CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Omaera
The whinnies and squawks from the magsiths outside pulled me from my dream, but it was the hard column of flesh against my ass cheeks that really woke me up.
I was still the little spoon, and Drak was draped around me like a protective mantle.
I certainly couldn’t have lain like this all night with Zandren or Maxar because they were so warm-blooded. But Drak actually helped to keep me cool.
I stirred a little, adjusting my position to roll over onto my back to get comfortable. That woke him up, and he inched away from me, slowly opening his eyes. A bashful-pink filled his cheeks, and he removed his pelvis from against my hipbone. “Sorry,” he murmured.
“So even vampires wake up with morning wood, huh?” I asked with a playful smile to hopefully put him at ease. “Not all of you is undead .”
He rolled his dark-blue eyes. “I can’t control it.”
“I know.”
The magsiths outside grew louder. The sound of a gate opening caused their hooves to stomp wildly, followed by the unlocking of a door. Then it was like a small earthquake and a thousand giddy horses running around the house. The foundation shook from their many hooves and their noises of excitement filled the air.
He propped himself up on his elbow and glanced down at me. “Do you still feel them alive?”
I closed my eyes and dug down deep, searching for them in my soul. I didn’t feel any emptiness where my love for them resided. I opened my eyes and nodded. “I do.”
Drak’s nod was stiff and singular.
“How do you feel?”
“Like I got impaled by a large-clawed monster.”
Smirking, I sat up and made him roll over onto his back. Then I peeled back the enormous T-shirt he must have borrowed from Shoy, to inspect the injury. It was mostly healed. All that was left was a red and pink puffy scar surrounded by a dark-green bruise. There was no hole anymore, and he was breathing a lot better than he was last night. I gently ran my hand over his chest, pulling the T-shirt up higher. His ribs were bruised a purple color, and I was sure they ached when he breathed. But from what I could tell, his collapsed lung had repaired itself and his cracked ribs were healing.
“Does this hurt?” I asked, tracing my fingers lightly across his chest.
His gaze seared me. “No.”
I swallowed and heat filled my body, pooling in my lower belly and between my thighs. I continued on my exploration, getting him to roll over a little to inspect the exit wound on his back. It too had healed enough, forming a nasty pink and white scar. He rolled onto his back again and caught my hand in his. A quick glance down at his shorts proved that the morning erection from earlier was still very much there.
I swallowed again, my eyes on his as need shone back at me with overwhelming intensity.
My bottom lip snagged between my teeth as his grip on my hand tightened and he pulled me downward until our faces were just inches a part. My chest rose and fell quickly, and my breath grew ragged, stuttering out of my nose like I was scared. And in some strange way, I was. Scared of how much I cared for this vampire when I still knew so little about him. Unlike Zandren and Maxar who kept no secrets from me, Drak was still full of them. He remained guarded. Did that mean he didn’t trust me?
Would he ever trust me?
My lips hovered over his now, his cool breath mixing with mine. Our eyes remained open, fixed on each other, and I pleaded with him to open up and let me in. He insisted that we mate from nearly the moment he stepped into my life, but if he wanted me to want him the way I wanted the others, then he needed to tear down some of his centuries-old walls.
His other hand fell to my hip bone, sliding down to curve around my ass, he gave a little push with that hand and a little tug with the other that held my fingers, crushing our mouths together.
He took what he wanted, and I gave him everything. I held back nothing, hoping that he saw how willing I was for us to mate-bond if he opened up. If he gave me everything in return.
But even as he kissed me with a tenderness that nearly brought me to tears, I could still feel that he was guarded. He was restraining himself, holding back, and it frustrated me to no end.
Carefully, with his guidance, I threw one leg over his body, straddling him like I did last night. His hands moved up under my tank top and he eventually peeled it away. I shoved down his shorts, revealing the hard length of him, and ditched my sweatpants.
Then there was nothing between us.
With his eyes on me again, but his walls still up, I gripped him by the base and notched him at my center slowly sinking down to take him inside. Our mutual moans filled the room as I started to rock back and forth, setting a pace that worked for both of us.
