by Meg Xuemei X
Phobos chuckled in dark delight.
Someone kicked the door, breaking it down.
Lorcan and Reysalor charged into the room.
Tears flowed down my face. I hadn’t meant to, but Phobos sank his fingers further into my skin that hurt me badly. If I were a mortal woman, I’d have a hole in my throat.
And I was really worried that he’d broken my windpipe.
I didn’t want to go mute.
“Let her go, fucker,” Reys roared, swinging his flaming sword in an arc. “Or I’ll cut you to pieces and feed you to the wild dogs.” He was looking for an angle to get in as well, but no one could get to Phobos’ back. The room wasn’t big enough.
“You can’t kill me with that toothpick of yours,” Phobos said with loud, sinister laughter.
“You’re hurting her!” Lorcan roared. “Loosen your grip!”
“I’ll oblige if you drop the force field and let me go,” Phobos said. “Or I’ll tear your precious little Cass limb from limb.”
He didn’t loosen his grip on me but sank his fingers further into my throat. My eyes rolled further back into my head.
My mates’ fear for me was like a physical punch in my middle.
Then a slice of light seeped into my pounding skull.
I wasn’t one to obey any rules, and I should not limit myself to my conditioned mind.
No one could keep me in a box, except myself.
When the gods had poisoned me, I hadn’t needed air to survive. I got used to drinking from Phobos with my hand touching him. I shouldn’t need the hand. Any touch point could help me suck in his energy.
I just needed to believe it and carry it on.
The conventional path wasn’t for someone like me.
I centered my mind on the surroundings, and Earth elements swirled around me at my command. Even the heat in the sand outside responded to my call. I inhaled—not on a physical level, but in my imagination—and took the energy from the elements.
To make Phobos behave, I’d have to weaken him again. I drew his energy into me from his large hand that grabbed my throat. I gulped deeply, and his godly energy of terror poured into me, rushing into my cells, charging them nicely.
He jerked his head and looked down toward me. “What the fuck?”
I drew more from the reservoir of his power. As a result, I radiated while Phobos’ skin grew dull and gray.
“It’s impossible!” Phobos yelled in frustration and fear. “How could you do that? I had you!”
“I’m just too awesome and creative,” I said, even though he still clutched my throat. “And the tighter you hold me, the more I drain from you, rainbow doll.”
Phobos dropped me like a hot coal, and before my knees buckled and I fell to the ground, Lorcan lunged and had me in his arms.
“I got you, dulcis,” he said.
The golden panther leapt just as Phobos dropped to his knees and pinned him to the ground. The beast snarled, his jaw open, his fangs at Phobos’ throat.
At the same time, Reysalor landed his boot on Phobos’ face, and Alaric’s flaming sword pierced the terror god’s chest.
Phobos screamed.
“Don’t kill him,” I cried. “I need him. He’s still my Devil’s Love cocktail.”
I wriggled out of Lorcan’s arms. The pure energy from Phobos was a huge boost, and the terrible bruises on my neck had already faded.
Alaric pulled his blade out of Phobos, and the wound in the terror god’s chest started sealing. “Don’t worry, sweetheart, I won’t take your drink away from you. I just want to make him suffer a little. Somehow, I still can’t kill this motherfucker.”
“We need to leave our little Phobos alone.” I sighed. “He’s very negative right now. I’ll come back when he’s himself again.”
Too bad Phobos wasn’t in the mood, but visiting him wasn’t a total waste. I’d learned a new trick. Next time, I would experiment on drinking from him remotely, as I’d done with the Earth elements.
Fuck! My eyes brightened at the new revelation. I was indeed at the top of the food chain. Everything could be my food. I could basically eat and drink anything—human food, vampire blood, element forces, and god energy.
What kind of freak was I?
You are what you eat. Though I could turn anyone and anything into food for me, I had to watch my diet. For example, drinking Phobos had stirred something really dark in me. It was almost like I had a monster lurking inside. And once I fed and freed it, I wouldn’t be its match.
