by CoraLee June
I hissed in pain as a shot of fire lobbed and managed to hit me on the leg. It knocked me down, but I scrambled forward on hands and knees, hurrying to Risk’s side.
I ripped the remaining chains from him, and his body slumped to the floor. My hands came to his cheeks, but his skin that was normally always hot felt cold to the touch. “Come on, Risk. Wake up. I need you,” I told him, but he didn’t wake. I shook him, pleading with him to wake up, but he stayed locked in his unconscious form.
Hands suddenly locked around my middle, and I was hauled up, the breath knocked out of me as the person’s grip locked around my ribs.
“You’ll be punished for this,” my father spat in my ear. “You just ruined everything! Belvini was my fucking chance!”
Furious spittle hit my ear as he hissed against me, his arms squeezing so tight that I felt one of my ribs snap. I screamed, black dots littering my vision.
“You’re really going to hurt your own daughter?” I choked out.
“I don’t claim you,” he hissed.
Fucking bastard. He never did, though, did he? I guess now wasn’t any different.
I raised my hands out of instinct to shoot him with silky strands, only to remember that I didn’t have any webs anymore. People from the audience were scattering, leaving the room as fast as they could go, as Spector guards struggled to take down my mates.
Tomb was in his gargoyle form, blasting through people left and right, their bullets merely nicking off his skin. Crow was hidden in a cyclone of shadows and feathers, as more birds than I’d ever seen flew around the massive room, causing mayhem and violence in their wake, making it difficult to see.
I suddenly felt my father’s hands grip my neck. “Stop, or I’ll kill her!” my father’s voice shouted behind me.
I watched Tomb falter. The birds in the air paused, their beady eyes focusing on me. “No! Don’t listen to him! Get yourselves out of here!” I screamed.
But my stubborn mates didn’t listen. They immediately stopped fighting, and a sob tore from my throat as Spector guards converged around them. “No! Go! You have to go!” I cried.
“We won’t leave you. Ever,” Tomb growled, sweat tracking down his obsidian body.
“You’re our mate,” Crow said as he rushed forward, his body bruised and battered. My heart squeezed. They were still mine. Still my mates, even if the bonds were gone.
“Now you get to watch her die, and then I’ll kill you both,” my father’s icy voice cried out.
I heard my mates scream my name just as my father’s hands tightened around my throat.
And then he snapped my neck.
Chapter 31
Tomb
I felt the mate bond sever when the black widow demon was ripped from Motley’s soul. Like a limb suddenly being torn from my body, it was cleaved away from me in one fatal swoop.
I watched her scream and writhe. I watched her crumple to the floor in a motionless heap. And I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t protect her. I wanted to throw my fist into the wall and make the whole roof cave in with my wrath.
I didn’t give a shit that the mate bond was gone. Motley was mine. Just like the black widow belonged to my gargoyle, Motley belonged to me. And we wanted them both back—we desperately wanted to feel whole again.
I felt my gargoyle roaring and rippling beneath my skin, but he couldn’t come out, no matter how hard we tried. He was budding with unbridled fury, angry at the people that had hurt us, angry that the one person who’d given me a reason to live had half of her soul taken away from her.
When the Spector fuckers started chanting again, I grappled with panic and rage.
And then...she got up. I ignored the fuckers as they stumbled through the ritual, because my eyes were locked on her form as she struggled to stand. She was confused, scared. I wanted to hold her, but she looked past me as if she didn’t recognize me at all.
Looking utterly lost, she stammered to Belvini, and a razor sliced through the center of my heart. She didn’t remember me. She didn’t remember anything. My heart. My will to live. She didn’t remember.
Crow caught my eyes just as I was ready to slump against my restraints and give in. The blue-haired fucker winked at me, and I frowned. What the fu—
My eyes flew wide when Motley suddenly moved faster than I’d ever seen her move before. She was a blur. One second cowering and shaking in front of Belvini, and the next, she’d yanked off the asshole’s head like she’d just plucked an apple off a tree.