He cupped my ass with both hands, tugging me closer, and himself deep inside of me. The rocking motion and tighter fit made my clit rub against his lower belly, sparking new pleasure inside of me. I rested my hands on my thighs, careful not to push on his chest, but he fixed that by releasing my ass, and grabbing my arms, then placing my hands on his chest. Blue fire flickered back at me as I continued to ride him, as I continued to give all of myself to this mysterious, grumpy vampire.
But he just kept those walls up.
My teeth dug painfully into my bottom lip, and my hips rocked, taking him deeper and deeper. Tingles filled my arms and legs, and I could practically see the healing sparkles flowing from my body into his. His chest and abdomen glowed, and with each passing breath he just seemed stronger.
I was close, but I didn’t want it to end.
Maybe we needed to switch things up? Would a more vulnerable position make him open up to me more? Lifting up onto my knees high enough that he slipped out, I crawled my way down his legs until my lips were positioned over the dark purple crown of his cock, shiny with my arousal. I took him in my hand and gave the tip a lick, tipping my gaze up to his.
I was about to feed him into my mouth when the loud, obnoxious sound of a car honking its horn relentlessly filled the quiet air. Followed quickly by the unmistakable hollering of Maxar.
“Omaera!” he shouted. “My Queen!”
More honking.
Drak groaned and rolled his eyes. I released his cock from my hand and sat back on my knees, swamped by relief that my mates were still alive. Hopefully, they weren’t injured.
Neither Drak nor I said anything as we redressed.
What was there to say?
Sorry we got interrupted again?
Maybe if you opened up to me, we could actually mate-bond and things wouldn’t be so tense and weird between us?
Once I made sure my tits were covered, I opened the bedroom door and rushed barefoot across the hot tile floor toward front door.
More honking and more of Maxar yelling my name.
“She’s here. She’s here,” Shoy said, only a slight bit of irritation in his tone. “You don’t need to shout, or honk, anymore. She’s inside and she’s safe.”
Just as I opened the door, Maxar drove the car up to the house and skidded to a stop, an enormous smile on his dusty face. “There you are, babe!” He launched himself out of the vehicle and raced around the front, scooping me up into his arms until my feet dangled. “We knew you were still alive. We felt it. We felt you telling us that you were safe and that we needed to stay safe too.”
Zandren climbed out of the truck and ambled over a bit slower. He had a mild limp which sent panic straight into my chest. I asked Maxar to put me down, and I rushed to my bear. “What happened?”
“Bisibra attack,” he said grimacing in pain. “I’ll be fine.”
“You guys were attacked again?” I asked in disbelief. Drak appeared in the doorway behind me, while Shoy and Vip made their way toward us from the magsith barn.
Zandren nodded. “Yeah, about an hour after you guys were taken. Might have been the biggest bugger of them all. Angry fucker. Talons as long as a fucking machete.”
“How’d you get rid of him?” I asked.
Maxar’s grin was diabolical. “Burnt the motherfucker to a crisp.”
“Well, that’s one way to do it,” I said, impressed.
“Then we just followed your scent until we landed here,” my mage went on. He glanced around, making a confused face. “What exactly is here?”
“A magsith farm,” I said, my eyes drifting to the enormous pen that held all the magsiths. I had yet to see one in real life, and now I was seeing hundreds of them. And they did, indeed, look like elk with praying mantis arms and webbed feet. They were peculiar looking creatures, but not as hideous as I initially envisioned.
“Come inside,” Vip said to both of them, but mostly addressing Zandren. “We’ll get you cleaned up and feed you.” She turned to me. “You must eat too, Your Majesty.”
“Omaera,” I said. “Please, Vip. Call me Omaera.”
A rush of color filled her cheeks. “I’ll try.” She escorted Zandren and Maxar into the house, but I stayed outside with Shoy and Drak.
“I’m surprised they were able to drive here,” Shoy said, shoving his hands into his pockets and slowly wandering around the nearly demolished vehicle. It was missing all the doors and windows now, as well as the hood. The engine was exposed and caked in a very thick layer of red dust. “Didn’t sound healthy when they approached.”
“You said you’d drive us to Kenvin’s though?” I asked, hoping he hadn’t changed his mind.
The big demon nodded once. “Yes, of course.”
I glanced over at the pen full of magsiths again. “Are they friendly?”
