by Meg Xuemei X
“As soon as you feel stronger, we’ll have to leave, Calamity,” Max said, making an effort to sound businesslike. “We’ve stayed too long in this unknown region. Our enemies could catch up with us at any moment.”
“Give her and our other travel companions a couple more hours,” Ash said. “We’ve been driving them to move at breakneck speed. They aren’t built like us.”
“We can all rest when we’re dead,” Max said.
Sebastian turned over and slowly sat up, as did Octavia.
Everyone had woken except the tiger.
Shouldn’t the beast stay alert? Was Killian a lazy tiger? But then, from the picture he’d shown me, he’d been abused and starved by the demons since he was a cub. He’d need to be re-trained, and I eyed Ash, hoping he’d take on the job.
“How do you feel, Calamity?” Sebastian asked from a few yards away.
“Do you still feel dizzy?” Octavia added.
Other than being thirsty and hungry, I felt incredibly horny, but I couldn’t tell them that. I didn’t want them to know that I was in heat for some fucked-up reason.
I swallowed my bread.
“I’m fine,” I said. “How do you two feel? Have you recovered?”
Octavia nodded. She darted a careful glance at Max and Ash before turning her gaze on me again. “You call the shots, Queen Calamity. I’m ready to get going again.”
She’d fought hard not to show weakness, but she still looked exhausted, with dark circles under her eyes.
And Sebastian didn’t look fazed at my new title. I bet that my courtesan friend had preached to him about the prophecy while I was out cold.
He stared at Ash. “Why did you say my sister is my cousin? We don’t even look alike.”
He sent me an apologetic look, as if he was worried that I’d get offended. I tilted my head to the side and smiled at him. Not everyone could have a pair of horns like his.
Max and Ash traded a look. Max’s face held a cautious, warning look, but Ash shrugged.
“She has the right to know everything, Max,” the fae said. “We agreed not to keep anything from her on the trip here and to treat her as our equal, no matter how hard the truth is. I’m not going to lose her trust over lies, pink bubbles, and shit.”
“Thank you, Ash,” I said. “I’m not the kind of person who can’t handle hard facts.”
Ash flashed me a killer smile, and my heart fluttered. I’d merely distracted myself a little from the unbearable heat inside me.
Max wrapped a hand around me to warm me, mistaking my shiver as my reaction to the frosty air. Ash immediately shrugged off his long coat, draped it over me, and wrapped an arm around my waist from the other side.
“Your true name is Ayanna Darken,” Ash said. “You’re the lost heir to Atlantis, once the greatest kingdom on Earth.”
I frowned in confusion. “Once?”
“After you were stolen from the cradle, King Ares Darken and Queen Freyja Darken nearly destroyed Atlantis to search for you,” Ash said. “They turned over every stone on Earth to look for you. Their elite guards are still hunting for you, as are their enemies.”
I felt a warm current swimming around my heart. I’d been wanted. I hadn’t been abandoned as I’d suspected. Tears pricked against my eyelids.
“Your mother was inconsolable after they failed to locate you.” Max continued the narration. “She and your father soon left their kingdom behind to search for you, to seek out every seer who had glimpsed you. Yet no one could see you.”
I held my breath.
“After they left, the kingdom fell into the hands of the power-hungry dragonian elders,” Ash said. “It gradually weakened under their constant power struggles. A decade later, other kingdoms rose, especially the ones built by new humans. The ratio of the species on Earth changed dramatically during those twenty years. There’s been a great shift. The mortals grew in number at rapid speed and started wars in every corner of Earth, fighting over territories.”
Max nodded. “The dragonian, the engineering race, no longer dominated Earth. Mortals are still afraid of the fae and the Sváva, but most of them have left for other galaxies. Your parents might leave with the last wave of the fae. Your mother is the granddaughter of Dark Lord Atlas, once the most powerful Sváva in the universe. She believed that you weren’t on Earth anymore and that Atlas’s loyal generals had stolen you, as they’d once tried to do to her to harvest her magic. She recruited a team of powerful fae, archangels, and other supernaturals to hunt down Atlas’s generals in other galaxies.”
