CHAPTER NINE
Maxar
They were two doors down, and yet I still heard them.
Sure, she was mate-bonded with the bear, and Fated Mates with all three of us, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t a little jealous that she chose to spend the night with him.
Now that I’d had a taste of my queen, I was addicted and craving more.
And it wasn’t just about the sex either. I simply wanted to be with her. To be near her. To hold her. To talk to her. I wanted to get to know her and for her to get to know me. I rarely opened up to people, and yet, Omaera made it so easy for me to spill my guts. She knew about my parents, and yet she didn’t judge me for it, unlike some people.
I was on the Mage Council’s watch list because of my parents. For centuries, they kept their eyes on me, just in case I decided to be the apple that stuck close to the tree and embraced dark magic like my parents.
It sucked that they didn’t trust me, but at the same time, I understood it. It just prompted me to keep my nose clean and make sure the Council knew I wasn’t a threat. Though, the shame I lived with over what my parents did was enough to keep me on the straight and narrow for eternity.
Maybe now that I was the Queen’s consort, the Council would trust me. Then again, maybe now that I was the Queen’s consort, that just gave the Mage Council even more reason to spy on me. The Council was an unpredictable lot of cranky old mages who thought they were better than everyone and knew better than everyone. I’d only ever met them once—when I was four, and they interrogated me for days after they took down my parents—and I had no desire to ever meet them again.
I didn’t fall asleep until Omaera’s final cry of ecstasy echoed off my wall. She deserved the pleasure the bear gave her. I would never deny her that. I just wished that it was me giving her that pleasure.
Morning came with an obnoxious alarm blasting through the door, loud enough to wake the dead. Was there a tornado coming? A tsunami? Enemy aircraft carrying an atomic bomb? The only times I’d ever heard a noise like that was just before disaster struck.
So, of course, I sprang out of bed, naked as the day I was born, and swung open the front door, green flames in each hand, ready to defend my queen.
Drak, apparently, had the same idea—though he was dressed in black pants—and Zandren came out, hair a disaster, hard cock poking straight at us and murder in his eyes.
We stood there, ready to fight—and protect—only to blink like surprised idiots at Kenvin Jol standing in the courtyard, hand cranking an old-school war siren. “Get up, idiots. It’s training day.”
All three of us groaned.
I snuffed out my flames.
Zandren growled.
Drak … he looked the same as always, unimpressed and pale.
Omaera appeared in the doorway, wrapped up in a bedsheet. Her tight curly hair wilder than normal, and her eyes bright, even though they had dark smudges beneath them. The woman looked thoroughly fucked. Even Drak saw it, and a hint of color crept up his neck.
“Breakfast in five, training in twenty,” Kenvin hollered over the siren before letting go of the hand crank.
Omaera blinked, then knuckled sleep out of her eyes. “What time is it? ”
“Training time,” Kenvin said. “You want to trap and defeat Lerris? You want to earn the trust and loyalty of the Realm? Then we need to get cracking.” He grunted, nodded curtly, then spun on his heel and headed off across the courtyard.
It felt like I’d just fallen asleep, only to be brutally slapped back into the land of the awake with a cold, wet washcloth.
I knew my fellow explorers were suffering in this heat, but I didn’t mind it. Sure, the sulfur smell of the water wasn’t great. Neither was the red hue to everything, nor the dryness. But all-in-all, I would easily take Hell over Antarctica. Penguins were cute, but they were idiots for choosing to live where they did.
Ducking back into my room, I tossed on some clothes after giving them a sniff, washed my face, and slapped on some deodorant. I tamed my dark-red hair as best I could, though it generally had a mind of its own since I had like forty cowlicks or some nonsense.
Omaera emerged from the bedroom at the same time I did, and I fell in beside her, wrapping my arm around her slender frame and pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Did the bear let you get any sleep, My Queen?”
Instantly, she flushed with color and glanced away from me.
