Rejected Queen by Meg Xuemei X.

CHAPTER 22

Loki

 

 

 

 

 

 

My wolf and I agreed to cut the angel of death to ribbons before I burned him. My beast even lent me his power to achieve the goal, displaying some of the magic he’d been holding out on me, like cryokinesis.

While I traded blades and kicks with the angel, my wolf levitated stones, shards of glass, and anything sharp, and flung them at our foe. I hoped the wolf knew what he was doing and didn’t hit me by accident, since he wasn’t as practiced as I in combat.

He snorted, as if I needed his bad attitude in the middle of a battle.

“You offended me, prick,” I told the angel. “You don’t try to take my woman. You don’t talk to her. You don’t look at her. And now, you’ll die in my Hell.”

“You don’t have her either,” the angel said. “She’s single and available, and she obviously despises you.”

“That hurt,” I admitted. “And you don’t hurt the feelings of the King of the Underworld and hope to get away with it. Second, you have no right to call yourself the angel of death. There’s only one Death here.”

He snorted. “You don’t know what she is, and you don’t know what you are either. You’re the most ignorant, arrogant dick I’ve ever met. But then, you live in these backwoods.”

I roared, and we tore into each other again, our blades crossing paths brutally, the sharp sounds sending everyone fleeing from the club. Both the angel and I were ruthless killers, and we’d cut down one or two creatures who were stupid enough to stay in our war path.

His strength and speed matched mine. He was also an excellent swordsman. I lunged, cutting a gash in his left leg. He cursed and thrust his sword at me from all directions like a maniac. I parried and went on the offensive again. When we parted, I sliced a long red line over his chest, and he stabbed me between my first and second ribs.

Just end him now! What are you waiting for? my wolf snapped, losing patience. If you can’t, let me take over and claw his heart out.

You think you’re invincible, but you’re not, I hissed back. You’re untrained and undisciplined, although you do have some power. You might shoot me in the ass if I let you take the reins.

Douche, he said. We need to combine our powers and burn him. The beast grew anxious. Mate is gone. We shouldn’t leave her unguarded. Take the fucker down with your hellfire and my energy blasts. Now!

My hellfire and the wolf’s blue energy shot toward the angel. He instantly put up a shield of starlight. Our powers clashed. The fucker staggered back.

“You’re a real asshole, Demon King!” the angel snarled.

“Sue me, prick,” I sneered, frustrated that I hadn’t killed him with that blast.

My nightclub took the hit and erupted into flames and smoke, and then I was fighting the angel on the cliff, the black waves beneath us bellowing.

My hellfire and the wolf’s energy beam followed the sharp path of my sword as the blade cut through the air to descend upon the angel’s head. I wanted to see what was inside his skull once I split it open.

He twisted to the side. His scythe came up to ram into my sword. Sparks of fire flew from the point where our steel crossed.

“You’re nothing but a brute,” he said.

“Keep talking while you can,” I said, a new wave of hellfire ready to surge out.

A dark wind arrived, then three ravens flew toward us, forming darkness around the angel of death.

I chuckled menacingly. “Your darkness won’t stop me. I’ll eat it for brunch.”

The longer the angel stayed in my realm, the weaker he’d become, a half-blood death deity or not.

My hellfire whooshed toward my adversary. My wolf howled in approval, coating my fire with his blue beams for a power boost.

“I would love to stay and play, but I have other urgent business to attend to,” the angel said.

He flew up, faster than a rocket, his ravens following him and their black wings beating rapidly in the heated air current.

“Come back, you little shit!” I bellowed, but I was bluffing.

He was gone.

I wasn’t in the mood to fight him anyway as my wolf and I were both desperate to get to Tessa. We could always finish off the angel another day.

Let me take the reins before we go to our mate, the wolf suggested as I stalked in the direction where Tessa had gone. Flames and smoke and ashes were everywhere, carried by the wind. My nightclub was still burning. Across the black ocean, lava spewed into the sky.

That was what I loved about the Underworld. The end of the world was here, yet it was never ending.

No fucking way, I said. I’ll decide to forgive her if she feels remorse. She’s mine.

Remorse, my ass, said the wolf. She hates your guts. Try and see how close you can get to her without me. Didn’t you see the look she bestowed on you? She loathes you; even the prick angel could see it and threw it in your face. But Bunny trusts me. Whenever she saw the nice wolf—me—gazing upon her through your eyes, she recognized me and was overjoyed at my presence. If you ever want a chance with her again, you’ll need me to clear the barrier and smooth the path for you.

I pondered.

I’d thought I understood women, though I didn’t bother much with that knowledge since I could be a jerk sometimes. But I couldn’t figure out Tessa.

She’d come to take my head, but instead she entered the Bride Trials where she could be killed at anytime. When I gave her oral pleasure in my Manhattan penthouse, she hadn’t just warmed up; she’d burned for me. On top of that, there was this complicated history between her and the Ice King who took her kingdom. She’d kept running from him and he’d never stopped hunting her.

My jaw clenched. Rage seared in me.

I would stop him. I’d break every bone in his body before I let him touch Tessa again.

So, as I thought things through, I had to be fair and admit that she hadn’t exactly tried to kill me.

Maybe she hadn’t had a choice when she struck the deal with Lucifer, and I hadn’t exactly given her a chance to explain herself but lashed out right away as soon as I learned of the “betrayal” from my stepmother.

That just showed how much Lucifer and my own mate could get under my skin.

When I declared her my enemy, she’d regarded me as one as well. There hadn’t been the slightest warmth in her eyes when they were trained on me. But beneath her hostility, I could almost sense her brokenness, or at least, my wolf did.

He had a connection with her that I’d broken.

The beast and I were still two sides of the same coin, two powers and entities that shared the same body. We were the same and different. I couldn’t leash him forever. I had to think long term, and now might be a good time to let him fix things between Bunny and me, things I could no longer fix and a rift that I couldn’t amend without my beast.

Don’t make me regret it, I growled at my wolf and let him out.

My wolf took over instantly, and we shifted to our beast form like a breeze. While he sprang anxiously and giddily toward our mate, I brooded in a corner.

A plan formed.

After the wolf fixed things, I’d claim Tessa as my mate. I’d fuck her over and over and see how she was going to take my head after that. She’d have to find a way to side with me instead of working for my old enemy whom I hated the most.

I started fantasizing about how I’d thrust into the tightness and hotness of her pink flesh. I’d give her all I had and make her squirm and writhe beneath me while I pounded in and out of her pussy relentlessly.

Keep your fucking dirty thoughts to yourself, my wolf grumbled. I have a job to do. I must protect Mate. She’s ahead. I can smell her.

What an ungrateful dick.

Then we both spotted Bunny amid the shifters as my wolf leapt over the chasm like a massive ghost. He did have his moments.

My wolf and I snarled at the pack. We were the biggest, baddest predator, and we wouldn’t let anyone else harm our mate again.

As the black wolf, I leapt across the air and alighted beside Tessa.