I hadn’t expected that my parents’ love for me was so profound. My heart warmed and then bled for their long suffering.
“But I’m here,” I cried. “We need to let them know I’m here!”
Ash hugged me against his chest, and Max stroked my back.
Sebastian and Octavia gathered around, so we were huddled in a tight ring. To his credit, Sebastian didn’t pull his big brother attitude and shove the two males away from me. He looked at them warily, though.
“No one from the Upper Realm knows about the Underworld, a place that exists at the edge of Hell,” Max said. “Cain, one of Atlas’s generals, led the defeated Sváva to escape the pursuit of High Prince Seth, a powerful archangel, and his fae queen mate. Cain and his followers stumbled into this dimension.”
“The most terrifying ruler of the Underworld was a loser?” Sebastian asked, eyes wide.
“It’s a long story that involves the war between Heaven and Earth,” Max said. “We’ll talk about it another time.”
“We learned about the Underworld only a month ago,” Ash said. “Max and I were about to leave Earth with Seth and Rose and their entire fae and Sváva army, but then Merlin came and sent us to fetch Ayanna, the lost princess.”
“If this Merlin knew about where I was,” I said, balling my palms into fists as the flame on my breast burned at my outburst of emotion, “why didn’t he tell my parents about me?”
“He’s a seer,” Max said softly. “But he doesn’t see visions at will. Sometimes what he sees is tangled up in a different timeline.”
I took a deep breath to calm myself. Their friend had no obligations whatsoever toward me. I already owed him a life debt just for the fact that he’d sent the three males to look for me in this hellhole after he’d glimpsed my whereabouts.
“Seers are powerful,” Ash added, “but not as powerful as everyone thinks.”
From his scowl, I suspected that he and Merlin had a rivalry.
“The Prophet said the promised queen would come for the oppressed slaves of the Underworld,” Octavia cried. “You weren’t born a slave but a princess, heir to the greatest kingdom. You’re the light stolen from the Upper Realm, Queen Calamity, so you could shine in the Underworld. So you can light the dark and save us all.”
“I’ll do what I can to help and fight,” I said softly and firmly. “But I’m no one’s savior. I wasn’t born to that role, as you and the Thorn Rose think. There’s no savior in this world, and it’s dangerous to put faith in the wrong person. You will save yourselves one day if you keep fighting, as you and your sisters saved me and brought me out of the demon emperor’s court.”
“We must escort you to the Prophet, to prepare you,” Octavia insisted. “And you’ll see the path of enlightenment, my queen.”
“We’re going straight to the portal to the Upper Realm,” Ash said. “Our priority is to bring Princess Ayanna safely home, and we won’t allow anyone or anything to get in our way.”
“But Queen Calamity came for us,” Octavia said. “She came for all the slaves. She’s ours!”
I wasn’t going to let anyone dictate my path, no matter how many favors I owed them.
I raised a hand to stop the argument.
“I appreciate that you came for me, Max, Ash,” I said, willing myself to form a coherent thought under their heated gazes. “But don’t you know that no one has ever escaped the Underworld?”
“Yeah, we h
eard about that,” Ash said with a shrug.
“Yet you still came,” I said. “Why?”
Max and Ash shared a look but didn’t explain further.
“Even before the fallen angels arrived and became demons,” I said, full of sorrow for the two fine warriors, “no one could leave the Underworld. The Reaper brings everyone here, but it’s a one-way ticket—you get in but you don’t get out. I’m sorry that you’re now stuck here with us.”
“I always screwed up,” Ash said. “But coming here for you is the best decision I’ve ever made.”
My heart fluttered and warmed.
“Our druid friend will open the portal from the other side,” he added. “He’ll be waiting for us. All we need to do is get to the spot.”
“We’ll get you out, Ayanna,” Max chimed in with determination. “Even if we don’t get out, you’ll get out.”
Ash flashed me a big smile, knowing how it would make my heart leap. “Though I’d prefer to get out with you.”