I chuckled and tugged her closer. “I mean, if I got to share a bed with you, I’d probably keep you up all night too. However, we do need to have your brain functioning on all cylinders for training.”
She nodded and yawned. “Yeah, I know. I got a little sleep.”
We entered the kitchen where various foods were spread out on the island. I didn’t recognize a damned thing. This did not bode well.
“Since we’re here, are you planning to go see your parents?” she asked, picking up something that looked like a scone or biscuit, giving it a sniff, then making a face and putting it back.
“I’m not sure,” I replied, dropping my voice just above a whisper. “I feel like I should . But at the same time, why? They’re terrible people and I doubt they’ve changed. It’ll also just put me on the radar for the Mage Council even more than I already am.”
“Mage Council?” she asked, just as Zandren and Drak walked into the kitchen as well.
I shook my head to get her to drop the subject. I wasn’t ready to discuss my parents with the bear or vampire. Though, honestly, they both had connections to their regencies, and both King Howar and King Ryden knew of my parents and their wrongdoings. Whether they’d passed that information on to Zandren and Drak was another question.
Zandren went to a cupboard and pulled out four glass bottles of water, handing us each one. I unscrewed the cap and took a long sip, taking stock of the space and how similar it was to a dated kitchen on Earth—besides the lack of a refrigerator.
Kenvin Jol really seemed to like the color blue. All the cabinets and tiles—floor, counter, and backsplash—were all complimenting shades of blue. Perhaps he missed the shade from Earth, since nearly everything in Hell was various shades of red.
“Eat up,” Kenvin said, strolling into the kitchen.
“What is all of this?” I asked, frowning at the grayish goo in a bowl. Was it oatmeal? Yogurt? Pureed brains? It was anybody’s guess.
He pointed to the goo. “That’s Hell Cricket porridge.”
“Hell Cricket?” Omaera asked, her voice going up several octaves. “How big is a Hell Cricket?”
“Size of a chihuahua, I’d say,” Kenvin replied with a casual shrug. “Very high in protein. They farm them here. Noisy fucking beasts though. So the farms are in the desert … Moving on. These here,” he pointed to the various biscuits, crackers, and scone-like things on a platter, “crackers and biscuits. Made with Hell Cricket flour. The scones have blankberries in them.” He jerked his chin at the bear. “He can attest to the fact that they don’t taste like anything, but at least they don’t taste awful.”
None of this sounded appetizing at all so far.
“The jelly there is blankberry jelly. Goes on the biscuits, or cookies, or whatever you want to call them there.” He pointed his finger at the different foods. “And then we have fried gorbath eggs.” They looked like normal eggs, except the center wasn’t a bright yellow, it was gray and incredibly unappealing .
“What is a gorbath?” Omaera asked, though it didn’t seem like she really wanted to know.
Kenvin met her gaze and frowned like she’d morphed into the creature herself. “Flightless bird. Ugly as hell, mean as hell. Size of a very large house cat—maybe twenty or thirty pounds. They hunt in packs and attack like piranhas. They have gray feathers, razor-sharp teeth in their beaks, long, large talons used for gouging, and their wingtips have barbs on them. A bitch to pluck, honestly. But the eggs taste good.”
“Good?” I asked.
Kenvin lifted one shoulder. “Good- ish .”
Omaera made a face of disgust. “And do I even want to know what this is?” She pointed to what had to be some kind of fruit—at least I hoped it was a fruit.
“Those are cave currents,” Kenvin said, reaching forward and using the spoon to scoop a handful of about eight into his palm. He tossed them all into his mouth, making a face like he’d just bit into a lemon. “They’re sour as hell, but they won’t kill you.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “Good for you too.”
Omaera reached forward and picked one cave current out of the bowl, holding the cherry-sized berry between her thumb and forefinger. “Well, when in Hell …” She popped it into her mouth and bit down, instantly making a face of regret. She shook her head and shut her eyes as the muscles in her neck strained. “You never told me that when you … when you bit into it, a weird, gooey center shoots out into the back of your throat.” Tears formed in her eyes as she continued to chew, then finally swallow.
