by Meg Xuemei X
The mystery of the creation remains unveiled to all living things. But a bond forged when souls first existed and deeply loved each other is impossible to sever. Not even by the force of the universe or individual will and effort.
The Sky Son and Earth Daughter must become one.
We’re one, I cried. Make my mate whole again!
Our joint power surged into Seth.
He kept pounding me harder and faster from behind.
What an angel could do with speed and strength!
I moaned and cried out, drowning in pleasure.
“My mate, mine!” Seth roared my name as his hot seed poured into me again—his roar of intimate, intense pleasure turned agony. I felt his pain and screamed.
The Tree House shook and the red forest trembled. Wild wind and light and lightning struck everywhere.
Then I heard a whoosh. Then a snap. Snap. Snap. Flesh tearing and growing.
I twisted my torso to look at Seth. The angel tore his gaze from our joined flesh, lust and pleasure and pain distorting his face. He gazed back at me in awe. “My Rose,” he whispered, “my forever love.”
A pair of wings sprang from his back and stretched to its glorious full span. They were massive, glossy, and golden, with blue feather tips.
“Seth,” I sobbed.
“You’ve given me back my wings, eroma,” he said, tears streaming down his sculptured face. His wings came forward to wrap around me and caressed me beyond tenderness.
One arm wrapping around my belly and pinning me to him, the angel started thrusting again; his wings propelled forward in sync with his vehement movements.
My magnificent, inexhaustible male! I never had to worry that he wouldn’t satisfy me in bed.
PRINCE SETH
Rose half leaned on my chest and half on my feathers. Her lips kissed away my tears.
Outside the Tree House, the residue of my lightning still struck the sky, and a storm rose with it.
My mate had given me everything.
My hand found her breast, brushing her taut nipple. She sighed, and her eyes brightened. Her scent of desire hit my nostrils. She was always ready for me.
Heat rushed through my veins.
My hand slid down to palm her slick sex and squeezed it. She pushed her hips toward my hand. I chuckled, knowing what she wanted and brought my thumb forward to stroke her clitoris.
“Yes, my male, that’s right,” she moaned, her breath warm on my face, her teeth nipping my earlobe.
I thrust two fingers into her tight channel, her inner walls wrapping hard around my fingers. My cock twitched achingly in response. It needed to fuck her now.
“I want to do so many wicked things to you,” I growled. “I’ll take you to the sky to fuck you good and hard after I have you one more time here.”
I flipped her to the side and lifted her leg, planning to enter her sideways.
My cock nudged at her entrance, and her lovely spot shivered in invitation. But before I shoved my cock inside and made my female happy, shouts arose from outside the Tree House.
“Empress!” the Mysthian guards’ cries reached us. “The angel king’s army has attacked! The angels have reached our walls.”
I cursed. Hell broke loose while I fucked Rose. Why was it so hard for my stupid brother not to screw things up? The joint army of the Dragonian and Mysthians were to attack the angel hordes across the ocean at first light tomorrow while we would go snatch the Forbidden Glory. Why couldn’t that fucker wait until tomorrow?
I would kill him!
I pulled out my arching cock reluctantly.
Then thunder hit the ground, rocking our house.
We bolted upright in bed and peeked out through the window.
ThunderSong crashed outside the ward. The ship tried to land inside the clearing, but the Earth magic spat it out.
Gabriel shot out of the ship and shouted profuse curses. “High Prince,” he yelled, “Reapers have broken through our defenses. They’re approaching Earth.”
Rose looked at me, the blood draining from her face. My heart clenched as I saw fear dull the light in her eyes. My muscles tightened with rage. I would remove the source of her fear—my father.
I picked up our clothes, and as soon as she was decent, I flew her out of the Tree House.
A small crowd gathered outside the ward to shout toward the house, but then everyone—including Rose’s captain and mine—was shocked into silence at the sight of me. I had crossed the ward unharmed and come out of the “hallowed realm” with wings.
