Princes of the Underworld Read online

  “Where is it, you wench?” Mara shot a column of fire in Blair’s direction.

  Blair ducked, staggering sideways. The fire hit the bookshelf in the corner of the room, setting it, and the books, aflame. The fire spread faster, smoke wafting from the flames. Sadie crouched low and covered her nose with the neckline of her blouse. The smoke burned the back of her throat and she forced back the tickle of a cough.

  Think, Sadie, think. She quickly scanned the area for an escape, but Mara blocked the exit, and her home was too filled with smoke and flames to find an alternate escape route.

  “Where’s what? Your manners? I was about to ask you the same thing,” Blair retorted, breathing deep and then coughing from the smoke.

  Sadie’s clothes were drenched in sweat from the heat. She fought to keep her head clear and find a way out before succumbing to the fire that was rapidly igniting everything she owned. Mara shifted, briefly turning her back to Sadie. On instinct, Sadie raised her dagger and charged, but her attack was sluggish from the smoke. Mara turned to face Sadie, tail whizzing from the side, striking Sadie’s abdomen. As Sadie sailed back, she swung her iridescent dagger, piercing Mara’s wing and dragging the blade through the thin fibers.

  Sadie struck the ground, knocking the air from her lungs. Dazed, she struggled to climb to her feet as Blair joined her, helping her up from the floor.

  Swing by swing, moment by moment, Blair and Sadie fought against Mara, side by side. But as Sadie noticed Blair’s movements slowing, her advances growing slower by the second, she realized they were losing.

  “The pendant is mine,” Mara said, glaring at Sadie and Blair. “It doesn’t belong to you.”

  “Well, since you asked nicely...” Blair threw the knife, landing it hilt-deep in Mara’s throat. It would have killed a human, but Mara only flinched.

  She bared her teeth and yanked the knife out of her throat. “You think a little human like you can stop me?” She threw the knife in Sadie’s direction. Sadie sucked in a surprised breath and tumbled to the side to dodge the attack, jarring her arm as she fell. The knife whistled close to her head, grazing her cheek. A sting pulsed where the blade sliced her skin.

  Sadie instinctively touched the spot, pulling her hand back to find her fingers coated red with fresh blood. Anger boiled in her gut. “How dare you barge into my house, set it on fire, and attack me and my sister, you psychotic freak!”

  Mara turned an annoyed gaze toward Sadie. She pointed at her. “You have it, don’t you?”

  “What—”

  What happened next blurred by, almost too quickly for Sadie to register. One moment, Mara had stretched her wings and charged, nails extended and teeth sharp, ready to bite her throat, ready to kill. The next, Blair stood in front of her, blocking Sadie from harm.

  Mara’s tail curled around her body and, in one fluid motion, stabbed Blair clear through the heart.

  A scream lodged in Sadie’s throat. Seeing red, unable to think about anything but saving her sister, she lost control.

  With clenched fists, Sadie launched herself at the woman’s back, gripped Mara’s blond hair with one hand and, with the other, drove the dagger in between the woman’s shoulder blades. She quickly jumped out of the way of her flailing wings. The wound hissed, and bubbling ichor streamed out. The sight gave Sadie some satisfaction.

  Mara’s tail slid out of Blair’s body. Sadie watched her sister drop to the floor and go limp. Mara dropped to her knees and clawed at the dagger. Her dark, pointed nails failed to grasp the hilt.

  Sadie had to make a choice—yank the dagger out of Mara and have a weapon once the demoness recovered or leave it in her and hope it distracted the vile woman long enough for Sadie to drag Blair to safety.

  “Damn it all,” Sadie muttered, making a split-second decision she hoped was right. Once Sadie was sure Mara would never be able to reach the blade, she dug it in to the creature’s back as deep as it would go and ran to her sister.

  It was time to leave. Now or never.

  Blood pooled around her sister’s body, and Sadie tried to ignore what was already obvious—Blair was going to die. Pushing that thought away, she gently pulled her sister into a sitting position. “Let’s go. We need to go, Blair.”