She tossed the rotten head on the ground, and I smiled like the sick bastard I was. That’s my girl.
I was free within seconds by Crow’s hands, and then we were attacking. My gargoyle burst out of my body, and I let my demon take over on a full-blown rampage. We crushed skulls with single fisted hits. We broke bodies as we flung them aside with easy swipes. Our stone body repelled bullets and hits, unfeeling of everything except the fury.
We were going to destroy everyone in this godsdamned room. We were going to make them pay for what they did to our mate. I wouldn’t stop until every last Spector guard was a motionless form at our feet. I would make the room run with blood. I would—
“Stop, or I’ll kill her!”
My head snapped over to see Belvini’s favorite lap dog—Trant—holding Motley in front of him, his arm banded around her middle and his other hand gripping her neck.
There was no choice. I immediately stopped fighting, even as she argued and begged for us to leave. My dark eyes bore into hers. Did she really think we would just leave her here? I was somewhere between wanting to lecture her or spanking her ass and fuck her hard until she realized how much she meant to us.
“Get yourselves out of here!”
Tears filled her blue eyes as she pleaded with Crow and me, but I shook my head. “We won’t leave you. Ever.”
The sob that tore from her throat nearly undid me. I watched Trant, noticing how hard he was gripping her, trying to determine if I could get to him before he hurt her.
But I didn’t get a chance to decide. Because before I could work out a way to free her, the bastard snapped her neck right in front of us.
No.
No, no, no.
My heart. My light at the end of the tunnel. The one who made me want to live again. After all the torture Spector had put me through, nothing was as painful as watching her small body drop to the floor, her neck at an odd angle, her heart no longer beating. I would’ve rather endured every test and punishment Spector had ever given me. Suffocation. Drowning. Severed limbs. Stabbing. Being shot. Burnt alive. Because none of those carried the agony I was feeling right now at seeing her lifeless body.
He killed her.
He fucking killed her.
A roar filled the room and rang through my ears. A part of me realized belatedly that the noise was coming from me.
“Kill them and burn the room,” Trant ordered, already turning to leave with a contingent of guards.
I couldn’t move. Shock had crippled me. Crow was on his knees at my side, his fists slamming into the floor and cracking open his knuckles as he yelled out incomprehensible words of violence and loss.
I didn’t care when I felt the guards surround us. My reason to live had just been killed in front of my eyes.
All of the fight left me like a plug being pulled on my will. I joined Crow on my knees, my head hanging down in despair, because it was over.
When our mate bond severed, I still had hope. Despite the intricate magic binding us together, I knew that wasn’t the only thing that connected us. Motley was for me, plain and simple. I fell in love with her strength, her will to survive, her tenacity in the face of cruelty. I fell in love with the way she encouraged me to live.
Life was a dull nothingness before her. I’d lost my sense of self, but I’d found purpose again in her. I didn’t think I was capable of love until I met her, and then it had been all too easy. I fell into her web willingly, and I’d do it all over again. Because I f
ucking loved her.
I’ll find you in the wandering afterlife, I promised. I may have failed her in life, but I wouldn’t fail her in death. I’d follow her there.
Chapter 32
Crow
Gone. She was just...gone.
One second, her scared blue eyes were locked on me, and the next, the direction of her glance had been forced away as Trant snapped her neck.
Did she say something about being his daughter?
Red rage and black despair clouded my vision as the bastard tossed her to the ground like a discarded toy he was done playing with. My crows descended on her body, their cries of sorrow filling the room with vociferous mourning. Hundreds of them gathered around her still form, like a grim veil draped around her, their black heads bowing down in respect.
My eyes fucking burned with grief as I fell to my knees. We didn’t save her. We failed her.
I didn’t even feel it as I started punching the hard stone floor. Again and again my knuckles connected, until blood was splattering and bone was showing through. I heard Tomb’s bellow of rage before he dropped beside me, merged in our grief.
