Hellfire Crown by Meg Xuemei X.
CHAPTER 26
Loki
A soul-tearing pain ripped into my chest as I waited in the banquet hall of the Morningstar Place, where all the contestants had been taken to the third trial. For a breath, I believed an iron claw had yanked out my heart. I stared down at my chest. There was no blood seeping through my white dress shirt. It wasn’t my heart.
Yet a terrible feeling pounded in my heart and tormented my mind as if I’d just lost my soul.
Mate, my wolf roared. Mate must be calling for help!
He wanted me to shift to a wolf right away and go to our mate.
Let me handle this, I hissed as I reined him in, returning my half-shifted form to my normal shape. The dukes looked at me in shock. Esme rushed to me and laid her hand on my arm.
“Don’t lose it, my king,” she said, sounding like a broken record. “Tessa will be okay. She’ll come out anytime now. In the meantime, we’re trying to gain access to the third trial. We’ll get to her.”
I’d searched every inch of my realm and couldn’t find a trace of where the third trial was taking place. I should never have agreed to the Wild Hunt’s terms, but then I hadn’t cared about the Bride Trials until Tessa showed up.
I clenched my fists at my sides to prevent myself from lashing out. I ordered my beast to calm the fuck down, yet I couldn’t do it.
This strange, gutted feeling—I couldn’t bear it.
“I’ll shatter the fucking barrier set by the fucking Wild Hunt,” I said, “if I don’t see my mate coming out the next minute. Fuck the Trials. I’m fucking terminating it.”
Then all thoughts and menace and fear left me. The entire hall was shocked to silence.
There she was.
My Bunny appeared at the mahogany double-doors, radiating victory and seduction. Her silver-pink hair flowed in the breeze her magic brought out, her beautiful face flushed with lust and excitement and her pink lips parted, waiting for me to claim them and taste them.
The female in the hall was the most stunning thing I’d ever seen. And she’d come out of the trial with additional qualities that were new to me, like built-in viciousness and greed.
Tessa Morrigan could be ruthless, but she’d never looked this malicious. Others wouldn’t detect the changes, but I was the King of the Underworld. And I was her mate.
And she’d never been so seductive.
My heart stuttered for her, and I gazed at her from the terrace like a schoolboy.
My chest ached. I’d put her through hell over and over, and she’d still come out for me.
Our gazes locked. I smiled at her, and she smirked back, not her usual smile, but one full of all the lust in the universe.
My breath caught.
Then I noticed more details.
She had appeared alone.
I realized a second later that she wasn’t only the champion, but also the sole survivor.
She could claim her place as my queen now.
Every contestant had died or had been lost forever in the third trial.
I didn’t know how to feel about this, but the Bride Trials was over, ended on the third trial instead of the fifth as originally planned.
No more danger for my mate. No more battles for her. And no one could take her away from me.
I was a cruel Demon King to others, but I’d do right by my mate.
I recalled my wicked promise to her. Tonight, I’d ravish her over and over, until she was too sore to walk and her throat too hoarse to beg.
And then I’d make love to her for a long time.
Tonight, my wolf would mark her as his as well. He’d have to bite her when I was still inside her to imprint her.
I wondered if my mate would agree or roll her lovely ice-blue eyes.
Thinking of fucking and claiming my mate the entire night made heat stir in my blood.
Across the hall, Tessa contained a naughty smirk, as if knowing exactly what was in my dirty mind. She swaggered toward me, her hips swaying, her tits pressing against the fabric of her clothes, ripe and needy.
My Bunny didn’t usually parade like that. She was never the showy type. She was all lethal stillness, with the grace of ice and steel. But I could understand the changes. She was the champion now. She’d earned it.
She had every right to swagger as she came to claim me.
My heart pounded with the thrill. My blood heated for my mate.
This female would ride me wildly all night long. I could see the wicked, brutal promise in every line of her gorgeous face.
I wanted to go to her badly, eliminating every fucking space between us, trapping her in my possessive arms and never letting her go again.
But then something stopped me, and I didn’t know what it was. Maybe I wanted to savor the moment, to watch her come to her man?
She moved closer and closer, eyes brimming with unbridled lust and her greedy gaze roving over my every inch.
Predatory, bewitching, and seductive beyond measure, which should have turned me on.
But the expected heat didn’t rise in my groin. My cock didn’t harden, unlike before whenever I’d spotted my Bunny.
It was like my passion was suddenly dead.
What the fuck was wrong with me?
My own mate had gone through the worst trial and returned to me, and I suddenly had cold feet and a colder heart?
Why did I have this worst feeling ever when the woman of my dreams and the mate of my soul was stalking toward me?
As if being directed by an unseen force, my eyes fell on the Hellfire Crown clutched in her hand. It looked intact and whole, but I knew it had been shattered.
If Tessa Morrigan was my destined queen, she wouldn’t have brought back a broken crown, even if it had been repaired afterwards. No one else could see the fractured lines, but I was the ruler of the realm who was supposed to put the Hellfire Crown on the head of my queen.
Something had gone wrong. I just didn’t know what. I thought of the soul-tearing agony I’d experienced before Tessa showed up.
Did I want to spend eternity with this woman, now that I could, now that she was absolutely attainable?
I felt a stab of shame at being a world-class asshole.
I shook off the terrible, haunting feeling.
My mate had survived and returned to me. That was what really mattered.
While a riot of conflicting emotions ran through me, my wolf remained uncharacteristically quiet. Like he was no longer excited to see our mate.
I guess he was a dick after all.
He didn’t even growl at my insult. He watched our mate glide closer and closer, and he yawned.
Motherfucker!
I swung over the railing of the terrace and landed in front of Tessa. The beast might be rude, but I had manners.
Still, my cock didn’t harden in the slightest.
I forced out a smile, concealing my true reaction and troubled heart.
I was going to fix this and fix myself before she knew it, before I hurt my mate’s feelings, before I sabotaged our relationship. I’d fucked up once, and I wouldn’t repeat my mistake.
Above all, I’d fallen in love with Tessa Morrigan with all my black heart.
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