  She ripped the lower part of her shirt then wrapped the cloth around Blair’s stomach. She took Blair’s arm, hooked it around her neck, and with all her strength, attempted to pull Blair to her feet.

  Instead of standing, Blair hugged Sadie, and then a cold weight was placed around her neck. Sadie looked down to see the ruby pendant that had so mesmerized her earlier, the very thing this heartless demon bitch had so badly wanted. The gem glowed bright red and emitted smoke, though the stone didn’t burn Sadie’s skin. The enchanting magic she experienced from earlier flowed from the ruby to her fingertips and down her spine and welled deep within her core. The energy stretched and swelled, invading every part of her body. It didn’t hurt, it didn’t ache, it just felt—beautiful. Perfect. Right.

  Sadie clasped the pendant. “What—"

  Mara squealed in pain, wailing as if she had just lost a loved one. The ugly, mournful sound ripped Sadie from the wonder she felt from the pendant. She tugged on Blair’s arm to help her sister stand while Mara furiously thrashed and scrambled for the dagger lodged in her back.

  Blair didn’t budge. “I’m sorry,” she said, eyelids drooping, barely able to stay conscious as she looked at Sadie with a sad expression. “I—I have condemned you to darkness and pain, but it’s the only thing that will keep you alive.” Her breathing became shorter and ragged. “I hope you can forgive me one day.”

  “What are you talking about, Blair? Let’s go. We have to go!” Sadie kept tugging, but her sister remained motionless, growing heavier. Tears welled in Sadie’s eyes. As she blinked the tears away to clear her vision, Blair handed her a glass orb that filled her palm with an electric sensation.

  “I love you, little sister. I always will.”

  “Blair! Let’s go. Please, let’s go,” Sadie said, voice full of desperation as tears flowed down her cheeks. Mara made one last growl then sighed. She had successfully yanked the blade out of her body and dropped it on the floor, the hilt burning her skin as she touched it. The woman stood then arched her back, taking in a deep breath and cracking her neck bones with a few flexes. She glared at Sadie, eyes burning with malice.

  Sadie mustered all her strength to try and carry her sister, but her muscles ached and she hardly lifted Blair at all. “Let’s go! Come on!”

  Blair cupped Sadie’s cheek and smiled. “Find those worthy of your trust and guard them with your life,” she closed Sadie’s hand around the glass orb and whispered, “Safehouse.”

  As Mara strode toward them, leering, Blair shoved Sadie away. Sadie fell backward, thrown off balance, and a surge of icy numbness spread through her from the orb.

  Whatever this thing was, it was doing something to her—something bad. Something that was stopping her from saving Blair.

  As Sadie stared at her sister in shock, the world around her warped. The colors melded together and turned darker. Before she was consumed in absolute darkness, the demoness’s hands wrapped around Blair’s neck while Sadie’s living room burned.

  Sadie screamed. “No! Blair!”

  The darkness swallowed her whole.

  “Blair!”

  Sadie kept screaming, but her voice sounded muffled. Frustrated, furious, and desperate to save her sister, she screamed again and again, until she couldn’t hear anything anymore. Until she couldn’t move anymore. She tried to smash the orb on the ground, but she couldn’t feel her body.

  All she could see, all she could feel, all that surrounded her, was the darkness.

  She thought she would be trapped forever, but she a force jerked her out of the orb’s confinement and she hit the ground hard. There was a sound of glass shattering somewhere near her. Her right arm went numb. Nausea gripped her, and she groaned in pain. Her vision was spotted. Just
when she thought the worst was over, the ground tilted again, and her world faded to black.

  Chapter Three

  Sadie

  Sadie blinked herself awake on the floor of what seemed an abandoned house, judging by the litter, debris, and lack of any semblance of home. Her head throbbed, and her muscles ached. She sat up, gritting her teeth against the protesting muscles being forced to move. Her bruised arm ached as she gripped the wound created by Mara’s wing, but by the looks of it, it would be fine. Just a flesh wound. Ripping a strip of fabric from the bottom of her already tattered blouse, she wrapped the cloth around her forearm, using the moon as her only source of light.