Shoy followed my gaze and without saying anything, the three of us wandered over to the fence. He made a clicking nose in the back of his throat and a few of the smaller magsiths came trotting over. Their feet were webbed but, strangely, they still had hooves on the bottom of the webbing.
Their antlers were twisted straight up like a Twizzler, rather than multi-pronged like an elk’s, but their face shapes and brown fur were similar. However, the praying mantis arms were creepy, along with the insect-like clicking noise they made in their throats when they bowed their heads and Shoy scratched between their ears.
“The females are very gentle,” Shoy said, switching his attention to another creature and scratching the top of its head. “The males can get a little territorial and possessive. Each male has about twelve females in his harem. And if a younger male comes and tries to mate with or even flirt with a taken female, that older male can get pretty grumpy. Both males and females have horns. But we have to put protective bumpers on the males’ horns during mating season, otherwise they could kill each other. The only real way to tell the difference is by the color of their chest. The males have a big white tuft of fur on their chest, the females have a blond tuft.”
With hesitation, I extended a hand toward the one closest to me—a small female—and she bowed her head enough that I could scratch between her twitching ears. The clicking noise must have been their noise of contentment, like when Zandren purred.
Drak came up on the other side of me and reached his hand through the fence to start scratching between the ears of a juvenile male magsith. His horns were significantly smaller than the female I was petting, and he wasn’t nearly as tall as the others.
“I don’t know why it makes me sad that we slaughter and eat these creatures when they’re so gentle. We do the same with pigs, cows, and chickens on Earth,” I said, my heart heavy.
“Everybody needs to eat,” Shoy said. “But your father made sure that when he came into power, all animal slaughtering was done humanely. Until then, it wasn’t. And all farmed creatures for food must be free-range. We can’t give them a cooped-up life, then take their life so we can eat.” He spread his hand out wide. “They have acres and acres to roam. Then, they go back into the barn each night to be safe. This is only about half the herd. The other half are probably two miles away, down at the stream.”
“There’s a stream?” I asked with excitement.
“Underground mostly, but it springs up not too far away. It’s where we get our water from. All the water in Hell is well water.”
“I’d love to see this stream.”
Drak made a noise in his throat, reminding me that we really didn’t have the time or luxury to be exploring.
“Right.” I frowned. “Probably not the best idea. We want to get back to town and make sure Kenvin is okay.” I sighed and moved on to the next magsith that trotted over asking for attention. “I suppose we should probably think about getting back to Earth too, if Lerris has been to Hell. Who knows what he’s planning.”
My belly rumbled again, loud enough that the two men standing with me heard it. Even the magsiths heard it, and a few of them—including the little one Drak was scratching—got startled. “I need to eat,” I said, giving a final scratch to the friendly beast clicking in front of me. I snagged Drak’s gaze. “You should too.”
“Vip’s got a whole spread of food out for you. Poor thing was frantic this morning, saying we didn’t have anything fit for a queen.”
That made me chuckle as we all made our way toward the open front door. “I’ll eat anything at this point.” Then I wrinkled my nose. “Well, maybe not anything , but I don’t need royal food, that’s for sure. ”
We arrived in the kitchen to find Zandren gorging himself like the hungry bear that he was, and Maxar casually sipping tea, leaning against the counter chatting with Vip. His amber eyes filled with love when he spotted me, and he opened up his arm to welcome me under it. He smelled of sulfur and his hair was a tad damp. I was happy to see him in a better mood than when we left the prison. Pressing a kiss to my temple, he brought the mug of the blankberry leaf tea up to his lips, taking a healthy sip. “Vip here is telling me about the tea. Who’d have thought Hell actually had anything that tasted good?”
Zandren stood up from his spot at the counter, abandoning his still heaping plate and began to fix another one. I thought he was just preparing his second helping so he didn’t have any lag time between the two, but love filled my chest close to bursting when he handed me the second plate. “Eat, Little One.”
I smiled at my Pooh Bear, lifted up onto my tiptoes and pressed a kiss to Maxar’s jaw, before joining Zandren at the barstools and sitting down to eat at the counter.
Back to being his quiet, brooding self, Drak fixed up a plate and stood quietly in the corner of the kitchen eating.
