by Coralee June
“That’s how you’re sending everything to a live feed,” I breathed, the pieces falling together.
He nodded. “I can get the doors opened to get us out too. I’ve been mapping the place, learning how to unlock their electronic doors. I can do it,” he said decisively.
Someone gasped behind me, and the first hybrids dropped. We were out of time.
“Go!” I urged.
“Come with us,” he urged.
I shook my head. “I’m not leaving Risk behind. Go,” I said.
Stiles hesitated, but Cheryl staggered on her feet beside him, and he swooped her up in his arms.
“Now, Stiles!” I urged, shoving him away.
He turned to the others. “Hybrids, follow me, and let’s get the fuck out of here!”
“I’m staying to fight,” Tara said, her face determined.
“Help Stiles fight off the guards you meet along the way,” I told her, my voice muffled from the sleeve I held against my mouth. She looked like she wanted to argue, but I shook my head. “I have to get my mate. I need you and Stiles to get the hybrids out. Please.”
After another moment, she nodded tersely. “Fine.”
“Hybrids, hurry your asses!” she shouted before she and another male picked up one of the passed out hybrids on the floor and took off.
The air was slowly turning orange from the fumes, and my head was growing dizzy. Tomb and Crow were at my side in a moment, as the rest of the hybrids rushed after Stiles, sprinting toward the exit.
“What’s the plan, Wid?” Tomb asked anxiously.
More and more orange fumes engulfed us. The massive size of the room was our only saving grace, but soon, the toxic air would be all over us. More hybrids were dropping like flies, while others struggled to drag them out.
Black dots littered my vision. “We gotta get to Risk.”
Birds started dropping all around us, and my eyes flew to my other mate. “Crow!”
His eyes rolled to the back of his head, and he fell, Tomb catching him and hoisting him over his stone shoulder before he could hit the ground.
“Come on!”
We ran as fast as we could for the door, just as the last of the hybrids made it out.
My steps faltered when were five feet away, the black dots of my vision blocking out everything else. “Tomb,” I croaked, but I stumbled to the ground and couldn’t get back up again.
Chapter 29
I woke up in a dark auditorium of some sort, strapped to a wooden board at my back and dangling above the ground. I had to blink away the exhaustion and force myself to stay alert. My eyes were still coated with burning, toxic sleep.
“Hello, Black Widow,” Collector said in a deep voice that was laced with cynicism. He was shadowed in a red glow, standing off to the side with a manic grin.
I struggled against my restraints, bucking my body in short bursts of weakness, but it wouldn’t budge. “Stay calm, Wid,” a gravelly voice said to my left. My eyes widened when I slowly twisted my neck as far as the restraints would allow. Beside me was Tomb shackled with steel chains, his hands forced into a prayer pose at his broad, chiseled chest.
“Tomb?” I whimpered. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, Wid. I’m okay,” he replied, but I knew he was lying.
I swiveled my head again, this time turning my attention to my right. Crow was still passed out from the sleep toxins Spector had baptized us in at the training room. My mate’s head hung loosely, like his neck had been snapped in half. Drips of sleepy drool coated his lips as he lightly snored.
“Crow?” I called out. “Crow, wake up!”
He still didn’t move. My heart began to race. Why were we here? What was happening?
“Black Widow,” Collector began, drawing my attention back to him. “You’ve been nothing but trouble since the moment you arrived here. I can appreciate your defiance. Rebellion is in a demon’s nature, after all.” Collector talked down to me with cocky superiority, all while walking toward a switch on the wall. “But rebellion has consequences, Black Widow.” With a simple flick of his wrist and a turn of the switch, a spotlight kicked on, drowning the center of the room in harsh, unforgiving light. I gasped.
Risk was directly under the bright beam. He looked almost angelic, chained to the center of the floor with a halo of glowing light covering his sweaty skin. He was in his dress pants and white dress shirt, but they were disheveled and appeared singed in some places with defined wrinkles in the fabric, which was off for his normally polished appearance. He was gagged with something that was tied around his head and shoved between his teeth, but muffled groans still rumbled from his chest.