  Her chest burned a little, and her entire body felt warm, as though she had spent the entire day in the sun. Which was odd because Seattle wasn’t warm, and her shredded blouse barely covered her upper body. Cool night breezes that should have felt cold against her skin swept in through the broken windows around her, ruffling her dark hair, but she felt only a simmering heat deep within her core.

  And through it all, the soothing enchantments of the amulet against her chest reminded her that nothing in her world was going right.

  She tried to make sense of the night’s events as she took in the ragged mattresses, the floor covered in trash and discarded clothes, and the colored graffiti on the wall. Then she found a familiar symbol on the farthest wall of the room, illuminated by moonlight. An ouroboros. Just like the one carved on the knife Blair had given her.

  Blair.

  She scrambled to her feet. Flashes of everything that had happened to her sister rushed through her mind. Her hands shook, and her chest tightened as she remembered how Mara’s tail impaled Blair, how Mara strangled her sister just as the strange orb swallowed up her vision.

  Sadie needed to get back to her apartment.

  She shuffled to the window, peeked outside, and recognized a sleazy area of Seattle, perhaps two miles from her neighborhood. Not a great place to be for a girl alone at night, but not far of a walk.

  Across the silent, garbage-littered street lit by a single, flickering lamplight, a row of dead trees guarded withered lawns and more abandoned houses. At least, they looked abandoned. She didn’t know how she could be in an abandoned house when, moments ago, she and Blair were getting reamed by a she-demon with bat wings and a dragon’s tail.

  And horns. Sadie shivered at the memory of the woman.

  Though her muscles burned with the most minute movement, she maintained her composure, looking outside for signs of danger and coming up with a plan. She had been in too many close calls before working as a paramedic. Logic and a cool head were the only things that got her out of those brushes with danger.

  The same would be needed for this situation.

  Her body grew warmer and the burn in her chest intensified. An itching sensation spread from her sternum to her collarbones, and she absently scratched at her chest to soothe the odd ache as she walked away from the window and made her way through the dark house.

  Sadie needed to go after Blair, but now there was a problem—she had the amulet Mara so desperately wanted. If Mara was smart, she would keep Blair as leverage to get the pendant back, and that at least bought them time.

  Hopefully.

  The itching on her chest intensified, and Sadie groaned with discomfort. She needed to figure out what the hell this amulet even was. Looking at the ceiling, there were no light bulbs and she figured no electricity either. Even if there had been electricity, she wouldn’t have used it as it would probably draw unwanted attention.

  Wading in the moonlight, she found a shattered mirror on the ground next to empty bottles of beer, a few feet from the broken orb. Kneeling and bending toward the largest fragment, she pulled down her shirt’s neckline enough to see the pendant.

  Her eyes grew wide with shock and wonder as she stared at the ruby that had embedded itself in her chest. The golden chain that held the red gem was draped around her neck, ends dangling above her breasts. She ripped the fabric of her shirt to inspect the amulet.

  Wispy, black tattoos radiated from the glowing stone, resembling runes and sigils that shifted and moved with a life of their own, like living ink, crawling on her skin in what little moonlight reflected.

  When Sadie touched the stone, it glowed brighter. Her pulse quickened. She wasn’t just wearing an amulet anymore—this object was now in her body.

  Part of her.

  Fused to her.

  Though a brief surge of concern shot through her, she knew Blair wouldn’t have given her something that would hurt her, so she shoved away the thought that this could kill her. Instead, she focused on what to do next.

  Blair had given this to Sadie to protect, and this was all the leverage she had to get her sister back safely… if Blair was even still alive.

  “She’s alive,” Sadie hissed to herself, killing the thought as it hit her. “She has to be.”

  The pendant is mine. That was what Mara had said. And from the way Mara had screeched in pain and frustration when Blair put the necklace on Sadie’s neck, it was clear Blair stole the pendant from Mara, and that the woman wanted it back. She wanted it bad. Bad enough to kill.

  She wanted to blame her sister for what happened tonight, but Blair was still in trouble. Sadie needed to get to her. She could play the blame game after she and Blair were safe and sound. She stood and started to form a plan. She would need a phone, several of her cop buddies on the force, and maybe a psych ward.

