by R. Scarlett
This was for Lex.
For Tensley.
She’d be strong for them, and for herself.
When Molly verbalized her agreement, her voice was like steel and venom. Cree stated the location where the transaction would take place, and as she listened, a dark, vicious smile appeared on her lips.
She had her claws, and it was time to start using them.
TENSLEY’S CHEST FELT too heavy, too filled with anger and hatred and something he never wanted to admit to any demon alive or dead.
Molly’s features had gone from rage to sadness to acceptance in a matter of seconds, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know what it all meant.
She lowered the phone and met his eyes.
“Cree has Lex,” she started, voice surprisingly strong, resigned. “I’m going to go meet him at a motel in Queens.” She bit into her lower lip, an anxious habit, and he knew it meant there was more.
“What is it? What are you not telling me?” he ground out, his worry coming out harsher than he’d intended.
“There’s a price,” she said softly, “for Lex.” Apprehension filled her eyes, but he knew she wasn’t nervous about what she was about to say, but rather about how he would react to it. He wasn’t going to like this.
“What does the fucker want now?” he snarled, shoulders tight.
She stayed silent for a beat, opening her mouth slightly, only to close it again.
“Molly,” he continued, grabbing her gently by the arms. “Tell me. I can handle it.”
The call with Cree had stressed him out. He didn’t like that fucker Cree speaking to Molly, and neither did the beast inside him. Controlling himself while she spoke to Cree had taken every bit of his self-restraint, but now, with his patience running at record lows, he was mere seconds from snapping at her.
Her plush lips opened again, the bottom one trembling. “Me. He wants me.”
Tensley’s stomach dropped to a dark pit he didn’t know existed and the beast clawing at his walls growled painfully. “No,” he ordered, shaking his head viciously. “No, no, no. No fucking way, Molly Darling. I’m not handing you off to that psychopath.”
Cree wants to wear her bones as a crown, the demon hunter had told Tensley down in that basement. Abso-fucking-lutely not.
“That,” he hissed under his breath, “is not fucking happening. I’m going with you, and I’m fucking carving my name into the fresh blood of his pumping heart. That fucker will be dead before he can even say ‘please, don’t.’”
He dug into his pocket to grab his keys, but Molly caught his wrist. “I’m not looking for your approval, Tensley.” The power in her voice, in her eyes as they drilled into his, stalled him. “Just trust me, okay? Lex needs us. I can take care of myself.”
He clenched his jaw. “Fuck no, Molly. He’s not taking you. We get Lex, we rip the bastard to pieces, and we get the fuck out,” he spat, sure his eyes were pitch-black by that point.
Molly’s hardened features softened and her hand smoothed down to his hand, interlocking their fingers together. “I won’t let him take me, Tensley. I promise. You go in and get Lex, and I’ll deal with Cree.”
Tensley watched the way her eyes traced his expression, memorizing each angle and plane, and a lump grew in his throat. “Let’s go,” he said with a squeeze of her hand, leading them down the busy sidewalk.
He didn’t know what to expect from Cree, but he wasn’t going in without being prepared for the worst.
Not with Molly going in beside him. His beast didn’t like the idea of her harmed and he didn’t either.
There was no point in arguing with her—she wasn’t budging—but fuck if that meant he’d let her go.
If Cree thought he’d leave untouched and glorious, wearing his crown of blood and bone, he had another fucking thing coming.
Because if anyone dared to harm Molly, he’d be the wrath to destroy them.
THE SEA-BREEZE MOTEL greeted them as Tensley’s driver pulled into the parking lot.
From the glowing neon vacancy light to the eviction notice on the front window, Molly knew they were in a desolate area where no locals or travelers would be stopping by. Cree had picked the perfect spot to give and collect and vanish.
Tensley had been silent the entire half-hour drive to the motel, and now as the driver put the black Bentley Mulsanne in park, his features grew even more beastly as he studied the looming building up ahead.
Molly was eying the motel’s two levels, searching for movement, when Tensley’s cool hand gripped her thigh.
