by Meg Xuemei X
“Your mate? Your mate?” Agro yelled. “She was my bride, my future empress! And you took her and spoiled her. Did you fuck her? Did you? Answer me!”
I didn’t bother to look at that clown. My eyes stayed on my father—the worst threat in the universe.
“Kill him, Father!” Agro shrieked, then remembering who he was talking to. “Please, Father, let me do the honor.”
“Shut up, Agro!” my father hissed.
And that weak, hateful worm shut his mouth.
“I’m disappointed in you, Seth,” my father said. “I expect stupidity from everyone but you. After eons, however, you decide to ruin yourself for one female, one forgettable female.”
That was his cue for punishing me or exterminating me. My lightning struck just as a force rammed into me.
I felt thousands of knives cutting into my skin, but I pushed them back, until the pressure subdued. My warriors behind me panted in agony. If my power hadn’t shielded them and absorbed my father’s blunt hit, they would all be dead by now.
A visible band formed where my black lighting and his red wave crashed, a trail of brilliant white light melding with my lightning, reinforcing my defense.
It was Rose’s light. She’d radiated with it when she climaxed. How had it come to me? Was that why I could match my father’s power for the first time?
The Lord of All Angels snarled. I had never seen him so pissed. The ground rumbled and the red wave pushed forward, but my lightning, mating with the white light, held the line.
Sweat broke out on my forehead, and my wings propelled forward under my father’s continuing assault.
“What was that, Seth?” the tyrant demanded, his face paling a shade.
“What was what, Father?” I asked innocently, not taking my eyes off his face.
“The shining light!” he hissed. “You’ve never used that before.”
“Well, I’m using it now.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You've been hiding your new power from your own father?”
“I learned that from you, Father.”
His red wave and my mixed lightning and light tore at each other again. The impact threw his army and my warriors back, leaving only him and me to face each other.
And for the first time since I’d served him, I saw my father’s magnificent white wings arch and flutter above his shoulders at his effort against me.
“Withdraw and obey me,” he said, baring his teeth, “and I’ll spare you.”
“Not until you quit,” I said. I wasn’t so foolish as to let him have an edge over me in the middle of a fight. I still didn’t know what the white light was about, but I didn’t plan to reveal my concern or my curiosity to my father either.
“You really think you can beat me, Seth?” he sneered.
“I’m defending what’s mine,” I said.
“Yours,” he said. “The little fey princess has turned you against me by offering her little pink pussy.”
“Speak of her that way again,” I hissed, “and I’ll kill you!” My amassed lightning surged toward my father. I wanted to spear his guts.
The red wave faltered before solidifying again.
Both my father and I staggered back an inch.
“Kill the bastard, Father!” Agro yelled, struggling to get up and stab me.
My warriors fought to break my father’s power, to aid me. I snarled for them to stay back. The energy field created by us would harm anyone who got close. But I wasn’t going to warn Agro. Let him get a taste.
Agro swaggered toward me with his dark, broad blade raised high. He took two more steps before yelping in pain and dropping his sword. Blisters crawled over his wings.
I laughed.
“You can’t hold on forever, Seth,” my father said coldly.
I felt the near-draining. “I’ll hold on as long as I must,” I said with a vicious smile.
“Going against me is futile,” he said. “Surrender and remain my heir.”
If he thought I was that naïve, he was seriously mistaken. He had used the same persuasion to take down the most ancient, mightiest angels and so become the sole power in the universe. Only High Commander Camael had never trusted him, and so he was still alive to lead the Fallen legion.
“You won’t take me down easily, Father,” I bluffed. “I have more tricks besides. You won’t look good if I win this fight. It will give the Fallen something to look forward to. However, I have no intention of joining them. I have no intention of going against you. All I want is to keep what’s mine safe. So call it a truce. You leave my army, my mate, and me alone, and we’ll disappear from your sight forever. That way, I won’t be your enemy.”
“Agro!” The Lord of All Angels slashed a hand in the air.
“Yes, Father!” Agro snapped to attention.
“Lead your army to Mysth right now,” Father ordered. “Level it and leave no one alive.”
“With pleasure, Father!” Agro said. “But what about the fey whore?”
“Do whatever you want with her,” my father said without a touch of emotion. “After you're done, burn her.”
Fear pumped into my heart. If I didn’t stop him, Agro would march into Mysth within moments. He would slaughter every fey in the worst possible way, and if he found her, he would do the most horrible, unspeakable things to her before killing her. The Mysthians stood no chance against an angel horde.
“Don’t do this, Father!” I snarled like a wounded beast.
“Finally, you have a weakness,” my father said softly.
“Promise to let her go, and I’ll surrender,” I said. Even though I didn’t trust him, I needed to stall him.
My father considered my offer while enjoying making me squirm.
