Liliana smiled fiercely, showing the wolf-kin her fangs. They might be smaller than his, but they were needle sharp. She looked way up and met his eyes for a moment in challenge.
Her stomach growled loudly with hunger as the adrenaline rush began to wear off.
That was not helpful. How am I supposed to be intimidating with my limbs shaking and my tummy rumbling?
The trapped wolf-kin struggled frantically against the web, panting puffs of fog, white showing around his blue eyes.
Well, he does seem intimidated.
His human face with its cute, freckled nose made him seem young. She didn’t believe he had yet seen thirty years. She opened her third eyes so he could not lie to her, and she saw the sickly green color of terror shading his inner self.
The wolf’s fear pleased her and disturbed her at the same time. Uncomfortably, she dropped her human eyes to the pulse pounding in his throat but kept her third eyes open. She needed to see the truth of him.
Peter Teague stilled when it was clear he couldn’t get free. “Anna, let me go.” His calm, reasonable voice betrayed none of the fear making his pulse race.
Lillian scoffed. “I am not stupid, and I am not crazy!” Her voice shook as she gritted out the words. Between hunger and cold and the aftermath of combat, Liliana’s hands were far from the only thing trembling, but she faced her enemy defiantly. “If I let you go, I know you will still try to kill me.” Her hands clenched in angry fists.
Does he think I’m stupid?
“I just want to talk to you.” His breath fogged in the column of light from the LED on his gun. His deep voice sounded soothing, like she was a wild animal he tried to calm.
Pride and anger straightened her spine to her full height, about even with the wolf’s shoulder. “Fine. Talk to me then, Celtic wolf. Talk to me without your weapons or your fangs.”
“Did you kill those soldiers?” he asked her.
“No. I did not.” She forced herself to meet his eyes again. If she could make him believe her, then they could both go home.
“Then why did you run? Why did you set a trap for me?”
Her shoulders sagged. “I knew you wouldn’t believe me. I know what you are. The colonel who owns your allegiance sent you to kill the murderer. You would not take my word over your employer’s. And he did not believe me either.”
He clenched his teeth. “No one sent me, and no one paid me. I’m no mercenary.” His mind filled with images reminding Liliana of her nightmares. Red wolf mercenary packs slaughtering Others without mercy. His memories came from snippets of old combat footage. His horror at those images came close to the intensity of her own, and she had lived it.
She feared the monsters.
Peter Teague feared becoming a monster.
That surprised her. She looked deeper into him, curious about a red wolf who refused to kill for money. She saw unshaded honesty. He genuinely believed what he said.
Yet he clearly worked for the powerful Sidhe colonel, even if the Fae insisted he wasn’t paying the Celtic wolf to hunt her. The wolf-kin thought he was there simply to stop more soldiers from dying, but Liliana’s eyes showed her clearly the handsome colonel telling him and Sergeant Zoe Giovanni about the problem. He didn’t promise Peter Teague money, but he did ask them to stop whoever was killing his men.
“You think I am a widow spider.” Liliana shrugged. Even if the red wolf only sought to protect innocents, he still wanted her dead. “You would have killed me if I hadn’t run.”
“What’s a widow spider?”
Liliana tilted her head. “Has no one taught you about the drinkers of life?” Vast knowledge of Others was passed down in the Celtic wolf packs. The wolves knew the secrets of the Others, their habits and weaknesses. That knowledge, carefully guarded by the red wolf packs, was part of what made them such valuable mercenaries.
He shook his head. “My mother and father were killed by unseelie Fae when I was little, and they were the last of our pack. I was adopted and raised by a human woman who didn’t know anything about Others.”
“Oh.” Liliana felt oddly sad for the orphaned wolf, raised with no knowledge of his heritage. “I, too, was raised by a second mother who was not of my species after my other two parents were killed.”
“I’m sorry.” His face and voice sounded sincere. But he was certain she’d murdered soldiers and would murder more if he didn’t stop her. He was still determined to get free and either kill her or take her to Detective Jackson to put in a cage.
Liliana could not let herself like this wolf. He was her enemy. It wouldn’t hurt to educate him though. “When a widow spider is pregnant, she must inject into male Others acidic venom that slowly dissolves bones and organs while maintaining life as long as possible. Then, she drinks the men’s dissolved insides while they’re still alive. If the pregnant widow spider does not do this, she and many of her unborn babies will die.”
