THE APARTMENT was a disaster. Not because she was leaving. She had four boxes total—most of them books for school. In the space she lived, cramped in a ‘bedroom’ originally a large closet, she didn’t have the luxury or the money to have too much stuff.
“Holy shit,” September barked, huffing and puffing her way through the maze of boxes. “Who has this much stuff? It’s not going to fit in here.”
Molly shook her head. “Okay, so she might have to sort through what she can keep, but c’mon, give her a break.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I’m supposed to give Stella, the ‘it-girl’ of Manhattan, a break because she finally wants to be an adult and move out of her parents’ apartment?” September took a long, deep breath, her cheeks red from speaking so fast. “No.”
“This was the best thing I could do on short notice. As soon as I mentioned I was moving out, she jumped on it.” Molly fixed her high ponytail and whipped it over her shoulder, bending down to push a box to make a path to the doorway. “All the other candidates were either legit high when I met them or on parole.”
“Because only someone desperate will live in that room,” September said and pointed her finger at Molly’s bare bedroom.
Somehow, it seemed even smaller without her stuff in it.
“Stella’s been through a lot, and she wants a change,” Molly added after a pause.
September groaned. “Okay, okay. I get it.”
“You’ll be busy with school. She’ll be busy, too. You guys probably won’t even see each other that much,” Molly said.
September grumbled back. “And now you’re leaving to go live with him.”
“September.”
“Molly Darling.”
Molly rolled her eyes. It was killing her that she couldn’t tell her best friend she was pregnant. All she wanted to do was tell September everything—her crushing fear and anxiety, how every morning she had to rush out of class to vomit up anything left in her stomach, and how she needed her best friend more than ever. But it had to stay a secret until they were safe. “I really like him…and we’d be moving in together, eventually.”
September psssed. “If you guys just want to have animal sex, just tell me, and I’ll put earplugs in, geez. You don’t have to move out.”
Molly stuck out her tongue. “You know it’s more than just sex.”
September leaned against the counter, the old weakened frame groaning in response. “Whatever.”
They had heard her before they saw her. Her shoes clicked musically against the old, run-down oak floors of the hallway.
Stella, red-haired queen of Manhattan, stepped cautiously into the apartment, a Gucci bag tossed over her shoulder.
Her big brown eyes scanned the apartment. “Wowwww….”
“Your stuff arrived,” September said, smiling thinly, and politely kicked a box for emphasis.
Molly swatted her arm.
Stella straightened. “Do we not have a spare room?”
September popped her hip out, her hand balancing on the counter. “This. Right. Here. This is it. Welcome home, baby.”
Stella scrunched her nose, but when she felt Molly’s gaze, she smoothed it out and laughed. “Great…”
Molly gestured to her old, bare bedroom. “This is your room over here. Do you need help with anything else or unpacking?”
Stella followed after Molly into the bedroom and shook her head, too invested in absorbing the new space. “I think I’m okay.”
“I know it’s not what you’re looking for…”
“No, it’s not, but I just needed to move out,” Stella said and went to the ceiling height window. “New fresh start, right?” She yanked to open the window, grunting but stopped when it didn’t budge.
“Yeah…that never opened for me…and we don’t have AC…” Molly rubbed the sweat off the back of her neck and cracked a weak smile.
“Hello?”
Molly and Stella turned to see Illya at the front door with a box under his arm like it weighed nothing.
“Illya?” September edged around the kitchen counter. “What are you doing here?”
“I told him I was fine, but he insisted on helping me move,” Stella said and strolled over, attempting to take the box from him.
Illya shook his head at Stella, who pouted back at him. “Don’t worry. I got it. It’s too heavy for you.”
“I’m not a damsel.”
Illya grinned as he moved past them and placed it on the floor in the bedroom. “I know, but I like helping out.”
Illya’s white t-shirt was stained with sweat under his armpits, and his gray sweatpants hung low on his fit body, exposing the thin strip of his muscular pelvis.
A kind, generous god.
“Where’s your bed?” Illya glared at the empty room.
“It hasn’t come in yet. So I’ll just make a cute little bed with some of my furry pillows and this silky blanket,” Stella explained, gushing after her ideas of designing a bed on the floor. “So chic!”
Illya frowned. “You can’t sleep on the floor.”
“Why? Because it would break my neck? I’ll live, Illya. It’s fine.” Stella shoved his arm playfully and giggled.
Molly glanced at September, who did not look the least bit happy. Illya and Stella were close…somehow…
“So you guys seem tight?” September said, folding her arms in the doorway of the bedroom.
Stella crouched down beside a box and struggled to rip it open, falling onto her bottom.
But Illya paused and looked at September. He swallowed. “We’ve been hanging out.”
“Okay.” September’s cold tone said otherwise.
