by Meg Xuemei X
I would never know. The fuckers’ hope of using me as a weapon against the gods had just been shattered. The bartender’s poison had done me in.
Reysalor flipped me around and forced the vampire blood out of me.
My eyes turned glassy, their faces a blur of shadows in front of me. Their voices faded, passing like the wind in slow motion.
A loud explosion jerked me back to half-consciousness and made my every fiber hurt all over again. The club shook, threatening to collapse on us, but only one side of walls crumpled, and the roof was gone, a terrifying force blasting it away like snapping fingers.
Faint stars blinked in the night sky above me.
Harsh wind twirled with splinters of wood, concrete, dirt, and sand in the room. Reysalor and Lorcan shielded me as best they could, and their warriors fought to keep the mage from reaching their lord and prince, and possibly me.
If I could, I would tell them not to mind me. I was a dead woman walking anyway.
Why was I still here, staring, when I couldn’t even breathe?
The stars faded into oblivion as lightning and fire raced across the sky. It was such a cruel, brutal, yet beautiful sight. Who could cause such destruction?
Part of me loved the glory of destruction, as if it was in my nature, even though I was blinking out of existence.
The spear of fire and lightning turned the direction and plunged down toward me, faster than a thought.
I prayed that it would leave my face alone.
I eyed Lorcan and Reysalor frantically, urging them to get away from the strike. They could still make it. They didn’t have to burn with me.
Reysalor threw himself over me, and Lorcan shielded Reys and me with his massive body, throwing up his shield.
A pure lightning bolt crashed into the spear of fire and lightning from the sky, weakening its striking force, yet the spear still pierced through Lorcan.
The impact tossed both Lorcan and Reysalor away from me.
Today was not a good day, and the Devil’s Love was indeed bad luck. I didn’t even have the energy to blame myself for bringing death and misfortune to my companions. All because I was childish and wanted that goddamned cocktail.
In the wake of the destructive path were two mighty beings—a male and a female. They descended from the sky and landed in the center of the club littered with blood and broken bodies.
The female was a tall brunette with shining blue-green eyes and full lips. She was dressed in three pieces—armored bra and skirt down to her thighs. She pulled an arrow from her back quivers and nocked it—the arrow of lightning and fire. The former one had impaled Lorcan’s chest.
I was going to kill this bitch!
In my imagination.
She scanned the room for her next target and found Alaric. If the demigod hadn’t thrown the lightning bolt to diffuse her arrow, it would have impaled all three of us—Lorcan, Reysalor, and me.
“What took you so long, Ichnaea?” asked the violet-eyed bartender. His voice had a specific rich silkiness that I’d almost regarded as charming before I knew he was my killer. “Isn’t tracking your specialty?”
The man who accompanied the brunette chuckled. “We were blowing up shit.”
He was a giant male, with every inch of his muscles packed tightly on his massive, bare torso. He wore a plaid to cover his junk. His red cape flapped in the wind he’d brought with him.
A familiar yet otherworldly power rolled off them and whipped the air, and an ancient genetic memory clicked and unlocked in me.
These were the Olympian gods that Lorcan and Reysalor wanted me to kill, but the gods had beaten me to the punch. The violet-eyed bartender was one of them, but he’d used spells to disguise his essence and managed to pass Reys’s ward.
All three of them, however, were minor gods. And now I could scent their powers. How ironic.
They’d known I would come here. How had they gotten the intel? This had been a set up and an ambush. The gods wanted me dead.
Now it seemed to make some sense that my mother had hidden me in a magical cage to keep anyone from detecting me—no, that was wrong. I wouldn’t give her any excuse for mistreating a child.
“Did you get the net from Hephaestus, Enyalius?” the violet-eyed asshole god asked from across the room, still crossing blades with Alaric.
The fae warriors and the vampires were still engaged in fending off the gods’ minions.
“Yes, yes, Phobos,” Enyalius said. “It took us a while. The fucker hates you, and he’s cheap as hell.”
