Magic Trials

by Meg Xuemei X

  Demons, however, were made of pure evil and nothing else.

  They had only one intention for humanity—enslaving and destroying it.

  I’d thought that fate had finally cut me some slack.

  I’d thought that I’d teleported here for a good reason, like this was a place I could claim for myself.

  Fate was a sadistic dick.

  So here I was with demons closing in.

  I halted my pace.

  Two horned demons approached me from the front, and a third one that looked more like a troll cut off my escape route from behind.

  They were all over seven-feet-tall, wearing scaled armor, their tails thrashing like barbwire. While they had sharp claws and serrated fangs, each one also carried an ax, a spear, or a chainsaw.

  Demons didn’t fancy swords much because they were favored by their opponents.

  Once again, I had no idea how I knew this—or anything else—about demons.

  They strutted toward me as if I were a game or a snack.

  My gaze swept over them as I attempted to summon my flame and expel the cold terror in my blood. I was wiped out from the fight against both Jack and Paxton, but I needed my power not to fail me now.

  I couldn’t outrun these three predators.

  Shit, I cursed under my breath as I spotted a fourth demon perching atop the roof of a building right above me.

  I urgently summoned my power again, waiting for a spark of fire to appear on my sweaty, cold palms.

  Please, damn you, just give me a sign you’ll aid me.

  Magic fizzed in the depths of my well, trying to rise, but all I could access was ember and ash at the bottom.

  I’d drained it fighting Paxton, shielding and healing myself, then teleporting here.

  I had to improvise until I figured out a plan B.

  A green-horned demon clutched a spear in its claws. If I could disarm him and take it, I could even the odds a little.

  I needed to entice them to approach first. And I had to do it without showing any fear. Demons preyed and thrived on it.

  “Hello, boys, are you lost?” I purred, wheeling around as I endeavored to keep all of them out of my blind spots, though the green-horned demon remained my main target. “I can point you the way home, which is strictly to Hell.”

  The demons stared at me, surprised expressions flitting through their yellowish and crimson eyes. I bet no one—definitely no human—had called them boys.

  “She’s funny,” a demon with red horns said. “Or she thinks she is.”

  He flashed me a grin, showing off his sharp, serrated teeth.

  “Maybe later, little girl, after we’re done having a little fun with you,” he purred back, which sent bad goosebumps all over my arms.

  He wasn’t the leader of the band, despite that he carried the scary chainsaw. Demons loved to cart nasty stuff around, anything to inspire fear.

  My sweeping gaze landed on a black-horned demon who wielded an ax, clearly the ringleader of this expedition. His black eyes met mine. No mercy, no humanity shone from their depths, just chilling hunger.

  “A descendant of the filth of the Earth!” hissed the gray-horned demon from the rooftop.

  I’d teleported here in my school uniform, still recognizable despite being bloody and trashed.

  I rolled my eyes. “We got a third-class detective here.”

  The demon jumped from a two-story building and landed to my left. He didn’t hold a weapon, but his long, sharp claws glinted like blades.

  “Captain, let me kill the little talkative filth so we can get on with our business,” he addressed to the black-horned demon.

  “Really?” I asked, arching an eyebrow. “Rushing somewhere if not Hell?”

  The red-horned demon guffawed, making me wonder if he carried all the humor for the rest of the gang.

  “I like this human,” he said. “She’s got style. I say we play with this pretty little thing first. Let’s get her to answer a few questions, like what is she doing in a place no other humans dare set foot in. If she answers well, she gets fucked, then a quick death. But if she stutters....”

  “We don’t have time to play, Ördög,” the gray-horned demon snapped. “We need to find the ultimate weapon and bring it to the great master so we can collect our reward.” He stared at me with open disgust. “This filth is a distraction we don’t want. One of the demigods has been in the area for two weeks now hunting for the same weapon.”

  “I’m not afraid of the demigod,” the green-horned demon said. “We’re four against him.”