I handed her the bottle of water, and she chugged it, glaring at Kenvin.
The grumpy old demon merely shrugged again. “Guess I just forgot that part. Anyway, eat up. We have training to do.” Then he took off out of the kitchen, but not before grabbing a few more cave currents for the road.
“Fucking Hell ,” I muttered, dipping my pinky finger into the gray goop that was supposedly Hell Cricket porridge. Reluctantly, I sucked the sludge off my finger, preparing for the worst.
It wasn’t good.
But it was also better than I was expecting. Mind you, I’d set the bar pretty damned low at this point. I scooped some of the porridge into a smaller bowl, then topped that with blankberry jelly and a few of those cave currents. “Suppose coffee is out of the question in Hell. Hmm?”
“Probably tastes like garbage if there is,” Zandren murmured, filling up a bowl with all the things for himself. He focused on Omaera. “I’ll stay here as long as you need to, Little One, but hopefully it’s not for too long. I’ll start losing weight soon and that’s not good.”
I snorted. Drak rolled his eyes and grabbed a few scones and jelly for himself.
Omaera followed my lead and made herself some porridge, jelly, and currents. Then we all took our breakfast—if you could even call it that—to the long picnic table set out in the courtyard.
I sat next to my queen while Zandren sat across from me, and Drak sat beside him. We were all quiet as we ate, ravenous from our journey yesterday and not really caring too much about how we satisfied our groaning bellies.
“So,” Zandren started, staring at me, “you wanna tell us about why you’ve been to Hell before?” He lifted a brown brow at me, sending the obvious message that he already knew why.
A part of me was relieved. Omaera knew, and that was what mattered most. But the fact that the bear—and probably the vampire—knew too, took some weight off my shoulders. I wasn’t necessarily ready to talk to them all about it, but apparently the bear was the rip-the-bandage-off kind of dude.
“I’m guessing you know why,” I said, taking a scoop of the sludge and shoveling it into my mouth.
“I do, but I’d like to hear it from you,” Zandren said, shifting his gaze to Omaera for a moment.
“The Queen knows,” I said. “I have no secrets from her.” My gaze flicked over to Drak. “I don’t keep secrets from my mate.”
The vampire’s icy-blue stare was trying to slice through me, but I wouldn’t let it. I scoffed, shook my head, and broke eye contact. His hill to die on then. That just made it easier for me to bond with my queen.
Omaera fixed the bear with a sharp look. “I know that Maxar’s parents are criminals incarcerated for planning a mass human genocide centuries ago. They’ve been imprisoned in Hell ever since. He’s come here twice to see them. It was my father—and your father, Zandren—who helped thwart their efforts and put them away.” She moved her gaze to Drak. “I don’t judge him for the crimes of his parents. If that were the case, then shouldn’t I be judging you for the crimes of yours?”
My hand slid to her thigh beneath the table and I gave it a squeeze of appreciation. It was never easy talking about my parents, even after all this time. But having a mate who stood up for me the way my queen did, that she saw the good in me, rather than the tainted blood that ran through my veins, was more than I could ever hope for. And certainly more than I thought I deserved. I already knew that I’d never be worthy of her, but I planned to spend the rest of my life trying to be.
Zandren grunted and resumed eating, pushing food into his cheek to speak. “No, we shouldn’t. I just wanted to make sure that you were aware. And I wanted the mage to be the one to tell you.”
“He did,” she said gently before facing me, her eyes turning soft. “I’ll support you either way. If you want to go see them, or not. I’m here for you. I will go with you if you want. And we will face the Mage Council, and any potential repercussions from your visit, together.”
