2. to kill a black widow

2

to kill a black widow

Rivian

Groans and faded cries resound against the walls of the bloodied hallway that lead me to the main room of the Gilded Hollow. I already know the mess I'm going to be met with before I see it. The smell of blood is the tell as I make my way to the second door.

When I open the door, the metallic scent wafts under my nose making my eyes shift in hunger.

I look around at the bodies lining the floor, wondering if she's even realized what she's done.

I walk further into the room, the disco lights from the ceiling creating a disturbingly ethereal effect against the shine of the thick, crimson liquid that layers the floor, the chairs, the tables, and the walls; splattered like stars in the sky.

Faded music echoes in the hollow of the night as I make my way to the bar top where my wife sits rather eloquently, her fingers tracing the tops of a glass cup, her back to me and her heart beating at a slow and calculated pace.

"Have you come to join the party, Husband ?" Her tone is dark, twisted, and cruel as she keeps her eyes trained ahead.

As I approach, I see blood seeping into her clothes; her white dress now riddled with the evidence of what she's done, and I have to admit that I have never seen anything more inhumane yet captivating all in the same breath.

"Party's over, Lucynda." Puddles of red liquid squelch under my feet as I walk up to my wife. I look down seeing a head completely severed from its body, likely somewhere piled in the center of the room with the other Outsiders she seemingly ate through. "I think it's time you come home and-"

"And what, Rivian? Talk?" She chuckles demonically. "Let's talk. This is what you wanted, is it not?"

Part of me feels conflicted with what I'm witnessing. She has every right to feel anger but that's not what I detect in her. I sense that right now, she feels nothing at all. The curse she's been plagued with is taking over her humanity and that's what I fear the most. Soon there will be nothing left of her except the shell of the monster I created and I can't let that happen.

Though I won't lie. I grew obsessed with Lucynda when she was broken and hollowed by the loss of love, only for me to deny her of the same in order to get her where I needed her. But the idea that she might be so destroyed at my own betrayal, and the way her hunger seems to have devoured her in the most visceral way, creates a craving inside of me that begs for her to let her demons go. Rebel with me. Let our darkness intertwine together and enjoy the luxury of being so villainous, the world has only us to fear. The way her eyes glow reflects my own desires; strength in bloodlust and power.

And maybe I would have wanted that, maybe I would have enjoyed it and encouraged it. But something shifts inside me, looking back at the girl I once drew from the shadows to fulfill my own selfish needs in more ways than one. I am hurting her and I know all too well how that feels.

"You have to understand, Cyn-"

"Oh, I understand, Rivian." She cuts me off, her tone dripping with a maniacal calm, stirring unease inside me. "The Dark Prince wanted a queen who could breathe seamlessly in the wake of revenge." She turns her head to look at me, her silvery eyes exuding with the chaos of lavender, caressed by dark swirls. Her white hair drenched in the same colored liquid that drips from the corner of her mouth.

Lucynda stands from her chair and takes a few steps toward me, not caring if she steps on the hand of one of her poor, unsuspecting victims. "You wanted to recreate me because you assumed I wouldn't understand your desire for revival in the form of vengeance unless I lived out the same fantasy you so eagerly attempted to force on to me. You can't live in the light, so you feed off the dark. You led me to this idea of power in darkness and you denied me of my own true happiness only because you thought I couldn't be happy if I knew your truth.”

Another step forward, jabbing her finger into her chest.

“Truth you kept from me, truth you knew would confuse me and in turn, ruin your little game of cat and mouse with my mother. You hate her for ruining your life, am I correct? Your hate for her was far more important than actually following some stupid tether for what it was worth. No.”

Another satanic chuckle.

“Instead, you used me to forge your path to the end game you engineered in your shallow-minded head." She sighs a careless sigh, sarcasm and boredom dripping from the sound. " Wow . You really are pathetic." A small devious smirk curls against her wine-stained lips.

It's hard to remain in power in her presence especially when she is dangerously teetering the line I don't allow anyone to cross. I feel my blood boil at her childish attempt to get under my skin, hating that she's so eager to knock me down.

But still, I ache for her. Despite the threats she's made and her attempt to kill my sister, I want nothing more than to drown in the pool that is my desire for my little sinner.

Her head tips at me, a demonic look salvaging from her once reticent irises. She's lost in her own demise, or rather hiding behind the vulnerability that she refuses to share now after weeks of doing nothing but. She might not have recognized that her heart was displayed on her sleeve, but my little sin isn't as shadowed as she claimed to be. I brought that out of her. She is born in my blood. And now, I am responsible for all that comes next.