Octavia’s glance darted between us. “The Queen of the Flame draws in all the—” She paused and shook her head. “That’s not what I meant.”
“—moths?” I finished for her. “I don’t want anyone to be moths,” I said. “I don’t want anyone to sacrifice themselves for me.”
“Well,” Sebastian said, eying Max and Ash suspiciously. “It’s nice of you to come for my sister, but we haven’t established your credibility.” He sent me a big-brother look. “We can’t just trust any strangers.”
Max and Ash were no longer strangers since the moment they’d landed in the arena to defend me. They were my protectors, and more.
My heart leapt hopefully at the prospect of what would develop between us.
“I found a big hole in your conspiracy story,” Sebastian continued, pleased with his cleverness. “If Calamity and I are cousins, we should at least share some physical resemblance.”
I nodded. “What my brother said makes sense,” I said in support of Sebastian. “I don’t need to have horns like Bas, but I should have blue skin, at least, instead of being so golden.”
Ash gave my body another heated caress with his intense gaze. “You want to have blue skin, Blossom? But your golden skin is perfect.”
“You’re a pureblood dragonian, Prince Adam Darken, which is your true birth name,” Max said to Sebastian. “Your father, Prince Liam Darken, also a pureblood dragonian, is the first cousin to King Ares Darken. Ares, however, is a hybrid—half advanced human and half genetically enhanced dragonian shifter. Queen Freyja Darken is half witch and half archangel Sváva. So, Princess Ayanna is actually a tribrid. You two do share some dragonian DNA, but Ayanna has less than a quarter of it. Her Sváva genes dominate her physical traits, except she doesn’t have wings. As you can see, she’s more beautiful than any other race.”
My heart pounded in my chest. Maybe that was why I could move faster than an archdemon.
“And Ayanna can regenerate faster than even Max and me,” Ash added.
When he checked my wound, the shallow cut in my shoulder from a demon’s angelblade had sealed.
Both Sebastian and I were quiet for a moment. It was too much to take in, even though I’d said that I wanted nothing but the truth.
Sebastian turned to me, his brows furrowed. “Do you think Xavier stole us and brought us here?”
I hissed. “How could you doubt our father? He gave us everything.”
“He loved you way more than he loved me,” Sebastian grunted. “Not that I minded. I’m just saying, I understand why you thought he was a perfect father.”
A sense of guilt passed over me. Xavier had showered most of his attention on me. Sebastian had competed to do the same, so he hadn’t been jealous, as he’d said.
But then, the hard truth was that Xavier had been full of secrets, and they had died with him in that explosion in the deep tunnel.
“Don’t you remember anything at all, Bas?” I asked. “You’re older than me.”
Sebastian squinted his brown eyes, trying hard to concentrate, then opened them, shook his head, and wiped a huge hand over his handsome blue face in frustration.
“When you both disappeared, Sebastian was three and a half years old,” Max offered.
“He was your protector as soon as you were born,” Ash said. “He was bigger than a human boy. He wouldn’t leave your side, and you always wanted him and no one else, except for your parents, to hold you. Whenever you cried, your cousin would rush to you. That was probably why the kidnapper took both of you and smuggled you to the Underworld.”
“I’m sorry, Bas,” I said ruefully. “You weren’t the target. You were taken and sold as a slave because of me.”
He’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. If he hadn’t guarded me, he would still have a good, easy life as the Prince of Atlantis.
Sebastian stared into the dark space ahead. The wind blew over the dried grass.
“I’m glad they also took me, Calamity,” he said quietly. “I’d go anywhere to shield you. But you were supposed to be the future queen and me a prince. We would have lived a great life in the Upper Realm. At least up there you’d be safe and free.” He then said, in a sudden burst of anger, “You almost didn’t make it out of the arena, and I nearly lost you. I want to knife that bastard who stole us and robbed us of our childhood.”
“We don’t know who smuggled both of you to the Underworld,” Ash said, a dark shadow flitting across his eyes. “When we find out who did this, that fucker will have to answer to us. The punishment won’t be pretty.”