“And you’re not pregnant?”
Liliana ducked her head, embarrassed. She was not old enough yet to be pregnant, not for four more years when she reached her one hundred fiftieth birthday. But she did not have to tell her enemy that. “I am not a widow spider. Just as you are a Celtic wolf, not an ordinary wolf-kin. I am a different kind of spider-kin, a spider seer.” Liliana opened all her eyes at once and showed him.
“Whoa.” The wolf looked at her face with wonder even in the midst of his fear. “I just saw glimpses of your eyes this morning, behind the veil. I didn’t get a chance to really look at them.”
As the wolf admired her eyes, she looked deeper into him with all her eyes at once. She sought not just to know if he spoke truth or lies, but who he truly was inside.
First, his high intelligence was obvious. His mind churned through possibilities and probabilities based on the evidence he’d seen. Images of the gruesome murders flashed past. A woman about her height and build had been caught on a poor resolution security camera at the night club and described by witnesses at the basketball game. Street and drone cameras had not been able to track where she took the men. They were found later, dead in hotel rooms.
His suspicious, calculating mind was exactly what she would expect from someone who worked as a scientific consultant with the military police.
His heart, however, surprised her. It shone with courage and a compelling desire to protect those who were weaker. That part fit what she knew of the origin of red wolves as protectors of the ancient Celtic villages before their corruption by greed, so it wasn’t entirely unexpected. The surprising thing was love. He glowed with it. Liliana saw flashes of a golden-haired human man with a gentle smile and a quick wit.
Liliana had not expected a deadly predator to have such a generous heart. The heart she saw did not fit the legends of ruthless mercenaries who killed without conscience. Nor did they match the ugly memories she had of the ones who murdered her parents and many of her family and childhood friends.
“Did you come here to kill me?” she asked him.
He looked away from her face. “Not unless I had to.”
That was not completely true. Yes, he had come to question her, to possibly bring her back to talk to Detective Jackson or Sergeant Giovanni if he could. But he’d come armed to the teeth and expecting a trap. The moment she attacked him, he considered that evidence enough to kill her.
The tall, handsome Fae colonel with the scars knew what Peter Teague was. She saw no evidence in the wolf’s mind that he knew his colonel wasn’t human, but memories of the officer shielding him from the consequences of hunting Other predators were clear. The colonel covered for him in the past, even when he’d killed with claw and fang. The red wolf felt confident the colonel would cover for whatever Peter Teague had to do to stop a spider-kin from killing his soldiers.
So, the Fae colonel protected him. Let him hunt who he chose. Then all the colonel had to do was ask when he needed someone killed.
Sneaky.
Also brilliant.
The longer Liliana studied the wolf-kin, the more deeply his soul tinged sickly green with fear.
Behind his back where he thought she couldn’t see, he twisted his wrists, struggling to reach one of his knives or the Taser in his belt. He conversed to keep her distracted, but each passing moment brought him closer to despair as her webs refused to budge.
Liliana was not an intimidating person. She knew this. She was dangerous, sure, but she was not all that frightening.
You are one of the strongest of beast-kin. Why do you fear me?
She saw the images of the soldier victims in his mind, and her fourth eyes followed them back in time against her will to the moment of their death. Death was hard to see around or past. It always overwhelmed her fourth vision.
“It is a horrible death.” Liliana shuddered. “Dissolved slowly from the inside while still alive, screaming silently because damaged vocal cords cannot force out sound.” Liliana squeezed closed all her eyes to shut out the horror, but it was too late. She would see the poor soldiers’ desiccated faces frozen in silent screams in new nightmares now. The one thing Liliana could never do was unsee.
Peter Teague swallowed hard enough for her to hear.
Focusing on the red wolf, she opened her eyes again, all of them. Sweat beaded on his upper lip. His pulse raced even faster. His breath fogged in small pants in the cold, damp night air. The greenish-yellow tinge of terror overwhelmed his noble soul, giving him a ghostly aura.
To a man who worked on criminal investigations, too much knowledge of a crime was evidence of guilt. Liliana’s detailed description of the manner of the victim’s death cemented her guilt in his mind. The fact that she immobilized him with her web made the wolf-kin’s heart race.
He believed her to be the killer.
