarling in his handsome face.
“A princess,” the incubus murmured and died.
Neither demon had spotted the hellhound, too focused on Lisa and me. And I realized that Angel could also merge himself into the shadows and remain unseen.
“I hope you don’t eat the demon because that would be disgusting and disturbing,” I told Angel, then I shrugged when he did indeed start eating the incubus. “Who am I to judge? This is the realm of Hell. The only golden rule is to kill or be eaten.”
I gave Lisa a sidelong look. She blinked so hard that I was afraid she might squeeze her eyeballs out. She was still trying to wake up from the haze of lust. The demons who had infected her were dead, but residual sexual energy still crackled through the air.
“I can slap you and snap you out of their influence,” I offered.
“Don’t slap me,” she pleaded, her gray eyes becoming clear, lust only a memory now. “You’re too powerful. You might kill me by accident.”
“I don’t kill by accident,” I said. “I kill with purpose and precision.”
“You killed them before they realized that you were going to do them in,” she murmured, starting to put her clothes back on.
“They were going to do us in,” I said harshly.
“Of course.” Lisa nodded, licking her lip. “Better them than us.”
“Take what we want and never apologize for it. That’s the silver rule in Hell.”
“Very cool, Icy Dagger. You’re cooler than I thought. And what is the golden rule?”
I started to like this witch. Who doesn’t love good flattery?
“You saved my life,” she said with emotion. “No one has ever taken care of me before. Thank you.”
I shrugged and stalked into the demons’ room. Angel sprang ahead to scout, apparently done snacking on the demon.
“Make sure there aren’t any more incubi,” Lisa called behind us, hopping around as she tried to shrug her other foot into her pants. “Or you can wait for me to throw a few spells to clear the path. Those motherfuckers embarrassed me today. Usually, I’m cooler and know how to handle myself when facing an incubus.”
“Those two were ancient incubi,” I said.
“No wonder they’d holed up here,” Lisa said. “They were recluses. I’ve never seen incubi like them on campus. I was lucky and they were very unlucky today—me that I have you and them that they met you.”
It was a nice surprise to find the ancient demons’ room was spacious and comfortable. Several electronic guitars hung on the walls, and sheet music was scattered over the coffee table.
“They were musicians,” I
said incredulously.
Angel shrugged a shoulder. I knew what he was saying. So? Meat is meat.
“I wonder if they were any good,” I said with a hint of regret. “Maybe I made a rash decision in slaying them. I like artists. I should have gotten them to perform for us before I stabbed and burned the duo.”
Lisa surveyed the room. “This has got to be the most secure place on campus. No wonder your hellhound brought you here so you could take the room by force.”
“Angel knows his shit,” I said fondly, scratching the beast behind his ear.
The hellhound purred like a big cat, but his purr turned to a growl the next second.
I followed his fiery gaze to a far corner. Human skulls were piled on the shelves against the stone wall. They must be from the incubi’s victims, and the psychopaths had collected their preys’ skulls as trophies.
“They planned to add our bones to their collection,” Lisa said in a shivering voice. “They’d have achieved that if you were less powerful, Icy Dagger.”
I could get used to her calling me that.
I frowned. “It’ll take a while to clean up this place.”
“That’s why I’m here,” Lisa said, eager to please. “Warding, cleansing, cursing, and dark magic are my fortes. It’s time for me to prove to you that I’ll be an asset.”
She started chanting and waving her hands in the air without me giving her the go-ahead. When she was done, the demon remains, demon ash, and the victims’ skulls all vanished from the room. She didn’t stop there. She tossed a few more spells at every corner and recited words of enchantment. She even conjured dozens of white candles and lit them as she kept chanting.
I liked candles, so I suggested having rainbow-colored candles, but she insisted only white candles were good for banishing negative energy.
“This is Hell, Black Widow,” I said. “There’s no positive energy in any corner of this realm.”
“You’d be surprised what Hell has,” she said. “It possesses the purest uncharted energy in its core. That’s why powerful mages and witches are drawn here.”
“Is your power seven-plus?”
She widened her eyes. “How did you know?”