Swallowing, I took her offered hand in mine and laced our fingers together, placing our clasped hands on the table. “I’ll let you know. I haven’t decided yet. We need to figure out your training and start planning our trap first. If we have time … we’ll see.” I brought the back of her hand to my mouth and kissed it. “Thank you though.”
She held my gaze for a long time, the heat and intensity of her green stare making my belly pool with heat and need. My cock surged to life in my cargo pants, and I could have very easily swept the table clean of our food, thrown her down, and ravished her in all the ways I wanted to. Audience or not.
One corner of her perfect mouth tipped up a little into a hint of a smirk, but that just made my cock even harder. My chest heaved. So did hers. My gaze fell to her mouth for just a moment, and I ached to taste it.
Fuck it .
My spoon clattered into the bowl, and I let go of her hand, taking both sides of her face with my hands. Her pulse beat wildly in her neck against my fingers as I held her there, continuing to stare into her beautiful eyes and straight into her soul.
A throat cleared from one of the dumbasses across the table. I didn’t fucking care.
She was my mate too.
“I love you,” I said, emotion filling my throat until it was tight and painful. “So fucking much.” Then I slowly moved in, taking her mouth with mine, wedging her lips apart and gently, leisurely exploring. Savoring. Relishing.
She kissed me back, her little hands making fists in the front of my shirt as she opened her mouth wider, tangling her tongue with mine.
The kiss was slow and perfect, and exactly what I needed to kick the nasty thoughts of my parents out of my brain for the day. We were in Hell for Omaera. To help her learn how to control her powers and figure out how to defeat Lerris. I needed to focus on her.
A throat cleared again, this time a little more forcefully, and my queen whimpered into my mouth before releasing her grip on my shirt and gradually pulling away, blinking her eyes open.
I let go of her face, winked, and turned back to my breakfast, leaving her sitting there, agape, staring at me.
It was impossible not to smirk at this point. The vampire and bear were pissed, which was just a little cherry on top of my cupcake. You snooze, you lose, Fangs and Fluffy.
“We start training in ten minutes,” came Kenvin’s voice from the doorway to the kitchen. “All of you.”
Omaera turned to face him, then nodded. “Okay. Be right there.” She spun back around and began to inhale her breakfast. “This is not good,” she said between bites, making a face that said as much. “How can anybody live in Hell when this is the kind of food they have?”
“I’m sure they’ve uncovered ways to make it taste a bit better,” I said, diving back into my own breakfast. “Otherwise, yeah. I’d be throwing myself through the nearest portal and grabbing a burrito from Chipotle immediately. Even if it gave me the shits for three days afterward, it’d at least taste like heaven going in.”
Snorting in amusement, Omaera rolled her eyes and shook her head. “You’re disgusting.”
“You fucking love it.”
She didn’t argue with me, which I just took as a triumph.
We finished our breakfast—reluctantly—then cleaned our dirty dishes, since Hell had no dishwashers, obviously. Then we went on the hunt for Kenvin Jol.
Zandren seemed exhausted, which stuck a little in my craw since I knew what he was up to all night, and Drak seemed broodier than normal. At least he wasn’t having to take the pills anymore that kept him from going insane around Omaera while she bled. I had no problem with her bleeding once a month, but it was going to be tedious for sure, keeping Drak in line and making sure that bat took his meds.
We found Kenvin in what could only be described as a martial arts dojo-style room complete with shoji doors, just off the living room. It had all kinds of combat training equipment. Various swords, blades, daggers, and more lined one wall; while bows and arrows of all sizes and shapes hung against another wall. There were no guns—which didn’t come as a surprise—we didn’t die from gunshots, so why bother?
“Did you bring Moloch’s Sacrifice?” Kenvin asked from where he sat cross-legged on a pillow in the center of the room.
“I did,” Omaera said, holding it up like it was no more than a spatula and not a heavy-ass blade forged in the fires of Hell.
Kenvin nodded. “Take a seat—all of you.”
