To Crown A Beast (Blackest Gold Book 4)

by R. Scarlett

  Prim looked at her hand, and then slowly, her eyes dropped to her stomach. Her eyes stared at the bump.

  Prim’s cracked voice broke the silence again. “I’m scared,” she started, and a heavy shudder tore through her body. “I’m scared of the… of… of the men re…returning for me.”

  Molly shook her head, her eyes burning with tears for the girl. “Oh no. No, Prim. Seto won’t let anyone touch you. He’ll protect you. You’re safe here.”

  Prim’s head shook vividly, eyes growing wild and frightened again. “They’ll find me,” she breathed out, choking on a sob.

  “Which men are you afraid of? The men Fallen took you to?” Molly asked, softly.

  She didn’t want to push Prim back into her dark nightmare, but how could they help her if they didn’t know what had happened to her in the first place?

  Prim paused on a sob. “Fallen didn’t sell me to the men.” She wiped at her dirty cheeks and finally, straightened. Molly still saw the same beautiful girl, but this girl now held a sharp, deadly edge. “Lilith sold me to them. Lilith took me from the prison. She… she let them… tou—” she paused, breathing with difficultly. “Touch me in front of her and didn’t stop them. They…” she stopped again, shaking her head as if she couldn’t say the words. Couldn’t voice them. Prim’s cheeks reddened in anger and she dug her long, broken nails into her thighs, breaking flesh. “They… ruined me. Lilith ruined me.”

  Molly’s chest ached in pain for her. Lilith…Lilith had done everything. Fallen was the king, but Lilith controlled him. Lilith did everything to gain more power so she could destroy everyone around her who was a threat.

  Prim and Seto had gone against the king’s laws, but in Lilith’s twisted mind, Prim had disrespected her. And she had wanted to make the girl pay for it… A wrath Molly didn’t know she was capable of started simmering deep within her.

  She would end this snake queen.

  She would destroy her the same way Lilith had destroyed so many others.

  She was a monster.

  And she would die for her actions.

  Then the tears streamed down Prim’s cheeks and she didn’t wipe them away.

  Molly slowly reached out and stroked her dark hair and scooted closer, wrapping her in her arms. “Shush.” She kissed her temple as she sniffled into her chest. “Don’t worry, Prim. Lilith will pay dearly for everything she’s done. I promise.”

  They stayed like that for a while, the girl crying in Molly’s arms. When she was calm again, Prim lifted her head slowly.

  “Where’s Seto?” she asked, a dark, troubled look returning to her eyes.

  “He’s outside, waiting. He didn’t want to frighten you again. He’s worried you know,” Molly said, with a small smile. “He loves you very much, Prim. He hasn’t forgotten what Fallen made him do to you and it’s breaking him inside. He just wants to help you, but you have to let him. He brought me here because you wouldn’t let him near. But please trust me, Prim. You’re safe with him. You’re safe here. You need each other to heal, because I know he needs you as much as you need him. Can you try to let him help you, Prim?” Molly asked softly. “Do you think you can do that?”

  After a beat, Prim nodded almost imperceptibly and Molly let out a relieved breath.

  They would be okay. They would heal.

  There was still hope.

  TENSLEY DIDN’T LET his gaze wander too far from the cottage or Seto who leaned against the wall, foot tapping nervously against the stone path.

  Over the sound of Seto’s nerves, all he could hear were the faint voices in the cottage of his dolcezza and Prim, but he didn’t bother listening in.

  At the sound of footsteps, he fully turned to face the cottage and watched as Molly stepped out, a gloomy expression darkened her features. Tensley moved fast, reaching her side and spreading his hand across the back of her neck.

  He wanted her close.

  Molly looked up at him, her brows wrinkled.

  “How is she?” Seto asked, his voice thick with anxiety.

  Molly pressed her lips into a thin line. “She’s scared of the men returning. I told her you’d protect her.”

  Seto’s gaze dropped to the ground. “I keep telling her the same thing, but it’s like she doesn’t hear me. Like she’s blocking me out.”