Her breath caught in her throat. She reined herself in before meeting his dark eyes.
His focus went to her lips and his nostrils flared. She wanted to kiss him, to savor the sensation of his mouth on her, but a door slammed open on the motel’s second floor.
Both of them looked to see a door on the second level swinging back and forth.
“Stay here, Charles,” Tensley instructed the driver as he climbed out, offering a hand to Molly. “C’mon.”
She flexed her muscles, gathering the electricity within—she needed to be ready to strike the moment Cree crossed her path. He wanted to make an example out of her in front of his hunters to gain back their trust, and she would make sure he wouldn’t succeed. She’d fight him viciously before he used her as an example.
The cool air from the ocean just over the highway blew against her skin, sending goose bumps trailing up her arms as they walked underneath the buzzing sign. The motel, the high-pitched buzz of the dying sign, and the swinging door banging put Molly’s senses on high alert.
Then a new rhythm echoed on the asphalt, and Molly edged closer to her fiancé.
She swallowed at the sight of Cree’s scarred face as he suddenly emerged from the shadows, followed by hunter after hunter wielding crowbars and guns.
“Where is Lex?” Tensley called out, his stance widening.
Cree shifted, waving at someone behind him. Lex was shoved forward and fell, colliding with the ground in a mess of ashen skin and jutting bones. She’d only been gone for a month, but in those four weeks the hunters had reduced her to a broken-down skeleton.
“Hand her over!” Tensley shouted, stepping closer to the sickly demon.
Cree smirked at Molly. “We’ve already come to an arrangement, I believe.”
Tensley shook his head. “That’s not happening.”
Molly stared at Cree, careful to remain emotionless. “Let her go first.”
Cree sucked loudly at his teeth, swinging a crowbar dangerously close to Lex’s head. “Fine. Go on, scum.” He kicked her in the back with his boot, causing laughter to erupt from the other hunters.
Lex cried out, crawling across the pebbled asphalt as tears ran down her face. Could they just leave?
The closer she got, the heavier Molly’s chest felt. She could see the relief storming through Lex as she neared them. Tensley shot out and grabbed her, wrapping his thick arms around her and hauling her back.
Molly searched for the car, calculating how long it’d take to run to the Bentley.
But no—another hunter who’d snuck behind them had a gun pointed at Tensley’s head, finger on the trigger.
Molly began moving toward Cree, waving at the armed hunter to lower his weapon.
“Molly!” Tensley said, shifting Lex in his arms. “What are you doing? Come back here!”
“Tell him to put the gun down!” Molly screeched at Cree.
Cree motioned to the hunter nearest Tensley. “Lower your weapon, John. I’ve got her.”
“Molly!” Tensley yelled, Lex now unconscious in his grasp. “Stop! Come back here!”
“Molly,” Tensley repeated, his voice hasher this time. She continued walking away from him, and she heard the change in his breathing when he understood what she was actually doing. What the bargain with Cree had been. “Molly!” he roared.
She didn’t look back. She focused on the smug expression on Cree’s face.
“So the daemon whore returns yet agai
n,” Cree said when Molly stood beside him, lifting his crowbar so it sat on his shoulder. He gripped her bicep hard, but she managed not to wince. It was what he wanted to see. The scared, lost girl. She didn’t exist anymore.
Make me bleed. See what happens.
Cree withdrew a pocketknife and licked the tip. “Laced with golden fleece.”
The shimmering of the knife in the neon lights and the blood rushing in her ears filled her senses.
“Molly!” Tensley sounded livid behind her and when she looked over her shoulder at him, sending him a warning, he stopped in his tracks, his entire body shaking. Lex lay limp in his arms.
“Get her out of here,” Molly commanded. “She needs medical attention! Take her to someone who can help!”
Tensley stood frozen, Lex a heavy weight in his grip. “If you think I’ll leave you here, you’re fucking wrong,” he said, livid, but he knew she was right; Lex needed help. “I’m coming back for you,” he swore before his lethal glare turned to Cree. “And then I’m going to destroy you, Cree. I’m going to rip you from limb to limb.”
