The Rise of the Underworld

by Meg Xuemei X

  I wasn’t even shocked by the betrayal.

  Max, Ash, and Killian lunged at Morgan. Max’s blazing sword sliced through the king’s shifting shadow, as did Ash’s and Killian’s claws.

  Merlin stayed with his dragoness, oblivion to the demon army and the fight.

  I shoved down my fatigue and rage and fear until cold clarity rose and replaced the panic in the center of my chest.

  I evaluated our situation, just as I had stood in the emperor’s blood-stained arena.

  I regarded the demon horde less than fifty yards away from us. The waves of the black sea formed and lapped at the shore behind them. The fire and light pulsed from the leyline above the sea.

  If the demons defeated us, they’d leave through the leyline. The asshole Hell king had said, “The winners take all.”

  But I doubted in the end he’d let anyone leave his realm alive.

  My people’s horror and despair lashed at me like whips.

  They’d believed I was leading them to light, freedom, and a new world dripping with honey, only to see that I led them to their final grave.

  “We have only five hundred fighting men,” Sebastian murmured in desperation behind me, his eyes wild and bloodshot. “There’s no way we can defeat a demon army of tens of thousands.”

  Many panicked voices echoed my brother’s obvious conclusion.

  And we didn’t have magic to aid us anymore. Merlin and I had exhausted our well of powers, and Ash still couldn’t shift since he was bound by magic to stay true to our bargain with the King of Hell, even though the king sold us out in the end.

  I tamped down my emotions and studied the demon army.

  On the front left of the horde stood Commander Azazel, the butcher of the Underworld, his jagged, sharp red wings spread to full length in intimidating aggression, his broad angelblade still dripping with scarlet blood. His pit-black eyes spelled violence and bloodlust, and his cruel lips screwed into a sneer at our poor state. Even the sight of the dragon didn’t seem to concern him.

  His sinister stare was fixed on me, with all his evil plans plain in his pitiless eyes.

  On the front right, Elijah played with his flaming angelblade, its tip drawing a circle in the sand. He bore no expression on his face.

  Sharp pain knifed my guts.

  I’d tried to squash down my feelings, but I failed when facing Elijah now.

  Saphyira, the white-winged former angel, stood by his side, holding her angelblade. She’d once served me in the bath chamber of Elijah’s quarters.

  The bitch smirked at me.

  I ignored her and trained my burning gaze back on Elijah.

  He wore a black leather coat. His golden wings that had lost their vibrant color arched behind his shoulders at my scrutiny.

  He’d completely transformed into an archdemon in appearance. His golden horns stretched longer than any demon’s, his large claws grabbed his angelblade, and his eyes glowed dark crimson. The long scar from the high ridge of his nose to his upper lip made him look even more menacing.

  My heart constricted at what Hell’s dark power had done to him.

  Then, for a second, his face morphed back to what he used to look like—the golden archangel. His lethal, masculine beauty had struck me like lightning when I first laid my eyes upon him.

  He’d been gentle and rough with me at the same time when we first fucked and claimed each other. He’d dragged my ass to the edge of the counter in the bath chamber and pounded into me with his archangel strength.

  Our lust for each other had burned white-hot, drowning out the burden and desperation of the world.

  His shaft had filled me, thrusting into me with such abandon until pleasure and orgasm lit me on fire.

  Heat flashed in his eyes as if he, too, had remembered our once-in-a-lifetime mating.

  Elijah locked his gaze with mine, his eyes sparkling with dark, cruel delight.

  “Hello again, Ayanna,” he whispered, yet I heard every word as clear as crystal. “I told you I’d find you. I always keep my promises.”

  Even now, seeing him in his monstrous form, I still wanted him. My lust for him still spread like wildfire through my veins in the most unlikely place—a final battlefield.

  I tried to harden my heart toward him, yet the need to be with him and save him from this fate overwhelmed me.

  “In fact, Elijah, you haven’t kept your promise,” I said in my smoky, harsh voice.

  “And what is that, Ayanna, my little mate?” he asked in a purr, and my name, so intimate and endearing, rolled off his tongue.

