by Coralee June
He had shaggy blond hair and a full beard that looked like it was there out of neglect rather than choice. He wore faded Spector sweats, and the ragged breaths he took at unnatural intervals let me know how bad off he was. I couldn’t even sense his power the way I could sense Collector and Risk. All that was coming off of the gaunt male was a faint trail of fading life.
My eyes immediately shot over to Risk, who had straightened up from his spot at the wall. His dark eyes were locked onto the captive demon, and flickers of flames were peeking out from his sleeves.
Belvini cut through the murmurs in the room. “As you can see, the ritual requires the blood of a high level demon such as myself. This particular demon has donated his blood twelve times. The average duration for a single demon’s life-span usually ends around the tenth donation,” he explained, making it sound utterly clinical. “Luckily, thanks to our Black Widow, we now have a donor with an unlimited blood supply. We will never run out. As long as demons are spawned in hell, we will have hybrids in our realm.”
I took backward steps off the stage, getting out of the way. Cheryl waved me over, and I quickly took the seat beside hers while listening to Belvini’s speech.
“The ritual requires the blood of a high level demon, an ancient rune circle, and some ceremonial chants. I’ve heard jokes about a virgin sacrifice, but I can assure you we aren’t that uncivilized.”
Some of the crowd laughed at that, but I couldn’t find it within myself to find his words humorous. I was too busy feeling trapped in my memories, sucked into the blinding pain and the terror of hearing the chants during my ritual. What they did was menacing and wrong.
Cheryl snorted. “They’d be hard pressed to find a virgin at Thibault anyways, am I right?” she said while holding up her hand for a high-five. I didn’t return the gesture, making her pout.
“It’s a fairly painless ritual that has a high success rate. We’ve polished our process to ensure a safe, beneficial hybridization for all our participants. We hope that you see the value in Spector and the value in our program.”
Collector flashed an award-winning smile to the crowd, and all around us, supes erupted in applause. I looked at Risk, but he was still staring at the tied up man on stage, his eyes filled with anger. With fists clenched at his sides, he bore a hole in the stage with his gaze.
“We have sign-ups and investment paperwork stationed at tables around the room. Once you’ve made your decision for participation and have transferred your fee, we will get you set up with an information packet and will schedule you for a consultation prior to your possession. The first round will be in three days, and I highly recommend reserving your spot, as placement is limited.”
At that, Mr. Trant stood up from his spot in the front row and proudly made his way over to the nearest table, making a big show of pulling a pen from his jacket pocket and writing a check. Everyone watched in rapt attention, and the moment he collected his spot, many others followed.
One by one, each chair emptied.
One by one, everyone signed their name.
One by one, I lost hope that people would see reason—that they would see that what Spector was doing was wrong.
Realization settled in my bones, and I shared a look with the other grim-faced hybrids. If we wanted to take Spector down, we were on our own.
After everyone had signed up and Belvini worked the room for higher checks, we hybrids were forced to stand on the stage while lingering patrons eyed us like prized ponies. The business attire clad supes walked around us, talking about us as if we weren’t standing right there. Russell kept ruffling his black wings as if he were annoyed on my behalf. I reached up and pet him to calm him down, which seemed to help.
“What did this one do again?” a female vampire asked the person next to her.
The male regarded Cheryl boredly before flipping through a brochure that I realized had our pictures on it. “Ah, a siren.”
The female made a noise of disappointment. “Hmm. That’s rather dull.”
Cheryl frowned in offense, but at least she had the sense to keep her mouth shut for once.
“Ah, Black Widow. I’d like one of her.”
My eyes snapped forward, greeted with an overweight shifter wearing a suit and a smug grin. He and his companion—another shifter, based on the scent of him—looked me up and down.
“Fascinating merging,” the portly male said. “Tell me, how many times do you have to fuck to sustain yourself?”
My mouth popped open at the bluntness of his words. “That’s none of your business,” I snapped.
