Hellfire Crown by Meg Xuemei X.

CHAPTER 22

Tessa

 

 

 

 

 

 

My magic rippled through me, and joy infused me. If it took the Seventh Hell to unbind my magic, I’d welcome any level of Hell.

I looked back at the maze, but it was no longer in sight. A ring of serrated black mountains stretched high into the dark sky, enclosing the lone building in front of us.

Raina shared a look with me. She was still naked. I would have offered her clothes if I had any to spare, but she didn’t seem to mind her nudity. At any moment she might need to shift again.

“I wonder where the maze went,” she said. “The others are still trapped inside. Not our problem, though.”

As if on cue, muffled battle cries and screams of rage and pain echoed in the distance. As Raina said, it was no longer our problem.

“Looks like we’re the first ones to come out of the maze,” I said, my gaze returning to the hellfire letters that confirmed that we’d arrived in the Seventh Hell.

I’d learned as much as I could about my mate and his history when he’d been the target of my assassination. He’d spent years in the dungeon in the Seventh Hell when he was a child, whipped, tortured, and starved.

And yet Lucifer hadn’t broken him, just as Ragnarö had failed to shatter me.

The dungeon was inside this black, sinister building. My first impulse was to level it as wrath filled me. But I shook my head. This wasn’t the time for demolition.

I surveyed our surroundings for any threats and hidden traps, and the wolves took guard positions around me.

“We’re the only ones in the area.” Raina said, stating the obvious.

The wolves hadn’t sensed anything either.

I concentrated and sent my magic into the building to explore further, and my senses reported back that the building was vacant but somehow veiled by unknown magical forces.

It made sense. Of course the Wild Hunt magic was going to hide the Hellfire Crown.

“We’ll need to enter the building,” I told the wolves. “We won’t go in as one group since we need to cover more ground before any other contestants catch up to us.”

“If anyone spots the crown, don’t touch it.” Raina turned to the wolves. “Guard it with your life and warn Alpha. Only Lady Tessa will take the crown.”

“Briann,” I told the brown wolf, “Stay on guard outside the building. Howl twice if anyone approaches. I’ll walk through the main entrance with two other wolves. Raina, could you climb and get in through one of the high windows?”

Raina nodded. “We aren’t going to put all our eggs in one basket.”

“That’s the idea,” I said with a smile.

If I hadn’t had the pack with me, I’d have gone through the window to get in myself. It never hurt to be sneaky. But in this situation, I’d rather take the blunt hit of entering through the front entrance and deal with anything that might occur. I hadn’t worked with the pack in the past, so this would be a better approach.

Briann the brown wolf pulled away from us and merged into the shadows, her paws padding quietly on the stone ground.

Raina bowed to me deeply. “It’s an honor to serve you, Lady Tessa.” She turned and darted to the side of the building, ready to climb up to the windows.

“Okay, girls, let’s go,” I said.

We reached the dark entrance, and I kicked the heavy door open. Raina carried out her sneaky task, and I made a loud statement.

Two wolves, one silvery and the other the color of gingerbread, trotted in after me.

The only sound and movement was the crackling fire leaping in the fireplace under a high coffered ceiling. The black marble floor was painted with white skulls. The hall was vacant. I wondered if the Wild Hunt had vacated it for the third trial, or if this building had been abandoned for a while.

The Underworld had a prison system, and the king and his dukes had locked the war criminals who’d joined the uprising in the most secure prison, and it wasn’t in the Seventh Hell.

The gingerbread wolf spotted a twirl of staircases first and nudged my mind. Then the hellfire rabbit appeared again, waiting at the bottom of the stairs.

It’d led us out of the maze, so I would trust it to take me to where the crown was. It seemed like cheating, but I didn’t feel one ounce of guilt.

I turned and strode toward the stairs, where the rabbit was still waiting. The stairs split in two directions, one leading up and one down.

I nodded at the silver wolf. “Stay on guard here, Deb.” I turned to the gingerbread wolf. “You’re with me, Mandy.”

Deb whined, as she wanted to come with me, but she obeyed and guarded the stairs.

Mandy made her way down the stairs with me.

I could see well in the dark, as could the wolf. Mandy wouldn’t be a liability but would guard my back. We went down the long, winding stairs, following the hellfire rabbit. If I calculated it right, we had stopped at the seventh underground floor before the rabbit led me toward a dimly lit corridor.

The air smelled of damp dirt, mold, and sulfur. Hanging around here for more than a couple of minutes would depress a person greatly, and Loki had been locked and chained in one of the dungeon cells for years.

Pain and rage rose and brewed in my middle again, and I vowed to bring down Lucifer one day for what he’d done to my mate.

Can you? A voice seemed to come out of nowhere, mocking me. You can’t even get out of the blood contract.

I would find a way.

I ignored the voice and kept trailing after the rabbit, its hellfire growing fainter. Mandy dutifully trotted by my side, her ears pricked, her snout swaying around to detect danger and unwanted scents.

Suddenly, something dropped on my shoulder from the low ceiling and crawled toward my neck. I let out a low cry and swatted it away.

A large spider fell on the ground. Mandy lunged at it and stomped it to death with her big paw.

Then more spiders started dropping from the wet ceiling.