  I inched closer to him for my coveted spear. He was a grade-three demon, like his peers—all except for their captain.

  “Naberus is right,” the demon captain said, still studying me. “We’re lucky to have intercepted the prophecy first, but if we don’t get on with our affairs, we’ll lose our advantage. The great master wants his prophesied weapon to tilt the scales in our favor. I want a big promotion.” He sniffed the air. “This human girl, though, she isn’t just an average descendant of the enemies. She smells different than any Olympian I’ve ever met.”

  He sniffed the air again.

  What the actual fuck?

  Why did everyone have a bad habit of sniffing at me?

  My bad luck had started with a sniff from a demigod. If Axel hadn’t smelled something unique in me back in Crack, he’d never have forced me into the Academy. I never would’ve been burned, iced over, beaten, and now surrounded by demons in a forsaken street.

  The demon captain ranked power-five. He was stronger than all the demons here, as well as the one I’d encountered in the forest.

  If I let the demon captain get a better whiff of me, he might drag me to Hell, just as the Demigod of War had dragged me to the Half-Blood Academy.

  Without warning, I charged the quiet, green-horned demon, faster than a flash. My fist rammed up to his jaw in a feint.

  His yellowish eyes twitched in surprise. A fragile-looking human girl had no business acting so aggressively, from a demon’s point of view.

  Too bad. I had a flare for shocking people and beings.

  While he snarled and lashed out his claws to grab my fist, I yanked on the spear strapped to his left shoulder, spun out of his grasp, then lurched forward and buried the spearhead into his side.

  I grinned at myself. I hadn’t lost my touch.

  He bellowed in pain. I pulled out the spear and leapt back, uncaring that black blood poured out from his gaping wound.

  I waved the spear and thrust it toward the captain.

  He parried easily, his ax swinging to meet my spear. I stumbled back, hoping the impact didn’t cut my palms. His ax followed through, narrowly missing my ear.

  My heart pounded in panic as I realized this lot were battle-trained demons.

  Two other demons closed in, one from my left and the other from my back. The wounded green-horned demon served as their backup, shouting for my blood.

  The situation didn’t look great for me.

  Just as the gang was about to thrust their weapons at me, all at the same time, and I was about to duck attacks from all directions to my best ability, the captain shouted. “Halt!”

  The minions stopped in their tracks, but kept their weapons up around me, ready to resume stabbing holes in my person as soon as their boss gave the go ahead.

  The captain sniffed the air yet again, and his black horns twisted and hissed like snakes.

  He creeped me out.

  His goons followed suit and inhaled the air, too. Their pitiless eyes now rolled with astonishment and confusion.

  “If she’s the one, our banishment will come to an end when we offer her to the great master,” the leader said, his black eyes swirling with foul darkness.

  He spoke in a demonic tongue to his lackeys, yet I understood all of it, as if the evil language was etched in my bones and flowed in my blood.

  A chilling panic filled my mind.

  No one could understand the demonic
language, not even the demigods, unless they were a demon. But I couldn’t be a demon, could I?

  No demon could step through the wards of the Academy, yet I’d dwelled in the center of the school grounds with the Olympian girls. The Ritual of the Blood Runes would burn a demon to ashes, but—

  My breath shortened.

  The runes had burned me mercilessly, but I hadn’t turned into a pile of ash. Instead, I’d survived and gained power greater than any descendant’s.

  Yet my fire didn’t seem to be from any of the twelve Olympian gods’ houses.

  And now this sorry-ass, demon rogue band was taking an uncanny interest in me.

  “Can she really be...the Lost Princess?” the red-horned demon asked with reverence.

  No! Terror struck me. I couldn’t be a demon spawn, even though I had been lost on the street when Vi found me.

  “There is this rumor in the Underworld that no one even dares to whisper...” murmured the gray-horned demon as he looked at me in a different light.

  The demon captain snapped, sweeping them with a harsh look. “Say no more. I won’t lose my head because of you fools’ loose tongues.”

