by Coralee June
“Back up!” one of the guards screamed while aiming a gun at me.
Silly prey.
Venom spewed from my lips, dousing him in eternal flames that hissed with black sparks. I watched for a moment, enjoying the way his limbs flailed and his body dissolved into a bubbling pile of carnage.
Once the guard was gone and his screams had been silenced, I swung my gaze on Collector, observing him through eyes that weren’t my own and senses that expanded past the abilities of my vampire. I saw him for the evil he was. I saw the consuming energy of his nature and the selfish desires of his soul.
He was nothing. A weak demon hiding behind the things he collected.
Collector backed away slowly and tried to make it out the door, but I lunged for his feeble body. He wouldn’t be getting away. He was trapped in my web. I released silken ropes at his heels, latching onto him with a simple flick. Swooping him up, I dangled him over the concrete, enjoying the sight of his body jerking at my demand.
Fight, little fly.
Run away, little fly.
Die, die, die, little fly.
He burned away my webs with hellfire and went crashing to the ground below, landing on his back with a wheeze. I watched in amusement as he scrambled to his feet, rushing toward the steel door to get away from me.
You can try, little fly.
Run as you might, little fly.
You will die, little fly.
My demon had taken over my entire being, lashing out with more venom and webs, tangling her attackers in strands of poetic justice.
I moved to shoot out more webs when the sound of a gun went off, echoing around the room. Sharp pain hit my chest and bloomed with bloody betrayal throughout my body. I staggered before I could straighten up on all eight legs, towering over my prey. It hurt, but it was a dull sort of pain. It was nothing compared to the roaring in my soul or the all-consuming grief in my heart.
Twisting my massive body and temporarily forgetting Collector, I approached my new attacker with glee. His shaky hands were covered in blood. My aunt’s murderer.
I whipped my webs around his neck, squeezing, squeezing, squeezing.
His eyes bulged from the pressure. His back arched from the way I picked his body up by his neck. I tortured and played with my prey until blood dripped from the pressure of my webs and his head rolled back. And then, with a snap, his neck crumbled under the pressure of my wrath.
A fitting death.
The door slammed shut, drawing my attention back to the man that started it all. But when I spun back around, Belvini was gone. He’d disappeared like the coward he was while I was distracted killing the guard.
But oh, I’d wait for him.
I’d spin my web.
I’d lure him in.
I’d kill him with glee.
Monsters weren’t born, they were made.
I found solace in the dark destruction of my demon. I allowed her to calm my mind with her potent brand of rage. She stalked the concrete room and wrapped up her kills with thick webs like silken trophies. All the while, I sunk deeper and deeper into her existence. It was easier to be the avenging monster than to be the girl who would grieve.
It was easier to accept my demon than to accept a world where Aunt Marie didn’t exist.
It was easier.
Chapter 26
Time didn’t exist in grief.
There was no passing by. There was no dusk on pain. The world didn’t light you up with a new beginning of dawn. It just highlighted what you’d lost in the dark.
So I stayed burrowed.
Consciousness was a strange thing when your soul was severed. I saw snippets of the world through my spider’s eyes. I watched her take vengeance. I watched her kill. Destroy. Lash out with venom and webs in a flurry of rabid ire.
She was vicious. She was malicious. She was beautiful.
The sway of her body as she splintered concrete and battered guards nearly rocked me to sleep. The roars and hisses from her mouth were like lullabies. Our realities had flipped, and I was now the one buried inside, like she was cradling me and keeping me safe while she faced the world and let it suffer her wrath.
Death followed her wherever she crawled. Every time she caught another fly, elation soared through her. I could feel her pride as if each kill was a present she was gifting to me.
For you, she whispered to me. For her.
No. I didn’t want to think about her. The tears that welled in familiar eyes. The head that landed at my feet. I couldn’t. Overwhelming despair crippled me.
So my spider went on.
Pain flared when they hurt us. Her rage boiled over when we were surrounded. Kill them all, she rasped. Kill, kill, kill, she chanted as more power besieged us.
I tunneled deeper.
Dark and nothingness were such cool, comforting balms. I wanted to stay here forever, I wanted to drift away and not have to feel.
But then...
A voice. Insistent. Loud. Demanding. What was it saying?
Motley, Motley, Motley.
No, not a voice, I realized belatedly. Three.
I sat up from the blackness that shrouded me. I blinked through her eyes so I could see. I observed like I was detached, watching things play out like a movie on a screen.
So much death.
Bodies were everywhere. They littered the ground like blood red rose petals down a morbid aisle. I took it all in—the ruined room I was in resembled some sort of massive storage area. It was large enough to hold my spider’s body, and there was a regiment of Spector guards surrounding my spider, guns all trained on us.
“Stop!” a voice yelled. It sounded like crackling fire.
I blinked down at the body standing before me. His back faced my spider, his hands filled with an orange blaze.
“The next person that shoots her will die by my hand,” he said.
My spider trilled. Mate.
But then a guard—one off to the side—moved to aim at my mate and shoot him. My spider hissed and lashed out, sending a long limb crashing into the one who dared harm my demon.