It was darker, more powerful, and much, much worse than Phobos.
I didn’t want to dwell on it. The nightmare would come to pass if you kept thinking of it.
Alaric tossed Phobos into the corner of the room like a bag of rocks, and Pyrder shifted back to his fae form, still snarling. I gave Phobos one last pitiful glance and headed toward the door, flanked by my four mates.
Phobos struggled up and screamed.
The males tensed, ready to go back and give him a good fix with punches and kicks, but I raised a hand to stop them.
“Get your ass back here, Cass!” Phobos called. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“I’ll visit another day,” I said.
“You little bitch!” Phobos shrieked. “I’ll get out, and I’ll fuck you bloody. I’ll rape you again and again and break your little body, and you’ll beg….”
Alaric wheeled, stalking toward Phobos, but Reysalor beat him to it. He kicked the terror god, sending him flying to the ceiling. When Phobos dropped to the ground, the fae prince was on him again, pounding his fist into Phobos’ face.
“Reys, enough,” I said. “He’s just being his sweet self. He can’t help it any more than I can. Let’s go.”
Still in rage like my other mates, Reysalor left Phobos sprawled in the corner.
“You little psychopath whore,” Phobos whimpered, not caring whether he’d get beaten again. But then, the terror god healed fast, even though I’d siphoned his energy and left him weak. “You’re the worst kind, Cass. You’re worse than the bastard demigod.”
“Bye, sugar doll,” I said. “Get some sleep.”
The door clicked shut, separating the terror god from us.
“He’ll come,” Phobos half-laughed and half-screamed. “Hades will come for you, and when he does, he’ll take your power and cage you. The God of Death doesn’t show mercy, even to his own blood, and he hasn’t had any for eons.”
6
In Lorcan’s deluxe dining hall, which could easily host two hundred people, my mates and I sat around a head table with twenty seats, having dinner. I bet this table was for Lorcan’s elite guests.
Lorcan took the head seat, unwilling to give up his role of the High Lord of the blood court, since he was all about formality. I claimed the seat at the other end, to show my equality, though no one had directed me to it. I noticed the head servant, a good-looking vampire in a bowtie, subtly raised an eyebrow at me twice.
As I said, I didn’t give a fuck about the vampire society’s strict hierarchy and its politics, but I didn’t want anyone to lord over me. In taking the end seat, I was reminding Lorcan that I wouldn’t obey anyone’s rules, even under his own court’s roof.
Alaric and Reysalor sat on either side of me, and Pyrder sat across from his twin with a resigned sigh. Lorcan looked unhappy, all alone at the far end of the table. He had planned to take the lead with everyone perched around him, me at his side. Well, his delicate plan went awry.
Alaric, Reysalor, Pyrder, and I whispered to one another as if we were a tight clique. I knew that Lorcan could hear our whispers, even though he was so far away. He cleared his throat in irritation, but everyone ignored him.
The servants were on high alert.
For fuck’s sake, why did we need seven servants to serve the five of us? Among them, Shan and Frances smiled at me. Lorcan had them brought from ShadesStar, knowing it would please me. The girls flashed me a grateful look whenever I grinned at them.
I li
ked the idea that I could protect at least a couple of people and had them under my wing. It made me feel like a good leader.
The dinner here was different from the one I’d had in Dario’s former court. The girls there had carried out all the trays at once and put all the dishes on the table for me. Here, they served one course at a time. And when we finished or half-finished the food, the servants took the plates away at our nods, and we waited for them to bring the next course.
It was a marathon march of dishes. Each time, anticipation of the next course was killing me. At some point, I had to snap my fingers to get both the vampire and human servants to stream along faster. The twins laughed so loud when I did that, Alaric gazed at me dotingly, and Lorcan had a tolerance-of-the-century look.
I sipped my drinks, my eyes starting to glaze over.