Illya cleared his throat and turned his attention to Stella, too busy focusing on unpacking all her things to notice the tension. “I’m gonna head out.”
Stella paused and looked up at him. “Oh, I thought we were going to order in. Chinese or Indian?”
Illya’s ears reddened. “We’ll reschedule.”
Stella nodded, smiling at him.
Then he left, his head bowed, only to glance up at September.
Stella searched through her box, the only sound in the tense air.
“So you and him, huh?” September asked her tone tight.
Stella didn’t look up. “I mean…we’re friends.”
“When did that happen?”
Molly gave September a warning glance.
Stella’s hand clenched a pink bottle of perfume, and she fidgeted with the cap. “After Tina…he was there for me.”
Molly’s heart squeezed.
“I got really, really drunk one night, and he had given me his number at her funeral, but I didn’t think I’d ever call him. I was lonely and upset, and my parents were fighting again, so I called. And he came and picked me up, and we sat all night in a greasy café, and he made me laugh. He made me forget for a few hours. I just… he makes me feel comfortable. “She sighed and set the perfume down. “We’ve been hanging out ever since…”
Molly had found comfort in Paris, in the pieces of art that filtered her world, and in Tensley.
Stella found peace in Illya. When she was alone after Tina’s death, Illya was there.
“Let us know if you need anything,” Molly spoke in a soft voice. “We’ll be in the kitchen.”
Molly and September walked into the tiny, outdated kitchen, the smell of a kitchen fire still lingering from even before they lived there.
“Friends? They said they’re ‘friends’?” September hissed under her breath and angrily folded tablecloths that had already been folded.
“September,” Molly said, catching her hand. “Do you like Illya?”
September’s cheeks reddened, and she took her hand back fast. “He’s… a demon. And I’m obviously not. I just… I didn’t think it could ever work, that I could ever see past the fact that he’s not like us,” she said softly and then looked up at Molly. “Well, like me.”
Molly sighed loudly. “You chose to let him go, September. You told him it could never work between you two. You can’t be mad if he chose to look elsewhere and found someone who he seems to like a lot.”
“Stella wouldn’t like him either if she knew what he was,” September spat.
Molly scowled. “You don’t like what he is, September. It doesn’t mean she wouldn’t. You made your choices, now let them be,” she said as she shook her head. “They’re not all bad, September. Some of them, like Illya and Tensley, are much better than you seem to want to believe…”
September’s head snapped right and left in denial. “You’re delusional. You think you’re gonna move in with this demon and he’s gonna be your prince charming.”
Molly felt the surge inside of her. The burning sensation behind her eyes, the warning of her powers exposing themselves, but she fought it down with a calming breath. “I’m not arguing about this anymore.” The last thing she wanted was for her powers to flare up in front of September.
“What is with you lately? Remember when you used to tell me everything? Yeah, that hasn’t happened in a while, has it? It’s only ever him nowadays. It’s always him. He’s not the whole fucking world, Molly. There are other people out there. Hell, your best friend is standing right in front of you,” she said, her voice angry and loud. “What makes him so important that you forget the people who were there for you before he ever became your whole damn universe, huh?” she spit out.
Molly rubbed her forehead, a headache poking at her temple. She was too hot, too frustrated, and too tired to deal with this. She wanted to tell September everything. She wanted to just blurt out that she was pregnant, that her whole damn world had collapsed around her, that she didn’t know what Tensley and her were going to do. But she couldn’t risk it. It was too dangerous.
The baby. Tensley. Herself.
“I’m just stressed and tired,” she told September instead, picking up her purse and slinging it over her shoulder. She walked over to her few boxes and bent down, picking one up.
Just as she moved to leave, she glanced over her shoulder. “Promise me one thing, okay?” Molly said her voice barely above a whisper.
September’s mouth twisted, but with a heavy sigh, the tension melted from her body. “I’m sorry, Molly. I’m sorry I said all those things. I’m just bitchy because you’re leaving me. With her.”
“I’m not leaving you. I’ll still be here.” She fixed the box on her hip, focusing on keeping the pressure away from her stomach, constantly cautious of the baby. “Just promise me you won’t kill each other.”
September smiled sadly. “I can’t promise anything.”
TENSLEY DRUMMED his fingers on his desk, glaring at the two last people he expected to walk into his office together. His older brother, Beau, held Lex by her t-shirt and she refused to look up at him.
They had barged into his office while he was on a phone call. A call to a member of the High Court to discuss the possibility of moving up the wedding. He didn’t need anyone growing suspicious and asking questions, even if he trusted them, he couldn’t risk it for Molly and him.
For the baby.
His mouth grew dry at the thought of a child. His child.
A week ago now, he had learned the results of the pregnancy test, but it still hit him hard in the gut.