Guns fired. Popping bubbles of pain skidded off my body. My spider roared, ready to wipe them all out.
“Motley! Motley!”
My spider faltered. I paused to look. Two more faces came into view. One made of black stone and the other with hair as blue as the sea.
Mates.
A feeling of comfort washed over me.
Hands touched my spider. She was so tall that we towered over the males. I looked down, intrigued.
“Motley. You need to come back out now. Come on, Little Spider.”
I frowned. I didn’t want to come back out. My spider shook her head, backing up, but then the other one was there next. “Wid. You gotta come back, baby,” the gargoyle begged. “You gotta come back so we can take care of you.”
Didn’t they see? My spider was taking care of me. This was easier. I didn’t have to think, didn’t have to feel...I should go further back, burrow in deeper...
“Motley!”
My attention snapped to the demon who now had his full attention on me. His eyes smoldered as smoke dusted past his lips. “You need to come back out now, Wicked Love.”
A whine escaped my spider’s lips, and her fangs bared, but my mates weren’t deterred. They just came closer.
“You did beautifully, Black Widow,” Risk cooed. “You took care of her. But we need her to come back out now so that we can take care of both of you.”
My spider and I paused. Our eyes started to sweep the threat in the room again, but shadows and crows blocked our view. “Down here, Little Spider,” Crow muttered. “Just focus on us.”
“We’ll protect you now,” Tomb put in.
“We’ve got you,” Risk added.
And just like that, my spider started to shrink.
“That’s it. Good girl,” the demon purred.
I tried to hold onto her. Tried to burrow in, but she was too strong. She was pushi
ng me forward, and only then did I feel how badly injured we really were. Slowly, black light eked out of our body and sunk into the recesses of our soul. Legs dissolved, fangs deflated, our body compressed until I was just a naked, shivering girl with tangled red hair on her shoulders and a blanket of tears in her eyes.
Strong arms lifted me up. Gentle birds settled on my limbs. Warmth brushed across my cheeks, making the wetness from my grief turn to steam.
“We’ve got you,” they said again.
And they did.
The darkness of sleep claimed us.
Pain swept over me like the sharp, brittle ends of a broom. It raked over me, scraping me into consciousness.
“Easy, baby,” a voice said as my eyes opened.
I blinked around at Risk’s bedroom before my eyes trailed to my body. I was naked and sore, but fully healed. My mates hadn’t pressured me at all, just let me be in my grief, but at some point during the night, the bullet wounds and other injuries I’d sustained had become too much. I slipped between the three of my mates on the bed and pleaded with them to help me forget and to heal.
They were tender. Slow. They gave me soft kisses and reverent touches and gentle love. Every time a tear would trail down my cheek, Crow’s lips were there to kiss it away. Each knotted muscle was massaged by Tomb’s sure hands until my body uncoiled and relaxed. And every sorrowful shiver that threatened to rack my body was pushed away with the warmth of Risk’s body pressed against mine.
They took care of me in every possible way, slowly bringing my body to pleasure again and again, until every physical wound was healed and my mind was able to sleep.
It was nice to forget for a little while.
But now I was awake, wholly consumed with my mourning, wishing that they could heal my emotional wounds too.
Aunt Marie was dead.
The agony of that fact was stuck in my mind on repeat. I couldn’t stop seeing every memory of what had happened—of the moment when her life was ripped away from her in careless violence.
“They killed her,” I whispered, like the realization was still sinking into my brain.
I’d always tried to take care of her. But it was her connection to me that had gotten her killed. I hated Spector, but most of all, I felt a distant hate with myself. I had wanted a steady job so desperately that I willingly signed my life away, which led to a chain of events that killed the one person I treasured most in this world.
“We won’t let them get away with this,” Tomb growled while stroking my tear-stained cheek.
“How? How are we going to do that? How am I still alive? My spider… She killed…”
I refused to feel guilty about what I’d done. The guards earned every bit of wrath they’d gotten. I could still hear their screams, their pleas for help. I could still taste their blood.
“You’re too valuable to Spector,” Risk answered. He was sitting at the edge of the bed, his dark hair a delicious mess, like he’d been anxiously running his hand through it all night. The dark circles under his eyes seemed out of place for his usually carefree and handsome face, and his tie was gone, leaving just his dress shirt which was unbuttoned at the top. “They sent us in to calm you down. Fucking Collector. Every time you killed a guard, he grinned, like it thrilled him. I think he was intrigued at your ability to fully manifest into your demon’s body. That took an incredible amount of power. He’ll be interested in that. Will probably want to determine if he can get you to do it again so he can learn how to control it.”
Tomb and Crow stiffened at that, and I grimaced. No, no, no. I couldn’t even think about Belvini trying to control us like that.
“What are we going to do? How are we going to fix this?” I knew in my gut that there was no fixing this. I couldn’t bring Aunt Marie back to life, I could only resurrect the pain. Over and over and over again.
“We don’t have to talk about that right now, Little Spider. You need to rest,” Crow replied tenderly. He reached out and placed a hand on mine, rubbing my cold skin with his thumb.
“We don’t have time to rest. We don’t have time to cope,” I croaked. “What they did was wrong, and they’re about to have more power. We need to get them shut down.”