  “We’re finally having good luck, right?” asked the red-horned demon hopefully. “I mean, she just fell into our laps like this? I’m sick and tired of being called a loser.”

  “You three keep looking for the weapon,” the demon captain said sternly, his eyes roaming my every inch while he sniffed me again. “I’ll take the girl and get her ready.”

  He’d drag me to the core of Hell.

  I wheeled and swung my spear up toward his neck.

  I realized that demons could take a lot of damage. It’d be a bad strategy to wound them here and there with small holes, an effort that would soon wear me down. The best strategy was to strike as hard as I could, weaken them, and then make my escape.

  And now I had one advantage—the demons wanted to capture me instead of kill me.

  The captain brought up his ax to parry, but I shifted my angle.

  My spear sank into his throat.

  He ducked, but not quickly enough—probably because he was daydreaming about me being his ticket to a better life.

  My spear left a thin trail of oozing black blood around his neck.

  He bellowed in rage, darkness twirling eerily inside his eyes.

  “I’ll kill you if you prove more trouble than you’re worth, little girl,” he hissed.

  “And we’ll bury the secret of killing the possible Lost One,” the green-horned demon echoed, totally onboard. I figured he hated me for stabbing him.

  Three demons closed ranks, no longer worried that they might severely injury me.

  The chainsaw cut into my back below my shoulder blade.

  Screaming, I tore myself away from the jagged metal, sidestepped, booted the captain, and wheeled toward the red-horned demon.

  The gruesome chainsaw dripped with my blood.

  With a furious roar and a burst of strength, I tossed my spear toward the red-horned demon’s throat. I aimed true, and it pierced the demon’s neck.

  He widened his eyes in disbelief before he dropped in a heap, his chainsaw flying from his hands. His red horns scratched the ground with a coarse scrape.

  Before I could snatch his chainsaw or yank out the spear from his throat, the other demons charged.

  Things didn’t look too hot for me.

  Harsh, urgent flapping sounds beat into the wind. A vast shadow flitted over us, blotting out the sky.

  Goddamnit! More demons were coming.

  I dared not look up as I trained all my attention on the gang that was now determined to cut me to pieces.

  I would jump on the wounded, green-horned demon next.

  “A demigod!” shrieked the gray-eyed demon.

  Had Axel or Zak tracked me down?

  A sliver of hope rose in me. It would suck to return to the Academy, but it was better than going to Hell.

  “We grab her and shift to our domain,” the demon captain barked. “One, two....”

  They slammed into me.

  I roared in dread, shoving them off.

  As a claw sank into my skin, latching onto my arm, a wave of black wind and light tore the demons from me.

  A demon’s razor-sharp claw slid through my hair and then dropped to the ground, cleaved from its hand by a long black blade.

  A pair of mighty obsidian wings flung demons away from me.

  A formidable, gorgeous warrior with the face of an angel descended from the sky above and planted himself in front of me, his sapphire eyes burning with dark, heavenly fire.

  CHAPTER 14

  Demigod of Death

  She stood there, my lamb, the girl from my dreams.

  Her lush, lavender hair flew wildly in the electric wind, her full pink lips pulled back in a snarl, and her green eyes that made the rest of the world seem pale burned with unquenchable fire.

  Her touch had created a firestorm in my blood.

  She was the first woman who had touched me and lived, even in my dreams.

  My heart, which had never beaten for anyone, pounded in my chest. For her, my blood heated in my ancient, icy veins, just as it had in my dreams.

  I saw only her, nothing and no one else, until her roar brought me out of my trance.

  I now noticed the rest of the scene.

  Four demons surrounded her in the demolished street, closing in to maim and capture her.

  Instead of cowering, my brave lamb waved a spear, like a warrior made of fire. She poured her rage out as she thrust the spearhead toward her foes.

  Acid fire twisted my innards as I noted her own blood covering her academy uniform.

  She’d been beaten and tortured.

  Wrath filled my being.

  Her enemies would pay. I’d tear them apart for what they did to my lamb.