  “Give her some time, she’ll open up. She…” Molly started, brows wrinkling, as if she was unsure of how to say her next words. “She also mentioned that it wasn’t Fallen who sold her,” Molly continued softly, as if it would lessen the blow. She looked at Tensley before she spoke. “She said Lilith was the one who did it. She… she said Lilith let some of the men touch her. I think,” she stopped, and they both heard her swallow. “I think they might have…”

  But she didn’t need to finish her sentence. Seto’s face turned into a mask of dark fury, an expression he had never seen on the man, and he knew Seto understood very well what Molly had been about to say.

  Tensley clenched his hands. That wicked bitch.

  Seto shook his head, turning away from the both of them. “I want her dead. I want her throat between my hands and—” He paused, catching his breath, the wilderness buzzing loudly. Out of uncontrollable rage, Seto’s fists connected with the side of the old cottage, making it rattle. When he saw the blood on his knuckles, his brows furrowed, and his eyes turned tearful once more. He breathed in, but it seemed hard. “Thank you, my lady.”

  Molly nodded, smiling softly back at him and watched as he tried collecting himself, calming himself down, and returned inside the cottage.

  Molly sighed, rubbing her forehead. Tensley’s fingers massaged the nape of her neck.

  “I have to go home,” she whispered to him. “To your family and Scorpios.”

  His fingers paused, his chest aching at her words. “Of course,” he whispered back, not allowing her to know how much that pained him. How much his instincts screamed at him not to let her. To keep her close to him. Always.

  But he felt exhausted, the small amount of intimacy they had shared earlier was quickly disappearing. And he knew that even close to him, in a court full of snakes, she wouldn’t be truly protected.

  So he’d let her go back to earth, where he knew his family was no doubt taking good care of her, protecting her.

  Eventually, he’d need to get more energy, or it could be deadly. And already he knew that time wasn’t as far away as he liked to believe. He was reaching his last straw, he was drained, but he knew she’d need to feel in control when he slid inside her warmth again.

  They moved in the darkness, silent, together, but so apart.

  His beast rumbled in his chest, but his heart pounded more violently than ever before.

  The daemon was slowly taming the beast.

  AS MOLLY ENTERED back into her dark apartment, her chest felt so heavy. She couldn’t stop thinking about Prim, about how destroyed she was, and how she wept into her shoulder until she fell asleep.

  Tensley had seemed cold again as she left, as if the heat between them had returned back to the bitter resentment like before. She wanted to stay, but she knew everything with Scorpios was not good enough that she could leave them alone for long.

  They needed a leader. They needed someone to refer to.

  And she intended to do her job.

  Her phone buzzed and she scrambled for her purse on the kitchen counter. “Hello?”

  “Molly,” Evelyn’s sharp voice came through the line and her voice sent chills down Molly’s spine. “I’ve been calling you for hours. You need to come to the townhouse now.”

  “Why?”

  “If you want to trap Fitz Senior, be here in five.”

  And the line went dead.

  MOLLY WRAPPED HER wool coat around her middle and shuddered from the cool wind. Snowflakes, so tiny, floated across the dark night sky and painted the cement parking lot. The few lamp lights did nothing to lighten the dark area and Molly breathed out to see her breath in the cool air.

 
“When you see him, don’t act weak, got it?” Evelyn said, turning the car light’s off so they sat in complete darkness. “He’s Ares and you—” Evelyn paused, her dark eyes scanning Molly’s frame, her nose scrunched in disgust. “Well to be quite frank, I’m not sure what the fuck you are.”

  Molly kept her stare blank, but she dug her nails into the middle of her palms and breathed through her nose. She’s trying to rattle you.

  “Let me give you some advice,” Evelyn said, sighing as if speaking to a younger sister. “Don’t let him see through you. If you feel weak, act strong. If you feel sad, act as if you were indifferent, if you’re afraid, act as If he was nothing more than the dirt under your shoe. That kind of man—the ones like Fitz, they’ll eat you alive. They thrive off of all the emotions they’re forbidden from feeling. You may be the Dux’s fuck-buddy, but give them one reason to harm you and they won’t hesitate. Especially that asshole’s father,” Evelyn said, pointing at the backseat where Fitz Junior sat.