With the castle likely still on fire and Lucynda's will to rectify her broken heart by lashing out against anyone who gets in her way, there is no hope to solve the case of treason that also threatens the fall of Hollows Trace.

But my wife is now engineered in her vampirism with lavendulan messorem running in her veins and the likeliness of me being the reason for her to escape that Hell doesn't seem very rational right now.

Regret isn't a word I know well to accept use of. I stand in the light and dark of my decisions and I prevail in all parts of my being. But this is my mistake, and I have to find a way to stop the Society from its downfall.

"I need you to come back with me, Cyn. You don't have a choice." I try to stand on firm grounds, not letting her think that she can disobey me. But if I know anything about Lucynda, it's that she doesn't not let anyone dictate her actions unless she wants to.

"How noble of you to take away my decisions now, King. What's next? Want to take my heart too?"

Lucynda shoves her hand into her own chest, plunging deep into the cages of her hollowed heart. I wince, slightly jumping at the idea that she really would take her own life. I recall the moment in her kitchen when I accidentally killed her black widow. The irony isn't lost on me that I have done the same for my own black widow; the person in front of me is no longer who she was before she met me.

I sucked all the light out of her, eager to bring out her darknesses so that I may feel satisfied in my quest for some imprudently reckless revenge. I wanted to feel better about using her, needing her to not fall greatly attached to the idea that I might actually desire her more than I let on.

I let my severe hatred for the villains in my own life control my need to act out with an end game of defending myself. Not to forget the lack of mercy given to my mother; the cruel fate that was handed to her by the one person she opted to love despite it not being returned. I took it out on the only person who seemed to have taken life and love for granted . . . Ameliana. Little did I know, I was doing the very same thing to Lucynda that her mother did to mine.

Lucynda tinkers with her own heart, not a single expression of pain on her face as she teases my fears.

Despite all that I've unknowingly done to create the villain who stands before me, I know that I didn't intend for her to get this way. I couldn't have known that the lavender curse would reach her—rarity in its bones—and while I had suspicions that her anger would boil over when I added my betrayal to the pot, how could I have known that I would feel some small semblance of remorse for the chaos I have caused and that her heart would shatter against her own hands.

"You're overreacting, Cyn." I step toward her and try my best to give her a sincere tone while still holding sternness, notably failing when her features twist with even more hate.

"Why? Because I'm broken and lost and because I am not deserving of love? How funny, seeing as you're the one who made me this way." She smiles cruelly.

"You know that's not true. I saved you Lucynda. I am not the bad guy here." I don't have time for sentiments, but I need to figure out what buttons I have to push to get her to back off of the cliff she's about to jump off of.

"That's where you're wrong. You did all this. Look around. This is who you are and what you wanted. And what does it matter to you, huh? You were just going to kill yourself in the end anyways. Some heroically diabolic plan you had there." She pushes me, her words ringing in my ears as she forces herself to be the bad guy. "Well, let me do it for you."

Lucynda lets go of her heart, rushes into me and throws us up against the wall. She punches a hole through my chest, all in the span of a second. Her vampirism is full-blown, and her strength aligns with my own; the perks of the blood bind we initiated and shared.

I stare into her disturbingly beautiful eyes and allow her this hissy fit she's throwing, my heart literally in her hands.

"What is your plan, little one?" I speak through gritted teeth, but somehow it comes out laced in lust more than in demand.

"Even as I play with your heart the way you've played with mine," she squeezes as she giggles quietly, her grin wicked, "you still can't control the way your body craves me, can you?"

I don't answer her, knowing that she can sense my need for her. I'll never be able to deny her even in her villain era. In fact, I might crave her even more now.

"Your whole plan for me was to follow your footsteps, breathe the air of revenge ." She rolls her eyes as a frenzied laugh escapes her throat.. "God, I'm so fucking tired of hearing that stupid word. But you asked for this. I'm just following the leader." Her voice demonstrates her irritation while mischief plays in her timbre as her fingers clutch my heart.

"You don't have a reason to do this, Lucynda and you know it," I argue with anger lacing my deep tone.

"Oh, and you had a reason to want to kill my mother? A reason to use me to bring her out from hiding, hoping that I would feel as much pain toward her as you did so that I would be okay with your slaughter?" There is it, her vulnerability.