Then everyone started yelling again as soon as I put Rose down.
“We had fifteen minutes to take you and your mate off this planet.” Gabriel waved wildly at the unseen ward in an outrageous accusation, “but its magic crashed my ship!”
My ship. But I didn’t correct him at the moment.
“The angel hordes are gaining and cutting down our warriors like grass,” Rose’s captain reported. “They also blocked our army’s retreat.”
“Highness,” Gabriel continued to shout over others, “I’ve requested the assistance of Admiral Adrianna, but her ship is surrounded. We’re on our own.”
“By the time the Fallen’s fleet gets here,” Ephraim said grimly, “it’ll be all over.”
“High Commander Camael’s force has caught up with the Reapers at the edge of the galaxy,” Gabriel said, “but two-thirds of their battleships were destroyed. The Lord of All Angels set Seven Wraith on them.”
I cursed profusely. Seven Wraith was the darkest power and filthiest entity in the universe. It took the combined power of the twelve ancient angels to bind it. My father’s desperate move to release the Wraith from its pit signaled that the Forbidden Glory was out of his control for the first time.
I was my father’s heir, the last pure-blood of the royal line. I had the rights to the Forbidden Glory, just as my father did. But after we severed our blood ties, neither of us could access the angels’ flame. However, he didn’t know that. He speculated that I had it and feared that I would use it to hunt him, so he struck first.
If nothing could stop Seven Wraith—the power of horror—it would devour Earth, then this galaxy. And then the living, moving black hole would keep feeding until it digested the whole universe in its abyssal belly.
My father’s petty vengeance against me could destroy everything.
I took a deep breath. The only power that might counter Seven Wraith was the Forbidden Glory. Yet, I no longer had the flame at my command.
Then the new inscriptions beamed like a beacon in my head.
All who enter shall perish, except the chosen son and daughter.
I suddenly knew what to do.
“We need to get the Forbidden Glory now,” I said.
Ephraim drew a sharp breath. “There’s never been a recorded battle between Seven Wraith and the Glory.”
“We’re already losing,” Gabriel said. “What more can we lose? But High Prince, it will take a while for my crew to repair the ship. We don’t have enough time to get you to Atlantis, and the Reapers are going to destroy this planet any minute now!”
“Back off,” I said.
“What?” Gabriel blinked.
“Your Highness?” Ephraim joined him.
“Away from the ward!” I shouted.
The Mysthian captain dragged Gabriel back and warned the others to keep their distance from the perimeter of the ward. Somehow along the way, Rose’s captain had learned to trust me.
I turned to my mate, and she nodded.
I pulled a dagger from my boot and opened a blood line in my palm. I hated to cut my mate, but our blood had to be mixed to summon the flame.
Rose took the blade from me and sliced the center of her palm. We clasped our hands. Our flesh had joined, and now our blood mixed.
“I love you, eroma,” I said, “to the end.” And her eyes brightened more than the starlight.
I cited angelic words of power, and Rose joined me in an ancient langu
age I’d never heard before.
A fierce wind blew, whipping a high wall of fire around the invisible ward that guarded the Tree House. Two flaming swords spun around us.
The blue fire zipped toward Rose.
“No!” Black lightning shot out of my eyes, striking the fire.
A force mightier than wind and my lightning opened my wings and tore my mate from my arms.
I snarled as a river of fire separated Rose and me.
“You’ll not harm my mate!” I roared as I lunged into the hellfire.
EMPRESS ROSE FAYLINN
The sea of fire rose into the sky to block Seth from reaching me. He tried to fly through it, roaring furiously, regardless of the risk to his feathers.
He had just gotten his wings back, and I couldn’t bear to see him lose them again.
“No!” I screamed. Putting on my magic shield, I leapt into the fire. If I had to burn, I wanted it to be with my mate. The world was already burning as the space and ground war raged on.
The fire took me into the sky, where I quickly lost sight of Seth and everyone on Earth.
I stood in an endless white space, alone and furious and heartbroken.