  His eyes and face remained monstrous.

  “How can you hunt down your own mate and her people?” I demanded.

  “So you acknowledge me as your mate?” he asked softly yet urgently.

  “We share the mating bond,” I said, pulling my sleeve up and showing the dark gold icon on my inner arm. I knew that he could spot the icon even with the distance between us. And I also knew how fast he and the demons were. They could reach us in seconds. That was why Max and the others stayed on high alert while Elijah and I conversed.

  We didn’t need to shout at each other to be heard, as we both had superior hearing.

  “You have the same icon on your chest,” I said. “No force—no matter how powerful and dark—shall separate true mates.”

  He pondered. “You think so, little mate? Then why did you run from me?”

  “I told you the reason,” I said.

  “Yet I wasn’t convinced,” he said. “I’m giving you a chance to convince me now.”

  “Enough sentiment, Lord Elijah,” Azazel, the demon commander, barked. “We have those filthy bugs to squash before we return to the Upper Realm and stomp Earth once again!”

  “Do not disturb me again when I’m talking to my woman, Azazel,” Elijah hissed.

  “She won’t be your woman,” Azazel said. “She’ll be the prize to—”

  Just then, Protector Halia broke through our ranks and dashed toward the demons’ side.

  “Halia, what are you doing?” Raven shouted. “Do you want to kill yours—”

  “Commander Azazel,” Halia shouted at the top of her lungs. “Emperor Cain struck a deal with me, so you must keep your end of the bargain. He granted me riches and safety for providing information on Calamity and turning the clans against her. I did my job. It was me who set the beacon for you to find Nightingale.”

  No wonder the demons found Nightingale that fast and easily. Cold rage rose in me as I thought of the explosions over the city and the many lives lost.

  “Stupid old bitch!” Guy hissed.

  Go get her, Killian, I told my tiger. Eat her.

  Killian lunged after Halia just as two arrows shot out at the same time, piercing Halia’s back. I turned and saw that both Jonathan and Guy had their bows in their hands, their eyes burning with hatred, their strings still vibrating from releasing arrows.

  Killian reached the dead Protector in a second and bit her head off with one jerk of his open jaw.

  From the demons’ ranks, Azazel shouted, “Kill them all and bring the slave girl to me!”

  So this was it—the showdown.

  Five hundred of our warriors pitted against tens of thousands of demons.

  I raised Dreamkiss before me, the call of war in my blood.

  While I was talking to Elijah, Max had ordered Guy to move the women and children to the rear. And now Max, Ash, Sebastian, and I stood in the front row, with the Alpha Pure warriors flanking us.

  Omega Power, Octavia, and Amber would be the second defense, then the rest of the fighting men formed a protective line around the women and children.

  Merlin strode toward us, not in a hurry at all, and his dragoness hovered in the sky above us, puffing out a trail of fire and smoke.

  Elijah roared with laughter and shook his head. “No, Azazel. You won’t touch my mate. No one fucking touches what’s mine.”

  “You aren’t the emperor, Lord Elijah,” Azazel said.
“Learn your place today.”

  “Sváva!” Elijah bellowed. “I promised you that I’d bring you back to our own galaxy. I promised you that we’d leave this Hell. Today is the day. Fight for me and my mate, and you’ll return home. This is your second chance to become an angel again, to shed this monster’s skin that’s coated us since we came to this damned place. Claim our lost glory. But go against me and my mate, and you’ll perish in this alien Hell today. Who’s with me?”

  All the Sváva who wore his house insignia of golden wings hovering over a red planet roared, “We’re with you, Lord Elijah!”

  “Claim our lost glory!”

  “Traitor!!” Azazel yelled at Elijah in disdain and rage, his black angelblade pointing at Elijah.

  “I never turned into an archdemon,” Elijah said, his voice like a glacial knife. “I was only pretending and waiting for this day to best protect my one true mate. No Hell can corrupt my love for her and the bond between us.” He gazed at me. “I might not look like the archangel you remembered, but my heart has never changed.”

