by Meg Xuemei X
My mission would end up with me being dead along with the gods.
On the other hand, the Hell shifter could be lying, since we didn’t know anything about him. Helping Reys and Amber escape could be his ruse to get us to trust him.
A thousand conflicting ideas ran through my head, making me dizzy.
“Lord Pluto ordered me to search for you, and I’ve been looking ever since,” Jonah said. “I finally found you in the Academy after you surfaced. I observed you for some time. Then I reported your existence to both Hades and Pluto after I was sure that you weren’t on the Olympians’ side.”
At my glare, he shrugged. “Hades has been waiting for you to pop up. It’s inevitable. I executed the orders from both Hades and Pluto to lead you to the Rabbit Hole, which you renamed the Court of Ice and Wind. Only you and your mates could enter the place that existed in the past and retrieve an ancient scroll that foretold the secret of killing the Olympian gods.”
“After I rejected Hades’s preposterous idea of swearing a blood oath to him and serving him.” Reysalor continued with the rest of the tale, as he’d recollected himself after his reunion with me. “Hades tossed me into the eternal jail where he put the former Lord of the Underworld in order to break me, too. Hell isn’t a place for the living, so Amber and I weren’t doing too well in the oven-hot cell. Pluto, though greatly weakened, was the Lord of the Underworld, after all. He can absorb energy from his realm. He fed Amber and me with his power to sustain us. With that, I could get by, but Amber is a mortal. I knew that if we didn’t get out soon, she’d die.”
“So my lord summoned me to smuggle out your mate and your friend,” Jonah said grimly. “By doing so, I’d be exposed, but it’s time for me to state who my true master is. My loyalty has never faltered.”
“Where is Pluto now?” Pyrder asked.
“He stayed behind,” Amber said. She looked better after having some food in her stomach. “He refused to go with us, saying that if he ever moved, Hades would know it and our escape plan would fail.”
“We’ll come back for him after we deal with the gods,” Alaric said.
Lorcan nodded. “We need to get dulcis out of Hell now that we’ve fetched Reysalor and Amber.”
“When you come back, if you do come back,” Jonah murmured, “my lord won’t be here anymore.”
“What do you mean?” Reys asked in concern.
“My lord has decided to sacrifice himself to give you a chance,” Jonah said. “He’s planned this ever since Hades took his throne. He had an ancient alliance with the fae royal house. The magical gold coin from your parents is his gift to the fae, for uncontested passage in the Underworld. Even Hades can’t revoke that.”
My hand moved to find the coin in my pocket. Good thing we hadn’t spent it.
“My lord will be thrown into the sea of eternal fire when Hades discovers that he helped Prince Reysalor escape,” Jonah said.
“Then why did he help us?” Reys asked.
“He puts his faith in your mate and all of you,” Jonah said.
“We can’t leave him behind,” Reys said. “We have to go get him.”
“Then you take Cass back to the surface,” Pyrder said. “The rest of us will go bust him out.”
My heart burned.
“Not a chance,” I said. “We’ll do this together. He sacrificed himself for my mate and my best friend, and I won’t leave a debt unpaid.”
“What if Hades and his horde come upon us?” Hephaestus asked.
“We’ll be prepared for them this time,” I hissed.
The God of Blacksmiths had tutored me on Hell business. As the heir, I could command the demons and wraiths.
“This was supposed to be a grab-and-go mission.” Hephaestus sighed. “If we bring Pluto, we carry a bigger target. I should get Amber out of here first while you go for the former Lord of the Underworld. Amber isn’t like all of you. Hell is the worst place for a mortal. Plus, you now have a shifter as your guide; you won’t need me.”
We nodded an agreement while Amber protested.
“I hate to be so weak!” she complained.
“You aren’t weak, pip,” I said. “You’re just different. But now you’re weakened by Hell, so we need to get you out first.” I turned to Hephaestus. “How will you cross the river of Styx?”
“I have a way,” he said.
“Then why didn’t you show us the way when we first crossed it?” Alaric asked in annoyance, and I twisted my torso on Reys’s lap to glare at the god.
