The Fae Queen’s Harem: A Reverse Harem Paranormal and Fantasy Romance (The Cursed Dragon Queen and Her Mates Book 3)

by Meg Xuemei X

  I recoiled. We desired no other women other than our mate.

  You got this, Elvey? Iokul yelled through our bond to the other side.

  Withdraw. Now! Elvey hissed. Once she spills the secrets, the illusion bubble will burst and she’ll see through it all. The Challenge has ended. Find us on the east wing. Our mate is devastated. She needs you. She needs all of us now.

  My chest tightened with overwhelming emotion, knowing our mate still wanted us.

  Through our bond, I saw Daisy peek in. Our bond had opened to her. Now she knew about our entire covert operation.

  Get them back, Elvey, she called. Tianna is too dangerous. I can’t lose any one of them.

  You won’t lose us, honey, Iokul answered her.

  It was divine to hear her caring voice. I pushed my choked emotion to the edge. We needed to get to Elvey and Daisy and deliver the final strike to Tianna with our combined force.

  We retreated, hoping the illusion still held the evil queen.

  Tianna snapped her head at us and bellowed like a beast, her features distorting hideously in wrath, as if the two entities in her were fighting to show the true monster face.

  Elvey had warned us about both the demon king and the dark Fae fused in Tianna, and we had just seen it with our own eyes.

  Tianna bolted up, smoke jetting out of her, and purple light lashing toward us.

  “Shit! Run!” Rai shouted.

  We threw our fire, lightning, and ice magic at her, knowing it would only slow her down a little. That was all we needed for the moment. We bolted out of the room as if our asses were on fire.

  Her purple light hit the door behind us and turned it to dust.

  We shared an alarmed look, kept running for our lives and toward our mate.

  We needed to find her and Elvey and use Tianna’s secret recipe to end the bitch. Yeah, we were so going to toast that bitch.

  Tianna chased us out of the room, glamoured in a purple gown instead her nakedness. She shouted for her guards to intercept us.

  I felt a shock wave rush toward us. Just as I looked over my shoulder, waves of smoke and purple light were inches away from us. I could feel the terrible power ready to swallow me.

  We were screwed.

  A blend of white and blue light burst out of Iokul, smashing into the purple light.

  Our mate and her fourth mate had come to our aid with their combined magic through our bond.

  24

  Elvey and I ran toward Rai, Blaze, and Iokul just as they dashed toward us in the hallway.

  “Go! Go! Turn around. Run!” Rai screamed at us.

  “I need to know what’s going on!” I yelled.

  “The bitch is coming after us,” Blaze called.

  “We never betrayed you,” Iokul also shouted, reaching me in a blink of an eye. “We need to get the hell out of here.”

  “We know how to kill her,” Rai said, running on my other side, “but we need time to prepare and regroup.”

  “Kill them!” Tianna appeared at the next turn behind us, shrieking in inconsolable rage. “Kill them all!”

  Her guards pursued us.

  “But I saw you—I saw all of you naked with her and—” I couldn’t finish the painful thought.

  “Hasn’t Elvey explained the whole thing to you?” Blaze asked and snarled at Elvey.

  “We were too busy,” Elvey said lazily.

  Elvey had explained a little, and in the end, he’d let me see how his glamour worked on Tianna. But everything just happened so fast. One minute it was an illusion, then the next it was all twisted reality.

  My emotions, still raw and dark, had overridden my logic ever since my former mates—no, they were still my mates—had chosen my immortal enemy over me. No, they hadn’t really picked her side.

  My head spun, and my confused mind still tried to sort things out.

  And now with Tianna and her guards all coming at us with the promise of murder and violence, I needed to pull my shit together.

  “I told you we shouldn’t have trusted that bastard,” Blaze grated. “He just wants to have our mate all for himself. In the past weeks, he’s been trying to turn her against us.”

  “Don’t blame me,” Elvey said. “I was going along with the ride. You only played the role too well. Now, I’m wondering why that is.”

  “Oh really, you four are still bickering while we’re being chased and in mortal danger?” I rolled my eyes.