  Tears moistened my eyelids. He’d stayed true to me all this time.

  “I’ll tear your golden wings out, Elijah!” Azazel screamed.

  “Not before I have your head, demon,” Elijah answered.

  The archangel and his soldiers in golden uniforms, who made up a quarter of the entire demon army, tore into Azazel’s army, who wore black-and-red uniforms.

  Screams, battle cries, and clashing steel echoed on the shore as the two demon armies collided.

  Elijah swung his blade, arcing it toward the demon commander, the butcher of the Underworld.

  “Charge!” Max shouted at our men.

  “Fight for our freedom!” I roared.

  We left a hundred warriors to guard the women and children, while the rest of us sprang toward Azazel’s demon horde with battle cries, our angelblades raised high.

  “Cut them down!” Merlin bellowed.

  The wolf howled and the tiger roared.

  Max and Merlin tore through the ranks of the demons first. I arrived a second later, the wolf and tiger on either side of me. Killian couldn’t kill a demon, but he could pin one down for me to slay and watch my blind spot.

  I was a bit worried about both the wolf and the tiger, but then, right in front of my eyes, Ash transformed into his warrior form. His top regained his fae shape while his bottom remained a massive wolf. Since he was still mostly in beast form, he didn’t break the terms set by the King of Hell.

  His flaming angelblade appearing in his hand, Ash stood eight-foot-tall and howled, cutting through the demon ranks in front of me and leaving a trail of bodies.

  I swung my Dreamkiss left and right, puncturing through demon flesh and impaling them. I tried to conjure up my red lightning or blue flame, so I could kill dozens at a time, but my magic was spent. All I got was a spark here and there. So I infused the trace of red lightning into my blade, electrifying or stabbing each demon one at a time.

  Merlin fought beside Elijah. The formidable pair was a sight to watch as they entered the demons’ ranks. The dragoness flew above them, spewing waves of fire at the enemies.

  Our warriors fought bravely, and some of them fell. The demons in black-and-red uniforms still outnumbered us three to one.

  “To us!” Elijah called to my team. “To me!”

  We would have a better chance of survival merging into Elijah’s demon army. His Sváva soldiers had trained for millennia.

  I couldn’t keep track of how long we had been fighting. My sword hand was sore and leaden, and there was no more red lightning sparking on the blade. My mates fought around me, one of them always guarding me.

  I was the major target on the battlefield.

  I hacked at my enemies, cutting down two more and pushing through my fatigue while all I wanted was to lie down and sleep for a hundred years.

  The fire and light from the leyline turned unsteady as the battle raged on, and my heart dropped to my icy stomach. We needed to end the battle soon, or we might just be stuck in the land of the dead for good.

  But there was no way the battle would end soon. The enemies were like an endless flow of violent sand.

  A peal of thunder roared from the leyline, and the light around the shimmering gap dimmed.

  “No, no,” I cried out. “The leyline is going to shut down. Kill them faster!”

  The rest of our warriors had also joined the battle.

  I kicked a demon in his middle and buried Dreamkiss into his chest while I prayed to all the powers that were willing to listen not to let any force screw up the last door to the Upper Realm.

  The fire from the leyline suddenly burned brighter, and the gap opened wider and wider.

  For a second, both sides stopped fighting and gawked at the leyline.

  Another crack of thunder rolled from outside the leyline, then a vast spaceship bearing the word ‘Atlantis’ on its metal head tore through the gap. The door on the side of the marvelous ship slid open.

  “The fae and the Dragonians have come!” Merlin shouted.

  So, he’d been summoning them while I thought he was whispering to his dragoness and mourning his parting from his loyal companion. Well, the mourning would come harder once this was over, if we prevailed against the odds.

  Standing at the entrance of the ship’s door was a stunningly gorgeous couple who exuded raw, potent power. The male had light brown skin and lush dark hair. He was as tall and broad as my mates. His sculpted armor clasped his muscled shoulders and chest. His amber eyes shone furiously, scanning the battle scene in front of him and searching until they found me.

  Thick emotion whirled in his eyes like the storm as we held each other’s gaze.

