Chapter 8: Bloodied and Begging
The night was a wet, black canvas smeared with city light. Frankenstein didn’t drive back to her apartment. He took a series of turns that seemed to defy the grid of the city, heading for the outskirts where the streetlights grew sparse and the trees loomed taller.
“Where are we going?” Lex asked, her eyes scanning the dark roadside, every instinct still on high alert from the study.
“My home,” he said, his voice tight. “It’s secure. And we need tools.”
The mansion appeared suddenly at the end of a long, private drive, a monstrous silhouette of Gothic stone and glass against the stormy sky. It should have looked abandoned, but Lex felt the hum of power emanating from it—a low, electrical thrum in her teeth.
Inside was a paradox. The foyer was all vaulted ceilings and antique furniture, but the air smelled of ozone and sterilized metal. A man with shockingly green hair slouched against a doorway, peeling an orange. “Boss. Heard you had trouble.” His eyes, sharp and intelligent, slid to Lex. “And brought some.”
“Tao,” Frankenstein acknowledged, stripping off his coat. “This is Alexandra. The perimeter?”
“Quiet as a grave. Literally.” Tao grinned, popping an orange slice into his mouth. “For now.”
Another man, broader and silent, emerged from a shadowed archway. He merely nodded at Frankenstein, his gaze appraising Lex with a neutral curiosity.
“Takeo,” Frankenstein said. “We have a scent to run. The attackers used synaptic disruptors. Crude, but traceable if you know the chemical signature.”
“Already on it,” Tao said, pushing off the wall. “Lab’s set up. Who’s the new muscle?”
“She fights,” Frankenstein said simply, and started walking down a corridor that looked more like the entrance to a power station than a home. Lex followed, aware of the two men falling in step behind her.
The ‘lab’ was a sprawling, sterile chamber of blinking servers, holographic displays, and tables laden with equipment Lex couldn’t name. In the center, under brutally bright lights, lay the cleaned and catalogued remains of the weapons from the alley. Tao went straight to a console, his fingers flying across a translucent keypad.
“They’re good. Military-grade hardware, serial numbers fried. But the power cells have a degradation marker.” A complex chemical formula bloomed in the air above the console. “It’s proprietary. Nasty stuff. Eats through containment after about fifty hours of activation.”
“Source?” Frankenstein leaned over the display, his face illuminated by the cool light.
“Working on it. It’s like tracking a specific brand of cigarette ash through a city of smokers.” Tao’s eyes flicked to Lex. “You okay? You’re breathing a little fast.”
She was. The adrenaline from the confrontation with Raizel hadn’t left her. It mixed with the intense focus of the room, the sheer competence around her, and the sheer presence of Frankenstein—his controlled fury was a physical heat in the space.
“I’m fine,” she said, her voice clipped.
“She’s wound tight,” Takeo rumbled, his first words. A quiet observation.
Before Frankenstein could respond, a soft, chiding alarm pulsed from the console. Tao’s playful demeanor vanished. “Perimeter breach. Southeast quadrant. Multiple signatures. They’re not sneaking.”
Frankenstein’s head lifted. In the stark light, Lex saw his eyes change. The composed blue darkened, then ignited from within with a fierce, sulfurous yellow glow. It wasn't metaphorical. A palpable wave of energy rolled off him, stirring the hair on her arms.
“They followed us,” Lex breathed, her body dropping automatically into a ready stance.
“They were waiting,” Frankenstein corrected, his voice now layered with a reverberating depth. “Tao, lock it down. Takeo, with me. Alexandra—”
“Don’t you dare say ‘stay here’,” she cut in, pulling the compact tactical blade she kept in her boot. The metal felt right in her hand.
A ghost of a smile touched his terrifying, glowing eyes. “I was going to say ‘watch my flank’.”
They moved. The mansion’s back doors opened not onto gardens, but onto a vast, bleak courtyard of cracked marble beneath the churning sky. It was a training ground. Rusted iron apparatuses stood like forgotten torture devices under the sporadic flashes of lightning.
The attackers were already in the courtyard. Ten of them, clad in matte-black tactical gear, moving with a disciplined, quiet lethality. Professionals.
No one spoke.
The fight erupted in silence, broken only by the scuff of boots, the grunt of impacts, the wet sound of tearing. Takeo became a whirlwind of brutal efficiency, disarming one man and using the soldier’s own rifle to crush his throat. Tao fought from the periphery, strands of his green hair glowing as he manipulated the battlefield itself, causing sections of the marble to shudder and trip up advancing foes.
But Frankenstein.
He stopped holding back.
He moved like liquid death. There was no flourish, no wasted motion. A mercenary fired; Frankenstein wasn't there, and the man’s arm broke with a sound like snapping timber. He flowed into the next, his hand a blade that pierced body armor as if it were paper. His glowing eyes were calm, analytical, tracking everything. He was dismantling them, systemically and with a horrifying grace.
