One second, I was creating a cocoon around Byron’s body, planning to constrict the fuck out of him, and the next, there was a shove at my back, and my face was being slammed down onto the table. My tray went skittering across the slippery surface, bloody broth sloshing as my cheek was pressed hard against the table.
“Stop doing that, you fucking crazy bitch!” Byron’s buddy hissed in my ear. He and his friend were holding me down hard, but they were trying to be quiet so that the guards wouldn’t intervene.
I was about to move my hands to shoot webs around their fucking necks, when I heard a familiar sound.
The noise of shrieking crows exploded around us, and then I felt a new presence at my back.
“Get your fucking hands off her.”
The voice was low. Deadly. Totally unfamiliar. And yet, my spider exulted.
One second, I was being held down, and the next, the sharp claws and unyielding limbs were torn away from my body. I sat up, panting, and when I looked over, I saw a man covered in shadows and crows.
As soon as my eyes locked onto his piercing violet eyes, my breath caught in my chest. But not in a way like I was startled or overcome. It was like something inside of me—inside of my spider—erupted.
He had vibrant blue hair. A dark five o’clock shadow over his strong jaw stood out against his smooth pale skin. Crows dissolved and reformed from shadows to feathers right before my eyes as he stood there staring down at me.
“You,” I breathed, unable to look away.
He was the one who’d brought the crows to Spector’s ritual. I knew that with certainty.
Byron was furiously ripping webs off his body, while his friends were behind me, batting away crows.
In seconds, six guards were there, breaking it up. The guy that came to my rescue didn’t look fussed that the guards were threatening to lock us up in solitary for a month. He just smiled at me with a secret promise I didn’t understand. And my spider? She fucking sighed, like seeing this dude was the best damn thing to happen to her since the first time we’d fed.
I didn’t get it.
“You know the rules, Crow,” one of the guards told him, taking a step forward with a thick black baton like he was ready to thump my rescuer over the head.
“Yeah, yeah. No powers in the common areas. Maybe if you were doing your job, I wouldn’t have had to intervene,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “They were hurting her.”
The guards glanced at me, but I bristled. “I was handling it,” I argued.
Crow’s lips twitched in amusement. “Sorry for interrupting, then.”
The head guard was typing on his tablet, likely alerting the Spector leaders that there had been a fight.
“No powers,” he said with a resounding warning. “You use your powers again, and it’ll be solitary and no food as punishment.”
I cringed at the idea of starving. I never wanted to feel that empty, desolate nothingness again. It was a slow sort of torture, to waste away, and I had every intention of doing whatever necessary to avoid that.
The guards walked off, leading Byron and the others away until it was just the two of us.
“Well, you know my name is Crow. What’s yours?” the hot blue-haired man asked as he held out his hand.
“Motley,” I replied as our skin touched. A slight shiver traveled up my spine, and I watched in awe as his eyes flashed red for a brief moment.
“Don’t use your powers, remember?” he said, his gaze slipping down to our joined hands. To my surprise, tender, intricate lace had spread from my fingertips and wound around his wrist.
Embarrassed, I yanked my hand back before my spider could make any more. “Sorry,” I mumbled.
Something about him had my fangs aching. I noted the scar on his upper lip and the way he looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks. He was wearing simple black sweatpants and a black shirt, both with the Spector logo on them like everyone else seemed to be wearing. Well, everyone except Cheryl and me. For some reason, when I looked in Crow’s violet eyes, there was a sense of familiarity in his stare. I found myself leaning forward, wanting to take his hand again and press my head against his chest, which was just fucking weird.
“Motley! I got you this!”
Cheryl suddenly appeared, slightly breathless, and shoved Crow out of the way to force a pile of clothing into my arms. I looked down and picked up the pieces with pinching fingers. “Uhh…”
Bubblegum pink lingerie, something that I was pretty sure was a cape, and bell-bottom jeans is what I had to choose from. “Seriously?”
She shrugged. “Well, I may have picked through the pile first,” she admitted. “But I’m sure that cape thing could be used for a nice wraparound dress.”
Crow reached over her and plucked up the pink lace. “This needs a try-on at least,” he said with a smirk.
Blushing, I snatched it back from him, bundling the fabric up in my hands.
“Well?” Cheryl pressed, staring at me.
“Well what?”
She sighed. “A thank you would suffice.”
Was she serious? She kept looking at me expectantly. Oh, yep. She was serious.
“Thank you sooooooo much,” I replied in an overly exaggerated voice.
“You’re welcome,” she said primly, before flashing away again.
I shoved the clothing onto the bench before turning back to Crow. “It was you and your birds who broke into the ritual,” I said, looking around to make sure we weren’t being overheard.
He nodded, brushing off a crow that had landed on his shoulder. “It was.”
“Why? I mean, why did you do that?”
“Because I want Spector to burn to the fucking ground,” he said evenly, not even trying to be quiet about it.
My eyes darted around to the guards nervously, but if they heard him, they didn’t seem to care. Huh. I guess Crow was often vocal about his