A blink and the sentient blue fire appeared in front of me.
Enraged, I sent my storm and water and light to extinguish the blue flame, but it embraced all of my elements, waltzing with them.
Last time, my white light had battled the Glory’s fire. What had transpired? Instead of going after it, my Earth magic was consorting with it.
“Return me to my mate!” I demanded indignantly.
You won’t want to return to him after what I show you, Earth Daughter. The blue flame leapt two inches away from my nose, taunting me.
I swatted at it, too furious to fear it.
Then a future vision spread in front of me.
Seth stood on the bridge of the ThunderSong as it headed to another galaxy. He returned to be a conqueror.
He won’t stay on Earth, even for you, the fire said. The universe is his true home, and you can’t give him what he really needs: conquest and glory. He’ll realize soon that you’re his trap. The Sky Son will break your bond and set himself free. The most lethal predator doesn’t change his nature for anyone.
“He won’t leave me,” I said. “You don’t know a damn thing about my mate!”
Do I not?
The blue fire showed Seth being with hundreds of females in a room. I had to watch him grab an angel female’s breasts while his cock thrust inside another. Several females rubbed their bodies against him while he fucked her.
My throat grew tight, and my eyes burned with acid fire.
He had once admitted he banged hundreds of females the night before he lost his sexual appetite and become an unfeeling machine.
“That is his past,” I said. “I don’t care if he had tens of thousands before me. He’s mine now. He has chosen me as the only female for him.”
For now. He’ll become fed up with you, just as he grew bored with the others. Since you’ve broken his seal, he can enjoy any female now. He prefers his own kind. The angels are a stronger species than fey can ever dream to be. He likes rough, raw sex. One day, he won’t need to hold back with his equals.
A new scene showed Seth, centuries from now, with females of different species.
He’d forgotten me in the flow of time, though not completely. I watched him brag to a female with delicate pink wings how he once fucked the Earth’s greatest beauty.
Tears streamed down my face, and rage, like no other, coursed in me. I was one second away from hurling my burning lava toward Seth and his whore from the future.
I turned to the blue fire as I wiped my tears with my palm. They came off purple, the heartbroken tears for fey. “Why are you showing me this?” I scolded it. “I didn’t summon you for this twisted future. I called you to drive away the angels from my planet! How my relationship with him turns out isn’t your concern.”
Hasn’t the Sky Son told you there’s a price for summoning me? I can drive your immortal enemies from Earth and prevent them from ever coming back, but in return, I’ll ask for the one thing you hold most precious.
“Name your price,” I said, barely containing my dread.
Your mate. He’s the last pure angel in the royal bloodline. One day his power will surpass his father, but you stand in his way to greatness. You limit him. Deny his passion, break the mating bond, and release him, and I’ll protect your beloved Mysth and Earth.
On one scale is my mate, on the other the fate of all earthborn.
But I would not choose. I knew in my heart I wouldn’t survive without him. Call me selfish, but I would never sacrifice my mate again. Screw the greater good.
Even if Seth would leave me for someone or something better, I would hold onto him and his love for now.
A bond forged when two souls first entwine is impossible to sever. When they meet again, no force of the universe can break them apart.
But deep in my soul, I knew that once I denounced the bond between Seth and me, the Forbidden Glory could sever our tie.
And for the first time, I wasn’t willing to gamble.
So I told myself that the Forbidden Glory lied about the future. Nothing was written in stone. Even if it were, the stone could be smashed. The Glory was preying on my deepest fear. I’d fallen for Seth, and so I become insecure. Deep inside, I was afraid I wasn’t enough for him and that my world too small a pond for him.
“Even if you burn me to ash,” I said, “I won’t allow you to break our bond.”
Very well, it said sourly. Let’s show the Sky Son how you’ll doom him. If he asks for a new future, his wish shall be granted, and your bond will be severed.
The scenery instantly changed. Seth stared at a vast glass coffin, his eyes icy.