Tensley sighed. “I’ll call you back.” He hung up and sat back in his chair, watching Lex, turned, looking away from him.
“What are you doing here? Together?”
“Tell him,” Beau rasped out, pulling at her t-shirt.
Lex raised her head, dark brown hair piled in a strange bun on top of her head, her cheeks gaunt, but her figure slowly gaining its natural curves back.
His stomach dropped at the sight of her bruised jaw and a nasty cut on her forehead.
Tensley slammed his fist on his desk. “What happened?”
Standing side by side, they were complete opposites. Lex, tiny and fragile, pale skin tight around her sharp features, but it was her wide eyes and a small nose that softened her.
Beau was a giant of muscles and indifference. He stood stiffly, his large arms hanging beside him. A twitch of anger made itself known at the corner of his mouth.
And he was pissed now.
Tensley walked toward Lex and gently grabbed her chin to see the damage. Purple and blue lined the right side of her jaw, along with her neck.
He growled. “What the hell happened?”
“Found her at the Pit,” Beau bit out.
Tensley’s eyes swung to his older brother. “What?”
Lex pushed Tensley’s hand down and rolled her eyes. “I’m fine.”
“Fine?” Both brothers snapped.
“Bruises will heal,” she said and held her middle. “Turns out, I’ve lived through far worse,” she added bitterly, the painful memories clear in the depths of her eyes.
He wanted to yell at her for being so fucking stupid to go to the Pit of all places. “It’s a fucking fighting ring for demons. Why the hell would a soul eater go there, huh? Are you fucking trying to get yourself killed? Is that what you want, Lex?” he snapped, his anger flaring.
Lex turned her head to the side and shrugged. “It felt good.”
Tensley bit his tongue and ran his fingers through his hair. He shot a look at his brother. He knew why his brother was there. He was the King of the Pit. He was feared and respected there. But Lex…in the Pit. A demon would wipe the floor with her.
“Pulled her out before they slit her throat,” Beau added as if he could hear his brother’s thoughts. He didn’t know why Beau stepped in, as his loyalty was only to his family and himself—and he barely managed to respect those.
Lex was nothing to him.
Just another low-class demon.
“I had it handled,” Lex hissed, jerking towards Beau.
Beau, arms folded, laughed bitterly, his entire body shaking. “You were dead as soon as you stepped into the pit,” he said, his voice as rough as cracking thunder.
Lex’s cheeks flushed, her anger flaring. Unlike incubi, soul eaters fed off other’s emotions or memories. Tensley could see the spark in Lex’s large doe eyes—she wanted to devour Beau’s anger and spit it back at him.
“Lex,” Tensley cautioned. “Sit down.”
Lex looked down at her feet and moved to one of his leather office chairs. She sighed into her hands.
Tensley glanced back at his older brother. The heartless demon. So cold, so distant. Over the years, his heart had grown back bit by bit, but not fully. Not even halfway.
He existed with a sliver of a heart of gold. And that sliver had somehow chosen to save Lex.
Tensley thought of Beau and Valentina, his human lover, and their deceased child.
History was repeating itself, but he wouldn’t let it happen to Molly and his child. He would destroy anyone who threatened them.
“Thank you,” Tensley said lowly to his brother.
Beau’s brow shook his head in confusion, but after a moment, he nodded. He didn’t say a word and left.
Tensley ran a hand down his face before turning his attention to Lex.
He didn’t speak as he sat on the edge of his desk and leaned over, taking Lex’s hand in his, his fingers tapping her bruises. Touches light enough to eliminate the purple and blue from her usual creamy complexion.
“You can’t go to the pit, Lex,” he whispered, massaging a bruise on her jaw.
She groaned. “I’m fine.”
“Why?” he whispered, trying to meet her eyes. “Why did you go there?”
She toyed with her frayed jeans, littered with holes and stains of dirt and blood. Most likely her blood. Tensley wondered if Beau had healed more of the damage before they even came here.
“Because.” She gritted her teeth. “I don’t ever want to be weak again.”
He sighed. He knew a lie when he heard one, and he wasn’t buying what Lex was saying.
He worked his jaw, sitting back as he looked down at her. He had to remind himself she wasn’t his age—she wasn’t twenty-eight. She was only eighteen, but she had been through far too much for someone her age.
Tensley had found her starved and alone in a warehouse. Once his family agreed to take her in, she worked for them. She was never able to be a child. She was raised to survive and to be a warrior.
He let his arms drop and let out a long sigh. “Just don’t go again, Lex,” he said, and added after a beat, “Please.”
Lex’s lips morphed into a watery smile, and she raised a shoulder. “Okay, Dad.”
He paled but quickly cleared his throat and straightened.
His door swung open, and his mother walked in, breathless, holding her chest. “Gabriella’s had her baby.”