  Molly sighed, trying her best to ignore Evelyn’s pointless rant. It was nothing new to her. She knew what she was capable of, and she knew how to deal with snakes. She had been around a court full of them for longer than was bearable. If the Dux of Ares thought he could mess with her, he had another thing coming.

  She hadn’t told Daphne or anyone else where she was going, and that did make her nervous. Daphne continued to stress she had to think of the baby inside of her and rest. She couldn’t keep trying to do so much—school, baby classes with September, beast taming, and dealing with frightening men in Scorpios.

  But keeping busy kept the awful pain in her chest away. The pain she felt whenever she thought of Tensley, the man she loved, and the number of enemies that were out to kill him or overtake him. If it wasn’t Ares, she was pretty sure the High Court would try something of their own. They acted as if they had accepted their fate, but she knew better. And she hoped Tensley did too.

  “This is where he said he’d meet us?” Molly asked, turning to face Evelyn in the driver’s seat.

  Evelyn had rolled down her window and was now smoking, the end of her cigarette a faint ember that flicked in the cool wind. She took a puff and slowly blew out smoke from the side of her mouth. “Yes. Why? The little daemon doesn’t believe me?” She cocked a brow at her.

  Molly kept her mouth shut. She didn’t completely trust the woman, but it was her only lead to Fitz Senior. A step closer to meeting with him and hopefully finding a middle ground, a bargain. If not, Molly didn’t doubt blood would be spilled, and she’d make sure it wasn’t her own. When Evelyn called and told her she had intercepted a call meant for Fitz Junior, she said she was able to convince Senior to meet as long as Molly was there too.

  “Jesus Christ,” Fitz Junior hissed in the back of the car. Molly eyed him in the rearview mirror, watching as he shivered in his thin cotton sweater.

  “Shut up, kid,” Evelyn spat back at him and took another drag of her smoke.

  Molly twisted her lips and unwrapped her wool scarf, passing it back to him.

  His permanent scowl softened and with chained hands, he took the large scarf and wrapped it around his neck, engulfing his chest.

  “And what does the king’s wife carry in her purse?” Molly turned to the sound of Evelyn’s mischievous tone and found her rifling through her Gucci purse.

  “Evelyn,” Molly snapped, snatching her purse back.

  But Evelyn held a bottle of pills and her features fell into an expression of shock. She turned to face Molly, lifting the prenatal pills. “Why do you need these?”

  Molly grabbed the pills back and stuffed them into her purse, her anxiety twisting around her chest tighter and tighter. What if Evelyn told someone? What if she told all of Scorpios? What would they do? Would she use it against her? To gain back the power Molly had taken from her?

  “What is it?” Fitz Junior chimed in, trying to lean forward to see what they were talking about.

  Molly went to speak, but Evelyn’s harsh tone cut the car into a dead silence. “Nothing,” she hissed. “You stay in that backseat and you don’t say a fucking word.”

  Molly glanced at her, watching Evelyn for once look deathly ill. After a minute of no one speaking, Evelyn shifted and looked at Molly, her mouth a straight line, but her eyes soft. “Does he know?”

  Molly swallowed and she knew who she was talking about. “Yes, he does.”

  Evelyn sighed heavily and rubbed a hand along her tensed brows. “Fuck me.” Evelyn stubbed her smoke and ran her hands through her hair, groaning. She paused, leaning her head back, then she turned to face Molly and twisted the key, the car coming to life. “I’m taking you back.”

  Molly glared at her. “What? No! I’m staying.”

  Evelyn chuckled angrily. “Not under my watch.”

  Molly’s brow creased in confusion. “But—“

  Lights flashed in front of them and Evelyn paused, watching as a dark van parked in front of them and Fitz Senior exited the car.

  “Shit,” Fitz Junior whispered behind them.

  “C’mon,” Molly said, and opened her car door.

  Evelyn stared at her, immobile in her own seat. “Molly…”

  Molly didn’t listen though. She exited the car and walked toward Fitz in the darkness, the snowflakes and his shock white hair the only thing visible.

  “Ms. Darling,” he greeted her, his voice low and brittle. He smiled at her.

