Underworld Bride Trials 1 Playboy King - Meg Xuemei X. Page 0,55
about it!” Marigold pouted, her round cheeks flushing with worry and excitement all at once and her green eyes ablaze. “We can’t stop him from coming. You know how parents are. But they’ll glamour themselves on Earth.” She swept a glance at me. “My father isn’t that bad. We’re just paranoid. And I bet he’ll bring the most expensive and amazing gifts suitable for his daughter’s engagement. He’ll be so happy to meet you, Tessa, but he really stresses out my mates.”
“We’ll distract him,” Hector said, “long enough to survive him.”
Marigold beamed at him, so much in love and so full of life. And here I was, feeling old when I was probably only a year or two older than her. But I was happy for what she had with her mate. The two were a sight to watch, especially when the death demigod kissed his princess, gentler than a snowflake yet more passionate than fire.
“It can’t go wrong if the four of you can work together, and Dad is only one person,” she told him, flushing happily after a shared, lingering kiss.
Loki stared at them in irritation. “I don’t care about Hyperion, but is Lilith coming?”
“What do you think?” Marigold asked. “She has to come to rein him in. Mom said she’d visit her beloved stepson first.”
Loki grinned from ear to ear, and his eyes moistened for a second, but the mist was gone so fast that I almost thought I’d imagined it.
“I miss her. It’s been so long since I last saw Lilith.” His voice was soft and gentle, showing his softer side, but then again everyone in this room was in his tight circle, except for me.
And I—I was his enemy in his caring arms. I shoved the dark feeling down.
Marigold and her mate spun away from us to be in their own world.
“I kind of liked Tessa’s provocative moves on Loki,” she whispered to Héctor. “I want to try them on you.”
“You want to provoke me, Lamb? And what moves?” Héctor hadn’t taken his eyes away from his mate, the only woman he adored.
Just then, in a sudden burst of smoke and sparks of hellfire, the Duke of Deception popped up beside Marigold. The death demigod shoved his mate behind him to shield her, his wings turning steely-hard. The demigod glared at Pythius.
“Do not startle my lamb, Pythius!” Héctor growled. “And do you mind? My woman was about to try a new dance move, and I don’t want you to get in her way.”According to my intel, the archdemons and the demigods were never polite toward each other, even though on the surface the war between Earth and Hell had ended.
Marigold stepped forward to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with her mate and cut him a look. “I wasn’t startled. No one startles me, and what did we say about dropping this overprotective alpha male fixation?”
“Marigold,” Pythius said, his face pale and his eyes flashing with fear. “Something bad has happened.”
It was interesting that he reported to her instead of the demigod, even though the demigod seemed more dominant except when it came to his mate.
“What is it, Pythius?” Marigold asked. “Didn’t we just send you to Earth? How did you come back so fast?
“Take a deep breath,” Hector ordered, “and tell us what happened.”
The Duke of Deception inhaled deeply and on his exhale, said, “I teleported to the grounds of the Half-Blood Academy, only I didn’t have a chance to deliver your message. Demigod Axel and Demigod Paxton were engaged in a death duel at the pool house. Demigod Zak kept sending lightning to the rooftop pool instead of breaking up their fight. Occasionally, Zak attacked the other two demigods as well. They were all wounded when I arrived, and they couldn’t even hear me when I begged them to stop. They were stuck in a fit of blood rage as if they were under a curse. I’m not completely sure, but I detected a trace of dark power on your three mates from an unknown origin.” He sucked in another breath before adding, “I suspect the gods have returned.”
Blood drained from Marigold’s beautiful, fierce face. She looked to her mate, and the demigod nodded at her grimly. “Let’s go to them,” he said.
Marigold threw her arms around his neck, and he wrapped his arms protectively around her.
In a blink, they disappeared, before Loki had even begun to move. He stared at the empty space where Marigold and her mate had been a second ago and turned to