“Then what are you fucking waiting for?” Phobos called. “Cast the net! The demigod is growing stronger with desire to rescue the girl. I don’t plan to stay in this shithole any longer. I’ve tended the fucking bar for a month waiting for her to turn up!”
Time slowed as a golden net materialized in a flash, cast in all directions. It spread over all who weren’t on the gods’ side and pinned them down.
“Get her out of here, Alaric!’ Reysalor shouted, immobile as the net trapped him beside an unmoving Lorcan.
Alaric threw a sequence of his lightning bolts to neutralize the net and lunged toward me.
Even if Alaric succeeded in snatching me out of the claws of the gods, I wouldn’t make it. I wanted to tell him to flee for his own life, and he might be the only one who could make it, but again, I couldn’t mumble a word.
I couldn’t breathe, yet I still lived. Wait. How could I still be tethered to this mortal world? I’d gone without oxygen for a while now. Shouldn’t I have expired and crossed over to the great beyond, whatever it was?
The golden net fizzled at Alaric’s lightning bolts before re-forming. It closed in on him, dragged him up, and hung him upside down. Alaric roared and kept throwing bolts at the grid to no avail. He slashed his flaming sword at the mesh, but that too failed.
The more he struggled, the tighter the net clutched him until it gagged him.
“The Blacksmith God enhanced the net since we last saw you,” Phobos chuckled over Alaric’s furious curses, fouler than mine. “Didn’t recognize me this time, did you, little bastard cousin? I had a little makeover—courtesy of Hecate. She’s all about experimenting with the darkest spells these days.”
My heart skipped a beat. Had Jezebel gotten the spells from Hecate? If I lived through this, I would find this Hecate and terminate her, so no one could throw nasty spells at me or cage me again.
Phobos waved a hand and the glamour dropped off him. A terrifying power emitted from his every nasty pore. Those in the room gasped in unison, feeling his true essence.
“I’m the God of Terror,” he said, his voice a cold blade.
He was over seven feet tall now in dark crimson armor, a silver spear appearing in his hand. He flexed his massive, muscled arms and thighs. This god was a narcissist.
His vicious violet eyes found me and he strode toward me, followed by the other two gods. The three of them towered over my lame body. Shards of glass, wood, and concrete chunks littered the floor, and some glass had cut into my flesh.
The trio stared down at me, as if I were a bug they hadn’t expected to find.
But they’d been searching for me.
“Fuckers! Don’t you touch her!” Alaric roared.
Reysalor and Pyrder roared with him, “Leave her alone! Pick someone your size.”
“I know you hold a grudge against me, Phobos,” Alaric shouted, cursing more, trying to distract the gods from me. “Take it to me like a man. I’ll take any of your challenges. Let’s duel, just you and me.”
“I’m not a man, Alaric,” Phobos said. “I’m a god. I don’t duel anymore. It’s boring. And you’re even more annoying than before. You’re in no position to challenge me. This isn’t about you.”
My protectors all snarled in fury, except Lorcan.
I couldn’t see all of him from my vantage point, but judging from the angle of the arrow, I knew he was badly damaged. I could still feel him, which meant he was alive, but barely
.
I’d brought all this to them on a whim, because I’d wanted a drink in a bar.
The poison burned me, choking me, and a teardrop rolled down my cheek.
23
Phobos squatted beside me while the other two gods stood and watched with detachment.
“Look what we caught here, a little wounded bird,” he said with a chuckle. He thought he was funny.
I wanted to spit at him, but I couldn’t. My brain churned, and all I could do was to glare at him with pure hatred and imagine knifing him in every possible way.
“The redhead warned you not to order the Devil’s Love,” he continued, “but our little Cass is a stubborn hellion. She had to have her way. She’d do anything to get what she desired. That drink was made to test the bloodline of a major god.
“You see, my seer friend foresaw your coming and that you’d be a threat to us. Instead of telling every god of her prophecy, I took the matter into my hands. I will be the one who eliminates the threat and saves my race, and finally ascend to become the thirteenth major god in Olympus. My father will be so proud, and my brother will be ever so jealous, but the glory will be mine and mine alone.”