We did as we were told. Drak sat on one side of Omaera while I sat on the other. The bear seemed a little put out that he wasn’t directly next to her, but I didn’t give a shit.
“I want everyone to close their eyes,” Kenvin said. “Clear your mind.”
“Are we meditating?” I asked.
“Silence,” Kenvin said, though not unkindly.
“Close your eyes and clear your mind. I will know if you haven’ t. Focus on your breathing. Make the exhale audible, constricting your throat, like you’re fogging up a mirror. I want to hear your exhales. Focus on the exhales.”
The room quickly filled with the soft rumbling of our synchronized breathing.
“Now, Omaera, tell me what Zandren is feeling at this very moment,” Kenvin said.
“H-he’s annoyed,” she said hesitantly. “Annoyed that he’s not sitting beside me. He’s also still hungry.”
“What else?” Kenvin asked.
“He’s tired, and he’s—”
“And he’s?” Kenvin probed.
I peeled open one eye and glanced at my mate, her cheeks were flushed a sexy-red, and her lips twisted like she was reluctant to say what she could feel Zandren feeling.
“He’s … um … he’s …” She sighed. “He’s horny.”
“Join the club,” I murmured.
“Silence,” Kenvin said again. “Good. Now, which one of those feelings do you think is the easiest to prey upon?”
“Prey upon?”
“To manipulate in order to hurt him.”
“I … I don’t want to hurt him. And … I can’t since we’re mate-bonded. Right?”
“That’s right, but at the moment, your connection is the strongest. So his feelings are easiest to tap into. Once we identify which emotions you can manipulate to get what you want, we’ll move on to the more difficult targets of the mage and vampire.”
“Oh … okay.” Her voice was so small and unsure that I briefly opened my eyes and reached for her hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. She squeezed it back and my heart thumped in my chest. “Um … maybe his hunger? No! His arousal, since it can also be a form of distraction. But so can fatigue, can it not?”
“It can,” Kenvin replied. “What about his annoyance?”
“It’s not super strong. He knows that he has to share me, and we shared a room last night. So he knows he doesn’t really have any reason to be jealous.”
“It’s more envious than jealous, Little One,” Zandren rumbled. “I wish I had you all to myself, but I have accepted the situation. Doesn’t mean I don’t wish that it was my hand you were holding right now.”
Just to be a dick, I squeezed Omaera’s hand again.
“I’m sorry,” Omaera said, which prompted me to open my eyes. Her eyes were open too. “But how is this supposed to help train me to harness my powers?”
Zandren and Drak’s eyes were open too.
Impatience flickered across Kenvin’s face, but then it was gone. Probably because he realized he was dealing with a half human who hadn’t been schooled in the ways of demon powers since she was an infant.
“The best way to defeat you opponent is to figure out their weaknesses and target them. Often, weaknesses can be invisible to the naked eye. They can be mental. They can be a weakness of the moment. They’re not always a loved one in danger, or the fate of the world at risk. Sometimes, their weakness or vulnerability can be ego-driven. So, in this case, I would play into Zandren’s annoyance. His jealousy. Push thoughts of you rebuffing him for one of your other mates into his head. Push images and ideas. Have him question your love and loyalty.”
Zandren’s honey-brown eyes turned terrified, and he growled deep and low in his chest.
Omaera swallowed. “I … I don’t want to do that.”
“And you can’t,” Kenvin said quickly. “I’m just giving you an example. If you could, you could drive the bear insane with jealousy to the point where he could very well attack your other two mates.”
“Th-that’s what Lerris did when we fought him. He made Zandren turn on Maxar and Drak.”
Kenvin turned to Zandren. “Do you remember the thoughts and images he fed into your head?”
Still wide-eyed and nervous as hell that Omaera was actually going to invade his mind and plant intrusive thoughts, he shook his head. “No. I don’t remember any of it.”
Kenvin merely bobbed his head before pointing to where Omaera and I held hands. “You’re physically connected to the mage. Try tapping into his feelings, and figure out his vulnerabilities and which one you can exploit.”