Phobos had delivered the worst news ever. I used to despise the vampires the most. And just when I’d shoved the gods up to the top of the list, the psychopath told me I was one of them, and a direct descendant of one of their worst—the God of Death.
My mates and I had discussed my possible godly heritage after we left Phobos. We weren’t completely sure if I was Hades’ daughter until that god came to confirm it, but the last thing we wanted was for him to identify me.
Hades was one of the cruelest gods. He hungered for power more than anything. If he ever found me, he would most definitely strip me of my power, take it, and put me in a cage.
Nothing could be worse than being powerless in a fucking cage.
It had taken all of us just to subdue the second-degree gods in the Misery Twist club. If the top-tier gods came for me, how could I fend them off? My mates would die defending me, and that was the worst nightmare.
I had to prevent it at all costs.
“You’re quiet, dulcis,” Lorcan said. “What’s the matter?”
I snapped my head toward him, jolted back from wandering fearfully in my dark thoughts.
“Uh, are we going to have dessert?” I asked. “I pretty much hope we can get fried ice cream again. The Neapolitan kind will do.”
The door pushed open at my words, and I bounced in my seat in excitement. “Here it comes!”
And the smile dropped from my face.
Selena stepped in. No one else would dare disturb the High Lord of Night while he was dining, but Selena was the mistress of the Court of Blood and Void, and it seemed she was born with privileges.
She’d flung insults at me in public and Lorcan had made her apologize. Since then, she’d been careful with me in front of the High Lord. But I knew she hated me with every fiber.
She wanted Lorcan, but he’d drifted away from her a long time ago. Yet he trusted her and made her the mistress of the court.
He didn’t offer me the title of queen, or mistress, or whatever, even though he’d called no one dulcis, except me, and announced that I was his one true mate. He might have thought I was too immature to handle his court, and I probably was.
I didn’t like rules anyway, so I was fine without a title or position.
Let Selena be the mistress, as long as she didn’t get a piece of Lorcan’s hot ass. However, in the back of my mind, I knew that sooner or later Selena would strike, since she was sizzling that I’d killed her half-sister Jade. I didn’t know when or how she would, and the suspense made me sleep with my dagger every night.
“No one will get you with us shielding you,” Alaric said, trying to persuade me.
I trusted my mates, and I was convinced that they would protect me. I wasn’t a defenseless damsel myself, either, but I still refused to remove the dagger from under my pillow before I went to sleep.
At least one of my mates was always with me, guarding me and training me at the same time. They kept testing my power. However, it was more a random tutoring than a systematic education, and the four males could never agree on one single thing, except they all hoped that my most lethal power—they didn’t know what it was, either—would suddenly blossom.
They had formidable powers, but their powers weren’t the same as mine.
Secretly, I knew they kept a big fact from each other: They didn’t really want me to be the weapon to kill the gods, despite their original plan. Now a fear for my safety leached through them.
And they didn’t know that I saw through them.
I turned to Selena.
She wasn’t alone. Two gorgeous human females, one slender and one curvy, tagged behind her. The trio glided toward Lorcan, chins high.
The female humans locked their gaze on the High Lord of the Court, excitement and lust coating their eyes.
I knew Lorcan was all hot and shit, but this was the dining room, not his private chamber, for fuck’s sake. Yet the women didn’t bother disguising their white-hot desire. A realization sank in. They were here for Lorcan, to let him drink from them and have a threesome with them.
Selena didn’t spare me a glance, but she was checking me out in her peripheral vision. She wanted to see me sizzling, and she thought this time she had the upper hand.
A smile ghosted the sensual lips of the mistress of the Court of Blood and Void.
My fists clenched under the table.
Lorcan’s gray eyes turned dark liquid, a sudden hunger whirling in them.
Only now did it occur to me that he’d been starved. He hadn’t drunk blood since I woke him up from his long slumber.
The vampire lord craved my blood more than anything, but he never asked me to give it to him. I hadn’t bothered with his need, either. I might be his mate, but I wasn’t his blood whore. That was what I’d kept telling myself.