“Risk?” I choked out, barely believing the scene before me.
My eyes took everything in with caution, not really sure I was ready to see more. I quickly realized that he was in the center of a demon ritual circle drawn with white chalk on the floor. Looking down, I then realized those same circles were drawn below me, Tomb, and Crow as well.
Panicked, I tried to bring my webs out to attack and save my mates, but nothing happened. There was no power at the answering end of my desperate call for protection. I could feel my spider, but it was like she was bound as much as I was, unable to come out from an invisible cage within myself. Whatever these demon circles were, they were keeping my spider locked up, and I couldn’t access her powers.
What the fuck was happening?
Squeezing more heavy exhaustion from my eyes, I looked around the room and saw supes sitting in chairs on the other side of Risk. They were dressed nicely and staring in rapt attention at Collector, but their features were shadowed by the harsh spotlight on Risk, making it impossible to recognize anyone. Was my father there? Had Stiles gotten out?
“Ladies and gentlemen, I have a wonderful opportunity for you all this evening,” Belvini began, addressing the onlooking crowd while looking totally cool and collected in his black suit and red tie. He would’ve been handsome if it weren’t for the sneering set of his mouth and greedy glitter in his eyes. “You’ve all signed up for a normal possession, but I wanted to show you another service that Spector offers.”
“Let us go!” I screamed as loud as I could. My hoarse voice scratched and clawed against my vocal cords as I struggled against the bindings. Tomb’s head tipped up, and his dark eyes locked on me, his own muscles bulging against his restraints. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t turn to stone, and he couldn’t break free.
“Someone silence her, please,” Collector said evenly, sounding bored at my outburst. “Sometimes you have to muzzle the dogs,” he joked to the audience, making several of the patrons chuckle.
A hooded man carrying a large gun stalked over to me. I struggled and screamed, waking Crow up in the process as leather was shoved between my teeth, and the strap was secured tightly at the back of my head. Crow started struggling too, but he couldn’t even call out a single bird to help us.
“As I was saying,” he went on, “we’ve taken your comments about our procedures seriously here at Spector. Many of you have expressed concerns about the randomness of our possessions, so our talented team of experts has perfected exorcisms so that we can transfer a demon from one supe to another.”
My eyes widened. Dread pooled in my gut. No. No. No.
I fought against my chains, shaking the metal with loud rage as I moaned against my gag. Drool collected in my mouth against the leather strap that my vampire fangs were trying to rip apart. Sweat made my red hair cling to my salty skin. People watched me with wary curiosity, like I was a feral beast they wanted to look at from a safe distance away.
“As a new service, Spector has started a catalogue of our current hybrids that will soon be made available to you. If you find a demon that you desire for yourself, we will hold an auction. The highest bidder will then be possessed by the demon of your choosing. No more risk. No random, unplanned demon to merge with. With this service, you’ll know exactly what you’re getting. You’ll have total co
ntrol.”
Murmured whispers of excitement broke out through the crowd, but my own body trembled, and tears pricked my eyes. A totally new kind of fear struck me. Would they take my spider?
I pondered over the implications of Spector’s new program and then felt an immediate sense of guilt. In the beginning, I would’ve wanted an exorcism. When I first arrived at Spector, I’d hated my demon, resented her for what she turned me into and the people she made me kill. But things had changed. She brought me my mates, she defended me, and now, she was me. I’d accepted her fully, and there was no way in hell that I would let anyone take her away. And if they tried to exorcise our mates too, I’d kill them all.
But I needed help. I couldn’t reach my spider. Even my vampiric strength wasn’t working right. I couldn’t break free of the chains no matter what I did. I didn’t know how much time had passed since I’d gone unconscious either. Had Stiles gotten the hybrids out? Was this being broadcasted now?