“How far are we from town?” I asked in between mouthfuls of food. Vip was one heck of a cook. Her scones were better than Kenvin’s, probably because she added skivern syrup so they were sweet. There was no getting around how dry they were though. The Hell Cricket flour turned everything into a paste in the mouth, no matter what.
“Several hours,” Shoy said. “So we should get a move on shortly.”
We all nodded, then silence settled between the six of us as everyone methodically chewed and stared at the space directly in front of them. I’m sure we were all worried about Kenvin, as well as what was to come next with Lerris. Was he still in Hell? Why did he come here in the first place?
I glanced over at Drak, who—even dressed down in an oversized gray T-shirt and black shorts—seemed to ooze aristocratic grace the way he stood with his back straight, politely nibbling on his breakfast.
“Shoy’s going to stay in town for a few days to gauge the population’s reaction and sentiments toward the idea of a queen,” Vip said. “You might not know this yet, but demons can be pretty stuck in their ways.” She smirked and playfully elbowed her mate in the ribs. “This one is as stubborn as they come.”
Shoy winked down at Vip. “Ah, you softened me.”
That made Vip beam. I could only hope that when my mates and I had been together as long as these two, that we still looked at each other with so much love.
In less than an hour, we had finished breakfast and were ready leave.
With tears in my eyes, I hugged Vip tightly, reluctant to let go of the first real friend I’d made since discovering I wasn’t simply human. She was a genuine, good soul, and I was a better person having met her.
Gripping me by the side of the face, her own brown eyes watery, she smiled at me. “You are already a great queen. But I know that you will be truly extraordinary. You have his goodness in you.” She pressed her forehead to mine for a moment and we each shut our eyes as tears fell down our cheeks. I didn’t bother trying to read her mind, or thoughts, she wore them on her face and in her heart openly. A hope she hadn’t felt in a long time thrummed through her, hope, joy, and tempered excitement. And even though it was a lot of pressure to live up to as a new demon and queen, I returned to her nothing but love and gratitude. We would meet again. I would make sure of it.
Laughing to keep from sobbing, she pulled her head away and smoothed her hands down my face before resting them on my shoulders. “Now go. Be the queen you were born to be.”
All I could do was nod. My throat was too tight with emotion. But rather than step away and join the others in Shoy’s truck, I lunged at Vip again and held onto her even tighter this time. “Thank you … for everything.”
Now it was her turn to be too choked up to say anything. All she did was nod against my shoulder. We finally let go and I stepped away, backing up toward the truck. Eventually, my butt hit the side, and I opened the door. Maxar stepped out so I could climb into the middle between him and Drak. Then, once we were all in, with our windows down, I waved with all my heart at my new friend, Vip, turning in my seat to wave out the back window until we were too far away to see her any longer .
“She’ll be safe there for a few nights on her own?” I asked Shoy as we bumped along the pothole riddled, hard-packed dirt of the desert.
Shoy’s bark of a laugh made me jump. “That little demon back there is tougher than me. I don’t worry about her a bit. She can rip a man’s mind in two in under six seconds.” His gaze in the rearview mirror met mine, and although the creases next to his eyes scrunched deep, I could also see that even if Vip was a tough demon, Shoy still worried about her. Because that’s what you did when you loved someone. You worried about them even when you didn’t need to.
Thankfully, our journey back to town was uneventful, and before we knew it, the mountain range we passed through on our first day loomed ahead, with the squat little buildings of the town below. Shoy knew right where to go to get us to Kenvin’s, and thankfully, the grumpy old demon was in one piece when we knocked on his door.
“Thought you lot might have become bisibra food,” he said, though the relief in his eyes warmed my heart. “See you made a friend.” He nodded and grunted at Shoy. “Hope they weren’t too much trouble.”
Shoy smirked. “Terrible trouble. The worst.”
“As I suspected,” Kenvin said, welcoming us all back into his house. I’d never been so glad to be back in the hot little hovel in all my life. As much as I liked Shoy and Vip’s house, it felt very vulnerable out there in the middle of the desert. Not only that, but it also seemed hotter. Maybe because there were fewer places to hide and find shade. Either way, returning to Kenvin’s felt in some odd way like we were returning home, even if it was temporary.