  As we spoke, the smoke and purple light rammed into my White Light shield again.

  I felt a tremendous pressure against my magic. Soon, Tianna’s dark power might break through as she drew a blast of energy from the black heart.

  “Daisy is right,” Elvey said. “Let’s settle this between us later, boys. We have a duo demon king and dark Fae bitch hot on our tails.”

  “Our mate is always right, gentle, and reasonable,” Rai said, and I was a little taken aback by his soft tone versus the harshness he’d used since the start of the Challenge. He’d been the nastiest toward me during the game. Just recalling it made my heart ache.

  My mates must have felt my pain radiating through our bond.

  “You thought we didn’t know what Tianna really is,” Blaze said in agony. “We peeled through her glamour at first sight, but we couldn’t let her know. She smells worse than a rotten egg.”

  Rai agreed. “All the time.”

  Blaze glared at Rai for interrupting his narration while we ran from our pursuing enemies. “My brothers and I had to breathe through our mouths in order not to be gagged to death.”

  Regular humans might not be able to talk effortlessly during racing, but we were dragons and Fae and it came easily to us.

  “We used her game to play her,” Iokul said, pride and confidence in his voice. “Our glamour, borrowed from Elvey, beat hers.

  “The four of you talked through the mating bond but shut me out?” I asked, my voice flat, nearly cold.

  “You wear your emotions on your sleeves, sweetheart,” Rai said in the same tone one would use to soothe a cornered, feral kitten. “If you’d realized what was really happening, the usurper would have known. We couldn’t chance it. We had to hurt you. We had to make it believable before we could retrieve her secret. We’re sorry we hurt you.” His voice turned worried and fierce at the same time. “We’ll make up to you. We’ll do anything to get you back.”

  “Hurting you was like carving pieces of our hearts out,” Blaze said. “But we told ourselves that it’d be over soon, that we could hang in there a little longer. You once said there was nothing we couldn’t get past, so we’ve been holding on to your promise. We know you never go back on your word.”

  Wait a second, was he manipulating me by using my former vow against me? He was turning the table, for fear I’d leave him for good. Though I wasn’t happy about how he’d turned things around, I could relate to his panic.

  They were now all gentle and adoring again, but this quarrel wasn’t over between us. They should have trusted me and let me in instead of shutting me out. These weeks had been hell for me. And I hadn’t come back from it yet. Not even close.

  “Will you forgive us, honeybee?” Blaze’s words were light, tender, and desperate, and both Rai and Iokul held their breath.

  The old endearment almost made me choke. For a heartbeat, I wondered if I really had them back. The hurt still pulsed in my heart like a living thing. I wasn’t exactly the vindictive type, but the part of me that hated them had let them go. I would forgive them. But I wasn’t sure about taking them back now while my emotions were still so raw and messy.

  Sphinx’s last warning picked this time to reverberate in the chamber of my head. Heart doesn’t know. Heart betrays. Heart breaks. Heart divides. Heart deceives. Only the greatest sacrifice and boldest move wins the wickedest game.

  We’d won the wicked game, and Tianna was fighting her last struggle.

  “I can’t deal with this right now,” I said.

  “Daisy is right,
we need to take care of the enemies first,” Elvey said.

  Behind us, Tianna bellowed in rage.

  She’d heard our conversation from the distance.

  “Kill them!” She kept screaming. Maybe I should tell her to enlarge her vocabulary instead of shouting the same murderous words over and over again. She would probably be too mad to listen.

  A battle cry rose ahead. A new group of Tianna’s sentinels showed up at the head of the passage, sandwiching us.

  My princes decided not to shift to dragons since there wasn’t enough space. Blaze and Iokul charged ahead with furious roars, swinging their swords swiftly toward the sentries. Blades crossed against each other, sharp clangs echoing off the walls, followed by the terrible sound of steel piercing flesh and bones and screams of pain and curses.

  Elvey and Iokul brought up the rear, facing Tianna and her royal guards.

  All of my mates insisted on positioning me in the middle. It was beyond annoying. But then, there wasn’t enough space for me to fight in the front or rear.