Tensley walked backward to the car, opening the door to put Lex inside.
“Oh, you shouldn’t be worried about what’s left of me—she came willingly, after all. You should be worried of what’s left of your fiancée when I’m done with her,” Cree said before dragging his knife down Molly’s arm.
“What the fu—” Molly cried, stumbling away as blood pulsed from her cut. Golden fleece, she realized. She now had golden fleece pumping through her bloodstream, and it wouldn’t take but a few minutes to render her useless.
Cree gripped the back of her neck and pushed her toward the motel. “It’s just you and me, now.”
Molly allowed him to shove her into a room then slammed and locked the door behind him to keep the others out.
She listened, carefully, counting the seconds, the moments she’d still have enough power to fight.
Then she struck.
She grasped Cree’s hand and twisted, shattering the bones instantly and taking his knife to stab him in the side with it.
Her legs had already begun to shake, so she flipped Cree onto the motel room’s stained, flattened carpet. He swung with his uninjured hand and missed, and Molly pounded him in the mouth with a fist.
“You don’t have much time,” he hissed through bloodstained teeth. She hovered over him, sweat dribbling over her lip as the golden fleece continued to take hold.
“I don’t need much time,” she countered, continuing to pound his face and spraying the room with his blood.
Cree’s gun fell from his waistband, glinting in the greenish light streaming through the grimy windows. She picked it up, her knuckles cracked and bleeding, and cocked the weapon.
Do it. Do it, said the monster inside as she pointed the gun at Cree’s right temple. A barrage of pounding came from outside—the hunters must’ve heard their fight and come looking, and were now banging against the window with their crowbars.
Her finger wavered on the trigger, pressing just a little bit. So close. So close to killing the nightmare that plagued her.
Her vision blurred, black dots appearing and disappearing.
She huffed, snarling in her throat.
Just do it, Molly. Do it!
Her hands shook, her body swayed, her limps too heavy, so close to collapsing.
Cree moaned, mumbling unintelligibly. Molly’s finger sat on the trigger, but as she looked at Cree’s face, it morphed into a demon with strawberry blond hair. A demon she’d taken life from.
And she couldn’t do it again.
Molly dug her nails into Cree’s jaw, forcing his bloodshot eyes toward her. “I’m a monster, but I’m not a monster like you. Stay away from me and everyone I care about, and you won’t ever have to see my face again.”
She stood on weak legs, wiping her red-stained hair out of her face as she prepared to take on the other hunters.
“You bitch,” Cree spat, rolling to his side.
Molly heard a few gasps and whimpers as she stared out the shattered, empty window, followed by silence.
Then the front door smashed open, flying off its hinges, and a dark, powerful shadow filled the doorway.
Tensley.
Covered in blood, his hands formed iron fists, and those lethal, obsidian eyes searched for her. She breathed shakily into the stale, thick air.
Tensley walked with ease, with grace, with a powerful, heavy strength that swarmed her. He was the kind of beast and man that destroyed empires with his bare hands. Tensley saw Cree first and pounced, gripping him by the throat and lifting him a solid foot off the ground.
“Where is she? Where is Molly?” Tensley crowed, driving Cree’s head into a cheap mirror hung on the nearest wall.
“Sh-She’s—” Cree gurgled, pointing.
Tensley followed Cree’s finger, finally noticing Molly where she stood by the window. Only one eyebrow jumped as their eyes met, and Tensley was back to bashing Cree’s forehead into the mirror. The beast was fully in charge; she could tell by his rigid, pulsating form, those dark eyes, his bared teeth, aching to destroy someone.
His piercing gaze met Cree’s and he seemed like a wolf, analyzing its next target. Aggressive pheromones plagued the room.
He growled, a shudder of fear even registering in Molly’s body.
Tensley grabbed the sharpest shard of the splintered door where it had fallen on the dresser and sliced wide open, dropping the demon hunter to let him drown in his own blood.
Tensley wiped his hands on his suit pants, taking deep breaths as he went to Molly. She swayed and Tensley dove forward, catching her before she hit the blood-covered floor.
