by CoraLee June
“He’ll be okay, Little Spider,” Crow said, trying to comfort me.
“You’re hurting yourself,” Tomb pointed out, staring at my arms where I’d struggled so much against the chains that my skin had been scraped raw, and blood dribbled down like crimson tears.
“What the hell just happened, Belvini?” someone from the audience demanded, snagging my attention. I scanned the room and noticed that everyone watching looked obviously shaken.
Collector spouted off rushed instructions for the hooded figures, and they quickly picked up Miss Cainson and took her away as he addressed the crowd. “It seems that Miss Cainson was unable to hold the demon’s amount of power,” he said, though his eyes shifted nervously.
A lie. He was lying. I knew that for a fact, but the truth wasn’t as clear.
“Have no fear, she will be perfectly fine. We prepared for that scenario, however unlikely we thought it to be. We’d hoped because of her level of elemental power that she was strong enough, but it appears not.”
He was blaming it on her now. His PC excuses were almost laughable. Something had happened, that was certain, but he was lying about this and saving face by claiming she hadn’t been strong enough.
“If this ritual didn’t work, how do we know the other exorcisms will?” someone else in the audience demanded.
“People, people, calm down.” My eyes tracked the familiar voice, and I recognized my father standing up from his seat, his expression smoothed to boost morale to the dwindling confidence of the crowd. “That was unfortunate, but it just shows you the level of preparedness Spector has. That was an attempted exorcism on a high level demon. No one else has ever been able to do that before. Councilwoman Cainson will be fine, and there’s no harm done. But the other rituals will go off without a hitch, I can assure you. So long as you’re strong enough and don’t fight the merging, the demon will possess you without issue.”
“How do we know that’s true?” the person demanded.
They were losing the audience. Ripples of doubt and unease were taking over, and my father could sense it. “I’m sure President Belvini can put on another demonstration right now.” He turned to Collector expectantly.
Collector’s jaw ticked, but he forced an easygoing smile on his face. “Of course. Let me put your minds at ease,” he said smoothly before gesturing to me. “The auction for the black widow demon starts now. Let’s start the bidding.”
Chapter 30
I never much thought about what I was worth.
As a poor kid growing up, worth was always determined for me. People would see me in thrift store clothing, living at my rural address and drinking stale human blood bags, and they’d put a label on me. Poor. Underprivileged. Inferior. Unimpressive. Unimportant.
If anyone would’ve asked to buy me then, I wonder if I could’ve even inspired two pennies to rub together.
It was strange to have an exact price put on my head simply because of the demon that was inhabiting my body. They were buying her, my spider, trying to take away the thing that had made me whole—the thing that had made my life have worth and value and purpose. Not because I was suddenly worth seven figures to these people, but because she was my soul’s partner, and with her presence, I’d found myself.
Numbers were shouted with enthusiasm. People were clawing at the chance to claim power, bidding their fortunes like there was nothing to it.
“Sold! To Mrs. Glenda Wind, Councilman Wind’s wife.” Collector’s voice boomed throughout the room.
There was murmuring, ranging from the disgruntled disappointment of those who didn’t win the bidding war, to the enthusiastic talk about seeing her inhabiting the black widow demon.
I took in the shifter woman. She was ardent in desire, her wide eyes filled to the brim with the promise of taking what was mine.
Everything started happening so fast—too fast. I didn’t even have time to process that these people were stealing my demon and, in addition, my mates.
I was terrified. Shaking so hard that the metal chains bound around my hanging body were echoing with morbid rattles around the room.
“Don’t fucking touch her!” Crow yelled as five hooded figures came forward to stand around my own ritual circle.
Tomb was grunting and straining, his neck muscles popping as he tried with all his might to break free of his bindings. But it was no use. “Risk! Wake the fuck up!” he shouted hoarsely, but my demon was still passed out cold.
The figures started to chant.
“Oh gods,” I whimpered, tears blurring my vision.
This was it.