“You staying for a bit?” Kenvin asked in his gruff way.
Shoy nodded. “Need to sus out some stuff.” He jerked his chin at me. “See who is open to the idea of a queen, and who’s backing Lerris.”
At the mention of my uncle, Kenvin’s brows shot up. “Speaking of the little fucker, he’s been through here. Went hunting for him last night, but he’s slipperier than a fucking snake.”
“Yeah, we heard,” I said blandly, though at the mention of my uncle my heart rate spiked.
Kenvin’s brows shot up even higher .
“He was at Helltower meeting with Quintella,” I said. “Was there just a day before us.”
“Was he now?” Kenvin scratched at his salt and pepper scruff. “He’s been poking around town too. Asking if anybody’s seen you. Luckily though, nobody likes that slimy twat. So not even Tanen—the guy you put a hole through the night you arrived—is going to say anything.”
“That bodes well for the Queen,” Shoy mused.
Kenvin didn’t seem nearly as convinced. “Just because nobody likes Lerris, doesn’t mean they’re open to a half-human queen. Your lineage opens things up for a challenger to come forward.”
“Yeah, but you’ve said so yourself, Omaera is the strongest demon alive,” Maxar argued. “Even if someone came in to challenge, she’d kick their ass easily.”
“She has the potential to be the strongest, most powerful demon alive. With powers no other demon possesses. But she has a long way to go harnessing them.” Kenvin sighed. “Did you bring fresh meat?”
Shoy nodded. “I’ll just grab it from the back.”
Kenvin grunted. “I’ll fire up the barbecue.” Then he left the kitchen to go start up the grill in the courtyard, leaving me standing there surrounded by my mates.
“Lerris is planning something,” I said. “But what? And do we leave Hell before he does?”
“I don’t think so,” Maxar said. “We need Lerris to head back to Earth first, to maybe even think that we’ve headed back to Earth ahead of him. Right now, he doesn’t know we know he’s here.”
“If he used the same portal that we did though, couldn’t he set a trap for when we return to Earth if he goes first?” Zandren asked. “I mean, chances are, Howar told him which portal we used. Howar probably told him that we headed to Hell in the first place, and why. So the little fucker is going to head back to Earth and lie in wait for us to emerge back through the portal, attacking us when we’re vulnerable.”
I was inclined to agree with Zandren. While I had no war tactics training, it made sense. Lerris was obviously working with Howar. So the chances were pretty high of there being another group of vampires at the Earth entrance of the portal, as well as Lerris, just waiting for us as our bodies glued themselves back together.
Shoy reappeared with an armload of magsith meat. My pout came on before I could stop it. Yes, they had a good life, and just one bad day, but now that I knew they were such docile creatures, it made the idea of eating them even more unappealing.
We pitched in and helped make dinner, adding some of Vip’s skivern syrup to the scones as well as the blankberry jelly. Kenvin scoffed at my suggestion of using it, saying sweetness was a luxury he didn’t need, but I refused to agree and added it anyway.
Darkness settled in by the time we all sat down in the courtyard, safe from any bisibra attacks, with our plates on our laps.
“How do you trap a demon?” I asked, taking a bite out of my actually-rather-delicious scone. It was still dry, but with enough jelly and a sip of water, I managed to choke the tasty mess down my throat.
Shoy and Kenvin exchanged looks. Kenvin took a sip of his amber spirit before answering. “You need a blood cage.”
“A blood cage?” I repeated. “What the hell is a blood cage?”
“Besides borromium, not much else stops demons from mind manipulation.”
“My fire crowns work,” Maxar pointed out.
Kenvin merely lifted a brow before continuing on. “There was a demon a few hundred years ago who went on a killing rampage. They went after young mages, shifters, and vampires. Killed many children. He said it was to cleanse the Realm of the next weaker generation.”
“Fuck,” I murmured.
“He was almost impossible to catch.” Shoy sipped his amber spirit as well. “It took all the leaders of the Realm to come together and create a blood cage, which is a cage conjured by combining all the bloods of the races, specifically the leaders of those races, together.”