I cried for him and sprang to him, but he didn’t look at me. I threw myself into his arms, only to find that I passed through him. I bared my teeth at the blue fire, but it fixed its attention on Seth. I turned to look at what held him transfixed.
Inside the sealed glass coffin was Seth himself.
He lay inside, his eyes closed and face drained, his massive wings beneath him. He was neither alive nor dead.
A horrified cry tore from my throat. I lunged toward the coffin to open it, trying to bring my mate back to life. My hands passed through the glass.
I had no corporeal form in this reality.
The Forbidden Glory was showing Seth his future.
The blue fire landed on the glass coffin. If you choose her, that’s how you’ll end. But she’ll go on.
A holographic slide showed the future me in a grand hall dancing with an even grander mortal king. I was dressed differently and even looked different, but she was me. The king caressed my bare back, and I moved closer to him.
I looked at the other me in horror. Beside me, Seth snarled like an enraged beast. His dark lightning pierced the mortal male, but the mortal kept making me twirl. Seth lunged toward us, hacking his blade down upon the king’s head, but the mortal’s image only split and became whole again. The king traced his lips down my neck.
Seth roared in fury and resorted to dragging me away from his rival. The future me sidled away from his grasp and curved my arms around the king’s neck.
“Stop this!” I yelled at the blue fire. “Stop torturing him with a false future.”
How can you, little fey, know what the future holds? the blue fire hissed before ignoring me altogether to focus on Seth.
She’ll continue on without you, Sky Son, the fire said. All ancient races on Earth will become extinct, and the humans will take over Earth. While you lay inside that suspension container forever, neither living nor dead, she’s having a life without you. She’ll have a human daughter. Your consciousness stays aware of her existence, knowing that she’s in another male’s arms while you’ll never get to touch her again. You’ll be trapped in the eternal hell she makes for you.
“Don’t liste
n to it, Seth!” I moved to my mate and squeezed his forearm. “I’ll never betray you. I love you!”
But Seth couldn’t see me or hear me. He kept snarling like a mad beast, obsessed with killing the mortal male who held me. He swung his sword again, the mortal’s image becoming complete as soon as Seth’s blade left him. Despite his rage, my mate was careful not to let his blade touch me, even though I appeared unfaithful to him.
The Forbidden Glory finally took away the scene of my betrayal, though my future self’s silvery laughter lingered to drive us mad.
She’s your downfall from the beginning. The blue fire was determined to poison Seth’s mind. She made you turn your back against your own race. You lost your wings because of her and you’ll lose them again if you stay with her. She’s destined to betray you. Her people will never truly accept you. One day she’ll choose her kingdom over you and condemn you to a fate worse than death.
I looked at Seth, and to my dismay, he nodded, believing the fire’s twisted truth.
In Atlantis, she once thought of murdering you in your sleep. The fire played my thoughts out loud for Seth. She even paraded her lovely body around as part of her plan to destroy you.
“That was before I knew you and fell in love with you,” I protested. “Seth, you have to resist its lies!”
And the damned blue fire showed the future me smiling down at Seth through the glass after she returned from the grand party. Her fingers traced its surface with satisfaction, as if the Seth inside the coffin were her trophy.
My treacherous future self made me sick to my stomach.
No, that wasn’t me. I would never be that cruel to Seth.
“You’re my mate, Seth,” I pleaded. “My one and only and forever. I’d rather die than be untrue to you.” I pressed myself against him to make him hear me, but he looked away. He couldn’t feel me.
I flung all my magic at the fire to end its torture, but the future vision kept streaming.
Then it dawned on me that the Forbidden Glory was playing Seth’s fear, as well. His deepest fear was losing me.
She’s your curse, the fire said, but I can undo your doom. I can bend time and space. I’ll rewind time for you. I’ll change the course of history for you, Sky Power. In your alternate timeline, you won’t come to Earth, but head toward a distant galaxy. You’ll become the new Lord of All Angels. Every species will kneel and bow before you. The power of the universe will be at your command.