Lucifer and Ares didn’t slow down. The God of War would let his son be taken down by the beasts.
Zak wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me back, despite my kicks and screams. Paxton guarded my back.
“We have to go, Buttercup,” he said.
“I won’t lose them!” I screamed.
With every ounce of my strength, I broke free from both Zak’s and Paxton’s hold. But I might already be too late to rescue my other mates and my hellhound.
Axel, Héctor, and Angel disappeared into the ranks of the trolls.
“No! No!” I shrieked in terror and agony and rage, and power blasted out of me like a violent wind. “You won’t harm my mates!” I roared at the horde.
Power surged from me toward the monsters, hitting them like shockwaves. They stumbled, their steps sluggish, and moved in slow motion.
I blinked, my lips parting in shock. I still had power. It was a new brand of magic, manifesting during times of extreme distress.
Raw energy sputtered in my belly, completely in sync with the Void. The magic buzzed and spread out from me like a butterfly’s electrified wings.
In front of me, the monsters’ hive minds opened like a matrix, and all of a sudden I was plugged into it, connected to their collective consciousness. Their minds were filled with blind rage and violence, but I also noticed awareness amid the enormous madness that gripped them.
They were waiting. They’d been waiting for something, or someone, or a purpose, but they didn’t know what that was.
I roamed in the center of their minds like a spark of fire amid an ocean of shadows and violence. They were predators, yet they were also a herd.
“Back off from what’s mine!” I ordered.
Their rage increased, registering a new presence in the matrix of their consciousness. I matched their rage with my wrath, drawing on the Void magic inside me to create a flaming blade inside the matrix and stabbing a few minds as an example.
They shrieked in terror and pain, but I didn’t care. Even joined to the horde’s collective consciousness as I was, their agony didn’t touch me. I would do anything to save my mates. I’d be the biggest predator and the worst monster of all, if that’s what it took.
“You’ll obey me! Or I’ll crash your hive mind and turn it to mush,” I promised.
A spark of recognition rose from the edge of the matrix and spread like wildfire, piercing the half-madness and fury that drove the armada. The hive mind shifted in an instant.
I stood my ground, snarling like a primal being, ready for any challenge.
Only it was no longer a challenge.
Princess? Mistress?A leading thought queried amid a horde of droning and humming voices, and then all the background voices hushed and listened.
I stared dumbly at the horde. That was unexpected, but my mind whirled fast.
You returned to us, Princess?
Mom had said I was the Princess of the Void.
I wasn’t sure if the term she used meant the same princess the monsters were asking about, but I would do anything to get my mates out of here, including claiming a fake title.
Yes,I said.Now retreat and leave my companions alone.
Something blurred in front of me. Before I could blink, Ares kicked my demon blade from my hand, sending it flying, and seized me. Zak and Paxton screamed war cries and charged in our direction. The war god jumped off the cliff with me in his grip.
Lucifer leapt right after us.
The deafening waterfalls drowned out my mates’ roars and the monsters’ bellows as we plummeted. Fear for my mates sank in my stomach like a cold rock, and rage rose in me like acid fire. No time to pull out the hidden dagger in my boot. I drove an elbow back toward Ares’s neck. I threw my other hand backward and found his groin, grabbing his nuts and squeezing as hard as I could.
Ares shrieked in agony, his hold on me loosening. I shoved away from him in midair.