  Elvey pushed his blue light behind my White Light to reinforce it, holding against the onslaught of the filth smoke and purple light. The smoke traversed along our defensive line, seeking any crack or fissure. The pressure was immense since Tianna kept drawing power from the black heart, and she was getting stronger every second.

  Beads of sweat dotted my forehead.

  Two sentinels lunged at us just as Tianna and I both dropped the duel, needing a break. Elvey slashed his sword and beheaded a guard. Iokul raised his hand, and ice spears shot toward Tianna and his minions.

  “Don’t use up your reserve, Iokul,” I called. “I’ll need your magic later.”

  “I know, honey,” he answered, and a few sentinels dropped in front of him, ice spears buried in their chests, necks, and foreheads.

  It was a bloody sight.

  “Stand down,” Elvey shouted at the enemy guards. “And you’ll live. Choose the right side and serve the true queen.”

  A guard started to withdraw, but Tianna’s smoke grabbed him by the throat and choked the life out of him.

  The shouting increased. Footsteps stomped everywhere, echoing all around us.

  Zembyr and my royal guards had arrived at the scene with roars and charged the enemies who sandwiched us. Their swords rose and fell. Around me, enemies dropped in defeat, but some of my warriors fell as well.

  We pushed forward and fought our way out of the Red Palace.

  The black lake, once glamoured in place by Tianna, no longer lapped at the palace.

  We stood on the blackened soil in the middle of the wilderness, the Red Palace now behind us.

  I looked all around me, my eyes wide in fear.

  A horde of thousands of dark Fae, who had sworn fealty to the evil queen, closed in us from all sides.

  25

  Tianna’s army in red armor raised their sword and charged.

  Elvey could teleport us out of here, but he couldn’t teleport so many people. If I left with my mates, the rest of our warriors and our new court would all be slaughtered.

  My subjects were mine to protect.

  While we fought, Elvey and I had to focus on combining our powers to keep Tianna’s dark magic at bay. My other mates and our guards formed a battle formation around us.

  Then the third wave of the red army breached our defense line.

  Rai and Blaze shifted to dragons. Blaze’s fire blew toward the enemy soldiers, and Rai’s lightning bolts speared the ones at the vanguard.

  The dark Fae soldiers put shields over their heads and their persons whenever Rai and Blaze blasted them with either lightning or fire. Fuck, I forgot that the Fae had been fighting dragons for an eon. They knew how to defend against dragons.

  Rai and Blaze couldn’t cause mass destruction as they were eager to do, but their powerful magic still caused destruction and chaos among the enemy soldiers, which gave much opening and advantage for our small army of warriors.

  Rai and Blaze roared another furious dragon cry and tore into the enemies’ rank after their slew of fire and lighting, pushing our foes back.

  Arrows rained down upon my dragons.

  Iokul, who stayed with us, threw the ice shield in front of his brothers. Most of the arrows dropped when they hit the shield. Blaze’s fire burned some of them, and Rai’s lightning bolts kept finding targets in the middle of the enemy rank and solicited a lot of curses.

  A few arrows pierced through Blaze’s scales. I swallowed hard. Rage burned within me as pain shot through our mating bond, but an instant later the bond shut down. My mates wouldn’t want me to experience any pain.

  The shield Elvey and I conjured still held Tianna’s smoke and purple light at bay, so at least she couldn’t massacre our warriors. However, we wouldn’t last long. Tianna was growing more powerful while we were being drained of our magic.

  Iokul’s ice magic also shielded us all. Rosalinda and Zembyr fought side by side. Our royal guards formed a ring around me, while the rest of the warriors regrouped and formed a defensive line.

  They slashed and hacked at enemy soldiers, endeavoring to cut a way out. But the enemies were too many. They kept coming, fearing no death or pain. I knew that the majority of them had been under Tianna’s spell for too long, and her spell was much more powerful than Lysandra’s. There was nothing I could do to free their minds at the moment. I had to fend off Tianna, and I was losing.

  My guards started falling all around me under the savage assault.