They were going to take her from me.
“Please don’t,” I begged, my blue eyes pleading as I stared at Belvini. “Please don’t do this. I need her, and she needs me.”
He walked forward until the tips of his shiny dress shoes touched the outside of the chalked lines. “Begging now?” He tutted his tongue. “It’s a bit late for that, Miss Coven. I’d hoped that your punishment with your aunt would force you to behave and submit, but you didn’t. You brought this on yourself.”
“She’s my spider!”
He shook his head slowly, making his dark hair glint in the dim light. “No, Miss Coven. Spector gives, and we can take away,” he said evenly. “As of this moment, you are no longer eligible for an internship. You don’t deserve the demon we bestowed on you.”
The chanting from the five started getting louder. Latin words long forgotten that I had no knowledge of sunk into my skull. It was a taunting sort of chant, coaxing out parts of my soul with devastating yanks. Belvini watched with morbid fascination as my body began to steam. Slowly, single rays of black light began to erupt out of my skin in dancing tendrils. Two beams on my right arm. Three on my left. One through my hand, and another at my chest. More and more and more, they shot out of me, like splinters of light trying to be plucked from my body.
And that’s when the pain came.
It tore through me like an electric pulse. Like something in my soul had been electrocuted with a lightning bolt. Screams gutted my chest and lacerated my throat. My tongue burned with blood that filled my mouth as my fangs punched through my lip. My fingertips bulged, like webs were trying to come out but couldn’t, the ends of them filling like helium in a balloon, the pressure so painful that bile rushed up my gut and spewed through my lips.
It hurt. Gods, everything fucking hurt.
“Let her go!” Crow sounded anguished, his supplication heart-wrenching to my ears. I didn’t want him to see this. I didn’t want any of my mates to see this.
Tears ran down my face like a dam breaking free. I was going to lose them. Spector was taking everyone that I cared about away from me. First my aunt. Now my spider. And once they did this, my mate bonds would sever. I would lose the connection to my men forever. I would have nothing. No one. Crushing sadness and agonizing loneliness spun out of me even as more beams of black light stabbed through my form.
My mind spun, my body trying to push me into unconsciousness so that I wouldn’t have to feel such agony anymore. But I held on. I couldn’t hide from my grief behind the strength of my spider like before. I was left empty and shaking, forced to fight for myself all alone.
“I’ll fucking kill you for this,” I heard Tomb say.
Collector chuckled. “You won’t get the chance, Gargoyle. You’re next.”
No.
Another sob tried to pass through my lips, but it was cut off with a terrible scream. My body jerked forward, like someone was picking me up and trying to throw me across the room. The chains groaned and snapped as my body jerked free of the bindings, and I hung suspended in the air in paralyzing stillness.
And then there was fire. Not around me, but inside of me, and I heard my spider scream. The shocking sound lacked humanity. It was otherworldly and hellish. It was hisses and roars and clicking all rolled into one. My spider sounded feral and furious and made the hair on my skin stand up at attention.
Pain. We fe
lt unbearable, scorching, tearing pain.
The chants pulled at her, like phantom hands from hell latching onto her body and ripping her away. We screamed together. We held on. We held on so fucking hard.
But the forces that pulled her were too strong. And at the middle where our souls had merged, we ripped apart.
I felt her yanked out of me like someone had stabbed my heart and ripped it from my chest. Hanging strings of bloodied webs were all that was left in the gaping hole where she once was.
The force that had held me was suddenly gone, and I slammed to the ground in a painful heap. With my cheek and chest plastered against the floor, I watched as my spider’s demon form was dragged toward the awaiting woman who’d bought her. My spider hissed and clawed, her form only about three feet tall of writhing black light and smoke.
She fought against the pull toward her new host, and that fact alone made me both filled with pride and unfathomably sad. They were forcing this on her, but no matter how hard she tried to stop it, she couldn’t.
Glenda Wind gasped, wide-eyed and fearful, and then my spider was forced down her throat.
