Underworld Bride Trials 1 Playboy King - Meg Xuemei X. Page 0,59
intel they’d collected about finding a way to be able to join me in the Underworld without being choked to death by all the heat and smoke. This had proved challenging especially since they hadn’t found any of our kind on Earth, but they gathered a piece of crucial information.
Earth had spotted traces of new gods. My heart thundered at the bad news.
They’d come to this realm.
Maybe this had something to do with Mari’s mates being affected by the god’s dark curse? I should send Dux and Fayette to stay with Mari and help her in any way they could, and in return, Mari and her army would guard my team as well. That would be my next urgent message. I would send Snow White to Earth tomorrow morning, as she was quite eager to see Dux and Fayette again.
I sunk deeply into the soft chair, grateful that the Hell Cat had given me this moment of silence and privacy instead of demanding I fulfill my end of the bargain to tell her a dirty fairytale. Tonight, it was beyond my ability, especially after that dance with the King of the Underworld.
His touch was all I could think about.
CHAPTER 21
Tessa
Anticipation for an upcoming battle was always worse than the battle itself. It’d been three days, and there was no news from the king’s palace or his gamekeepers as to when and where the second trial would happen.
The contestants became restless, which made violence break out near-daily in Hell’s Academy. All of us were acutely aware that the rules didn’t say we couldn’t slaughter each other between trials. Luckily, I’d been able to steer clear of the bloodbath, but I had my own worries.
The longer the Bride Trials lasted, the sooner the bloodhounds would find me, especially since Ragnarö had found a way to shorten the period of regeneration for his hounds. I feared the sole surviving hound from our last fight might be on Earth already.
To my dismay, Loki seemed to be in no hurry to proceed to the second trial.
When he finally returned, he brought news that no one expected. There was to be a masquerade ball and every contestant was required to attend.
And it was happening tonight.
CHAPTER 22
Loki
My tight circle forbade me from visiting Bunny. They argued that I’d bring the entire horde of contestants down on Tessa if I showed any more interest in her, and that I’d already painted a target on her back as I just couldn’t stop looking at her when she was in the same space as me.
I paced back and forth in my suite, gazing out of the window in the direction of the cloaked dome, where she dwelled with the Hell Cat. I’d been trying to catch a glimpse of her, waiting for her to come out, but she was one of the stealthiest beings I’d ever known. Her style was the opposite of Mari’s. My little sister was obnoxiously loud and had a habit of making a dramatic entrance. Mari loved to kick the door down to let everyone know that she’d arrived. Tessa, however, chose to merge into the background and become a shadow.
“You’re going to give me a panic attack if you keep pacing like that, Loki,” Esme scolded. “And the rugs you are pacing on are very expensive.”
“I paid for them,” I protested.
She was playing cards with the dukes. My inner circle didn’t call me king in private, and they also complained a lot, like now.
“He’s never been like this before,” the Duke of Envy said, dealing a card. “We need to cure him and make him normal again.”
“He’s lovesick or lust-struck,” the Duke of Wickedness diagnosed, and I wanted to smack his all-knowing face.
My spymaster was still on the other side of the portal on Earth, keeping watch for any new developments with his team. If there was any trace of the reappearance of “our friends” from the other realms, he’d report to Mari and me right away.
“Alright,” Esme said exasperatedly and tossed her cards onto the round table. “He wants the girl, so let’s give him the girl then. It’s better to satiate his animalistic hunger than watch him go batshit crazy. Let’s throw a masquerade ball.”
“How’s that going to help him?” asked the Duke of Wickedness. “He parties all the time. How is this ball going to be different?”
The Duke of Envy sorted the cards in his hands. “You might be wicked, but you don’t have a single subtle bone in you.”