The guards surrounded us, but we didn’t move because we had no reason to fight. We were done. Without her, nothing mattered.
“Wait...I...”
I looked over at the unfamiliar voice and saw the woman—Glenda Wind—stumbling forward to Trant. “I feel ssssss—I ffffeeeel straaaaa—strange,” she stuttered. Her skin was grey, her eyes white with shock and pulsing power.
“Mrs. Wind?” Trant and the guards reached for her, but she folded over and started vomiting. Everyone backed up, including her husband who’d been trying to tug her back toward the exit.
“What’s happening to her?” Councilman Wind demanded.
“I...” Trant shook his head, at a loss.
The woman continued to retch until she was making horrible choking sounds.
“She’s suffocating on it!” Her husband rushed forward, trying to smack her on the back to dislodge whatever it was, but she just kept choking, her hands clawing at her throat and her eyes wide with terror.
She fell to her hands and knees, more vomit spilling from her lips. But I realized that it wasn’t just vomit coming out. It was black light.
“Tomb,” I murmured, my mouth dropping open as I watched.
I had no idea if he heard me or not. I was too engrossed in the scene unfolding. I watched the prim woman suddenly open her mouth wide in a gaping, soundless scream. Blue veins strained against her skin. Dark smoke pooled from her terrified eyes, and her hair unraveled from the tight bun on her head. Her body vibrated and shook. The vision of her was so fucking creepy that it brought chills to my arms.
And then the black light from her mouth exploded. Her jaw broke open, hanging down with dangling tendons and muscles. Her body was thrown backwards by an invisible force, and then I was staring at a writhing black mass of light and shadows that slowly stepped out of her and expanded into Black Widow.
“Holy shit.”
Just like when I’d seen her before, I was in awe of her. Eight long legs, massive fangs, cunning eyes and a sleek body. She was deadly. Wicked. Frightening. Beautiful.
And she was fucking pissed.
She moved with such grace I could do nothing but watch in awe. A blast of dark, fiery power shot out from each of her limbs, taking everyone in the room down. If I hadn’t already been on my knees, I would’ve been face down on the ground, my teeth digging into the hard floors. Smoke filled my vision, but I kept my eyes open, watching the tragically beautiful way she rained hell down on Spector. And then webs descended from her spitting mouth.
A hundred Spector guards were obliterated with venom and webs, left trussed up and dying as they hung from the ceiling like corpses of stalactites.
“Fuck,” I breathed, looking around at the destruction around us. Limp bodies surrounded us. The room had gone completely silent from the sudden rush of death. Seconds. That was all it had taken for her to kill them all.
I looked back just as she encased Trant in a full body cocoon of webs, wrapping him up with tight vines of silk until you couldn’t see an inch of his skin. She suffocated him with her webs, and then she ate the fucker whole.
I heard bones cracking and gurgled screams of pain right before all noise cut off and she swallowed him down with gnashing fangs and venomous intent. His screams turned silent, and his body was gone in an instant.
Tomb whistled beside me. “Damn.”
Her head turned toward us, and my heart sped up as inklings of fear washed over me. I had no idea if she still felt the mate bond, but I hoped to fuck she did, because I really didn’t want to be eaten alive or be wrapped in poisonous webs like these sorry fuckers.
But she simply walked over to us, brushing a fuzzy leg against Tomb and I almost affectionately.
“Is she purring?” Tomb whispered.
I nodded with a hard swallow. “Yep. I’m pretty sure.”
He frowned, watching her. “What’s she doing now?”
“I don’t know…” I watched as she walked over to Motley. My crows parted with mournful squawks to let her by. Then she stood over her, and the spider stared down, a keening noise leaving her raspy throat.
“She’s gone,” Tomb said quietly. His voice was broken and full of raw emotion, but the spider just hissed in reply.
She’s gone. That phrase made me crumble. She’s gone. She’s gone. She’s gone. I watched the spider jerk, and I frowned. Then she jerked again. And again. And again.