  She scowled at him. “Knight. It’s Mrs. Knight. Good to see you too, Fitz. It hasn’t been long enough.” she said, her tone dry.

  Evelyn appeared beside her, her mouth set in a thin line as she held Fitz Junior in place.

  Senior examined his own son, a wave of emotion flooding his features for a mere second and then vanishing. “Son.”

  “Father,” Junior said back, his throat bobbing.

  Senior turned to Molly and that eerie smile turned back on. “It was so kind of you to accept my invitation to meet, Mrs. Knight. And your husband is now king of the demons.” He whistled lowly. “And here you are, with little old us. An honor. Truly,” he said, not even bothering to hide his lack of honesty.

  “You’ve been killing some of our men, Fitz. I don’t appreciate that. But I came here to discuss matters. Perhaps make a bargain. To save a few lives,” Molly said, her tone indifferent but clear and strong.

  “Ah, yes,” he said, and turned to look at his son again. “To come to a truce. My son in exchange for no attacks on my part?” he said, clearly not convinced by the terms of the bargain. If anything, Fitz Junior had been right, his father didn’t care for him at all. But even as she thought it, she remembered the few emotions that had passed over the older man’s face as he had seen his son, beaten and bruised. There was something there. Something she hoped was somewhat close to affection.

  “You don’t look convinced, Fitz. You’d sacrifice your son’s life, your one and only heir, just to win Scorpios over?” Molly arched a brow, not hiding her disgust. “Can’t say I’m surprised, you did kill your own wife after all…”

  “I did indeed, but I had reasons a naïve little girl like you would never understand,” he snapped, his chest rumbling with a suppressed growl. His eyes shifted quickly to his son, then to Evelyn, something dark and dangerous passing through his eyes before settling back on Molly. “I agree to your bargain. No more attacks on Scorpios. Now release my son.”

  Molly studied the older man, his strict posture, his black leather gloves as he clenched and unclenched them.

  “Swear on your own life,” Molly bit out. “If you lie, I’ll make sure it’s the last one you’ll ever tell.”

  Senior flared his nostrils. “I swear on my life,” he said slowly, his voice thick with unspoken emotions.

  Molly took a deep breath and nodded to Evelyn.

  Evelyn let go of Junior and he limped forward, his body still recovering from the torture Scorpios had inflicted on him.

  Fitz Senior smiled warmly at his son and cupped
his cheeks. A long look passed between them.

  A laugh escaped Senior’s thin mouth, mixed with happiness and sadness.

  Then Senior snapped his son’s neck, the sound echoing in the darkness and straight into Molly’s bones.

  Molly let out a breath of shock, her eyes widening as she watched Junior’s body collapse onto the snowy cement.

  Senior rolled his shoulders and wiped his leather gloves on his coat. “Well, now that’s done, let’s truly discuss business.”

  Shit.

  THE BITE OF winter made Tensley’s body shudder violently as his men and him marched inside. The heat of the palace breezed over his numbed cheeks and he made his way up to his chambers. Hunting for large animals took patience and skill, and some of his men held neither of those inside of them.

  Once they had caught enough to feed the court, they had returned to the palace. But it had taken them all day and it was now late at night. Not that Tensley minded, he had needed the release. The chase. But as with everything else, it hadn’t been enough. It never was.

  His body now craved a warm bath, but his mind, his beast craved the sting of brutal ice, of the numbness spreading through his body.

  Each time he saw Molly, his beast warred inside of him. He wanted her body, he wanted ownership over her, but that damn heart thudding inside of him wanted something different from her.

  Her affection.

  Her love.

  Anything she’d be willing to give him.

  At even the simple thought, he felt his body seize in rejection, revolt against his desire. But the more he suppressed it, the more it consumed him. He felt the pull, the damnation that even after his heart was ripped out, it still beat for her.

  His heart sped up and the nerve-endings convulsed.

  The rest of the court—Lilith especially, did not need to know what he now hid inside of his chest. A weapon and a curse she’d use against him. He would show her nothing else other than the beast. No tenderness or soft underbelly. He’d bare his teeth and tear the court apart. From the ground up.