The shifters exchanged a look, as if they were surprised by my unwillingness to discuss how often I had sex.
“How many mates did the brochure say she had? Ten? Twelve? She’s probably riding a cock every hour,” the younger shifter chuckled as he eyed my breasts.
Webs started to coil around my fingers as anger sparked through me, but before I could do anything, Risk was there, stepping in front of me. “Gentleman, I’ve taken Black Widow here as my pet. The only cock she’s riding is mine for the foreseeable future,” he said with a charming grin.
The shifters chuckled. “Ah, I don’t blame you there.”
I knew what Risk was doing—protecting me the only way he could—but I hated the act that I was nothing but a sex pet.
“In fact,” Risk began before shifting his body and wrapping his arm around my waist. “I think she and I will be leaving now. All this talk of fucking has left me feeling famished.”
Risk started pulling me out of the room, not caring that there was a line of influential people staring us down, eager to pick and prod at me like I was a prized possession to be owned. Russell flapped overhead, following us out the doors and into the hallway.
“That was awful,” I croaked.
“I know,” Risk replied in a whisper while petting my head. He was staring down a pair of guards blocking off the hallway in the distance. “And you put on quite the show. Collector is pissed.”
“I can handle the Collector,” I gritted.
“I’m sure you can, Wicked Love,” Risk replied tenderly as we came to a complete stop in front of the guards.
The two men were holding rifles and staring down at me with looks of vile disapproval, but as soon as Risk and I approached, they moved out of the way. The moment I was out of that room, I was able to take the first full breath after what had felt like hours.
Risk led us toward the elevators, but I nearly slammed into his back when he stopped suddenly. Looking around him, I saw what had halted his steps. The chained demon was being escorted down the hall, and Risk’s entire body tensed.
“You know him,” I said in a murmur. “Who is he?”
“A very old friend,” Risk replied, his tone like steel.
Risk’s eyes followed the demon’s back as the guards led him away.
“Come. I’ll take you to your room,” he said, hurrying into action. “Then I want to see if I can get to where they’re taking him.”
“Go,” I urged him as I pushed him toward the hallway they disappeared down. “I’ll take the elevator to your room. You’ll miss where they’re taking him if you don’t hurry.” Risk hesitated, but I shooed him with my hands. “Go.”
He pointed a finger at me. “Go straight to my room. Understood?”
“Yeah, yeah, now go!”
He pressed the button of the elevator for me before turning and striding away, following the trail of the demon.
The elevator dinged, and I went inside, pressing the number for Risk’s floor. Russell flew around in the enclosed space as it moved up, and when it dinged and the doors slid open, I started to step out, only to realize that it was the wrong floor. I pressed the correct floor again, but the doors wouldn’t shut. Frowning, I peeked my head out of the hallway, trying to see where I was, when a pair of arms suddenly grabbed me and shoved me face-first into the wall.
My head exploded with pain, and I struggled to call my webs, but I fel
t something tie around my wrists, wrapping so tight that it cut into my skin. I looked down, noting the amulet I once saw Collector wearing in his office was now binding me with a thick leather strap, the amber gemstone hanging off of it.
“What the fuck?” I yelled before trying once again to access my powers.
But nothing came, no webs, no dark energy from my spider. There was just...nothing. Like my demon had been sucked into a void.
Guards started dragging me down the hall as I kicked and screamed, and I could hear Russell cawing out in frantic cries above me.
“Shut her up!” one of the guard’s demanded.
Hands covered my mouth, but I sunk my teeth into my attacker’s rancid flesh. Twisting and turning, fighting, clawing, screaming, I tried everything to get away. None of it worked.
And then sharp pain struck across my temple.
And the world went black.
Chapter 25
My eyes cracked open with exhaustion. I could smell the rusty scent of blood in the air. It coated my tongue, covered my face. A steady flowing wound fell from my temples, and my wrists burned where they were bound.