Enyalius cleared his throat, and Ichnaea shuffled the arrows in her quiver with annoyance.
Phobos barely gave them a glance. “Right, my god comrades have been assisting me on this critical business of capturing you. You were hidden from our senses. Even Ichnaea, the Goddess of Tracking, couldn’t find a trace of you. Until recently, when you surfaced and glowed like a beacon. I wonder what transpired. And little Cass, you’ve just passed the test. Congratulations. The more potent the blood of the god, the worse the potion hurts you.”
His cold knuckles grazed my burning cheek. His touch did nothing to cool the fire burning my flesh but sent a repulsive chill up my spine. I couldn’t even shake the motherfucker off. My power wasn’t working, which was a side effect of the poison. Or I would have set him ablaze.
Ferocious snarls from my trapped companions rose like waves in the club. They promised blood, murder, and worse, but none of the threats could materialize.
Their helplessness hurt me as much as my own, and I hated being helpless and powerless more than anything.
Phobos kept stroking me and his hand moved down to my neck.
“This hurts the worst, doesn’t it?” the psychopath god gloated. “Your blood is powerful. I wonder who sired you, little Cass. You’re full of complexities, and part of your essence is hidden.”
“I can’t scent her, either,” Enyalius said. “She could be a hybrid, but there’s no human in her, unlike the demigod.”
“Her scent is unique yet obscure,” Ichnaea said. “She might be from a different generation of gods. I’m slightly curious as to what kind of power she has since the seer believes this girl is a threat to us.”
I eyed her directly, challenging her to give me the antidote so that I could show her my power.
“We won’t release you,” Ichnaea said with cold detachment. The bitch’s empathy was like a corpse’s. “We’ll either kill you or take you to Olympus so we can experiment on you.”
Violent growls from my companions rocked the walls. Fear charged the air, denser than butter. They did not fear for themselves, but for me. I was important to them, to all of them. Alaric and Pyrder had just met me, yet they’d put my life above theirs. I wasn’t just a lethal weapon to them. They cared about me.
My heart fluttered as warmth melted the glacial walls that had surrounded me for a decade.
Phobos laughed. “We’re their gods. But instead of worshiping us and begging us to permit them to breathe, Earth’s supernatural army assumes they can take us down. And they just handed their last ‘hope’ to us so easily. What a joke! I’m almost disappointed. However, we did catch a prize here.” His hand traced slowly and purposefully toward my breasts.
My stomached churned, and I felt my pupils dilate in cold fury.
They wouldn’t just finish me off. They’d torture me, violate me, and experiment on me first. I thought of my decade of life in the cage.
From the moment I was born, I was abused, hunted, and now abused again. I’d never wronged or hurt anyone, except that I came into existence, which was not my fault.
Phobos slipped his silky hand into my blouse and plucked my left nipple between his fingers. At the stimulation from his kneading, another genetic memory flashed before my eyelids.
I suddenly knew who these minor gods were.
Phobos was the son of Ares, the notorious God of War. Ares cuckolded his ugly brother Hephaestus and fucked his sister-in-law Aphrodite. Their affairs produced a few offspring—the most notable were Phobos, God of Terror, and Deimos, God of Fear.
The God of Terror couldn’t strike terror into my heart as he inflicted it on the others, but his slick touch angered and disgusted me like no other. My face morphed into a snarl, though no voice could come out. If I had been able to move, I would have puked before I tortured and killed this fucker.
The trapped warriors roared, struggling and cursing, but the golden net only cut deeper into their flesh.
I continued to live without air but with the alien fire burning in me.
“I regret that you hurt so much, little Cass,” Phobos said. “For such a little pretty thing, you’ve got some strength in you. Even my touch can’t evoke fear in you.”
To my dismay, the god leaned down and pressed his plump lips against mine.
No, no, no. This wasn’t happening. I didn’t deserve to be molested before my death.
