Chapter 39
Chapter
Thirty-Nine
Sy
“Who are you?” Barbie demanded.
“And who are you?” the purple-haired girl retorted, playing with her flame as if it were a pet. It probably was.
They sized each other up like two alphas meeting at a territorial border. The tension crackled between them, and I could already feel a headache building behind my eyes.
“I asked first. Who the fuck are you?” Barbie barked.
“I asked second, so the first one should fucking answer. Who the fuck are you?” Purple shot back.
Everyone else groaned at their standoff.
“I don’t have time for this shit,” Barbie said, clearly deciding the confrontation wasn’t worth her energy.
“But I have all the time in the world for this shit.” Purple didn’t drop her smirk.
“Whatever!” Barbie snapped. “You’re blocking our path, girl! We need to send something to the other side.”
“Girl? You aren’t even a second older than me,” snorted Purple, her blue flame dancing in her hair. “And no thanks. Keep your garbage. That’s why I put up the ward.”
“Is the other side truly the void, milady?” Cade asked in his rich, deep, and charming voice.
“Mmm,” the girl said noncommittally.
“Could you please drop the ward?” Killian stepped in, his grip tightening on the chains that bound Ruin. “Let’s stop playing games. We need to send a package through to the void.”
Purple’s attention shifted to him, studying my sister’s mate with sharp interest. “And who are you?”
“He’s taken!” Barbie bristled, her hands planted on her hips. “The dragon is my mate, too! They’re both a one-woman man. Go find your own man!”
“Oh, I have my own men, more than one, and I don’t want anyone else,” Purple drawled in a southern accent before narrowing her eyes. “And who are you again?”
“Stop this ‘who are you’ shit,” I cut in. I couldn’t take it anymore. “Let’s build some trust, shall we? I’ll start.”
“Sy!” Barbie warned.
“Too late,” I said. “The damage is done. You already shouted out my name.” I turned to Purple, offering what I hoped was a disarming smile, making sure to hide my fangs. “I’m Sy, and this ‘who-are-you’ champion is my sister, Barbie.”
“Who would name herself Barbie?” Purple snickered, obviously loving how much she was riling up my sister. “Seriously.”
Barbie bit her lip and shot a look at Killian. He’d been the one to name her after literally ripping off her breast binding to reveal that she was a girl in front of thousands of students on the ice rink. The name had stuck ever since.
I shot Barbie a warning look that spelled out let me do the talking.
“It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Lady,” I said, aiming for an ice-breaking opening to show everyone who the adult in the room was.
“Don’t call me lady,” Purple protested. “I’m Marigold.” She raised her voice suddenly. “Mates! Mates! Come here! Look what I’ve found!”
Instantly, four giant males materialized from the mist, all hard muscle and lethal grace and utterly gorgeous. They formed a protective half-circle around her, and the flame barrier thinned just enough to accommodate all five of them within its embrace.
My jaw dropped. “They’re all your mates?” The question slipped out, laced with more envy than I had intended.
Rowan growled possessively. I smirked and slanted him a look that said he was all I wanted. But I wasn’t dead, and my eyes had a mind of their own. My heart belonged completely to him, but that didn’t mean I was blind to the spectacular display of masculine perfection in front of us.
Marigold laughed, the sound musical and sensual. “Yeah.” She jerked her thumb toward each male in turn. “Hector, Paxton, Axel, Zak. They’re all mine.”
“Always,” Paxton, the one in the middle, said softly, his tone brimming with unmistakable pride. Water twirled around his long fingers even as he stood within the flame barrier. His water magic felt different from Silas’s—stronger, vaster, thrumming with a divine potency.
In fact, all four males radiated immense power. They were at least demigods, possibly more.
When they fixed their attention on us, their eyes turned as hard and unyielding as ice.
“What do you want?” Hector asked, his muscled arms folding across his armored chest. His shoulders were as broad as Killian’s; in fact, the two looked remarkably alike, save for the massive black wings folded against Hector’s back.
Death power rolled off him—I could taste it on the air even from where I stood.
A distinctly dragon-like rumble emerged from Killian’s chest. The dragon wasn’t impressed.
“We just want to deliver a package, as I told your lady,” Killian said, his tone carefully measured.
“What package?” the one called Axel asked, arrogance dripping from every word. A metallic power hummed around him—the aura of a war demigod.
Killian lifted Ruin as gently as he could—chains and all—for them to see. “A baby. We’re looking to give you a baby. Perhaps someone on your side is in the market for an adoption.”