"You don't understand." If only she would listen to me, let me explain. And for a minute, she did understand. She bounced off her thoughts to mimic my own when she first plunged her fist into Ameliana's heart. But that was before she knew who she was to her. She was trying to defend me, avenge me. And then, my betrayal escaped.

She clutches harder, pushing deeper. She's dangerously close to turning off the lights and all she'd have to do would be to light my body on fire and I'd be as good as gone.

"You keep saying that, but what you failed to realize is that I am the only one who understands!" Her fist clenches, squeezing my organ tightly in her grip. Just like when my mom was compelled to forget who I was and was forced to leave the castle without me, my life flashes before my eyes.

I feel Lucynda's pain, and it infuriates me. It's pain that I've once felt before, pain I refused to let myself feel ever again.

But I won't succumb to it. I use all the strength I have left inside me to push back against the wall, expelling us forward with so much force that the back of her head slams into the wall across the room, driving us both up against it.

Now the roles are reversed and while her hand is still buried in my chest gripping my heart with so much angst, I am subjecting her to the same fate.

We both hold on to the organs that beg for mercy, ironically beating for each other in tandem. I can feel the way her heart pumps in agony tucked into my palm as I study the look on her face, trying to brave the pain.

"We don't have to do this," I warn her through gritted teeth, pushing through my own anguish of feeling her have so much power over my life right now. "I am not your enemy, little one."

"You don't get to call me cute nicknames, Rivian. There is nothing cute about what we are."

I know I should try harder, push back and fight against her, get her to see fucking straight; that what she's doing is beyond irrational. But there's no taming the beast in the midst of betrayal. I would know.

"You really believe that what we have isn't worthy enough to try and mend for the sake of-"

"Say the Society one. More. Fucking. Time. I dare you, Rivian." She squeezes and I chuckle, knowing that now, I am getting somewhere. "Everything has been for the Society. Oh, but wait! Does your precious Society know that you were ready to sacrifice everything they love—everything you forbid yourself to love—all for the sake of your stupid fucking revenge?"

"You're right. I fucked up, Lucynda. But they are not just my Society anymore. You are their queen." I squeeze back, feeling her twitch at the intrusion, but despite the pain she's trying to hide that shows in her eyes, I feel myself falling deeper into the trance of lust. My cock grows hard as her lips part in protest, her stubbornness to submit entices me.

"You didn't just fuck up, Rivian," she barks back. "You are a fucking monster. Just like my dad. Just like yours." A little grin curls deviously on her lips. She knows what she's doing.

Anger floods my veins.

"Don't fucking say that," I threaten.

She smiles a devious smile and I decide that I can't try to fight her with calm tones and hopeful words. She won't come out of her deeply depraved shell for the useless bullshit I think she wants to hear now.

She fights back. "Why not? Huh? You could care less about the innocent lives you destroy along the way so long as they serve a purpose to your path of destruction, am I right?"

"Yet here you are, so dead set on starting an actual war, Lucynda. How hypocritical of you. Look around." I let my eyes play in the depths of hers, challenging her logic. "What did these innocent people do to deserve your wrath? It's anger that you feel toward me and you're taking it out on them ." She eyes the near two dozen bodies littered around us, some still actively bleeding out. "What happens to the innocent souls that get caught in your unfounded need for crossfire?"

She scoffs. "Unfounded? That's rich coming from you ."

"I don't want to hurt you, Cyn." I try to get her to recede, back off and come to her senses. I know that when all of this is over and she realizes what she's really done, she'll be flooded with regret and she has to know that I will be the one to help her through it.

"I can't say the same about you, Riv ." She wraps her fingers even tighter around my heart, which causes me to do the same back to her.

"So then what the fuck do you propose?" I level my eyes with hers, feeling the heat that bursts between us.

The space between us is next to none. Her breathing is labored, short and hot against my skin as I push her as far into the wall as she can go. We both cling on to the control we desperately need, for the war we created and to fight the lust that is unmistakably stranded between us.

I take this moment of silence to leverage my control over hers. I lean down, letting my lips skate gently across her ear and I can feel the flinch in her fluttering heart. I open my mouth, letting my breath feather over her skin for just a moment before whispering into her ear…

"You called me a monster. I find that rather amusing, Lucynda. Considering you seem to be a girl who loves monsters."

Her chest rises and falls with my hand buried deep inside; I can feel the desperation plead in her heart as it begs to beat free of my grip. Her lips part as I lean back slightly, just enough to see her face and needing to hear her breaths come in short as she gasps for air. But she's not suffocating because of my grip; the small little gasps of air leaving her pretty mouth come from a place of desire.