“Wait. She’s...shrinking,” I murmured.
Within moments, Black Widow’s body narrowed and compressed until she was so small that I’d be able to carry her in the palm of my hand.
“Is she…” Tomb’s breathless words cut off.
The black spider crawled up Motley’s arm and chest, webs spreading over her as she passed. Her ribs, her chest, collarbone, jaw, cheek. And then the spider crawled into Motley’s mouth and disappeared with a flare of black light.
“Holy fuck.”
Tomb and I were back on our feet in an instant, running past the flapping crows as we skidded to her side. Motley was pale, with a nasty burn on her leg and scrapes all over her arms. Seeing her crooked neck made my eyes sting with grief all over again. Was this how she felt when she saw us die?
“Look,” Tomb breathed. Every muscle in his body was tense with anticipation.
My eyes locked onto the mark that slowly appeared onto her neck. The hourglass stood out against her pale flesh, matching her bright red hair and searing hope into my soul.
Right in front of our eyes, her scrapes healed. Her burn faded. Her ribs straightened. And her neck snapped back into place. The invisible cord in my gut pulled tight, the mate bond tying back in place.
And then the most beautiful blazing blue eyes snapped open.
She was alive.
Tomb and I wrapped her up in our shaky, bloodied limbs, and I knew that we wouldn’t be letting her go anytime soon.
Chapter 33
“I can do it,” I said with a not so subtle roll of my eyes.
Furious dark eyes locked on me. “You fucking died.”
I was getting really tired of their overprotectiveness. “Yes, Tomb. As you’ve pointed out many, many times over the last week, I died. But I still don’t need help opening the door to the bathroom,” I said dryly.
My stubborn gargoyle looked me dead in the eye...and opened the godsdamned bathroom door before I could get there. I sighed and walked inside, issuing him a thank you as I closed the door after me. At least I’d finally convinced him not to follow me inside. Having an audience while I was in the bathroom was not the sort of bonding experience I wanted with my mates. That had been a fight for a good forty-eight hours after my death. He and Crow had been extra protective of me ever since I, well...died. Luckily for me, my crazy spider basically ate her way out of poor Glenda Wind and burrowed back inside me. What can I say? We belong together. We were a matc
h made in hell.
I finished my business in the bathroom and then headed for the door, only for it to sweep open before I could even touch the knob. I scowled at my mate. “You know, you were dead for hours after the first time I fucked you.”
Tomb just crossed his muscled biceps in front of his chest and stared down at me. “And?”
“And...we’ve all died here. Let’s be adults about it,” I said reasonably.
Crow snorted behind me, and I turned to look at him where he was resting in the blue armchair near the window. Russell was perched on the sill, eyeing me just as closely as my mates.
“Give it up, Little Spider. Rock Cock over there won’t be letting up on you anytime soon. His demon’s protective instincts basically went into overdrive when you died.”
Softening, I turned and wrapped my arms around Tomb. His tense body instantly softened, his arms coming around to hold me, and he buried his face into my hair. It was annoying, but I understood why they were acting this way. I felt the same crushing fear whenever they were in danger. It was natural to care. “I’m sorry. I know how that must’ve felt. But I’m right here. I’m okay.”
“Are you?” Tomb asked, tipping my head back to look at him. He was so gorgeous. His chiseled features and intense eyes, dark skin and bright teeth.
It had been a week since the bloodbath at Spector. Stiles had stayed true to his word, and everything was broadcasted to every supe community in the country. The outcry had been instantaneous. But it had come at a price. Even now, in this spacious room with nice furnishings and sunlight streaming in through the windows...it was a farce. We were being held in a room in vamp city’s council headquarters, waiting for ongoing deliberations to hear what would happen to Spector and everyone involved. Stiles was testifying on trial and giving explanations, but I wasn’t sure what was going to happen.
Even so, that wasn’t what worried me.
Crow stood up and walked over, pressing against my back so I was being comforted by both of them. “I’m scared for him,” I admitted softly.
