by Meg Xuemei X
“Your shifting magic comes from Earth, from my realm,” I said. “Earth gives you the gift, but I can take it all away. I can leave you stuck in one form and you’ll never be able to shift again. Any volunteers for me to demonstrate my Earth goddess’s power?”
No one volunteered, but a quarter of the shifters knelt down to acknowledge my status and pay respect. The rest didn’t know how to react.
“This is my Earth,” I said, my eyes glowing as I wheeled to scan them. “This is my land! I call my own and it answers.” Wind swirled around me, and blossoms burst from the wood all around the hall. Ivy vines reached me from the ground and twirled around my arms. “Can any of you call Earth and make it answer to you?”
For the first time, I was completely taking ownership of my past, and I acknowledged my heritage for all to see.
“I don’t need your army,” I said, my voice colder than ice and full of power. Everyone in the room couldn’t help shivering, except my mates. “I have enough force of my own. I could just take whatever I wanted, but I came here to ask politely and bring expensive gifts for you, because my mates asked me to be nice and diplomatic since they respect you. What did you offer me in return? How did you show the Earth Goddess your gratitude for her gift of shifting?”
More knees dropped.
“We offended the Goddess’s true granddaughter,” Irena said. “We’ll amend.”
Now the three alphas dropped to one knee in unison. “We’ve seen it with our own eyes. You’ll have our allegiance. Where you point, we’ll go. Even if it’s death, we’ll follow. We’re now your people. We’re your swords.”
Then all the shifters dropped to their knees.
My mates smiled at me, doting and prideful.
And my heart burst with gratitude. I was wild, and they never intended to tame me. They didn’t put any set of rules on my head. They let me ride the wind with my awkward wings and flew beside me.
They flipped a middle finger to the society and all its social expectations for me.
I knew I wasn’t that nice. I wasn’t anyone’s normal, average woman, yet my mates had no desire for me to be anyone else but me.
“Well, in that case, we can have some cakes first before we talk about our secret mission in a more cozy setting,” I said as I pulled all Earth magic—fire and wind and blossom—back into me and allowed the colors to return to the shifters.
Relieved gasps rose in the hall.
I turned to my mates and batted my long, lush eyelashes at them. “Do you think we still have time for cakes and local brews? Dustin promised hundreds of them in the tea room. At least, we should inspect them. If any cake is particularly good, we’ll need to get the recipe for Boone.” I wheeled to Dustin. “As for the recipe—”
“Anything you need, Goddess Cass,” Wyatt answered for Dustin in a grumpy voice.
I waved at them. “Call me Cass. Well, time is of the essence. Now, will you be kind enough to show me to the tea room?”
16
It turned out that Priestess Irena had been keeper of the sacred knowledge, and her female side of the line had been entrusted with the task of waiting for the Earth Goddess’s descendant to claim entry to the Rabbit Hole—the shifters’ most sacred place, where only the Earth Goddess’s bloodline could enter.
“The vision of the oracle has come to pass in my generation,” Irena said in tears, her aged, thin hands trembling.
Stuffing an apple pie to my face, I nodded. I got her. Her waiting wasn’t futile. I showed up. But I was done talking. I was busy and distracted by so many cakes.
My mates cut in, comparing notes, asking the priestess who else knew about the Rabbit Hole. After all, the messenger to a death deity—either to Hades or Pluto—had first informed me of the Rabbit Hole. This whole thing could be a bogus or a trap the gods set.
Caution was good, and I left caution to my mates. I was impulsive and reckless in all things, but they were the careful planners and strategists.
There were only my mates, Xihin, Hector, Celeb, and Amber with me in the sunny, wooden tea room. On the shifters’ side, the three alphas and Irena sat across from me with an array of cakes between us.
Our warriors guarded the door. Alaric had created a sound-barrier for extra precaution.
The alphas’ eyes widened when I reached for another cake. I’d eaten only thirty-one.