“Father, please,” I begged as I’d never begged before. “I’ve never disobeyed you, except this one time. But she’s my mate, and we angels hold matehood above anything.” I heard gasps all around and wings rustling. It was unthinkable to my kind that their heartless High Prince had found his mate in a little corner of the galaxy. “She doesn’t have the elemental magic. When Agro’s sentinels nearly killed her, the magic never came out to defend her. She’s of no use to you, Father, but she’s my one and only mate. I served you faithfully for eons and never asked a favor, so I’m asking just this once. Spare her and her people, as well as my soldiers, and you can have me. You can do whatever you want with me.”
“Father, don’t listen to the black-heart traitor,” Agro said. “I’m marching my army to Mysth now. I’ll kill every fey. I’ll tear his whore apart piece by piece.”
The Lord of All Angels said, “Speak again before you’re spoken to, Agro, and I’ll squash you like an insect.”
Agro stumbled back.
My father turned to me. “I’ll grant you this favor. I’ll spare your female. Withdraw your power now.”
“And let my team go,” I said.
“They’re free to go,” my father said.
“Go!” I shouted at my warriors without looking at them, but no one moved. They would not leave me. “Go!” I roared. “Find Ephraim.”
My team reluctantly took off one by one. Two of my warriors flew off with the fey guard. As soon as they disappeared from the sky, I pulled back my lightning, and the white light followed. The warm summer wind returned to me.
“You gave your word in front of your whole army, Father.”
And the red wave slammed into my gut like an exploding bomb. I tried not to double over. A lesser angel would have burst veins and bled out at such a punishing assault. Had my lord father meant to kill me?
He offered me a curious, chilly look. “Kneel, Seth.”
For my female, I would do anything. I knelt in front of him, but instead of lowering my head to show my submission, I looked up and held his gaze.
“For a mere female, you cost me the Earth energy,” my father said, ice in his eyes.
My black lightning shot out, not toward my father or his army, but at my library. Thunder rolled
, and the building toppled in a cloud of dust and piled rubble. My last effort made sure no one chased Rose down the tunnel.
An unseen chain fell on me, binding me and effectively clipping my wings. I conjured my power, but it was gone.
The Lord of All Angels had used his most potent force field to contain me.
Kneeling before him, I roared with fury.
EMPRESS ROSE FAYLINN
I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. It tormented me to no end that I had no way of knowing if Seth was alive.
When we’d parted from his villa after our frenzied sex, I told myself it was over between us. We would never have a future together.
For my kingdom and my people, I had used him and ruined him.
As my heart bled, I kept telling myself that even if he came with me, the Mysthians would never accept an angel by my side.
Stop this, I ordered myself.
I should focus on the war between the angels and my race. Either we faced extinction, or we drove the alien invaders back to where they came from.
But I couldn’t stop thinking of Seth and his horrific fate.
He was my destined mate. He had confessed it before slicing Victoria’s throat. I watched our mating bond shine when he’d come hard in me. I thought he hadn’t seen that, but he knew I was his mate long before I’d come to my own slow realization.
I tore my gaze from the landscape of vibrant violet and blue. There was no joy or victory in claiming my birthright. I’d inherited a nation at war.
I brushed a crystal device that I’d taken from Atlantis and watched again, in a whirlwind hologram, the angels fight other species. Every battle was a bloodbath and the angels glowed in their victory.
Only once had they met a more powerful species. Those beings cut down the angels like weeds. Then Seth joined the battle.
My mate roared like the thunder of heavens and landed amid those superior beings. His lightning tore into his enemies. His peers fell about him, yet he stood—a lone warrior facing a horde—and fought like a windstorm. Just the way he fought his kind for me.
My heart contracted. In all of our days together, I had never said one nice thing to him. He would never know how I really felt about him.
The longing for the prince burned through me as my fear of losing him crushed me.
“Seth,” I whispered, wishing he could hear me through our bond.
The superior beings closed in on Seth in the hologram, their axes hacking at him from every direction.
My heart clenched in fear for my mate, even though I’d seen how he’d defeated them.
A swirl of liquid blue fire appeared in his rough palm; two flaming swords spun around him. Shouting in an ancient angelic tongue, Seth grabbed a flaming blade and plunged it into the ground.
The armored beings tossed their axes at Seth. A blinding light blasted from the liquid fire and spread like raging flood, turning the armored beings into flowing ashes on a river of blood.
The first time I had viewed the chilling battle, my mouth had dried. My throat parched again this time.
Seth was the wielder of the Forbidden Glory, as was his father.
What if the angel lord set it upon Mysth?
Then I noticed Oberon on the other side of the hologram, his face ashen.
I pressed the crystal and turned off the hologram.
“Who can fight beings like that?” He swallowed, reeking of pure panic. “You’ve doomed us all, Daughter.”
“Take care of how you talk to your Empress, Oberon.”
After I’d taken back what was rightfully mine, I’d exiled my father to the edge of the twilight realm. He was allowed to live in the mansion with his mistress and enjoy wine, poetry, and music while we went to war. But I warned him that if he ever thought of gathering his old court to divide the realm, I would end him.
“Why are you here, Father?” I asked.
“I heard you took an angel as your lover, and not just any angel but the brother to the king you were promised to.”
“You promised me to that monster,” I said.