Lex engaged her own target. She was smaller, faster. She used it. She ducked under a swing, driving her blade up into a seam in the armor at the thigh, twisting. The man screamed. She silenced him with an elbow to the temple. She spun, parried a knife thrust from a second assailant, and shoved him back into the path of one of Tao’s sudden, geysering spikes of earth.
Her world narrowed to movement and threat. And to him.
Every time their paths crossed, a jolt went through her. It was more than adrenaline. When he moved past her, his shoulder brushing hers as he caught a fist meant for her head and crushed the wrist, a surge of pure, electric heat went straight to her core. When she kicked a soldier’s legs out from under him and Frankenstein finished him with a stomp that cracked the marble, their eyes met for a fractured second—his blazing with inhuman power, hers wide with ferocity—and the connection was a live wire.
It was terrifying. It was intoxicating. She fought better for it, her movements syncing with his in a wordless, violent dance.
It was over in minutes. The courtyard was still, littered with broken bodies. The rain began to fall, a light drizzle that started to wash the copper scent from the air.
Lex stood panting, her knuckles bleeding, the taste of ozone and violence on her tongue. The primal fire in her blood wasn’t cooling. It was burning hotter, fed by the glow in Frankenstein’s eyes as they dimmed back to blue, by the sweat on his neck, by the memory of his effortless, devastating power.
Tao let out a low whistle, surveying the damage. “Well, that was a statement.” He looked at Lex, at her heaving chest and flushed skin. A knowing, mischievous smirk spread across his face. “Whoa, rookie. You good? You look… really good.”
The comment was a splash of cold reality and absurdity. All the coiled, frantic energy in Lex—the fear from the study, the rage from the attack, the sheer animal hunger of the fight—snapped.
She turned from Tao, crossed the three paces to Frankenstein, and fisted her hands in the front of his ruined, blood-spattered shirt. She yanked him down to her level.
Her voice was a raw, low growl meant only for him, vibrating with everything she couldn’t name. “If we don’t leave this courtyard right now, I swear to God, Frank, I will ride you right here in front of them.”
His eyes widened. A shock of pure, unguarded hunger flashed across his face, erasing the last of the killer’s calm.
He didn’t speak. He didn’t nod.
One arm hooked around her waist, pulling her tight against him. The world blurred—a nauseating, visceral lurch of distorted space and compressed sound. The rainy courtyard, Tao’s startled laugh, the smell of blood and wet stone—it all vanished.
They rematerialized in a room. His room. Darkness, the sudden softness of a thick carpet under her boots, the scent of him—clean linen and something cold and electric—everywhere.
He was still holding her, the only solid thing in the unformed dark. Her heart hammered against his, a frantic echo of the combat rhythm.
No more words.
The sudden silence was a physical shock, louder than the fight. Only their breathing filled the dark space, ragged and synchronized. Lex’s back was against something solid—a door. The familiar weight of his body pressed against hers, pinning her there.
Her hands were still knotted in his shirt. She didn’t relax her grip; she twisted it tighter. The expensive fabric gave way with a sharp, satisfying rip.
He froze for a heartbeat at the sound. Then a low, rough sound escaped his throat. His own hands came up, not to stop her, but to mirror the violence. He grabbed the collar of her tank top and wrenched. The sturdy cotton tore like tissue paper, baring her skin to the cool, dark air.
It was need, not technique. A frantic detangling of barriers. His belt buckle scraped the wall as she fought with it. Her cargo pants caught on the door handle as he shoved them down. Every article was a casualty, fabric shredding or being forcibly peeled away until there was nothing but heat and skin and the shocking relief of contact.
He lifted her effortlessly, her back sliding against the smooth wood. Her legs locked around his hips, pulling him into her with a force that was all demand. There was no gentleness, only a profound and staggering convergence. She cried out, a sharp, punched-out sound that was half relief, half conquest.
The last days—the fear, the vulnerability, the sheer terror of Raizel’s gaze—melted in the forge of this. She moved with him, a ruthless, driving rhythm born in the courtyard. She bit his shoulder to stifle another sound, tasting salt and rain.
He buried his face in the crook of her neck, his breath scorching. “Lex.” Her name was a broken thing. His control, usually an unshakeable edifice, was gone. She could feel it in the tremor of his arms caging her, in the desperate cadence of his hips.
This was the truth behind the efficiency. This raw, hungry humanity. She felt powerful with it, reveled in having unraveled him. Her nails scored down his back, claiming.
The world narrowed to sensation, to the slick friction of sweat between them, the solidity of the door creaking with their weight. The coiled spring inside her, wound for hours, snapped.
Pleasure detonated, a white-hot wave that blotted out the dark room, the mansion, everything but the feel of him shuddering against her, his own release a ragged echo of hers held deep inside.
For long minutes, there was only the sound of their breathing slowing. The cooling air raised goosebumps on her exposed skin. He was still holding her up, her weight nothing to him. Gently, he lowered her until her feet found the floor, but her knees buckled. He caught her, his arm a steady band around her waist.
“Bed,” he murmured, his voice sandpaper-rough. He guided her backwards, legs tangling in discarded, torn fabric strewn across the floor.
