The Broken Children

-Roxanne-

"Roxy, it's me," he calls from the other side of the door.

She smiles as she wakes from her seat, hurrying to let him in. If he's home it means the battle is over and that they're the victors. She's been waiting all night, and now the dawn is just peaking in through the windows, but at least Lysander's come home at last.

The door slides open as she turns the key in the lock, and she feels her joy turn to ash in her mouth when she sees him. He's identical to her lover, standing in her doorway covered in dried blood, clad in a pair of torn jeans that don't go past his calves. His eyes are amber where Lysander's are blue, and his hair falls in matted locks to his shoulders.

"You're not Lysander," she gasps, stepping away till her back is flush against the counter. Trembling fingers close around her wand, and she raises it to his face.

"Took you long enough, Roxy?" giggles Lorcan. Then he lunges, his yellowish claws caked with grime, but he's slashing at empty air. She whirls, dropping to a crouch and throwing out her hand, her palm slapping against his belly and throwing him off balance.

"Where is he?" she shrieks, even though she knows, dammit, she knows that he isn't coming back. Before she can react, his knee catches her in his temple and she finds herself flying across the floor, her wand clattering from her grasp.

"Some of him is in Dominique." Lorcan grins as he advances, licking his lips and contemplating her like one would a juicy steak. "Most of him is at the Ministry, and the rest well . . . it's right here." He pats his lean stomach, and he cackles.

"You monster," she yells, staggering to her feet and grabbing Lysander's knife from the window seat, the silver blade glinting in the rays of the morning sun.

"You say that like it's a bad thing," laughs the werewolf before he pounces, but she pirouettes out of the way, the razor sharp blade hissing across his arm as he regains his footing. Then she flourishes out her hand and they erupt from the ground, sticky, black and dripping with malignity, the tendrils of shadow wrapping around his wrists and ankles and hoisting him into the air.

"Kinky." He winks at her, but she smirks and flexes her wrist, and then the tentacles are cutting into his skin, their sticky bodies sharper than Goblin-Forged Steel.

"You're going to die here," she snarls, her head pounding from the effort of summoning so much darkness to do her bidding.

"You wanna know my brother said before I killed him?" asks Lorcan, wincing as the tendrils of shadow cut into his flesh, feasting on his blood as they hold him suspended in the air. "He said that you were waiting for him, and that he needed to get back home."

Tears sparkle in her eyes, droplets of liquid crystal running down her cheeks as she clenches her fists, causing the inky tentacles to tighten upon his skin. Her breathing is heavy, but she delights in his agony, because Lysander always tells that she gives as good as she gets.

"And I told him," spits Lorcan, his spittle tinted scarlet, "That you were going to be waiting for a long time . . . that you were going to be waiting until hell freezes over."

"You bastard," she whispers, her glare intensifying, forcing the tentacles to wind their way up his arms and legs. His skin parts like water as they make their way up his body, and then his eyes fill with pleading as he realises what comes next.

"They're going to slip inside you," Roxanne simpers, running the silver blade across his chest and smirking as he howls with pain. "They're going to cut you open from the inside out, and you're going to be conscious the entire time."

"Roxy . . . please," he shrieks, his amber eyes wide as he writhes in exquisite torment, struggling to escape his dark bonds. He's screaming, and there are footfalls on the steps as his reinforcements arrive, but she just laughs and raises her knife.

The door blasts off its hinges but Roxanne is already falling, the silver hilt sticking out of her heart, her blood trickling across the cold floor and mingling with the growing pool of blood and other visceral fluids beneath Lorcan.

After all, she is the only one who can call the tentacles off . . . and she knows that the others can no doubt force her into doing just that, but only if she's still alive when they to her.

.o0o.

-Written for the Weird Daily Prompt Thing. Prompt: Tentacles-