“Fan-fucking-tastic,” I muttered, before feeling the uncomfortable tickle of another person tiptoeing through my mind. It was not a pleasant feeling whatsoever. Maybe when we mated it might be better, but right now it just felt … icky.
“He’s grossed out,” Omaera said. “The feelings are fuzzier though. Even though I couldn’t actually see anything when I was in Zandren’s mind, I could feel his feelings clearer. Maxar’s are blurry. That’s the only way I can describe it. He’s grossed out by me being in his brain. Thinks it feels weird.”
“Which it does,” I said plainly.
“What else does he feel?” Kenvin asked.
“Love,” she sighed. “But also fear. Fear that he could lose me before we mate. That he could get taken away by the Council just for being back in Hell, which is where his parents are.”
“Target that,” Kenvin said. “Lean into his fear of losing you and being taken away.”
Still holding my hand, Omaera turned to face me. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, just before she shoved images of her being beheaded into my mind. I glanced down at my hands—within my mind—and they were covered in blood. Her sword, Moloch’s Sacrifice, was on the ground at my feet, drenched in blood. I had been the one to take her life. To behead her. It was all so real that I could smell the blood, see her lifeless green eyes gazing up at me in shock and pain. My stomach lurched high up in my throat.
“Well done, son,” came a familiar voice from behind me, just as a hand landed on my shoulder. I spun around to find my mother and father standing there, smiling at me. “We knew you’d come around and join us. Now that we’ve killed the Queen, we can return to the plan—as a family unit—and rid the world of the loathsome and useless humans.”
“Shall we start with that little human over there?” my mother asked, pointing to the left. I followed her gaze, landing on Gemma laying on the gurney, in a coma and looking closer to death than ever. “Why don’t you do the honors, my dear? Seeing as you’re so good at it.”
“No!” I screamed, getting up from where I sat on the floor, the images in my mind disappearing like dandelion fluff in the wind. “I’ll never be like you! Never!” My eyes flashed open, and tears streamed down Omaera’s face where she sat, her mouth in a deep frown. I ran to her, sliding to my knees and taking her face in both my hands. I pressed my forehead to hers. “I would never do that. You have to believe me. I would never kill you. I would never hurt you. And I would never join my parents. Please. Please say you believe me.”
Swallowing, she nodded and whispered, blinking watery eyes at me. “I believe you.”
“Good,” Kenvin said. “Now the vamp—”
“I’m sorry,” Omaera said, sniffing and turning to face Kenvin, though I still held her face in my hands, “while I understand the necessity in learning your opponent’s weaknesses, I thought I was going to learn how to control that red ball of energy I conjured, and the sonic booms that I create? Won’t those be easier, faster, and less tedious than sliding into someone’s mind and fucking with their feelings and thoughts?”
“Psychological warfare is still warfare,” Kenvin said calmly. “And how better to catch your opponent unaware than by first manipulating their mind? You can make them do your bidding. You can put them into a state of mental chaos so that they’re caught up in their own world and own mind. They can’t even begin to attack you.”
“It’s for those you wish to subdue, or neutralize, but not eliminate,” Drak said softly. “Or not immediately eliminate.”
“Exactly,” Kenvin agreed. “Not every battle needs to end in a pile of dead bodies. First, you learn how to control and bend your opponents to your will . Then if they resist, you learn to incapacitate them, and finally, you go for the kill shot. It’s also a very effective form of torture that is far less bloody than shoving a pretend dagger into their brain.”
I still held Omaera’s head and an enormous part of me never wanted to let her go. She met my gaze. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “I believe you. You can let me go.”
Nodding, and shaking, I pulled my hands away and sat back on my heels, meeting Kenvin’s eyes. It was tough to get a read on the old demon, but he almost seemed … relieved?
He cleared his throat. “All right. Now onto the vampire.”