Collector went on with his speech. “Many of you have expressed interest in Black Widow. Due to recent developments, Spector believes she would be far more valuable if she were in a more viable host, since the one she’s currently inhabiting is not...agreeable to Spector’s vision. As you can see, she’s a bit rabid.”
Everyone chuckled at my expense again, as if I was melodramatic and ridiculous. I bared my fangs at them as the last of the leather strap fell from my mouth in tatters, letting them see just how feral I was.
Of course Collector would want to capitalize on my spider’s strength and cunning. But she wasn’t just some sex-crazed killer. I didn’t want to imagine her being forced to possess someone else or being used to kill. Collector wanted to weaponize Black Widow, but she was so much more than that. She was a protector, a lover. She defended fiercely and loved her mates with everything she had. And my spider was an extension of me. If they took her from me now...it would be like severing my soul in half. I could feel her in every particle of my being. We’d merged in every sense of the word, and I needed her.
“We want to assure you that this ritual has the same success rate as our other model, and it is perfectly safe,” Collector was saying.
Safe? He was lying through his teeth. Nothing about this was safe.
“In fact, we’ve decided to perform yet another demonstration. Miss Cainson, if you would?”
My head turned in the direction he indicated, and I watched as Risk’s ex-lover stood up from her seat and walked forward. Her eyes were bright, and her steps were light, despite her large, round belly. “It’s so safe that, today, we will be performing the ritual on councilwoman Cainson, who just so happens to be pregnant.”
No. What if this hurt Risk’s child?
My eyes burned as fear and disgust rolled around in my gut. How could they do this? How could they perform such a dangerous ritual when there was a baby involved? Risk’s eyes were locked on the woman, his gaze so cold and soulless that it gave me the chills. I could feel his fury like it was a palpable thing.
Ignoring Risk completely, Miss Cainson went up beside Collector at the podium and smiled at everyone, like she was a politician’s wife, winning votes with lies and a flirtatious grin. On the ground, Risk pulled and fought against his restraints. Smoke and ash burned through the chains, making them burn red, but they didn’t break. The circle was restraining his powers too.
“We will now be exorcising some of the high level demon’s essence and putting it into Miss Cainson,” Collector explained. Risk looked like he wanted to rip him apart.
The hooded man came forward again, this time walking into Risk’s circle. With deft movements, he ran a blade against Risk’s forearm. His blood spilled onto the floor in an erratic spray, but my demon didn’t even flinch. His eyes held the fires of hell as he watched Collector. There was no doubt in my mind that if Risk could get free, he would annihilate the entire room in a heartbeat.
Collector cleared his throat, keeping his eyes averted from the fuming demon. “Have a seat, darling,” he said to Miss Cainson, indicating a cushioned chair just on the edge of Risk’s demon circle. The woman stepped inside and sat down primly, folding her hands in her lap patiently like she was in a doctor’s office waiting for her name to be called.
“You’ve all signed the disclosure agreements that prohibit you from speaking about Spector’s rituals and functions, but I think you’ll understand the importance of our discretion once you see this. After all, this kind of power is not for the masses. This is for you. The elite,” Collector said, his pompous ass stroking the egos in the room. “The elite that will now have the opportunity to become more powerful than ever. We can take new territories, win wars, rise above humans or even our fellow supes. With this, we will attain a new level of influence.”
His words were like a drug to the room, making council members and prominent supes nod their heads with new urgency, the promise of power sinking into their pores and getting them high off the rush. They would use these demons so that they could hold the rest of the supernatural and human communities under their thumbs. It was a grim future of disputes and wars and maybe even genocide.
“Let’s begin.”
Those two words were like a gavel striking down, calling forth dread to rule my body.
“Stay in your seats, please,” Collector said. “And be advised, this will be...violent.”
Eerie chants began to sound in the room as a group of twelve shadowed figures surrounded Risk’s circle. I watched helplessly as he struggled against the bindings once more, but the strange chanting grew louder, and the chalked demon circle began to sizzle and spit with acrid smoke. I half expected the world to open up and for evil to spill through the floorboards, coating us all in vengeful hellfire.