I restrained myself from screaming and clamped my lips shut, not wanting any of the spiders getting into my mouth.

Mandy yelped, ready to attack frantically.

My ice magic coiled through me, forming a shield and extending it to the wolf. A wave of spiders fell over the orbs of my unseen shield. Though they didn’t land on my person and the wolf, the sight of them falling around me still creeped me out.

An icy wind blasted from me, sweeping away the critters. A loud shuffling sound came from the low ceiling, and I didn’t need to look up to know that an armada of spiders crawled all over it.

“I hate this shit,” I cursed and told the wolf. “Run!”

Fortunately, my magic worked here. My icy wind cleared a path for us until we reached the end of the spider-infested corridor. Two paths lay before us, and neither corridor looked appealing. I picked the left corridor, as it felt less clammy.

The hellfire rabbit traveled along the wall, which was draped with long threads of black-thorned ivy.

I quickened my pace, shuddering a little. Mandy, who stayed close to me, also quaked and shook her fur to get rid of the bad feeling.

A branch of thorned ivy struck, not at me, but at the wolf. I threw up my hand, and my icy wind slammed into the ivy.

“Stop,” I commanded. “The wolves are not to be harmed.”

The ivy withdrew with a hiss, and Mandy yipped her relief and gratitude.

We advanced toward a lone cell in the middle of the dusty hallway: our destination.

Instantly, I knew that it was the dungeon cell that had held Loki.

My blood pounding in my ears, I trod toward the cell and paused in front of the open iron door as I regarded the wicked-looking bindings draping over the wall and heavy chains heaped on the rough, damp stone ground.

Some chains hung from the high ceiling. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Lucifer had strung Loki up in the air and spread him like a pinned eagle when Loki had been no more than nine years old.

I wondered why the king hadn’t torched this place and burned it to ashes after he’d banished Lucifer.

You must get in the cell and touch the chain. Feel his pain as his future queen. The hellfire rabbit was suddenly inside the cell and opened its mouth. Only then will the Hellfire Crown come to you. And only his true queen can touch the crown without being burned.

It sounded like the oracle, the Weaver of Fates who’d once spoke to me when I was trapped in the Ice Kingdom. Yet I didn’t have a good feeling about it.

I might just have to do it and get it over with. What was the worst that could happen?

He locked his fear and pain in this dungeon cell, the rabbit continued, and now he locks them in the prison of his heart. He still has nightmares, and only his queen can free him by feeling his pain, fear, shame, regret, and desire.

I’d do anything for my mate. And I needed to make a significant move to obtain the crown.

“Mandy,” I told the wolf, “I’m going into that cell to get the Hellfire Crown. Guard me outside the cell.”

The wolf looked into the cell through the iron bars, trying to detect if there was a crown. There were only bindings and chains.

Shaking off a sudden stab of fear, I stepped through the open iron door into the dark cage. 

My heart still pounded when I stood in the center, surrounded by the chains on the floor.

Summon the crown, the rabbit said.

I knew what the request was. If I was meant to be the Queen of the Underworld, even the Bride Trials wouldn’t deny me.

“I, Tessa Morrigan, a descendant of the Titan King, Goddess Morrigan, royal Ice Fae, the rightful Queen of the Ice Kingdom, and true mate to King Loki,” I announced clearly, “summon the Hellfire Crown of the Realm of the Underworld.”

I waited, but nothing happened.

Mandy the wolf stared at me expectantly through the bars outside the cell and blinked.

This scene did feel ridiculous.

“It’s mine,” I said, a bit of uncertainty in my voice, as the crown didn’t show up.

I felt stupid and annoyed at the same time.

I should just go on my way and use my logic and magical senses to search every inch of the building with the assistance of my loyal, disciplined pack. But before I stepped out of the cell, I decided to give it one last try.

It wouldn’t hurt.

“Hellfire Crown, the uncrowned Queen of the Underworld summons you!” I roared my command.

A flash of white light slashed across the space, nearly blinding me in the dim setting. I blinked hard, my heart almost bursting out of my chest.

It worked!

A magnificent golden crown adorned with blue diamonds and rare black gemstones materialized, encased in a circle of hellfire and floating a few inches from my eyes.

Mandy raised her head and howled in triumph, and also to notify the pack.

“The Hellfire Crown is bound by the Underworld magic,” the rabbit said. “Death to anyone who isn’t born to wear the crown.”

I hadn’t sought to be Queen of the Underworld, but after getting to know the man beneath the king’s ruthless, cruel exterior, I’d fallen in love with him.

Though I hadn’t had a chance to tell him.

I wanted to be Loki’s queen, and I wouldn’t let any other woman wear his crown and share his bed.

I thrust my hand through the ring of hellfire, knowing with certainty that it wouldn’t burn me. I snatched the crown, and hellfire twirled around my fingers like an adoring pet.

I studied the symbol of a black wolf riding hellfire beaming on the façade of the golden band and smiled.

I held the crown close to me, feeling like I was walking in a dream.

But somehow, this felt too easy. Too good to be true.

When it’s meant to be yours, it’s yours.

I told myself the old saying. It was time to accept what was mine.

“We have it,” I told the gingerbread wolf. “Let the pack know.”

Mandy gave a long howl. A half second later, the other wolves’ responding howls echoed in the dark building.