“They used the Mage Queen’s—not Queen Anysa—own young daughter as bait, and when the demon came to kill her, they imprisoned him in the cage.” Kenvin took a bite of his scone, but then made a face when he realized I’d actually made it taste good. He chewed and swallowed what was in his mouth, but didn’t take another bite. “Unlike borromium which just inhibits the use of magic, a blood cage actually depletes your magical abilities. The longer you stay in, the weaker the powers you will have when you come out. Stay in long enough, and you will come out as mortal, and as powerless as a human.”
“How long do you have to stay in for your powers to be completely drained?” Maxar asked.
Kenvin shrugged. “Depends how powerful you are. The more powerful you are, the longer you stay in.”
“Okay, so we need to get all the leaders together to join blood and conjure a cage to trap Lerris and kill him?” I asked.
“Unless we’re able to simply behead him, first,” Maxar added. “Since beheading is the only way to effectively kill a demon.” He smiled wide and cheeky at all the demons in the room, but Kenvin and Shoy merely glared back at him.
“No,” Drak said so abruptly that we all turned to gape at him. “Howar can not be trusted. I won’t let you anywhere near him, Omaera.”
A small smile curled my mouth. “Thanks, Fangs, but if that’s the only way we can catch Lerris, then it has to happen.”
His nostrils flared.
“How do we get everyone together without tipping them off to what our true plan is? Because if Howar is working with Lerris, he’ll obviously warn Lerris, and our trap will be foiled.”
“Did you just use the word ‘foiled’?” Maxar asked with a lighthearted chuckle.
I scrunched my nose and grinned at him. “Maybe I did.”
“I might have an idea,” Drak said, all sullen and gloomy.
We turned to wait to hear what he had to say.
Tipping his gaze up to mine, with reluctance practically oozing out of his pores, he devised the perfect plan. “You’ve put off meeting with the other leaders since the moment you found out about the Realm. Why not finally agree to a meeting? Summon Howar, Anysa, and Ryden.”
“What’s to stop Howar from telling Lerris where we are and Lerris ambushing us?” Zandren asked.
“We plan on that,” Drak replied. “Howar will betray us. Anysa, we are unsure where her alliances lay, and Ryden will be on our side.”
Zandren puffed up his chest a little. “My dad would never turn his back on Omaera, or me.”
I could see that Drak was fighting the urge to roll his eyes. “Once there, propose a toast, and drug Anysa and Howar. Take their blood and create the cage. I doubt Howar will let Lerris handle things on his own. Lerris will be waiting for a signal. Howar won’t want to be caught up in the mess and risk having his allegiance with Lerris discovered. So then we steal Howar’s phone, have him message Lerris that you’re there and his to kill. Trap set.”
Kenvin and Shoy both nodded, mulling it over.
“That’s as good as any plan I could have come up with,” Kenvin finally said. “It’ll give you a chance to figure out if Howar really is betraying you, and what side Anysa is on too.”
“So then, we put Lerris in the cage, and then what?” Zandren asked.
“We kill him,” Maxar and I said at the same time.
“I’m still pro beheading over the blood cage,” Maxar added. “But that’s just because it’s quick, clean and satisfying.”
“I would love to watch his head roll off his body,” I murmured.
My mage grinned at me. “I love how murderous you’re becoming, My Queen.”
That made me smirk and roll my eyes. “He killed my aunt, my father, and nearly killed my best friend. The man doesn’t deserve mercy. Three strikes and you’re out.”
Everyone nodded.
“Kenvin and I will go into town and ask around, see if Lerris has been shooting his mouth off at all. Get a feel for where people’s fealties might lean.” Shoy sipped his drink. “If we see Lerris, what do we do?”
I gave the demon a confused look. “Kill him, of course. No hesitations. If we have him, we take him out. I’m all about efficiency and practicality. I don’t need to be the one to end his life. His life just needs to end. Whether it’s by my sword or someone else’s, that man’s head needs to roll clear off his body.”
Maxar snorted, grinning even wider, his amber eyes like twin dancing flames. “Fuck, babe, you’re getting me all hard with this kind of talk.”
Shoy snorted and bit into a barbecued magsith leg, shaking his head.
Kenvin just looked annoyed. “I won’t miss you when you’re gone. Fucking psycho mage.” That last bit was said mostly under his breath, but it was still loud enough for us to all hear and make Maxar beam like a beacon.