He’d almost let us spend the gold coin, and we’d lost our memories temporarily because of his intentional or unintentional neglect. His ex-wife had tried to do us in!
“The path to return is different,” Hephaestus said, rolling his eyes.
There was no need to keep focusing on him.
“We’ll separate,” Reys said. “Hephaestus will take Amber home, and the rest of us will go break Pluto out.”
Jonah swallowed, and tears formed in his jet-black eyes.
“Thank you,” said the shifter. “My lord hasn’t put his faith in the wrong ally.”
I suddenly remembered something else and put my hands on my hips.
“Where the fuck is my DVD of Beauty and the Beast you stole from me, Hell’s shifter?” I asked.
He looked sheepish. “Uh, I’ll find it for you when the war is over? I might have put it somewhere. The movie actually isn’t that great. Beasts don’t care about beauties in Hell. Beasts eat beauties.”
I narrowed my eyes. “That’s not for you to judge! The DVD was a birthday gift for my buddy Amber.”
Amber widened her eyes. “Really?”
“That’s very sweet of you, Cass,” Hephaestus said in approval before turning to snarl at Jonah. “You need to locate that DVD!”
“I’ll try, as I said would,” Jonah said defensively. “If it’s gone, I’ll volunteer to be Cass’s slave for two days as a punishment.”
“Stay away from my mate,” Lorcan growled, feeling territorial.
“One more thing,” Jonah sighed, a lock of his scruffy hair dropping into his eyes. “I have to mention it. The Earth Goddess promised Hades that the Blade of Five Elements can kill any god save him, because he’s already the Lord of Death. He masters death, not the other way around.”
“So he won’t die, no matter how I stab him?” I shrieked. “Why does everyone always deliver the bad news at the last second?”
Medusa wailed in the distance in feeble agreement.
I shouted farewell and threw a few more encouraging words at her before we left her ruins behind.
CHAPTER 12
We stayed out of the reach of the lake of fire that warded the prison, a black stone castle.
“I’ll shift to my dragon form and carry a few fighters with me,” I said. “We’ll grab Pluto and get the hell out.”
“You’ll set off the alarm and alert Hades,” Jonah said.
“What’s your idea of breaking in?” Reys said. “We got out just fine.”
“I can’t use my prison card twice,” Jonah said. “It’s a shame that you gave Charon the gold coin to cross the Styx. Otherwise it could buy us a free path into and out of the castle. Let me see if I can find another way in. After we get my lord, I suppose we’ll just have to fight our way out.”
I produced the magical gold coin from my pocket. “Will this do?”
Jonah stared at the coin that I twirled between my fingers.
“How?” he asked, widening his eyes. “Didn’t you use it to cross the river?”
“I’m a woman of many tricks and layers,” I said with a smirk.
My mates chuckled indulgently, and Hell’s shifter joined them.
“And my dragon will eat your eagle if you double-cross us,” I said.
The shifter’s laughter cut off, and he blinked his coal-black eyes.
I hesitated for a second and tossed the gold coin into the lake of fire. Then I turned to gaze up at my mates through my thick lashes
. “See, I’m not cheap. I only want to use gold properly.”
“Who accused you of being cheap?” Reys snarled.
“We’ll open bank accounts for dulcis in every bank,” Lorcan said with a sigh. “Our mate demands her independence in every way, including financially.”
“What’s wrong with that request?” Reys asked. “Our money is hers!”
I grinned at my fae prince. “They know that. I’m very rich, Reys.”
A bridge extended from the castle above the lake of fire and reached us.
“Flirt and fight later,” Jonah said and charged onto the bridge. “Hurry up.”
Alaric and Lorcan raced after him, with Reys and me in the middle, and Pyrder and the fae cadet brought up the rear.
Hephaestus and Amber weren’t among us anymore. I only hoped that he got Amber home safe and sound. If he screwed up, I’d kick his ugly ass really hard when I saw him again.
Jonah guided us through a maze of cloisters and stairs in the bleak, oven-hot castle. Anyone would feel drained after staying in this prison for even less than an hour. My Reys and Amber suffered for days here. And Pluto had been locked here for who knew how long.