The woman writhed and gurgled, her body being surrounded with the same black light that I’d had. The transition lasted seconds, yet it felt like hours.
And then...it was over.
The hooded people were done chanting. The light and smoke were gone. Glenda Wind had gone still, her breathing slow and even as she and my spider began to merge.
And I was empty.
A husk. A crumpled form on the ground with bile on my tongue, tears on my cheeks, and smoke in my nose. Everything was gone. Everything.
I didn’t have the strength to move, but I knew my fingertips were barren of webs. My soul felt like it had been cleaved in half and then ripped into shreds. She was gone. The other half to my soul was just...gone. And my mate bonds, the strings that I hadn’t even realized were tied to my heart...they’d all been severed.
I felt nothing. I was numb. Hollow. Utterly desolate.
“Motley? Motley, baby, are you okay? Talk to us,” Crow pleaded, but I didn’t have the strength.
When Glenda Wind woke up and the audience clapped, I heard nothing, saw nothing. When Belvini droned on about the next auction, I felt lost. He seemed giddy about the new bidding war beginning, but my mind couldn’t even keep up. I felt like a ghost, haunted by my own loss.
“How do you feel, Glenda?” Councilman Wind asked.
The blonde shifter turned to her husband, getting up on shaky feet as Spector guards helped her. She touched the spot on her throat where a red hourglass now marked her. The spot on my own throat felt cold and wiped clean.
“I feel...strange, but…” the woman’s voice trailed off.
“But what?” her shifter husband asked, crossing his bulky arms in front of him.
“But strong,” she said with a thrill in her voice, her eyes glittering.
Without warning, she lifted a hand and webs shot out, hitting the wall with a splat. She made a noise of surprise, before she started to laugh with excitement. “Oh my gods, this is amazing! Look! I’m Black Widow!”
Those shattered pieces of my heart stabbed deeper into my chest.
“Yes, dear,” the councilman said placatingly. “And it’s a good thing, too, for all the money you just spent.” He then chuckled in dry amusement, making the people in the audience laugh along with him.
“Don’t worry, I’ll use my new lure power on you later after you get one of the demon mates in you,” she said with a wink. “I can’t wait to test out feeding. I bet it’s positively feral.”
Her husband’s eyes widened with lusty greed. “Yes, I think I’ll go for the gargoyle one, President Belvini. My wife is particularly interested in that one,” the shifter councilman said.
“It’s because you’ll have a solid stone cock,” someone joked crassly.
The shifter barked out laughter. “Indeed.”
I wanted to vomit. They just...joked about it all. As if they weren’t talking about ripping half our souls out and taking our mate bonds from us. I lay prostrate on the ground, forgotten and discarded, as tears pooled beneath my cheek.
“Alright, let’s get the gargoyle ritual started,” Collector said amicably. “Councilman Wind, if you’d be so kind as to take your seat inside the gargoyle’s circle?”
I watched through wet, heavy lashes as the shifter’s feet scuffled by. I could hear the chains around Tomb’s body jingle and creak. They were going to do to him what they’d done to me. That thought...triggered something inside of me. To imagine my strong, protective gargoyle mate reduced to this hollow shell? It sparked a fire of black rage from spitting flint in the dark. I guess when you’re empty inside, there’s plenty of room for rage to catch fire.
I wasn’t going to lie down and die. All my life, I’d been the kicked dog, taking everything the world threw at me. But I wasn’t going to just take it anymore. I was done being the lonely, bullied girl who rolled over with every kick. I may not have my spider anymore, but she taught me that I didn’t have to take it. She taught me to fight back.
It was a mistake to leave me on the ground, forgotten and overlooked. With my ritual circle now broken, I could tap into my vampiric abilities again. I was dizzy, in pain, with soul-deep vertigo and a feeling of wrong emptiness, but I pushed past it all.
As the Spector figures came around to take their places around Tomb’s circle, I forced my fingers to move. Twitch, twitch, twitch. Each miniscule movement took considerable effort, but I was determined.