Molly looked down at Cree’s lifeless body.
Cree was dead.
She used the wall of the room to balance herself, not sure how much longer she had now. The golden fleece was well in her system and the adrenaline was gone. She wheezed as she tried to breathe.
“Dolcezza?”
That word.
That deep voice.
Just as she went to look up, Tensley cupped her cheeks, but she didn’t feel a thing. Didn’t feel his hands. Didn’t feel any of her limbs.
“You didn’t leave,” she whispered, her tongue slow and swollen.
He shook his head, a raw emotion in his features that she wanted to remember. “I’d never leave you, Molly.” He kissed her cheeks, then her hands, coughing when he absorbed a bit of the golden fleece from her skin. “Let’s get out of here.”
Tensley lifted Molly effortlessly and carried her outside, stepping over the bodies of the demon hunters he’d slaughtered.
The Bentley’s hazy yellow lights beckoned them on, and Tensley kissed Molly deeply as he walked.
“I’m fine,” she mumbled, causing him to chuckle.
“You’re drugged. I’m trying to get enough out of your system to keep you from passing out.” At that, he kissed her heavy mouth, and the fog wrapping around her brain lifted its hold slightly.
She sat down in the back seat next to Lex, who was curled up in a wool blanket. Tensley climbed in beside her, kissed her temple, trying to rid the drug from her system. He ran his hand along her thigh.
“Hi Molly,” Lex said, the bruises along her neck and face much more gruesome up close.
“He’s dead, Lex,” Molly wheezed, resting her head against Tensley’s shoulder.
“Good,” Lex said, a tiny spark of the fire she’d had before her capture flaring in her blue irises. “The bastard was long overdue.”
As the driver pulled out of the parking lot, Molly grew dizzier and closed her eyes.
“Don’t ever do that again,” Tensley whispered into her ear, his lips grazing her cheek with each word. “I’m never risking you ever again, dolcezza.”
Tensley leaned over and stroked her cheek, then pushed her hair back to see the damage. He gripped her thigh and she tried to remember how his fingers felt, but she was losing strength.
; “Promise,” she said breathlessly, her eyes fighting to stay awake.
“I promise.”
TENSLEY PRESSED HIS mouth to his knuckles as he studied the sleeping Lex sprawled on the bed before him: her mousy brown hair was chopped short and tangled, her face was gaunt and hollow, and her complexion was a sickly shade of gray.
He tried to swallow, but a lump in his throat like cotton stopped him. Lex was back, she was alive, and he’d do anything in his power to make sure she got healthy again.
“She needs lots of rest and a good dose of affection,” one of the many warlocks Scorpios used for medical assistance said as he folded his tools neatly in a case. “She’s malnourished and fragile. Don’t let her move around too much, and I’ll be back again soon to check on her.”
Tensley nodded, smoothing some hair off Lex’s clammy forehead.
“And Miss Darling seems to be doing much better. The venom you gave her during the marking probably helped delay the golden fleece in her system,” the warlock continued.
Tensley nodded again. “That’ll be all,” he said, dismissing the warlock with a respectful dip of the chin. “You have my appreciation for your promptness.”
Once the warlock left, Tensley began tucking Lex’s blankets more securely around her emaciated frame. Four weeks of torture…of unimaginable pain…
“Tensley?” Lex said, her eyes fluttering open.
Tensley shushed her, rubbing her arm. “Don’t speak. Just rest.”
She managed a watery smile. “Don’t boss me around.”
Tensley laughed. “Brat.”
“Pussy.”
Both of their smiles faded and she coughed weakly. “Is Molly okay?”
Tensley finished securing the blankets around Lex’s bony feet. “She’s doing better.” He was anxious to get back to his bruised warrior; she’d slept the last twelve hours in a spare bedroom of the townhouse and was now waiting in his office, according to his secretary.
“Go check on her,” Lex said, nudging his knee through the covers.
He raised his eyebrows; she still looked on the brink of death.
When Tensley didn’t smile, she frowned and coughed again. “Please, go check on her.”