Chapter 3 Chapter Three
Asterra’s POV
Fenrir picked me up from the floor like I weighed nothing, his strong fingers folding tight against my neck, squeezing.
A thousand years ago, even a werewolf like him wouldn’t have dared, but fate had a way of tilting the scales. I refused to struggle, giving him the illusion of restraint.
It was better for the world to see me as a restrained goddess than a powerless one. For the former, I would be mocked, but for the latter, I would be prey.
My back met the cold wall, and pain radiated through my spine. I held off on the wail of agony as best as I could, but a little slipped out anyway in gasps. “What did you just do to me, witch?” he growled, face tightened to a snarl.
He was squeezing so tight against my windpipe that I couldn’t even utter a syllable, even if I wanted to.
“Speak,” he growled again.
“You might want to hold off on strangling her.” Azreal’s voice rang from behind, soft and careful, and yet powerful that the other three turned to him instantly.
“And why should I do that?” Fenrir roared.
“Because I have to kill her myself,” Lucivar grunted.
Azreal turned to Lucivar, shaking his head gently, a slow, tentative, and calculating smile building on his lips. For a moment, it scared me more than Fenrir’s fingers still straining against my throat. Had he figured out everything? But it was impossible for him to…
His soft but commanding voice stole through my thoughts again. “If any of you kill her, we all die,” he said, casually, like he didn’t care about it.
Cold shivers ran down my veins when I read into the quiet gleam in his eyes. He fucking knows. I could swear it.
I tried to shake off Fenrir’s grip and stop Azreal, but again, my back met the hard wall, and another wave of agony seized my spine; my eyes watered.
“Stay still, witch,” Fenrir growled at me. Then he turned to Azreal. “Keep speaking, demon,” he roared over the wave of whisperers that had begun to fill the hall.
Azreal looked around at the crowd of immortals, who were now gathered in loose clusters around us.
“Speak, demon. We don’t have all night,” Fenrir growled.
“Yeah, fucking say something,” Zephrys growled too, his winged tip tapping continuously at the floor.
Azreal made them all a stiff smile, and he began. “I believe she just enchanted us.”
“So that’s it. That's what all this hassle is about." Lucivar grunted, following it with a short, grating, bitter laugh. “Then I'd better return to my drink. I could never desire a witch anyway. My heart has been promised to another, and no enchantment can change that,” he turned back for the bar.
“It's not that simple, vampire,” Azreal said, and that stopped him.
“Then would you start speaking in words we can fucking understand?” Zephrys growled, all his charm buried under his rage now.
Azreal moved to speak, and I tried to shake off Fenrir’s grip on my neck, and for the third time, it ended in my back kissing the cold, hard wall again.
“I believe she has enchanted us to be her slaves.” Azreal began. “She had linked us to herself in some way, and if I would guess, to her heart. If she is hurt or dies, then we do too. Anything that happens to her, happens to us too. Thus, we are forced to do her bidding and to protect her through the immortal game. In a sense, she didn’t just make us her slaves and bodyguards. She took out her biggest competitors, too. The four of us.”
“That can’t happen. I need the prize, and I protect no one but my bride.” Lucivar barked at Azreal.
Fenrir returned his burning orbs to me, fury turning them almost crimson. “Is he saying the truth?” he demanded.
Still, his fingers on my neck didn’t give me a chance to answer. They only tightened until the only colour I saw was bright pain.
I smiled through it all, keeping up the illusion of restraint still. A louder and vampiric roar stole the air from behind him, and another strong arm pulled me from his grip.
My back met a wall again, and this time, the agony was so great that I couldn’t stop the wail. It roared off my burning throat. It took a moment to get my eyes open. They landed on the blatant hate in Lucivar’s pale face. His strong hand trapped me to the wall, pressing down hard on my collarbone. “Undo whatever you did, witch, or your head will be rolling on the floor soon.”
Guilt was something I had taught myself not to feel. I could look right into his eyes and not care about his pain, but just mine. “You are forgetting you can’t kill me, Vampire. If you do, then you die too.”