Once I was able to flex both of my hands, I did the same to my toes. Then my legs, my arms, my shoulders. Like a ripple moving up me, my brain reconnected to my body, and my fangs dipped out of my gums in greeting.
The room was still dim, and everyone’s attention was on Tomb and the figures who’d begun to chant around him. I couldn’t see him or Risk at this angle, but when I moved my chin up a tiny fraction, I saw Crow looking right at me. His violet eyes were locked on me, his normally bright blue hair looking like dusky shadows. I didn’t know how he knew what I had planned, maybe it was the resolve in my eyes, but he gave the smallest shake of his head, his eyes begging me. But I looked steadily back at him, letting him know with my expression what I couldn’t say to him with words. You’re all mine, and I’ll protect you until the end.
Crow’s face screwed up in anguish, but then his spine straightened, and he gave me a resolved nod, telling me what I needed to know. He was with me. Always.
My heart squeezed. I wished I’d told my mates I love them when I had the chance. I wished I’d done things differently. But all I could do now was protect them until my last dying breath. So I would. My spider had protected me from the beginning. She’d protected them.
It was my turn now.
I had one shot at this. One weakened vampire girl against a room of the most powerful supes in existence. I had to be smart. Driven. Resourceful. I nearly smiled. I was Motley fucking Coven. Those words were my middle name.
I plastered a look of confusion on my face and sat up, looking around the room in dismay. The chanting faltered, and Collector’s eyes swivelled toward me as I staggered to my feet. “Wh-where am I?” I stuttered, my voice wobbly and frightened, and I used the opportunity to look around worriedly as if taking in my surroundings, while noting every guard in the room.
Collector walked over to me, signalling three guards to accompany him. They stepped around me, and I used my vampire scent to pick out each power. Shifter. Water elemental. Vampire.
Collector approached me with interest as his gaze swept over my trembling form. I didn’t have to fake that. My body was still in shock.
“Miss Coven?”
I frowned. “Who are you? Where am I?” I asked him.
His eyes practically smiled as the wheels turned in his head, and he regarded me with opportunistic intent. Me, an empty, weak girl with no memories. He could use me all over again.
Fuck. That.
High level demons like Collector were hard to kill. There was only one way that I knew of, and it was nearly impossible if the demon expected a fight.
But he didn’t.
With all the stealth and deadly grace I’d learned from my spider, I locked eyes with Collector.
A single second. That’s all I gave him to see the truth behind my damsel in distress façade.
His eyes widened for a moment, but I already had my hands wrapped around his thick neck. One twist, a single monumental crack, and then with all the vampiric strength and speed I possessed, I pulled and yanked the motherfucker’s head off, enjoying the sound of his tendons ripping, his skin tearing open as I pulled. Then tossed his head at his own feet.
For you, Aunt Marie.
His body hit the floor a second later, and then his entire form burst into ashes.
I wanted to spit on the pile, but I didn’t have time. I was already flashing toward Crow, using the last seconds of shock that I had left to gain the upper hand. I dragged my bare feet across Crow’s circle on the floor, breaking the chalky lines of the ritual. I flashed in front of him and yanked on the weakened chains with all my might. Now that the ritual circle was ruined, and the restraints had lost their power, he’d be able to tap into his powers.
“Get Tomb!” I yelled, already racing away, because I knew he had my back.
The second his feet hit the floor, shadows burst from his outstretched arms and shoulders, and a cacophony of furious crows burst into existence. They crowded the room in an instant, hundreds and hundreds of them taking form. I heard their shrill cries, and then I felt the ground shake when a roar sounded behind me, and my lips split into a grin. My gargoyle was free.
The room had erupted into chaos. Supes started to use their powers, and birds converged to attack. My mates were fighting off guards, but I ducked and dodged it all as I ran for Risk.
“Stop her!” my father’s voice boomed through the pandemonium, his finger raised to point me out.