I take my other hand to reach up to her face, caressing her cheek in my palm—splotches of blood covering her scar.

I can't help it. I feel the way her heart attempts to race for purchase in my closed fist, the way I hear her breathing start to become messy and harsh. I graze my fingers over the jagged, raised skin just below her eye, brushing off some of the blood and pulling my finger to my mouth, tasting the mess she's made.

Fuck , I shouldn't have done that. But there's something so sinister about tasting my sweetest sin in her need for control. I lean my face in, she watches me behind heavy, glassy eyes, and I bring my nose to her cheek, running it up toward her ear until I can dart my tongue out along the lobe of it. I trail my tongue from her ear down to her jaw, then back up to her lips only licking slightly at the corner of them to clean up the little trace of blood there. It's an intimate and calculated move, careful not to give her too much while satisfying my own selfish need.

But she doesn't allow me to pull away.

In a flash, she's got me pinned to another wall across the room—the rush of her movements and the harshness of my back hitting the wall drives me to deeper hunger—her hand now removed from my chest and desperate to get my pants off.

Blood spurts from her chest as I too remove my grip, opting to rip her entire dress from her body with one rough tug, leaving two pieces of red-stained fabric hanging from her limbs, resembling that of a robe, as she wrestles my pants off.

There's blood beneath us. So much blood. And the disco lights still loom overhead illuminating the room in such a forbidden way. The atmosphere darkens with lust and sin as we hungrily touch each other, rushing to take what we undeniably need.

I grab her by the face and pull her up to me, needing her lips on mine. She lets me kiss her with so much force, it pulls a dangerous moan out of her at the same time as she finally gets my cock free.

"Fuck." I look down between us. Her crimson-soaked fingers wrap around me so fucking sweetly. The sight is magical as she pumps her fist up and down my hard length.

"You're so hard, Rivian. Is this what I do to you? Do you love that I am just as fucked up as you are?" Gasping as she speaks to me, her eyes don't leave mine as she pumps my cock.

I lean into the wall and throw my head back as her small cold hands grip me. I reach out and roughly take her breast in my grasp. Her nipple hardens and I swipe my thumb over it. She moans so fiercely it vibrates to my cock.

Lucynda attempts to drop to her knees, and I can't imagine a more sinful scene—my wife, bloodied and eager on her knees for her king—but I can't wait. I need to fuck my wife.

I reach for her hips, gripping them tightly and stopping her from dropping down, pulling her as far into me as possible. I press her hard against my chest as I shudder from the feeling of having her so close to me.

"I need to be inside of you," I growl into her ear and before she can protest, I have her pinned on the floor, blood lightly splashes beneath us from one of the puddles that pooled.

She chuckles as her head hits the floor, her white strands of hair soaking in the deep maroon that layers under her. Fuck , she's a sight as she watches me with her heavy eyelids, her body covered in blood and the remnants of her night dress still draped on her arms, shredded as it soaks in the viscid liquid underneath her.

"Take off your shirt," she demands in a heated whisper and I tear the clothing off my body.

I take the next second to rip her panties away before reaching down and pressing myself into her, pain and greed etched on both of our faces. She squirms underneath me, not caring that death lingers around us—her victims witnessing the need we both can't stop ourselves from taking.

I place my palm down on the side of her head while using my other hand to guide my dick into her. She's warm and wet and I can't hold myself back.

"You're so needy, Lucynda. Is this what I do to you?" I taunt her with her own words as she bites her lip and I don't waste a second more as I push all the way in. " Fuck, " I groan as I lower my forehead to hers. She fits me like a glove, her body tenses and a beautiful moan escapes her throat as I move my hand from the base of my cock and use it to grab the curve of her hip, holding her in place and forcing us not to move.

I breathe against her lips, her hands not touching my body and really, I don't care. It's too much. Too much feeling is coming from just being inside of her, I'd fucking lose it if she was touching me everywhere else.

"I need you to move, Rivian!" She cries out, begging me to fuck her. And finally, I see something other than hate line her face. Pleasure mixes in her eyes with something dark as her pussy grips my cock. I chuckle and lift my head from hers to see her pained with so much need.

I thrust deep but slowly into her, needing to feel every inch of how fucking much she wants me.

I watch her for a few moments, the way her stomach clenches with each thrust.The whimpers that tangle with this beautiful symphony of our heated passion.

