PROLOGUE
Loki
She saw me fuck for sport.
One sniff at her, and I knew she was my mate. The ice maiden had come to my world.
Ice to your fire, my archangel stepmother had once foretold.
Pink lips, pale face framed by radiant silvery hair, and ice-blue eyes burning like twin suns at daybreak when they were trained on me.
She was the most beautiful, exquisite thing I’d ever seen.
The beast in me rose, recognizing its fated mate, and roared with hellfire.
Heat seared through my veins. My cock had never shot up so hard for any other female.
But she couldn’t be my queen.
Tessa Morrigan had come too late.
I’d started the Underworld Bride Trials. All the contestants would fight to the death until the last one stood by my side to claim the hellfire crown.
CHAPTER 1
Tessa
“Hurry!” Dux called urgently from the other side, which meant his side was safe.
“Go!” I told Fayette and Archer.
Fayette darted through the shrinking portal, lithe as a feline.
“You first, Your Grace,” Archer insisted, and I shoved my second-in-command through the shimmering portal, regardless of his large build and hard muscles.
I wouldn’t leave my team—they were all I had left now—stranded in a foreign land. He stumbled through the narrowing portal, and I dived after him, slamming into his massive back, just as the portal closed on the heel of my boots.
I landed in a crouch beside my team before they stopped to shout at me in panic.
I was the only one who could open a portal to different realms for a brief time, which wasn’t too bad, especially when we were constantly on the run. The last thing we wanted was for the bloodhounds to track us.
“Easy, guys,” I said as my eyes assessed them for injuries.
We’d fled a battle and lost the enraged gang carrying big guns on the other block. One of their rockets almost followed us through the portal. It would’ve been a disaster if that had happened.
My teammates were in one piece, though Dux limped a little on his left leg, and his trousers were torn around the knee. Fayette had a red line near her blond eyebrow, beads of blood forming and about to drop. She also sported bruises on her swan-like neck, but for a warrior maid, bruises were nothing.
Archer appeared to be in the worst shape among us. His brown armor was broken in several places and tainted with blood. But he didn’t pay any heed to his wounds as he scanned the surroundings for threats, his pointed ears pricking and straining to hear unusual sounds.
I would check on him after I could breathe a bit easier. My broken rib should heal in a matter of hours.
“Your Grace, are you hurt?” Fayette asked, biting her lower lip. She did that when she was worried. “You don’t look too hot.”
I raised a hand to stop her from coming closer to fuss over me.
“I’m fine,” I said as I inhaled the scent of wood and spring. In my world, there was only endless ice in the eternal winter. “I regenerate faster than any of you.”
I dropped to one knee and grasped a handful of sand, then I let it slip through my shaking fingers, emotions surging within me, even though I tried not to let myself be easily overwhelmed.
“We made it, my queen,” Fayette said softly, knowing exactly how I felt.
“We don’t know if this is the place,” Archer argued. He loved to disagree, eating arguments for breakfast, and he was suspicious of anyone and anything except us.
Dux flashed an easy smile. “We’ll find out soon, won’t we?”
While Archer was so damn serious all the time, Dux balanced him out with a more carefree style. Archer also stood out with his impressive build and good looks, but Dux was lanker and could blend into any setting. That’s why he was our best tracker and scout.
“For what it’s worth, we got the job done,” Dux continued. “We broke into a fortified compound and assassinated the drug lord Fallon.”
“The gold from the bounty can only buy one battalion,” Archer said, not letting go of his negative outlook. “Even with all the gold we accumulated, it won’t be enough to rally the troops to drive out that bastard Ragnarö.”
I breathed out a trail of frost at the mention of my ex-mate, the illegitimate son of the giant Frost God of Udgård. Ragnarö had stolen my kingdom and became the current Ice King. I’d escaped him eight years ago, and he’d never stopped hunting me since then.
My ice magic snapped tightly around me, but I was careful to deploy it as rarely as possible, for fear of leaving a magical imprint. Opening the portal to this realm worried me enough, and I silently prayed for my magic signature to fade before the bloodhounds got a whiff of it.
“That’s why we’re here to do one last job,” I said, my jaw set with tension and determination.
“How can the four of us breach Hell?” Archer grunted, appraising me and knowing I hurt worse than I looked.
I wasn’t a stranger to the anxiety in his hard, grey eyes. My second was terrified that he couldn’t keep me alive this time, but he always worried about that.
“We’ll figure it out, as we always do,” I said. “Right now, let’s find shelter. I need to take care of your wounds before they get infected.”
I could heal others faster than I healed myself.
Dux tilted his head to the side like a big bird listening to something particular. A knowing smile broke across his face. “I hear the sound of water. A stream nearby.”
“North,” I agreed.
We prowled through the woods in formation, our blades and guns in our hands and our eyes and ears alert.
Fayette rushed toward the stream as soon as she spotted it. I hastened after her.
“I like Earth,” Dux said behind us. He’d take the first watch.
Archer grunted a noncommittal response.
I squatted at the edge of the bank, and Fayette approached to tend to me first.
“Take care of yourself,” I told her as I studied my reflection on the surface of the water before I splashed the clear water onto my face.
My silvery hair streaked with pink pooled around my neck. I’d been keeping the same length and style ever since my nursemaid, Dulcina, severed my ankle-length braid when the usurper Ice King grabbed the tail of it at the brink of the portal to drag me back to his ice castle and my prison. Dulcina sacrificed her life for me like the rest of my fallen guards.
A chunk of ice stuck in the back of my throat at the memory of Ragnarö impaling my nursemaid with his ice spear, her blood splashing onto the thick ice. It hadn’t been the first time I’d seen so much blood, but the sight still shocked me numb and haunted my recurrent nightmares.
I wouldn’t grieve for her or any of them, not now. Not yet. I would grieve properly for all of them when I beheaded my mate and my sworn enemy. I swallowed the cold lump and pushed the sorrow down to the depths of my soul. My ice-blue eyes flecked with fiery ambers stared back at me in approval from my reflection. I could see my dark eyelashes casting long shadows on my high cheekbones, in stark contrast to my nearly translucent skin that was icy to my own touch.
I turned to Fayette with a longing sigh, and glanced around, pondering. “We could use a bath while Dux goes scouting and Archer guards us.”