I looked down, noting the relics tied to my skin and burning away the flesh there. My feet were chained to concrete cinder blocks on the ground.
“Motley? Wh-where am I?”
I snapped my attention up and forced my blurry vision to settle. I was in a dark room, and ten feet away, my aunt was sitting on the floor beside a pile of empty blood bags.
“D-did I have another frenzy? I don’t remember,” she said while scratching her long black nails down her face. She was in a Spector hospital gown, and her normally groomed red hair was tangled and frayed, spilling out of her head in electric waves. Her eyes were locked on the bags of empty bags, her nostrils flaring as her pupils began to dilate.
“Aunt Marie? How did you get here?” I asked, though emotion clogged my throat. This wasn’t what I wanted. If she was here, then that meant…
“I don’t know. I don’t know where I am,” she began while standing up. Her thin legs looked so frail. She shook with each step, circling the room in wide-eyed terror. “Do you smell that?” she asked. Her button nose tipped up and sniffed at the air, like she could pinpoint the scent. I recognized each body movement for what it was.
She was falling into a daze of bloodlust.
“Aunt Marie, you have to get out of here, okay? Can you unchain me?” I asked, though I knew she wasn’t paying attention. She padded around barefoot, her toes dragging on the concrete with each shuffled step.
“Yes, yes,” she began. “But do you smell that?” she asked again before turning her body to me. “I’m so hungry.”
I winced the moment her eyes landed on my bleeding wounds. She transitioned between taking in the pity on my expression and licking her lips at the holes in my arms. She was at war with her nature, fighting to make sense of what was happening while desiring the dripping crimson substance I was coated in.
“Aunt Marie, listen to my voice,” I coaxed as she slipped closer.
She tripped on a groove in the concrete, landing with a painful jolt, and then started crawling on her hands and knees, scraping up her porcelain skin with each staggering movement.
“You’re bleeding, Motley,” she said in awe, though she sounded far away.
“Aunt Marie, we have to get out of here,” I pleaded. It was a special kind of cruelty, using the person I loved most in this world to torture me. Though my head pounded with anxiety, I knew that Spector put us together as punishment.
“We have to get out of here,” she repeated robotically.
Once at my feet, she licked her lips before reaching out with her index finger and pressing on the relic burning into my skin. Hot blood bubbled up and oozed out of the wound. Her eyes widened.
“Aunt Marie, it’s me. It’s me,” I pleaded.
She leaned closer, pressing her cold cheek against my skin. “Blood,” she croaked.
Slowly, Aunt Marie got to her feet. I watched in horror as the woman that raised me, the woman that rocked me to sleep and sang me lullabies cocked her head and stared at me with predatory intent. I closed my eyes and imagined us in her kitchen, baking blood cookies and dancing to music. I imagined her braiding my hair and cussing out my no-good father.
I refused to see her like this. I refused to let Spector warp my perception of the woman that gave up her life to raise me. Her head came down to my arm, and I felt her teeth scrape against my skin.
“I love you, Aunt Marie,” I whispered.
Fangs punched through my skin, and I let out a little stuttered cry as I felt her hands latch around my arm to hold me in place as she drank.
I didn’t fight her. I didn’t try to pull away.
“I love you, Aunt Marie,” I repeated, feeling her take another long pull from my veins.
She paused, and I cracked my eyes open. Were my words helping? I spoke my affections even louder. “I love you, Aunt Marie.”
She unlatched from my aching arm and looked at me with blood trickling down her chin. She blinked. Once. Twice. The third time, she let my arm drop and took a step back.
“I love you, Aunt Marie,” I practically yelled, hoping that I could break through the haze of her addictions and bring her back to me—to us.
“M-Motley?” she croaked, her eyes holding a newfound clarity that wasn’t there before.
A wrecked sob escaped me. “Yeah, Aunt Marie. It’s me.”
She looked around, frowning at the dark cell and the mess of blood all over the floor. “Where am I?”