  My black wings summoned the wind.

  She was mine to protect and then to claim, possess, and keep forever.

  I’d been haunting Manhattan, the beast’s belly, in search of the coveted weapon a prophecy said would appear at these coordinates.

  A weapon called the living flame would tilt the scales of the war between Hell and Heaven. I wouldn’t allow such a weapon to fall into Lucifer’s hands.

  So far I hadn’t found the weapon—not even a trace of it. But now I’d found the treasure of my heart.

  I’d found my mate.

  With black wind on my ebony wings and a fiery black longsword in my grip, I tore into the horde of the demons to shield my lamb.

  I was the Demigod of Death, and I would never allow death to touch her.

  CHAPTER 15

  _____________

  My dream lover had flown out of my dream and materialized in front of me.

  I gazed up at him, my eyes wild with shock and raw need.

  The wind he’d brought down to Earth tousled his rich brown hair, framing his stunningly beautiful and masculine face. His strong figure could’ve been carved right out of pure, hard ice, and his spirit shone like a deadly flame tracing dangerously beneath the glacier.

  His firm, curvy lips were just like I’d remembered—kissable.

  His sapphire eyes, brimming with concern, rage, joy, and disbelief, gazed down at me. As his gaze paused on the blood all over my academy uniform, wrath iced over his eyes.

  “You’re real,” I stuttered.

  The savage world and the demons all faded away. It was just him and me.

  My ravenous gaze roved over his taut torso wrapped in silver and black armor. When I’d met him in the dream, he’d been bare-chested.

  Then he’d been naked beneath me.

  I’d seen his massive, gorgeous shaft, the first cock I’d ever touched.

  For a second, my mind was filled with the image of his steel rod prodding at my entrance before thrusting into my heated core.

  I’d glided down his hard length, like nothing else mattered.

  I’d ridden him like the wildest thing on E
arth, and he’d bucked his powerful hips up and thrust into me with abandon.

  His every hard inch had stretched my inner muscles deliciously while my sex gloved his cock perfectly and tightly.

  His scent of pure male, cinder, and night had infused my bloodstream.

  He’d fucked me. He’d unmade me before I’d been yanked out of the dream.

  I’d never thought he could be real, though I’d wished with every piece of my soul that he somehow existed.

  In my moments of blind rage, panic, and despair in the Hall of Olympia, I’d had no one to turn to. I’d had nowhere to go. I guess when I’d reached out to him, hoping to escape the real world, I’d magically teleported directly to him.

  Not exactly directly.

  I blinked back to the battlefield on the cracked street, watching my tender dream lover transform into a ferocious, formidable warrior.

  “I’m real,” he said, his rich, deep voice caressing me. The heat in his eyes burned the short fuse between us. “So are you, lamb. Finding you satisfies me more than anything.”

  As soon as he called me lamb, I knew he was absolutely real, and he was here for me, to defend me. Tears flooded my eyes, stinging my eyelids.

  He smiled at me, brightening my existence. His intense gaze dipped to my lips, as if he wanted to sweep me into his arms and kiss me more than anything. The raw need and tenderness in his galaxy-sapphire eyes, though, vanished in the next heartbeat, replaced by icy fury.

  “Let me get rid of these foul beings before we resume our lovely affair,” he said. His deep, musical voice chilled, his tone chipped with the hardest ice. “They’ll regret that they ever laid a claw on you.”

  Like a black storm, he tore through my attackers. His longsword gleamed with dark flame as it cleaved a demon’s gray horn.

  My knight wanted to punish my foes first. He thought these demons had made me bleed, that they were the cause of the blood that soaked my uniform.

  I restrained myself from cheering at his magnificent fighting style. Even the best warrior might lose their footing when distracted.

  The gray-horned demon screamed in pain before my knight decapitated him with one clean, swift sweep of his sword. And then without turning, my dream lover drove his blade backward, impaling the green-horned demon as the demon jumped on him, fangs bared and claws out.