“We’ve got it handled. Stiles is working with his contact to go public. Right now, you are our priority, Motley. What happened yesterday...we almost lost you. It was like you weren’t going to come back,” Crow said, his violet eyes intent.
The three of them went silent, and I felt a twinge of guilt for giving in to the emptiness my spider offered. It was so easy to hide behind her and escape my sadness. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“Don’t you fucking say it,” Risk gritted while standing up. He started stomping across the floor of our small safe haven, muttering to himself and clenching his fists. “None of this would have happened if I had stayed with you.” He paused and turned to look at me, regret written all over his face. “I’m sorry. It was my responsibility to see you safely back in our room, and I didn’t do it.”
“Risk—” I began, but he cut me off.
“No. Don’t,” he warned, anger flashing in his eyes. “Crow’s right. We almost fucking lost you, and if that had happened…” He whirled around. “Fuck!” he yelled through clenched teeth before throwing a blast of fire crumbling into the drywall.
Flames flared up, and smoke filled the room, but it was Risk’s guilt that permeated through the air. I stood up, clutching the sheets to my chest as I padded over to him. I didn’t want Risk to take the blame for this. He wasn’t the one that locked me in a room with Aunt Marie. He wasn’t the one that squeezed her skull with his hands or tore her head from her body. He wasn’t the one that broke my spirit.
I moved with slow sadness, watching my mate’s beautiful presence twisted up with torment. “Spector is to blame for this. Not you, not me. Them. I need time to grieve, but that’s going to have to wait, and you’re going to have to let go of your guilt, too. We have to work fast to bring Spector down, and that means we need to focus. So what are we going to do?”
My men went quiet. Tomb got up and wrapped his arms around me, pinning me in his stone comfort. “You’re right,” he said in his gravelly tone. “We need a plan. And I’m so damn proud of how strong you are, Motley. But just know that we’re here with you, and we have your back.”
Slowly turning, I faced him and cupped his cheek. Tomb looked worried yet determined. Of all of us, he knew the horrors of Spector best. He understood their toxic methods and deadly games. He had the scars and trauma to prove it.
I remembered our time in the tank together—his plea to escape Spector, his desire to leave it all behind for good. At the time, I didn’t get it. But now I did. It was easier to bury yourself in the darkness sometimes. It had been easier for me to hide behind my monster. Easier to slip away and fade into nothing rather than face reality. But Tomb found a reason to live with me—because of our mate bond. And I didn’t take that lightly. I wasn’t going to give in to the numb darkness again. I was going to find a reason to fight for them and Aunt Marie.
And that meant figuring a way to get the fuck out of here.
An idea suddenly struck me, and I turned back to my demon. “We need to go to the Between.”
He tilted his head to the side and scratched at the dark scruff on his strong jaw. “It’s risky for supes. I wasn’t even completely sure you’d survive it. It’s a place for demons,” Risk answered.
“Since when are you afraid to take a risk?” I asked with a small smile. It was the most amusement I was capable of.
He didn’t smile back. “Since I almost lost you.”
I swallowed hard at his reply. I broke away from Tomb and wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him close with a sigh. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere,” I promised in a raspy whisper. He breathed in my smell, burrowing his nose in my neck with a steady inhale.
“We need to get all the hybrids to the Between for a meeting without Spector’s prying eyes,�
� I said, pulling back to look at him. “Time doesn’t work the same there, right? We could go, rally the troops, and figure out how to bring Spector down.”
“Are you even sure they want to fight? Spector is holding everyone hostage with punishments and threats. You aren’t the first to have a loved one killed. They aren’t afraid to use brute force to keep everyone in line,” Tomb explained.
“They’ll help,” I replied. “They were ready to fight at the demonstration. They just need some organization.”
Risk pondered my statement for a moment, his hand cupping the back of my neck and fingers brushing over my skin as he thought. “The more people in the Between, the more temperamental it is. There’s hundreds of hybrids here. It would take a lot of power to maintain, and I’m not completely confident I can keep it running for too long,” he mused.
“We won’t need more than that. Spector’s been training us for months. We just need a lot of planning and a little time,” Crow interjected.
“I’m still not sure they’d survive the trip,” Risk replied, his fingers now lightly massaging my scalp. “Supes get ripped to shreds while transporting there. It’s a demon safe haven.”
“But we’re demon hybrids,” Tomb replied.
Risk nodded. “You’re right. That’s why Motley survived it. It was why I attempted it in the first place.”
Tomb bristled and stared Risk down with brutal intensity. “I’m going to ignore the fact that you risked our mate’s life,” he deadpanned. “But we will be discussing your recklessness later.”
Risk tugged on my hair playfully as he looked back at my fiercely protective gargoyle. “I look forward to the fist fest, Rocky Balboa.”
I rolled my eyes at their banter. They’d bonded so quickly, it almost seemed seamless, like we’d all known each other for years. And what had happened yesterday seemed to solidify us more. We were in this together.
“Are we doing this?” I asked them all, making sure to look each of my mates in the eye. Risk with his sly grin, Tomb with his protective gaze, and Crow with his unfailing devotion.