“You said the king and the queen weren’t in Atlantis, since they were about to leave for another galaxy to hunt for Calamity.” Sebastian flicked his glance between Ash and Max. “What about my parents? Did you tell them that I was here? They could bring an army to come get us, right? You said my father is the Prince of Atlantis.”
There was a pause, then Max said, “Your mother died during your birth. Prince Liam is sick from poison.”
My heart sank at the bad news. I hugged my brother. “I’m so sorry, Bas.”
Tears streamed down his cheeks. “I need to find a way to get back to him as soon as possible.”
Ash gathered me into his arms, as if I was the one who needed to be comforted.
“We didn’t tell your father or anyone about our discovery,” Max said with sympathy. “We couldn’t afford to let anyone know that we were coming to the Underworld for the lost heir to Atlantis. The known and unknown enemies’ spies are everywhere.”
Octavia took my place and embraced Sebastian.
In the fae prince’s strong arms, a long-buried yearning sparked in me. I wanted to return to the Upper Realm to meet my mom and dad, shouting to them that I’m alive, fulfilling my duty as their daughter, and mending their broken hearts.
And I wanted to see the sunrise and the stars filling the sky.
Another warm hand landed on the small of my back, and Max turned me toward him and pulled me against his chest, ignoring Ash’s low growling.
Max’s scent of cypress and flame caressed me, while Ash’s scent of snow and pine and forest lingered on my skin.
The liquid fire between my thighs hadn’t receded, and it started licking my tender, aching flesh again.
“Wait,” Sebastian called over Octavia’s shoulder while he clung to her. “As much as I want to believe that my sister and I are actually royalty from another realm, I can’t just trust your words. You two obviously have impure intentions toward my sister, and I don’t approve of that.”
What if they had indeed mistaken me for someone else?
“Careful, dragonian,” Ash hissed. His dominant alpha trait surfaced right away. “No one standing between my mate and me will keep breathing.”
I pulled away from Max and trained my furious gaze on the fae prince, my eyes ablaze with fury. “Don’t threaten my brother!”
“Diplomacy, Ash,” Max said with a sigh. “You’re always short of it. Are you going to pu
sh away the woman of your dreams with your harsh manners?”
“She’s all I want,” Ash said, meeting my livid gaze unfazed. “I won’t allow anyone or anything to stand between our mate and us.”
Our mate?
I glared at him, yet a joyful sense of relief washed over me. I’d wanted all three of them, and I’d thought there was something very wrong with me and nearly let shame beat me down.
Elijah’s words resonated in the chamber of my head. “If I could, I would keep you as mine and mine alone.”
So he thought I belonged to all of them as well. As my thoughts drifted toward the archangel, a longing for him and pang filled my being again.
“What are you talking about, guys?” I demanded.
“You’re our fated mate, Ayanna,” Max said, his gaze full of heated tenderness. “On your right inner arm, you bear four mating icons, each representing your mating bond to one of your mates—us. We know you’ve marked Elijah.”
My heart drummed, and my face flamed.
That explained the mating fire coursing in my veins whenever I was around one of them. It’d be worse if I was with all of them. The flame of lust might just engulf and combust me.
I eyed Max, then Ash, with raw, scorching heat that I couldn’t disguise. The mating fever burned in me hotter than a river of lava. Both males were absolutely smoldering hot and gorgeous. All my life, I had seen only the diggers and the Sváva. I hadn’t seen much of the world or many pretty faces, yet I knew in my soul that Max, Ash, and Elijah were the finest males. It’d be any woman’s dream to have any one of them, and they told me I was the mate to them all.
But a rebellious part of me still protested, not liking that I didn’t have a say in this fated thing. And I wasn’t thrilled that my body had turned against me. It wanted to dance to the tune of the males in front of me. It had no care for dignity or shame, or anything but its own carnal need.
The very core of me preferred to have control over my own path and my own body instead of letting anyone, including fate or prophecy, decide things for me.
Sebastian threw his head back and laughed. I’d never heard him laughing like that. Being a slave and my protector had taken a toll on him. I bet the whole thing about our heritage sounded more than ridiculous to his ears.