  The woman who leaned against him, fitting him perfectly, was a knockout. Her flaming red hair framed her creamy, heart-shaped face. Her dark blue eyes spat fire. Her gaze found me, too, and she grinned, her fangs appearing.

  I instantly knew who they were—Mom and Dad. They’d come for me!

  Tears streamed down my face. I knew I shouldn’t cry in the middle of the battlefield, but I couldn’t help it.

  “Mom, Dad,” I croaked.

  At the same time, I swung Dreamkiss and beheaded a demon in one sweep. Ash finished two more demons coming my way, and Killian pinned down one.

  King Ares Darken raised his angelblade into the air, then pointed it in my direction and thundered, “Warriors, protect my heir!”

  The army he brought with him roared their bloodthirsty battle cries.

  Dad jumped from the spaceship and rode the wind. He literally rode the wind, and Mom was right beside him, red lightning ripping out of her.

  The Dragonian warriors poured out first. They were bulky, and they didn’t exactly look like my dad with their blue skin and cat-like, luminous eyes. And a lot of them had horns. They resembled Sebastian.

  Sebastian was shouting near me. “I’m here. I’m with Calamity—Ayanna. I’m Prince Adam Darken!”

  The Dragonian warriors landed in the middle of Azazel’s demon horde, disrupting their battle formations.

  Then an army of fae also shot out of the ship. They were Ash’s kind—lanky, strong, and disciplined. They had pointed ears and pale, fine skin. Just as Ash had described, the fae was a warrior race of elegance and power. And every one of them also bore an air of arrogance.

  They found their prince in warrior form and roared.

  “To Prince Ash and his mate!” the leading fae hollered and they dropped around us.

  The fae warriors immediate engaged with the demons around us, and the pressure on my mates and me dropped significantly.

  I let out a breath of relief, and gratitude shone in my tearful eyes.

  King Ares Darken fought ahead of us. He slaughtered the demons, yet he made it look like a dance. Pride beamed in my heart.

  Queen Freyja Darken landed beside me, her red lightning twirling around us.

  “The First Witch is here!” a demon shrieked
in fear.

  Mom had quite a reputation, but she looked not a day older than me.

  “Protect my wife and daughter!” Dad shouted, fighting back toward us.

  “He’s always like that,” Mom said, rolling her blue eyes. “Overbearing alpha male. He still thinks I’m made of glass, even though I can do this.”

  She threw up her hands, and red lightning blasted out of her, dropping dozens of demons who tried to attack us from the sky. Max and Elijah had flown up to meet the attack from the air.

  Blood splattered and rained everywhere, soaking the hot sand beneath our feet.

  Mom stretched her hand toward me, and I grabbed hers, even though I didn’t know what she wanted me to do.

  Power poured from her to me, her magic charging me, as we were of the same powerful bloodline.

  “I have a lot to teach you, daughter.” She smiled, light twinkling in her youthful eyes.

  Damn, she was my mother.

  She raised our joined hands, red waves surging from both of our bodies and crashing into the demons. Where the waves hit, the demons turned to skeletons.

  I had never felt so light and powerful.

  Mom grinned, her fangs showing again. “Feels good, right, little Ayanna?”

  I shot her a wary look. I was taller than her, and I looked even older and rougher than her. “I’m not little anymore, Mom.”

  “Nonsense,” she said dismissively. “You’re always my little girl.”

  “I think you should encourage our daughter instead of belittling her, beloved,” Dad commented from not far away.

  Mom hissed at him. “I did not belittle my own daughter. Why were you even eavesdropping on our conversation? You should pay attention to eradicating our enemies.”

  “I excel at multitasking.” Dad grinned while he battled three demons at the same time, twirling and swinging his broad angelblade and cleaving the demon behind him into two without turning to look. “But you’re forever hard to please, beloved. However, you do look cute and adorable when you’re fierce. But remember, nothing is more important than being the best parents to our daughter.”

  “I’ve read thousands of parenting books,” Mom said. “I can finally put it into practice, since we’ve found our little girl. I’m more than qualified—”