Sympathy rose in me, especially because I was grateful that he’d helped my mate and friend.
After running for a while, we stood in front of an iron-barred cage.
A slender, tall death deity in chains perched on an iron bed, his face buried in his chained hands.
My throat constricted.
I’d been raised in a barred cage for over a decade. I couldn’t stand seeing anyone suffer the same fate. Seeing the other cage next to Pluto’s that had jailed my mate and Amber made my blood pump with white-hot rage.
Pluto raised his head, his dark-blue eyes looking haunted in his hollow face. Yet he smiled at us with sorrow and regret. “Jonah,” he said, “what did I tell you? You shouldn’t bring them back here. You can’t sacrifice Goddess Cass. Escort them out right now and return to the surface before it’s too late.”
“We’re taking you with us, Pluto,” Reys said. “We won’t leave you behind.”
“Hades will know.” Pluto sighed. “And then you won’t get out of Hell, either.”
We’ll see about that,” I said, tossing my tri-fires at the lock, but nothing shot out of my fingers, not even a spark.
I tried again, and my mates attempted the same, but we all failed.
“This is the null zone,” Pluto said. “No magic can work here. Hades made sure of that after he stripped me of my title and dethroned me, so I couldn’t use my full power to escape. However...” He paused, studying me, and a small glimmer of hope rose to his eyes. “You’re the heir, and I’m the former Lord of the Underworld. Perhaps it’ll work if we combine our powers.”
“How should we go about doing that?” I asked.
“You need to claim your legacy first,” Pluto said. “But then Hades will know about your presence for sure.”
“I bet on my future bank accounts that he already knows we’re here,” I said. “He’s probably waiting like a big, bad spider. One way or another, we’ll just have to tear his web and fight our way out.”
I closed my eyes. I’d heard the call of the Underworld like a dark storm since we first arrived, clashing with the shower of light from Earth’s call. I’d been brushing off Hell’s tug, since I didn’t want to have anything to do with it. But I owed Pluto a debt for my mate and friend, and I wouldn’t leave him here to rot or be thrown into the eternal sea of fire.
As I quieted and centered my mind, Hell’s essence spun around me like a dark wind. It appeared the same as Hades’s wind, yet it held slight differences.
Once I claimed my heritage, I’d have responsibilities concerning Hell and the souls that dwelled within it, just as I had obligations regarding Earth. I accepted that. There were no free rides these days.
“Mates.” I wrenched my eyes open. “I need a blade from one of you.”
Alaric handed me his flaming sword.
“Wait!” Reys called, blocking the demigod. He turned to regard Pluto with an intense stare. “Will my mate be bound to Hell once she carries out the blood ritual?”
He wanted to rescue Pluto, but he would never do so at my expense.
“Not really,” Pluto said. “She has me, the former Lord of the Underworld, as her servant and replacement. I’ll be the anchor to this realm should she decide not to be one herself. She can come into and leave the Underworld at will. And I’ll swear a blood oath to serve the new Earth Goddess and take care of the souls in the Underworld, as I always did until Hades’s return.”
“He’s telling the truth,” I said as I took Alaric’s blade and sliced it across my palm.
I didn’t wince at the explosive pain from my palm since my mates all surrounded me in a ring, watching me with concern.
I let my blood drip on the ground and handed the blade back to my demigod mate.
“I, Cass Saélihn, claim my legacy as heir to Hell,” I declared. “Accept my blood. Accept my authority over you. And accept my protection of you.”
A cluster of hellfire, darker than midnight, leapt from under the ground and danced at my feet. Then my blood was gone, accepted.
Particles, dark wind, and fire of chaos and order coursed in my veins, seeking a permanent dwelling place. But I pushed the dark power down into the abyss of my well and let it settle there with my other powers.
I mastered the Hell power, not the other way around.
“It’s done, Goddess of Earth, Death, and Beyond.” Pluto went down on one knee, his chain clanging at his movements.
Jonah dropped both knees and bowed his head. “Goddess of Earth, Death, and Beyond,” he echoed.