  We couldn’t keep at it like this.

  “Elvey!” I called.

  If we couldn’t break through the siege soon, we’d all be slain. We all needed to get out of here, go to the temple, and cut the black heart to pieces with the power of five.

  Shouts broke out at the far north side of the enemies’ line. The other half of our small army had come along with the Fae newly added to my court. But our numbers were still pitiful compared to Tianna’s army.

  Rosalinda had gone to summon our main army, but it would be a while before they crossed into the Fae realm.

  A beast howled in the distance. Henry was approaching!

  Fear for him surged in me.

  Withdraw, Henry! I called. And wait for—

  I’m not alone, Fury Queen. Henry flashed a picture in my head. He was leading an army of beasts—my former monster subjects from Pandemonium’s jungle—and charging toward the red army.

  My monsters roared their bloodthirsty battle bellows.

  How had they even gotten here? They were light years away.

  Elvey sent me a sly smirk, beads of sweat coating his forehead as we both struggled to hold back Tianna’s power that was boosted by thousands of souls.

  “How?” I asked Elvey through labored breaths.

  “I brought them with me when I left Pandemonium through the portal. I hid them in Sihde. I’ve been preparing for this battle every second, my love.”

  “And you didn’t find it in your conscience to let me in a little?” I asked in exasperation.

  I’d have a word with him after this was over.

  “I like surprising you, Daisy darling,” he said.

  He’d constantly done just that.

  “You’re a drama king, you know?” I said.

  All of my mates were drama kings, but I loved them wholeheartedly. In fact, I was certain their dramatic behavior was what made me love them more every day.

  I tossed a dagger at a dark Fae soldier, who tried to stab Zembyr in the side while he was busy fighting two others.

  I kept sending waves of White Light against Tianna’s purple one.

  Her dark magic pushed back. The thick smoke leeched to Elvey’s blue light, trying to tear it open. I gritted my teeth from exertion.

  “Just a little longer, beloved,” Elvey said, his face pale with effort.

  Our monster army crashed into our foes. Curses, shouts, and screams of pain broke out from the red army, and the battle pressure against our side relieved
a notch.

  Henry howled in joy. Then I noticed that in the far sky a black dragon led a battalion of dragons our way.

  Adrian! Jarrod and Quintrell, the green and dark green dragons, flanked him and roared thunderously.

  They got here faster than I’d expected.

  “I moved the main army and had them camp in the Forbidden Forest three days ago,” Elvey said. “The forest hid their trail.”

  My demigod mate always thought ten steps ahead. I appreciated it, but I’d have appreciated it more if he had given me a heads up.

  A battle horn sounded from all sides. My army from my six cities and my mates’ Oslanian army were right behind the dragons.

  The red army faltered at the attack from all sides.

  As the dragon army joined us and the monsters fought though and reached my circle, I called for Blaze and Rai, and they shifted to their human form beside me.

  Henry grinned at the sight of me, showing me his fangs.

  Good job, Henry, I said. I’ll see you in a little bit.

  My hellhound leaped onto an enemy, his long fangs a terrifying sight.

  Our army could hold on now, and our warriors pushed back briskly.

  “We need to go,” Elvey said.

  He grabbed my hand, and my three other mates either clasped my shoulder, wrapped an arm around my waist, or grasped my other hand.

  In a flash of shadow and light, Elvey teleported us out of the battlefield outside the Red Palace.

  26

  We didn’t land in the grassy ruins this time, and there wasn’t a black net ward stopping us from entering the Breath of the Wild. Elvey and I had taken it down, and it stayed down.

  We stood right outside the gray-stoned temple with hundreds of ancient stone stairs beneath us. My dragon princes were positioned on my left, taking in the view. Elvey guarded my right, his arm sneaking around my waist.

  Blaze snapped his attention to Elvey’s arm on me, ready to snarl, then dropped it and shook his head.

  “I know,” Rai said grimly. “It takes some getting used to. I’m afraid from now on, he’ll always be around our mate.” Then, as if wanting to make up to himself, he grabbed my hand into his large one.