“Undo whatever you did, while I am still nice,” he snarled.
“But I can’t, even if I want to, which I don’t. It is irreversible.”
Another harsh, bitter laugh grated off his throat, and he grinned at me, lifting his claws slowly. “Suit yourself then. You have no fucking idea how much I have longed for death myself. Either way, I get to see her again, and thanks to you, in death.”
I looked up as his claws climbed higher, and dread washed down my core, colder than ice. The quiet, cynical gleam in his eyes told me he might be really serious about dying for whoever ‘her’ was.
“You wouldn’t dare.” I barked at him, struggling against his strength. But he was so strong I couldn’t shake him off.
“There are only a few things I wouldn’t dare, and you aren’t one of them.” His lips collapsed in a wry grin, and his claws came down fast for me.
I was trying to summon whatever magic I could from my deadened body when Zephrys bumped him out from my front.
The Incubus gifted me a smile before his lean arm grabbed my waist. But unlike the others, he took me away to a quieter part of the hall and laid me gently against the wall.
The warm feel of his touch against my skin was what led me to look down and discover my thighs in his hands. He pressed me down to the wall with his whole body, so close that I could sniff his cologne and the unique scents of a powerful male.
Our faces were only an inch apart, forcing me to stare right into his subliminal beauty. No male had ever even sparked an interest in me, yet when I looked at him, especially so close, I couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed. It was torture to keep back from swallowing the hard lump growing in my throat.
Concentrate. Focus, Asterra. I shut my eyes. When I opened them, I tried my best to look past his beautiful face.
“Don’t you think you are being too cozy and uncomfortable, Incubus?”
He grinned, licking his lips gently. "It isn’t uncomfortable if you want it, goddess.”
“I don’t,” I retorted,
His lips stretched wider as his grin grew. “But your body says otherwise,”
My lips parted for a counter, and before I could make one, his hand had left my thigh, closing firmly on my ass. I couldn’t hide the sexual thrill that snaked through me then. A soft gasp split my lips.
“I could give you more pleasure than you have ever dreamed of, goddess, just unchain me from the spell. They don’t have to know, and we can rule the others together,” he cocked a brow high. “What do you think?”
My mind waddled through the murky waters of the desire he had stroked into me, and I made him a stiff smile, and a stiffer “No!”
A growl jarred behind him. Before he could trace us away, he was booted away from me again. Fenrir and Lucivar reached for me at the same time, but Azreal appeared like a wisp of hair, planting himself firmly between us. He held his sword to his chest and leaned back in a macho posture. “Why don’t you both control your rage and let's work this thing out amicably?”
“That’s assuming there is something to work out. She just needs to free me from the spell, and I am gone.” Lucivar said.
Fenrir just growled. “Get away, Demon. I have no problem with you, but if you stay longer in that position, I might.”
My mind trailed away from the men when the lilac scent hit me again. I glanced to my side, and there she was, chuckling and admiring her nails. “Need some help, friend,”
“Yeah,” I growled. “I would need plenty when I strangle you later, but for now, take me away from here.”
The infuriating giggle came again, and she looped her arm around me, while the boys argued.
“Goodbye, see you all at the game,” I called, and they all turned to me. Murder flared in their eyes when they saw Freya. All of them reached to snatch me away from her, except Azreal. Again, he just stood back and watched.
Before they could reach me, we were already in Freya’s inner chamber. “Whew,” Freya giggled, as we stumbled into her living room. “That was close, your mates are truly vicious.”
“Mates,” I repeated as the word struck me. I shifted to her completely. “What do you mean by my mates?”
For a moment, I thought I spied a strange gleam in her eyes, but I couldn’t be sure.
“Did I say mates or males?” she said. Since she cannot lie, her usual escape was deflection, and I could spot one from a mile away.
“You know what you said, Freya.”
She waved her hand dismissively. “Whatever I said doesn’t matter. What you should be more concerned about is how to keep your Males from finding out you are now powerless. Once they find out, my dear, you are toast,” she finished off with a low, cynical laugh, and threw herself to the nearest sofa.