Gods, I didn’t want to lose her to the bloodlust again, and I wasn’t sure how much longer we had. I knew exactly what Belvini’s intentions were. I’d acted out of line when I told the truth at the demonstration. I’d made him look bad, and now he was punishing me for it by using her against me.
“Aunt Marie, listen to me—” I said as calmly as I could.
“You have puncture wounds on you,” she interrupted, looking at my arm with worry.
“That’s not important right now,” I said, moving my arm to block the wound from her view. “Try to focus, Aunt Marie. I need you to try to get me out of these bindings.”
She took a step but noticed all the blood bags on the floor. “Did I…” Her eyes drifted back up to my arm, and she covered her mouth with a trembling hand. “Oh, gods, Motley, I...I hurt you. Attacked you.”
“No, it’s okay. It wasn’t your fault,” I said, hating the way her eyes filled with tears and how her frail body began to shake.
“I don’t know where I am!” she cried, digging her hands through her scalp and tugging on her hair.
“Aunt Mar—”
My words were cut off when the solid metal door suddenly banged open, and three guards stormed inside. My aunt tried to flash toward me, but one of the guards was a vamp too, and he overtook her in a second. Holding her arms behind her back, he made her face forward, the other two guards flanking her.
“Let her go!” I demanded, trying to escape the binds, but the relics just burned deeper inside of me, making me scream.
Belvini strolled in, along with a scientist trailing after him, and he took in the scene with mock surprise. “Oh, dear. What seems to have happened here?”
“You son of a bitch! Let her go!” I screamed at him, letting all the hate I felt for him show on my face.
He tsked and shook his head, placing his hands in his pockets like he was meandering around a museum and taking in the sights.
“The vampire bit the hybrid, President Belvini,” one of the guards reported.
I glanced down at the puncture mark oozing blood and then glared at them. “It’s not her fault,” I insisted. “You fucking set her up. You knew all of those blood bag scents would put her into overdrive, and then you wounded me and left me in here to set her off with my blood.”
“Motley, I’m s-so sorry.” My aunt’s crumpled face and sagging body nearly undid me.
“It’s not y
our fault,” I repeated. “Do you hear me? It’s not.”
“You know the punishment for harming one of Spector’s hybrids,” Belvini said, nodding to the guards.
“Yes, sir.”
“What—”
I didn’t get to finish my sentence. I didn’t even get to breathe.
The vampire at my aunt’s back dropped her arms, making her stagger forward, and then his hands were around her neck.
My eyes widened. A word tried to form on my tongue.
But he twisted. He snapped. And then he tore her head right off her body and tossed it on the floor.
And the word died.
Right there, landing with the weight of my only real family, I became incoherent, my soul ripped out. My eyes latched onto her severed head, the look of shock frozen on her face forever. Blood pooled beneath her jagged neck.
And I split.
A scream that was not from this world tore from my chest and detonated through the air. Agony. It was agony I felt. The wounds on my body were nothing. I didn’t feel the burns of the relics or the bump on my temple or the puncture in my arm. I felt the all-consuming torment of my aunt’s death in an unbearable explosion.
I was cleaved right out of my own self. Too destroyed, too hurt, too full of violent rage to exist as Motley.
My spider extended. Like skeletal tree limbs stretching out and taking over the tree. She surged out in a shock of energy, breaking the bindings in one fell swoop and letting them fall to the ground like they were nothing. Not even the amulet could contain her.
Black light poured out of my body, lifting me off the ground as my guttural screams of rage continued to rip out of my throat. My spider pushed and pushed and pushed, her body taking over my own.
The guards looked on in horror. Belvini backed up as black appendages pushed from my form. My sight sharpened. Scents intensified. My body cracked and twisted, grew and spread, that black light continuing to pour out of me like my unequivocal anguish.
Spider legs ruptured from my blackened skin. Fangs as big as rifles punched from my mouth. And then I was standing ten feet tall in the crowded room, my colossal body thirsty for revenge.