I rolled my eyes. “I’m hungry,” I said in half-truth. “It takes a lot to maintain this goddess’s body. And you might wonder how I stay fit while consuming all the sweets.”
Cadmar nodded soberly. Now they were convinced that I was a goddess, no one wanted to contradict me anymore.
“My metabolism is faster than yours,” I explained. “My friend Amber here has slower metabolism, so she never eats more than three cakes.” I felt sorry for her, but there was nothing I could do for her. “If I take a sip from a god, then I don’t need to eat for a week. But unfortunately, I no longer have a god in my cell.” I regarded Wyatt and let unholy hunger surface in my eyes. “If any of you let me drink from you, then I’ll eat fewer cakes. I’m at the top of the food chain. I can eat and assimilate anything and anyone.”
My mates tried not to laugh.
“Eat as many cakes as you want, Cass,” Dustin said. “There’ll be more. I personally guarantee it. There’ll always be an endless supply of cakes for you in Moonshine.”
They didn’t want me to drink their essence, then.
I let disappointment show on my face. “I’ve never tasted a shifter. I’m kind of curious, you know. Well, will any of you refill my brew? My mates need another drink as well.”
While Wyatt couldn’t rise quickly enough to bring pitchers of brew, Irena darted her gaze between my mates and me. “Only Goddess Gaea’s direct descendant can enter the Rabbit Hole. Even my ancestors and I, the assigned high priestesses, haven’t been granted access.”
“What happened to those who weren’t allowed to enter?” Lorcan asked.
“Some were incinerated instantly, and some were shred to pieces,” Irena said. “It’d be worse for a vampire, High Lord or not.”
Wyatt smiled viciously.
“We’ll enter,” Lorcan said quietly. “We’re bonded to Cass. Where our mate goes, we go.”
But I was suddenly alert. “No, Lorcan—”
“We go where you go,” Reys said.
Pyrder grinned at me. “There’s no chance you can get rid of us, Cass baby.”
He had shifted to his fae form so he could drink the shifters’ brew, the best kind.
Anxiety speared me, and I put down the half-eaten cupcake on my plate, no longer having an appetite.
“Don’t worry about us, sweetheart,” Alaric said. “We’re in this together, and we’ll never leave your side.”
17
Priestess Irena led us through the maze of an ancient forest to the Rabbit Hole. It wasn’t made by any rabbit, though, and it wasn’t exactly a hole.
The entrance was made of layers of standing stones, spreading out like rippling rings, and large enough for two people to step inside.
“The Rabbit Hole refers to a portal into a different realm,” Irena said. “It is also boundless in the extremities of time, immeasurable in its capacity, perpetual in its own right.”
As if I knew what that meant! But I tried not to yawn at her profoundness.
I halted at the entry, gazing up at my mates, struck through by fear, not for myself but for them. I wouldn’t survive if they didn’t make it. I’d been heartbroken when Apollo tore me away from them, and if any of them perished, my soul would shatter.
“We’ll be fine, dulcis,” Lorcan said. “We’re all bonded to you. Your blood flows in ours as ours flows in you.”
He reached for my hand, but Alaric beat him.
The demigod flashed me a devilish grin, sending my heart fluttering on wings.
“Shall we, sweetheart?” he asked.
We had to go through. This was the next step in the war against the go
ds. I bit my lip. “Let me step in first and I’ll let you know if the coast is clear.”
“Not a chance, baby,” Reys said behind us. “You won’t go alone, and you won’t go first.”
Hadn’t I praised them that they let me run wild?
I sighed in resignation. “Give me your flaming sword, then.”
Alaric handed his to me first. I slashed the blade across my palm, trying not to wince at the burning pain. Then I returned the sword to the demigod.
I would enact a blood ritual in my own right and by my own rules to shield my mates.
When my blood dripped to the soil beneath my feet, I raised a hand and spoke a secret language of my heritage, declaring my birthright.
“No door on Earth shall shut me out, and my bonded mates follow me,” I called. “No force on this Earth shall harm us.”