Risk’s body began to jerk unnaturally. The haunting chanting drowned out all other sounds. I couldn’t even hear my own breath. My demon let out a raspy, agonized scream that seemed to shoot straight to my heart. Tears dripped out of my eyes as his body was pulled taut against the chains, as if an invisible force was trying to yank him in all different directions at once.
“Stop, stop, stop, STOP!” I screamed, but no one listened. No one could even hear me over the chants or the unnatural wind that had come up or the smoke that still crackled or the blistering yells that were now tearing from Risk’s throat in endless streams. My throat was raw. My soul was chained. My heart thudded with pain for my mate.
The whole room started to shake. Sharp, piercing cries littered the audience, but no one dared move. They were like statues in their seats, looking on with wide eyes as hell rose up to meet them.
Miss Cainson seemed wary, but her mask of confidence was still capriciously fixed on her face. The only slip in her façade was the way her bony fingers gripped the armrests.
Then all hell broke loose.
Literally.
A surge of power unlike anything I’d ever felt before came up from the ground. My face was blasted with sweltering heat as unnaturally red flames erupted along the lines of the circle surrounding Risk and Miss Cainson. They were five feet tall, ten, twenty, fifty. They licked the ceiling in the auditorium, running into some sort of invisible barrier that the elementals must have put up. I searched the dancing, roaring flames with intensity, seeking between the gaps in the menacing fire for glimpses of my mate, but I could barely see him.
Thick black smoke clogged the room, but it wasn’t natural smoke. This smoke moved with faces of the damned, skeletal beings with eyeless sockets and mouths open in a scream. It was like the ground birthed unnatural beings. Neither dead nor demon, supe nor human. These were otherworldly, terrifying souls scraping the corners of existence.
And then Risk’s body began to glow.
Like metal being heated over a fire, his skin lit up in reds and oranges that gave off even more light than the fiery flames. And then his demon’s essence started to yank out of his body.
Collector was right. It was violent.
His body thrashed against the cha
ins as an incorporeal form began to pour from Risk’s chest and race around the barrier of the ritual circle. It hissed against the flames, as if it was pissed off to be contained. But then it saw its intended target.
Miss Cainson screamed shrilly as Risk’s demonic essence raced toward her body and started pouring into her mouth. Her head tipped back, and the veins in her neck throbbed as her body was consumed. My eyes stayed on her stomach as I prayed Risk’s child would be okay.
But then...it just stopped.
Everything froze for a single second.
The chanting, the screams, the ghoulish smoke, the licking red flames. The essence pulling out of Risk and pushing into Miss Cainson...it all got suspended in time. It couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, but a terrorizing eternity passed between us.
And then, it was like there was a snap. A vacuum suddenly started pulling in every single source of power in the room. Everything rushed at Miss Cainson in a violent sweep, and I knew something had gone terribly wrong.
Risk’s essence was no longer being forced into her mouth. Instead, it was like she was sucking it in. The essence, the fire, the smoke, even the elemental’s barrier. It all started pulling to her like a magnet, while black, depthless smoke billowed around her, like she was a black hole sucking everything in and devouring it whole.
Collector shouted orders, sending a violent gust of his own demonic power straight at the demon ritual circle. The chanting stopped under his command, forcing the fires to recede in steady waves, like all oxygen had been starved from the burning hellfire and suffocated the evil ritual in steady waves. As soon as he broke the circle, the strange hold from Miss Cainson stopped, and Risk’s essence cut away from her and flew back into Risk.
Risk slumped against the chair, and Miss Cainson fell onto the floor, both she and Risk unconscious.
“Risk!” I screamed, but he didn’t rouse. “Risk! Wake up!” My words were a garbled mess. Cries and pleas shaken with terror. “Risk!” I yelled again, my voice a booming outcry that echoed against the stunned silence in the room.