I look up to see her lips part; she's staring me right in my eyes. I lean down and press my lips to hers, but she doesn't kiss me back. Instead, she finally reaches her arms around my neck and pulls me in deep, opening her mouth against mine and dragging my lip between her teeth. Then, she bites my bottom lip, causing me to thrust harder into her than I intend. She giggles through her moan.

"You little bitch," I growl into her mouth which rewards me with a devilish grin.

"Don't act like you don't like it." Her nails dig into the nape of my neck and I can tell she's greedy for me to quicken the pace.

I dip my forehead to hers again, using my other hand to hold up her leg by the back of her thigh, pushing it up toward her chest at my side.

"Watch your mouth, little one. Or I'll make you eat your fucking words." I let my threat feather over her lips as I continue to sink into her pussy, feeling so close to coming as she pulls herself up and begs for more, starting to thrust on her own.

" Oh, fuck ." Her cries are like music to my ears, echoing off the walls and surrounded by the chaos of her rampage.

"Harder," she begs. Her greedy pussy grips my cock, and I can tell she's about to come undone under me.

"Look at how fucking greedy your pussy is for me, Cyn. God, you feel so good wrapped around my cock." Her fingers dig into me deeper, her breaths come ragged and sharp as she pushes for her orgasm to take over. "Look at me." I demand her attention and she opens her heavy eyelids to meet my gaze of darkness.

Her own eyes twist from her clouded gray to a dark purple, swirling in the same dark tendrils that mine morph to in the fits of deep adoration and hunger.

"I'm a monster, right?" I thrust hard, her mouth falls open and cries out my name. "Say it." I grit my teeth through the demand as I feel my own orgasm start to build.

"You're-" I thrust. "Fuck. You're a-you're a monster." She tries to hold control in her tone as she forces out her words, but I'm so deep, it's creating delusion in her. Her need to come is breaking her apart.

"That's right, little one." I push her leg open further, my grip punishing on her thigh. "But so are you."

I lean in and bury my face in her neck, needing more than anything to taste her. I find myself opening my mouth against the soft, crimson-coated skin of her neck and right as I feel her heart pacing quicker, her mouth falls open and her back arches. I don't think a thought more as I bite into her.

" Fuck !" she cries out as she comes, digging her nails so deep into my back that I can feel the burn of her cutting into me ignite all over.

I let myself enjoy the taste of the blood I drew from her, sucking in a small amount and holding it in my mouth. I lean back up and watch her face twist with pleasure and pain, her orgasm pulsing against us and right before I let myself go, I lean down to her parted lips and press mine to them allowing the blood I took from her neck to drip generously into her mouth. She takes it on a moan, crying out and squirming as I thrust deep into her. My own orgasm shatters, spilling deep inside her.

"Fucking perilous." I thrust again. "God, you are so fucking perilous," I grind out through deep groans as we both come down from our highs.

Lucynda Duquesne is devastating.

Her breathing is still scarce and before I pull out of her, I lean back down and lick the rest of the blood from her neck, this time savoring it for myself.

She watches me; both of our eyes are still shrouded in the darkness that swirls when blood arouses our senses.

I want to lean down and kiss her softly, because she is my wife, but she infuriated me, and I know she won't accept my sentiment. This wasn't out of love or affection. She's on overdrive and she needed to be fucked just as much as I wanted to fuck her.

But as I get up to put my pants back on, all she does is chuckle.

I look down at her, her eyes looking around before catching mine. Her body still shakes with laughter.

"What the fuck is so funny?" I ask her as she leans up on her elbows, her naked body gleaming with blood and sweat, and I can't help but admire the way she looks as she watches me with sarcastic eyes.

"You are so fucking weak," she tells me as she smiles in my direction. "I just killed your sister and the floor you fucked me on is covered in the blood spilled by my hand, and you still couldn't resist, could you? You have no backbone, Rivian. It's no wonder your dad-"

Lucynda's words get cut off by her sudden gasp, her words catching on a gurgle as she's forced forward and bends over, clutching at her chest.

I look up behind her seeing a small petite figure standing in the doorway, the lights barely illuminating her black hair. She steps out of the shadows, dusting her hands against her pants as she checks her shoes to make sure she didn't step in one of the many puddles of blood laying around.

It happens so fast.

I look back down at my wife to see that someone had thrown a wooden stake into her back; Lucynda gasps, frustrated in pain. The person emerges completely from the shadows, rushing to Lucynda and tearing the stake out of her back and at the same time snapping her neck.

Lucynda lays motionless on the ground. I look up, seeing my sister shoot me a devious smile.

"I'd say that's about enough out of that bitch."