“And you chained a baby?” Zak frowned, lightning flashing in his blue eyes. “What kind of people are you? I suggest you find him a cradle and sing a lullaby to make it up to him.”
Did he have any idea who the baby truly was? Was he playing us? He even shrugged at seeing a baby in chains. Perhaps Marigold’s mates were all psychopaths.
“Well, this is a special baby that requires special care,” Killian said, revealing nothing more.
“Nice try, asshole.” Marigold’s laughter rang out again. “That isn’t a baby.”
“Don’t call my mate an asshole,” Barbie hissed. “He might be one to everyone else, but never to me. Well, he was one to me at some point, but I put him in his place. He had his reasons, but I’m not an enabler.”
“I did the same!” Marigold called back, jerking a thumb toward Paxton. “Ask him. I put him through hell until he groveled for a very long time.”
“If you drop the ward, Mari Gold,” Barbie said sweetly, switching tactics with surprising speed, “we can high-five for our wins in taming impossible assholes. We could compare notes.”
“Sneaky. Sneaky,” Marigold said. “I lower the ward, and you toss that old loser, your special baby, into my territory?”
Barbie’s eyes widened in surprise, and mine went just as round. I could feel the shockwave ripple through the heirs as well. How did she know the evil baby was the God of Ruin?
“You think I was born yesterday?” Marigold snorted.
“I’ll be a hundred years old in ten days, and my mates are much older, except for Axel.
Axel and I went to the same school. I used to call Half-Blood Academy the Half-Death Academy since only half of the students survived that fucking place.
Long story short, there isn’t much I haven’t seen.
” She paused, tilting her head as if listening to something we couldn’t hear, then laughed again.
“Did you hear what that old loser just said?”
Barbie blinked. “You can read his mind, even though I’ve bound his tongue?”
“Of course,” Marigold said casually. “He just called me a meddling whore who shares a bed with all my males at the same time.” She winked at me. “It’s fun. Really fun. You should try it sometimes.”
Rowan growled, baring his fangs and glaring at her. He didn’t want her bad influence corrupting his innocent mate. If only he knew half the thoughts that ran through my head.
“So, you’ve encountered the void god before, Lady Marigold?” Cade asked, clearly impressed.
Marigold’s smile turned predatory. “More than that, mage.”
“We kicked his ass,” Zak stated. “That fucker ran from us.”
Now everyone on our side looked more than impressed—even Killian.
“How?” Silas demanded, his scheming mind already whirring.
“Standing before you is the famous Titan princess, the daughter of the Titan King and the Queen of the Void, children!” Isis chimed in, her voice carrying a newfound respect. “Her four mates are among the most powerful demigods, most of them second-born.”
“We’re galaxy explorers,” Axel said. Though the youngest of the demigods, he carried himself with an easy confidence. “We go where no one else has gone before.”
“We’re more like the Guardians of the Galaxy, if you catch my meaning,” Zak added.
All the heirs stared at the demigods from the other side with envy.
“That is one evil motherfucker you’re trying to smuggle into our world,” she scolded. “Liar, liar, pants on fire, nose as long as a telephone wire!”
“Everyone lies, and our pants don’t catch fire,” Barbie shot back. “And since your mom is the Queen of the Void, this unwanted baby belongs to her. He crawled out of it, so we want him to go back.”
“He is not from our void,” Marigold stated firmly. “And even if he were, we don’t want another loser.”
Time for a different approach. “Do you live in the void, Marigold? In the world beyond this fog?” I asked, keeping my tone casual.
“Nope,” she said. “That is Mom’s territory.
We’re just here checking on Mom and Dad.
We’re from the other Earth. My birthday is coming up, so I’m expecting big gifts from them both.
Then I’m off to Hell to collect a birthday gift from King Loki.
He dreads it—he’s my stepbrother, and he’s cheap.
” She beamed with delight. “Last time, Dad gave me an entire planet. The beaches have purple sand, like the color of my hair.”
I gave her hair an admiring look. “You have the best mom and dad, don’t you?” I said, unable to hide my envy. What would it be like to have parents who showered you with affection and entire planets instead of trying to eat you?
“Well, it’s complicated,” she said, her expression sobering.
“I grew up poor in the most dangerous district. I only met them after one of my asshole mates kidnapped me and took me to the academy. I was almost killed a few times. So now they try to make up for it by showering me with expensive gifts.”
“Gotta take advantage of that,” Axel said with hearty approval. “The guilt trip always works like a charm.”
Marigold nodded, a bright smile returning to her face.