  While formulating a plan to get back to her sister and both of them to safety, a slight movement of shadow flickered in the moonlight within her periphery.

  She whirled around to find a huge, ugly, shaggy man silently standing in the darkness, glaring at her with cold eyes beneath a mane of wiry, dark hair. She gasped, more from surprise than fear. He was so bulky, yet so quiet, sneaking into the room unnoticed like that. She tensed for another fight. This guy couldn’t possibly be good news.

  He pointed at the pendant fused with her body and scoffed. “Oh, you are in deep shit now, little girl.” He stepped closer, the faint light bouncing off his exposed biceps as he continued to glare at her. His lips pulled into a grin, baring rotting teeth. “Didn’t anyone tell you not to mess with dark magic?”

  Magic. The word gave her goosebumps, the hair on her neck stood on end. As much as the logical and reasonable part of her wanted to explain everything away as completely scientific, there was no possible way to do so, not after what she had seen. Magic was the only explanation for everything that had happened.

  Magic was very real, and right now, magical beings were trying to kill her.

  He shuffled even closer. “Pity. Waste of a pretty face.” He drew a hunting dagger from his belt.

  This guy was going to kill her.

  First Mara, now this stranger, all over a pendant.

  Her blood ran cold, and a frosty blast of nerves sailed clear to her fingertips. Just like that, she snapped. The good girl with the perfect GPA and the clean apartment at the edge of town was gone.

  As long as Sadie had this pendant, she would have people coming after her, trying to kill her, trying to slit her throat. She had to choose whether or not to keep going.

  It was a sink or swim moment, a fight or flight decision—and Sadie was a fighter.

  With one glance at the knife, Sadie scoffed then planted her feet into a fighting stance, fists held at eye level. “You don’t want to mess with me, honey.”

  He snorted in answer, apparently entertained by the comment. He quickly closed the remaining gap between him and Sadie, pointing the dagger at her.

  Fine. A beat down it is, then. At the last second, Sadie spun to the side and then swiftly scrunched down, extended a leg and caught her attacker’s legs mid-stride, sending him face-first to the floor. He landed on glass fragments that used to be the weird orb.

  “Name’s Sadie, by the way.” She got up and back into her ready stance.

  The man pushed himself to his feet,
scowling. “You’re going to pay for that, bitch.”

  “Nah,” she said nonchalantly. He was a scrub, barely trained how to fight, and even though she wasn’t a pro, she could take him, knife or no.

  She returned to the broken mirror and grabbed a sizable glass shard from the scattered pieces. Rapid, thumping footsteps approached her. She turned then jumped back as the man’s knife whistled past her exposed midriff, barely scratching her skin. The man growled and swung again. She turned to the side, dodging the attack, ignoring the sting and ache of her sore muscles. She maneuvered behind him, avoiding another swing of his knife and drove the glass shard into his left shoulder.

  The goal was to hurt him. Bad. To make him stop. To make him limp away, body and ego bruised enough to give up. She didn’t want to kill him—but if he made her, if he pushed her, she absolutely would.

  She ignored the sting burning through her hands. The man cried out as his knees buckled and he crashed to the floor. Sadie climbed onto his back, clenching his torso between her thighs and wrapping an arm around his throat. She released the knife from his grip by applying pressure to the soft skin between his thumb and forefinger then tossed it across the room.

  Applying the last of her remaining strength, she squeezed her arm tighter around the man’s throat. He wildly scratched at her, hands clawing at her arm, peeling layers of skin. Sadie sucked in a pained breath, letting it out slowly as she fought through the sting of his nails on her arm. When his movements slowed, Sadie thought she was gaining the advantage, but then the man started to crawl toward the knife.

  Why won’t he just pass the hell out? Sadie wrapped her other arm around his throat, pulling even tighter, and although the man seemed to crawl slower, he showed no signs of stopping.

  This guy was a tank.

  He was about three times her size and it would take more of an effort to incapacitate him. With a strangled groan, he finally collapsed on the ground, crumpling in pain. Sadie held on a little longer, thinking the moment was finally ending.