I’d assumed he’d take care of the matter himself, just as he’d done a million times before without me.
And I hadn’t wanted to dwell on his need to take blood from others. Plus, I had three other mates to occupy me. I was never alone for a moment.
His dark look of bleakness and thirst was testimony to his abstinence from blood. He hadn’t fed for a while, and he barely touched the food in front of him.
For a second, I felt a stab of guilt for neglecting him.
He couldn’t fight his nature. He had to live on blood.
When I had mated him, part of me had accepted that, yet the other part still held a sliver of fear and rebellion. And now my fear and neglect had just opened the crack for Selena to upstage me.
She wouldn’t even do it in private, but flaunted two young, gorgeous women in front of me, knowing Lorcan’s control would slip because of his hunger, and when he took the blood from the human females before me, everyone would know I meant nothing to the High Lord of Night.
That was her way to put me in my place.
Everyone in the Court of Blood and Void would once again assume that I was a plaything, a whore to the four males.
Selena would regain her uncontested status as the mistress, and probably even have a shot at Lorcan’s bed again.
“Go,” she ordered. “Go serve your High Lord.”
The two women scurried toward Lorcan, one on each side of him. The curvy female was bolder and sultrier. She pressed a hand on his hard chest, her other long-fingered hand brushing her blonde hair aside and arching her exposed neck for him.
The hunger in Lorcan’s eyes deepened. He flicked his gaze away from the veins in the woman’s neck toward me. I stared back, barely holding in my rage.
I could feel smoke and fire flaring in my nostrils.
I would explode in the nick of time, though I knew it was unreasonable to demand the vampire lord fast.
Alaric, Pyrder, and Reysalor stopped talking and drinking. They watched the drama with extreme interest. No one intervened on my behalf, though they all knew how livid I was.
They wanted to see how this played out.
They wouldn’t stop Selena unless she directly attacked me, physically or verbally, and the scheming bitch knew that.
“What is all this, Selena?” Lorcan asked, his eyes staying on me. He didn’t take the woman’s neck, b
ut he didn’t push her away, either.
Selena curtseyed. “My lord, they’re both virgins. No others have tasted their blood, either. I’ve brought you the best.”
The slender woman also exposed her neck. “We’ve been kept pure for you, my lord.”
“Pure, my ass!” I shot to my feet, my eyes burning, my fists clenching.
I’d reached my limit. If he wouldn’t stop them, I would. No matter what, he’d claimed me, and I’d claimed him back.
Lorcan was mine.
If we had an issue, it would be a family issue. No outsiders had the right to come between us.
“Have some respect,” I barked at the women. “Get lost. Now.”
Lorcan made no comments, but his eyes sparkled.
The two women looked at me with hostility and uncertainty. They didn’t know who I was and probably wondered how such an insignificant woman, who didn’t even dress according to her role, was in the company of the four hottest, most formidable males.
They darted their questioning gazes back to Selena, whose icy eyes shot daggers at me.
Encouraged, the human women trained contemptuous glares on me.
They wore expensive, exquisite gowns and looked high-class. They might be among the high circle of the humans in the court, for all I cared. I, on the other hand, had draped myself in a loose tank top down to my thighs, a pair of shorts, and flipflops. I was the worst dresser in Lorcan’s court. Even the servants dressed better.
I’d put on these street clothes just to irritate the vampires and fuck with their rules.
“You have no business giving orders to our subjects, Miss Saélihn,” Selena said, trying to keep her venomous tone in check and maintain a cool composure. “You aren’t the Mistress of the Court of Blood and Void. I am. I’ve managed this court for his High Lord for centuries. As for you, you have one and only duty—to please and provide his High Lord with your hybrid blood—and you still can’t do it properly.”
Yeah, bitch had been monitoring my every move.
Now the two women stared harder at me with a strong dose of resentment, disdain, and jealousy, assuming I was here to give blood before them but lacked the wits to do my job.