I felt a tug of deep magic from the Earth. It accepted my offer.
My mates and I filed through the entrance, Alaric first, though I was right behind him, then Reys, Lorcan, and Pyrder, our hands holding one another’s in a chain.
Our warriors, seer, the priestess, and three shifter alphas looked on solemnly from outside the ancient ward of the Rabbit Hole.
An unexpected icy wind, more terrible than a winter storm, whirled toward us and swept us under its force.
A cry escaped from the back of my throat. I had lost my mates’ whereabouts.
“Cass baby!”
“Dulcis!”
Their callings were drowned out by the howling wind.
I fell, falling through star fire, through a shattered crack in the galaxy, and into the center of ice and wind.
I was all alone.
Then a large, warm hand found mine, gripping tightly.
He would never let me go.
“Sweetheart, I’m here!” Alaric’s voice anchored me.
He wouldn’t allow any force to tear us apart. He even managed to spin in the whirlwind and pulled me against his chest until the black veil was lifted
We landed on solid ground paved with black gemstones, panting hard, gazing at each other.
“I’ve got you,” Alaric said softly.
The wind didn’t let up, though there was no reason for it to even exist in this sealed, high-ceilinged chamber.
We surveyed the surroundings.
It was a temple made of ice, which illuminated the room with chilly, transparent light. Thick ice that hadn’t melted for probably an eon had grown into the pillars that held this place up.
The wind might have come from the ice.
“Are you cold, sweetheart?” Alaric asked as he untied his cloak and wrapped it around me. Its hem draped behind me as I stalked ahead.
“Where are the others?” I asked. “We should warn them—”
“Too late, Cass baby.” Pyrder’s rich voice echoed from nowhere, then he dropped near me in a crouch. “We’re here.”
A heartbeat later, Lorcan and Reysalor also landed, surrounding me in a protective half-ring.
It hit like déjà vu as if I’d been here before. Then it dawned on me that it came from the genetic memory of my other heritage.
Grandma had been here eons ago and left something for me before I was even born. But for a second, I could only blink in confusion. The messenger from one of the death deities had also pointed me toward this place. Gaea wouldn’t have conspired with Hades, right? The primal Earth Goddess wanted the alien gods to be gone. Yet somehow, Hades bedded Gaea’s daughter, though Jezebel couldn’t remember her one-night stand.
I was the result of their unlawful coupling.
Jezebel’s parting words rang in my ear: “I was supposed to be one of the most powerful beings walking the earth, but my daughter siphoned my power and rendered me weak at her birth. I was the product of careful genetic calculation and manipulation. My true and only purpose was to be the vessel to bear Cassandra Saélihn, so she could be the final instrument to destroy the world.”
They’d all schemed together, and I was bred as a weapon.
They were all assholes.
I couldn’t figure out how gods from opposite sides had played me or continued to play my mates and me, but I was no one’s pawn, and they’d realize their mistake in the end.
I let out a pent-up breath and continued to study this place with the help of my mates.
Another piece of genetic knowledge flooded through my mind.
This temple had once been the Court of Ice and Wind and belonged to the Earth Goddess. Now it was neither on Earth, nor on any world. It was between the realms. There were no words that could truly define this place, stuck in the crack of time and space.
Time didn’t flow inside; it raged outside.
Neither a mortal nor an immortal could survive this space.
I was Earth’s granddaughter. I was part of this court, though in a different timeline. My blood coursed in my mates’ veins, so the Court of Ice and Wind couldn’t hurt them, either. But from the strained expressions on my mates’ faces, I knew they felt the tug of a dark force. It was neither here nor there.
I followed the flow of the icy wind, moving forward in a hurry. The court extended endlessly.
“We need to find the scroll as quickly as possible and get the hell out of here,” Alaric said. He didn’t like this place, more so than others since he was half alien god. He was more at odds with this place built by the Earth Goddess than my other mates.
The court was menacing toward Alaric, the icy wind screaming at him, though no force could really do him harm because of our mating bond.