My mates looked at me with awed adoration, and I saw my eyes glow with dark light in the reflection of their eyes.
I waved a hand at the lock and commanded, “Open!”
Pluto pressed his hand against the inner lock and commanded as well. “Open!”
I felt my Hell power connecting to the former Lord of the Underworld, and our combined powers arose like two burning beams in the dark abyss.
The lock clicked, and the iron door swung open.
The chains dropped from Pluto’s hands and feet, and he stepped out of his cage after centuries of confinement and threw his head back and laughed.
I’d acted the same when Lorcan and Reys had first freed me.
“Uh, guys,” I said, surveying my mates. “That felt too easy—I mean this whole busting-Pluto-out mission.”
“We were in luck,” Alaric said.
“Let’s go!” Lorcan yelled for a retreat.
Among all of my mates, my vampire hated Hell the most, and not just because of the unbearably high temperature. Well, mostly it was because of the stifling heat and the thick smell of sulfur in the air.
Jonah shook out of his stupor and charged ahead to lead the way. We followed the same formation as when we’d entered the castle.
Pluto stayed close to me.
“Where’s the human girl?” he asked with regret. “She’s courageous for a mortal.”
For a death deity, Pluto seemed to be the nicest guy in Hell.
“The God of Blacksmiths came with us and took her to the surface,” Pyrder said.
We rushed out of the castle as if fire were on our tails, only to halt at the base of the former bridge. It was gone.
On the other side of the lake of fire, my biological father regarded us darkly, his horde of demons and wraiths spread out endlessly behind him. He looked even larger than when he’d battled us at the volcano site, hellfire swirling in the dark, wavy hair that framed his beautiful, pale face.
He looked absolutely glorious in Hell, much in the same way Zeus appeared on Earth. Yet one commanded the darkness and the other the light. However, both were bad guys. But neither thought so, for the gods had no concept of morality.
His second-in-command, Thanatos, stood to his left, a pair of wicked daggers in his armored hands, his mas
sive black wings arching aggressively.
My mates stepped in front of me, but I pushed through them.
“Hades,” I yelled out, my hand bracing on my hip. “What are you doing here? Where’s the bridge? I paid for passage with a very expensive gold coin. If you aren’t going to let us pass, I demand a full refund!”
Hades chuckled. “Hello, my lovely, ever so charming daughter.” His gaze flicked to Pluto, who stood right behind me, probably glaring at Hades in defiance. “I see that you’ve made some unlikely friends along the way.” He clicked his tongue. “You even collected Medusa, as none has done before.”
“Yes, I’m determined to kick her rapist in the balls!” I said.
“That’s Poseidon,” Hades said. “It happened too long ago. He probably won’t even remember.”
“Hades, we’ll get out of here one way or another,” Alaric said. “You’d better stay out of the way.”
“Always getting between me and my daughter, my tiresome bastard nephew,” Hades said. “If not for my daughter’s sake, I’d have gotten rid of you a long time ago.”
“Yeah, you tried,” Alaric said.
Hades’s dark eyes that could swallow all the starlight flashed. A moment later, he calmed.
“I’ve been waiting for you, Cass,” he said. “I’m glad that you’ve claimed your legacy as my heir.”
“Not exactly,” I said. “I am heir to Hell and its future mistress.”
“It’s the same,” he said. “I’ve prepared a welcome feast suitable for my heir.”
I feigned a yawn. “I’ll pass. I need to get home. I didn’t sleep well last night.”
Lorcan wrapped his arm around my waist, probably at the thought of my losing sleep.
I pulled the energy of Hell up into me, adding to my awesome goddess powers, and threw my hands out.
“Bridge!” I commanded.
The bridge appeared in front of me.
“Battle ready!” Pyrder shouted.
Just before Alaric and Pyrder charged, the bridge vanished.
“This is but a warning, daughter,” Hades said. “You’ve grown very powerful, and I’m so proud of you. I might have a hard time subduing you, since you’ve cleverly added Hell power to your arsenal. But you do have a weakness. Don’t make me hurt those whom you love dearly.”