The fucker sniffed and inhaled deeply, trying to drink my energy.
Reysalor, Alaric, and Pyrder growled and urgently discussed among themselves how to break through the net. The gods ignored them.
When Phobos removed his red lips from me and raised his head, his violet eyes glowed with crimson light. “Your powers are layered, and some are latent,” he said. “You have all five elements: earth, air, fire, water, and ether. Your fire is the oldest, as old as Earth’s dirt, but you’re so young. If I don’t know that the first Dragon God had left this galaxy an eon ago, I’d say you could be his direct descendant. Beneath the old fire and everything, you also carried death.”
“You mean she could be Hades’ daughter?” Ichnaea asked, her cold eyes flicking down to me, showing interest for the first time.
Enyalius shook his head. “She can’t be. Hades hasn’t come out of his underground realm for decades. If he had offspring, Olympus would have sensed an energy flare from his realm. That’s how it has worked every time when a god, a goddess, or a hybrid god is born. We’d have known.”
I’d gleaned information from my deep genetic memory and known that Enyalius was Ares’ follower, one of the minor war gods. If I wasn’t beaten down by such agony, I’d be more intrigued in their conversation about my heritage.
“Are we leaving or not?” Ichnaea asked with irritation. “The show is over. And I have a date in an hour.”
“Let’s wrap it up,” Phobos said with equal irritation. “We’ll take her to my father. He’ll break her and see what she’s made of.” His fingers pinched my nipple so hard I believed it might bleed or bruise. “But I won’t give our little Cass to him right away.” He winked at me, extracting his hand from my blouse and tracing my bottom lip. The fucker just had to touch me, as if he was addicted to it. “I’ll put you in a cage as my little plaything. Only after—”
Red haze filled my head.
I would never go back to a cage.
The wrath in me was uncontrollable. Earth magic rippled under me at my most desperate need and terrible rage. It tugged at me like an invisible string. In my agony, I’d forgotten that Earth was my kin and could aid me, as it had helped me on the ShadesStar battlefield and broken Jezebel’s binding spells in me.
The Olympian gods are our enemies, I said to Earth. They invade our land, trying to claim what isn’t theirs.
I heard a rumble from the core of the earth. It agreed with me. It was
more than enraged, but somehow it couldn’t fight the gods. It needed a vessel.
Come to me! I commanded. Merge with me. Purge my poison.
A power, with all the five elements—earth, fire, water, wind, and void—surged into me. Earth had come to my aid again. Its magic connected to mine, and our merged power coursed through me like a raging dark storm.
The void power quenched the alien fire, and water cleansed the last trace of poison in me.
Phobos rose to his feet and scanned the damage around him with a grin. His minions—the mega and some humans—looked up at him with fear and wonder.
“What about the others?” asked the minor war god.
“Kill them, except for the firstborn bastard son of Zeus,” Phobos said. “I want to keep him as an audience when our little Cass entertains me. The despicable demigod has never taken a liking to anyone, but he can’t take his eyes off our little Cass. This is going to be the best day of my life.”
“You’ll never take me, asshole!” I snarled, my voice breaking free and vibrating in the air.
A stream of fire, no longer all black but a blend of black and blue, spewed out of my mouth toward Phobos’ face. I’d just unleashed one of my latent powers, though I had no clue of its origin. The fire blackened the god’s cheek, peeled off his skin, and erased his depraved smile before he started regenerating.
“It’s impossible!” Phobos shouted. “You can’t have the divine fire, and no one has ever resisted the effect of the poison!”
I threw my hands up as I jumped to my feet, and a new power tore through the air and ripped the golden net apart.
Alaric flew in the air before the net completely released him, his flaming sword in hand. He sliced open his forearm, dipped his finger in his blood, and wrote an ancient rune on the blade.
Before Enyalius could raise his axe, Alaric thrust his flaming blade into the chest of the minor god of war. Enyalius widened his eyes in disbelief and dropped to his knees. A second later, he turned to a blackened statue before shattering into pieces.