They fell onto the cool sheets in a messy, sated heap. The room was dark, but her eyes were adjusting. She could make out the stark lines of a canopy, the high ceiling. His bedroom. She’d imagined something austere, but it just felt… spacious, and quiet.
Her fingers, almost of their own volition, traced the lines she’d carved down his back. He stiffened, but not from pain. He turned his head on the pillow to look at her. The yellow glow was utterly gone, his eyes just a dark, intense blue in the shadows.
“You’re bleeding,” she said quietly, feeling a faint, sticky wetness.
“So are you.” His hand came up, his thumb brushing over the split on her knuckles from the fight. The touch was so at odds with what had just happened against the door, it made her breath catch.
He propped himself up on an elbow, looking down at her. The moonlight filtering through a high window now caught the ruin of their clothes, the angry red scratches on his skin, the bruises already blooming on her ribs. A different kind of vulnerability settled in the space between them.
His gaze traveled over her face, then lower, across her collarbones, down her torso. It wasn't desire now. It was assessment. It was seeing.
His eyes caught on the left side of her ribcage. She knew what he was seeing. A cluster of pale, jagged lines, old and silvery against her tan. A souvenir from a broken bottle and a husband who thought her defiance needed etching into her skin.
A cold jolt, separate from the chill in the room, shot through her. The aftermath heat drained away, replaced by a familiar, sickening shame. She instinctively shifted, trying to turn, to hide the marks in the dim light.
His hand settled on her hip, stilling her. Not forceful, but undeniable. His touch was warm.
“Lex.” His voice was quiet.
“Don’t.” The word was a plea, sharp and brittle. She stared at the canopy above, refusing to look at him. The feeling of being laid bare was worse than any physical nakedness. “They’re old. It’s nothing.”
“It is not nothing.” He didn’t move his hand. He was studying the scars, his expression unreadable in the dark. “Who did this to you?”
The question hung there. The truth was a stone in her throat. She had carried it alone for so long, this proof of her own failed judgment, of a time she was weak. Frank, with his centuries of power and glacial composure, would never understand that kind of vulnerability. He would see the scars and see proof she was broken, a liability.
The worthy one, kneeling in a candlelit study. The unworthy one, marked on a filthy kitchen floor.
She couldn’t give him the story. The words wouldn't come. But under his silent, patient gaze, she found she couldn't lie, either.
“Someone who said he loved me,” she finally whispered to the ceiling, the admission tearing out of her like shrapnel. “A long time ago.”
She felt the change in him immediately. A stillness that wasn't calm. It was the quiet of a depth charge before it erupts. The air temperature seemed to drop. The gentle warmth of his hand on her hip became something else—a brand, a claim.
“Where is he now?”
There was no emotion in the question. It was flat, final. It was the voice of the creature who had dismantled men in the courtyard without breaking a sweat.
That tone, more than anything, broke through her shame. She turned her head to look at him. His face was in shadow, but she could see the hard line of his jaw.
“Gone,” she said, and it was almost true. “I made him gone. That’s all that matters.”
He was silent for a long moment, his thumb now moving in a slow, deliberate arc over the worst of the scars. The gesture was so tender it made her eyes burn.
“It matters,” he said, the deadly quiet still there beneath the softness. “It matters that he touched you. It matters that he marked you.” He leaned down, his lips brushing the shell of her ear. His next words were a vow, sucked all the air from the room. “He should be grateful he is just ‘gone’.”
She shivered. It wasn’t fear. It was the terrifying, exhilarating realization that his protectiveness wasn’t conditional on her being unblemished. It burned for her because she was, scars and all.
He lowered his head then, and she flinched, expecting a kiss. Instead, he pressed his lips to the very center of the ruined skin on her ribs. The touch was feather-light, reverent. A seal. An absolution.
A ragged sob escaped her before she could choke it back. It was a dam breaking. All the held-in grief, the anger, the fucking loneliness of carrying those scars as a secret testament to her unworthiness, flooded out. She turned into him, burying her face against his chest as the tears came, hot and silent.
He said nothing. He just gathered her closer, one hand cradling the back of her head, his body a solid wall against the remembered pain. He held her through the storm, his own breathing steady and deep against her ear.
When the shaking subsided, leaving her hollow and spent, he finally spoke, his voice a vibration in his chest. “You are the strongest person I have ever known.” He pulled back just enough to look at her, wiping a thumb under her eye. “And you are mine. Every mark. Every scar. Every defiant bone in your body. Do you understand that?”
She nodded, unable to speak, the truth of it settling into her marrow.
“Good.” He settled back, pulling her against him so her head rested on his shoulder. The possessive fury had banked, replaced by a steady, radiating warmth. “Now sleep. The hunt starts at dawn.” His fingers traced idle, soothing patterns on her bare shoulder. “And we are just getting started.”
Lex closed her eyes, the weight of his arm a comfort, the ghost of his kiss on her scar a promise. For the first time in years, she felt not just protected, but truly seen. And she was not afraid.