“So his brother isn’t a monster to you? You went to his bed because he was forbidden to you?”
“Do you seriously think I answer to you?” My voice was lethal.
“I can help cover your trail to prevent the realm from turning on you.”
“Cover my trail?”
“I’ll tell the realm that your torrid affair with the king’s brother was under my order to drive a wedge between the angels’ houses. Instead of being shamed, you’ll be honored as the—as the savior who sacrificed her virtue to be the angel prince’s… paramour.”
He’d almost said “the angel prince’s whore.”
I’d once felt ashamed about being drawn to Seth. Now, I was deeply ashamed that I still feared my people would turn on me because I’d given myself to an angel.
I wasn’t the angel’s whore; I was his mate.
The image of Seth roaring in joy as he pounded between my thighs, ejecting his hot seed into me, flashed in my mind.
But now he was so far away from me. I had no means of finding out if he was still alive. Pain twisted my guts, but I refused to think the worst.
“Let me co-rule with you,” my father said.
“While my people are facing extinction, you’re still power hungry,” I said in icy disdain. “Waste my time again by blackmailing me, and I’ll remove you like a disease.”
His lips thinned. “Do you really believe you can better protect Mysth than me? Are you ready for the realm to find out you dallied with one of the worst angels, leading we fey to face impending annihilation?”
I narrowed my eyes, but my father’s words had a grain of truth.
Was I a curse to my own realm?
At least he’d once figured out a way to preserve the twilight realm by sacrificing me. If I had gone along with his plan and played the role of the angel king’s sex slave, Mysth might be safe.
Then a voice chimed in the back of my mind. For how long? How long can Mysth stand?
Seth had revealed the Lord of All Angels’ ultimate plan to drain Earth’s energy and leave the planet a swamp.
It wasn’t only my kingdom in danger—the whole planet was in peril. I hadn’t had the time to tell the realm the whole truth, and I certainly hadn’t told the Dragonian and all other species about this grave threat.
“I’m ready to tell my people the entire truth,” I said, “and see if they can handle it. If they can’t, then maybe they aren’t worth saving. And yes, I’ll admit that the former High Prince of All Angels is my mate and my future consort, and that he’s sworn to protect Mysth and me, even from his own kind.”
Oberon blinked his eyes a few times. “You dare to confess your involvement with an angel in front of the whole realm?”
“Not only my torrid affair with Prince Seth, but I plan to lead my elite warriors to rescue him, because he’s our chance—no, he’s Earth’s only chance to survive.”
“You’ve gone mad, Rose Faylinn.”
“You’re dismissed, Oberon,” I said. “You won’t be permitted to come see me without my summons.”
“Don’t expect me to pick up your mess when you fail, Empress,” my father said as he left.
The wind blew over the land of lush green and violet, despair hanging in the air. Then the sound of a flute broke through it, telling an old story of bravery and remaking.
Even if Mysth survived the war, would it remain the realm of light and music?
I pondered how I was going to address my people about my time in Atlantis and my relationship with the High Prince of All Angels.
I had put them above all else. I had caused the fall of my mate.
And now I would amend the situation.
I only prayed that the angel, who had chosen me above anything and anyone, was alive when I reached him.
PRINCE SETH
I lost the track of time in the dungeon.
They wanted to break me before killing me. For
days I hadn’t any water or food, and the pain kept me from dozing off. Agro had brought the most notorious tormentor to greet me. But if he believed this mistreatment would break a battle-hardened warrior like me, he was deluding himself.
With my father’s power binding me, I couldn’t move an inch. For double security, he added a force field around my cell. And on top of that, a company of elite sentinels guarded me around the clock.
I wondered if my ship, ThunderSong, had come through. If my army had arrived on Earth, it should join Ephraim to safeguard my mate and deliver her to safety.
For myself, I braced for the worst, but I would resist death for as long as I could for Rose.
Chained in the dark and forced to kneel, I spent my every thought on her.
When I’d first scented her, my male instinct had roared, and she’d hated me whole-heartedly.
The shock on her lovely face was priceless when she’d discovered my hard-on, and that was the beginning of our game. I’d single-mindedly wanted to claim her; she had been determined to torment me. She’d tried as hard as she could, but in the end, she couldn’t fight her attraction to me either. Her body knew that she was my destined mate all along.
I savored my first thrust in her. I hadn’t known such pleasure existed, even though I’d bedded countless females before her. When I had pressed her against the glass, invaded her from behind, and pumped my seed into her, I’d seen our mating bond shine brightly. It chained us irrevocably for eternity.
My cock grew hard. What wouldn’t I give to have her one last time? I would sell my soul to have her ride me like wildfire.
A flick of light penetrated the darkness, and I wasn’t thrilled to see my father’s avatar. He separated us now, even in my memories.
He regarded me, probably having a hard time recognizing my deformed face. “I should never have sent you to Earth,” he said. “The seer said my son would fall in love with an earthling princess and turn on me. I thought she meant Agro, and I didn’t mind getting rid of him. I never thought it would be you.”