“We should divide into three groups and search this place,” Pyrder said. “My twin and I will be with Cass. Alaric can search north and Lorcan south.”
Both Alaric and Lorcan snarled.
“We need to stay together,” Lorcan said. “We don’t know anything about this place, and I won’t separate from our mate for a second.”
“We stick together,” I said. I had no intention of losing any of them in a place out of time. “Actually, guys, I know where we should go.”
I had the guidance of my generic memory. My bloodline rang true in this place, which played only by my family’s rules.
I strode northward, following the glow of the North Star, Polaris. My mates immediately spread to form a protective formation around me. Alaric led the way, Lorcan brought up the rear, and my twin fae mates prowled on either side of me.
We marched amid rows of ice columns. A glow pulsed ahead, beckoning us.
A female figure of pure light flicked on and off in the center of a vast, round black gem. A symbol filled the stone.
“The Apotropaic mark,” Alaric whispered.
My gaze flicked from the mark to the figure of light.
She was beautiful and earthly with a voluptuous shape—her waist slim and her hips broad. Her eyes shone with ancient knowledge yet bore the pain of time.
Her hair shifted from silver to midnight-black then to silver again, flowing down to her feet.
In her left hand she carried a black sword, dark fire tracing the surface of the blade, hissing like a snake.
A chill slithered up my spine in waves.
“The Goddess of Death,” Reys whispered.
He and Pyrder had stepped in front of me, in case the Goddess of Death came alive and wielded her dark-fire sword.
“But she isn’t Hades’s consort,” I blurted it out. Somehow I knew that, though I had no idea what Persephone looked like.
The figure of light wheeled, and her face changed to another female’s. Plants and blossoms formed a crown over her head.
“She’s also the Goddess of Life,” Reys said. “A goddess with two faces.”
“Goddess Gaea,” Lorcan whispered. “Many call her Earth Goddess, the ancestral mother of all life on Earth, but few know that she’s also the Goddess of Death.”
Something clicked in me. I often felt two opposite forces within me—light and dark, life and death. I’d thought it was Hades verses Gaea since I’d in
herited two different bloodlines that were at odds with each other. Now I knew that I had more death in me than life. I had two death elements against one life element. No wonder I constantly felt such massive darkness in me. Maybe Jezebel had felt it, too, so she’d called me a monster.
“She’s a different death deity than Hades,” Alaric said. “Hades is the collector of the dead and their souls. Gaea lets old life cease so new life can be born and replace the old. She’s the Death and Life Circle.”
“She led us here,” Lorcan said. “Let’s ask her about the scroll. I have a hunch she’s the one who sent us the vision that led to our mate.”
The figure of light let out a breath, which was kind of eerie, but an ancient scroll appeared, dangling from her hand.
Before my mates reached for it, I called, “Stop!” and pushed through the space between the massive bodies of Pyrder and Alaric.
My mates’ hands froze in midair.
I stared into Gaea’s death mask.
A half-smile ghosted her full lips.
Then bloodred laser lights emerged, spinning and spearing the edges of the witch’s mark at high speed, guarding the scroll in the goddess’s hand.
“You should not play games, Gaea,” I hissed. “The laser lights could have severed my mates’ arms!”
“A little test isn’t harmful, is it?” the lighted figure said, but then her face turned serious. “None can take the scroll except one of my bloodline, and even my line has to prove to be worthy.”
“Cass doesn’t need to prove anything,” Lorcan hissed.
“I’ll do it,” I said, and, before my mates could stop me, my hand thrust into the circle to snatch the scroll.
I was losing patience. I was sick and tired of all the games, and I was willing to go to impossible ends to stop the gods. As long as they were around, my mates and I would always have to look over our shoulders. Eventually, the Olympian gods would destroy Earth, be it collateral damage or not.
And I hated trespassers.
“You’ve taken the scroll,” Gaea’s surreal voice said. “The challenge is yours.”