And he would be the next victim to die screaming silently.
She touched his cheek. “If I must kill you, it will be quick and clean. Not like that.”
The wolf’s lips twisted in an ironic grin, but he still glowed with fear. “Thanks, I guess.”
She’d failed to reassure him. She didn’t know how to communicate that she didn’t want to kill someone whose inner face shone with love and courage, even if he was the same kind of beast-kin that killed her family. He had not killed them, and she was not going to judge this man by the actions of his kin.
With all her eyes open, the shining soul she saw washed away the memory of ugly death. “You are…beautiful.”
“Um…oookay.” His mind stumbled in confusion at what seemed to him like a complete non sequitur. He jumped through possible motivations for her comment. She glimpsed images in his mind of serial killers who developed twisted sexual fascination with their victims.
Liliana sighed in frustration. When she planned this trap, the spider-kin believed she would have to kill the red wolf. He knew what Liliana was. If she let him go, she would never be safe again in Fayetteville, or probably anywhere in North Carolina.
But she didn’t want to kill him.
Liliana rubbed her arms to ease the chill. Now what would she do?
Killing the brave wolf-kin just because he was inconvenient was not an option. She was ashamed of herself for having thought that way.
There was only one choice. She would have to give up her comfortable home, leave her clients, and begin a new life somewhere else. Perhaps she could tolerate living with a circus again for a time, especially if she could settle in one place, perform in front of holovid cameras instead of staring eyes.
The freedom of flying on the high trapeze and dancing in the sky held only by silken sashes was something she missed. And the cats. Liliana’s father and brothers were lion-kin, and her second mother was jaguar-kin, so big cats were like extended family. When her father died, her second mother, Ixchel, carried on the animal tamer act with Liliana’s brothers, Jason and Petros. Liliana had often snuck into the cages at night to sleep beside the true lions when nightmares plagued her. The huge, lazy cats always seemed to recognize her as family, cuddling with the strange little spider girl and guarding her sleep as if she were one of their cubs.
Circus life wasn’t all bad. Being around big cats again would be like visiting old friends.
She tapped her chin. What should she do with the red wolf? He still believed her to be a killer, so she couldn’t let him go until she was far away and safe.
“Are you going to let me go?” the wolf-kin asked, hopefully, as she stood lost in thought.
“I like tigers,” Liliana said.
“Huh?”
She had made a mental jump and left him behind. Again. Their last few exchanges could not accurately be called communicating. The more eyes she had open, the more pieces of her mind operated at once and the less her mind worked like a human mind, or like the minds of most Others.
She closed her second and fourth eyes to help focus her mind, isolating herself with him in the tiny island of white light.
“Tigers are beautiful and deadly.” She reached up to push a lock of the fierce wolf’s bright red hair away from his pretty blue eyes. “I have a tiger in a trap.” She ran her fingernails along the side of his scalp as if he were a pet, hoping it would calm his fear. “I do not wish to harm this tiger, but if I let it free, it will eat me.”
“I’m not like that.” She saw a shading of hurt in him, as if she insulted him by being afraid of him, but the sickly green of his fear faded a bit. Knowing she feared him seemed to make her less scary.
“Celtic wolves killed my parents, most of my brothers and sisters and their children. You are the terror of my childhood.” She petted his hair again, because she liked how it felt and because it seemed to calm him.
He ducked his head a little in shame. “I know what Celtic wolves have done, historically, but I’m not them. I’m no mercenary. I’m not even a soldier.” His jaw muscles tightened, and he lifted his chin, stubborn pride streaking white-blue through his aura. “I refuse to kill anyone just because someone orders it. That’s why I never enlisted, even though both my parents were soldiers. If being different was enough reason to kill someone, then someone should have killed me a long time ago.”
Liliana tugged on the silken lines around the wolf’s throat to loosen where they cut into his skin. It was hard not to like this wolf. “You believe I’m the widow spider who ate soldiers, so you will kill me.”
“You’re the only spider-kin I know of in Fayetteville or anywhere around Fort Liberty,” he pointed out. He had sensible reasons for his belief. He offered them to her as both explanation and to give her a chance to refute them.
“Spider-kin are rare. I do not believe there are any other seers on this continent.” She carefully did not mention her surviving sister and niece in Europe. Better if no red wolf ever knew of their existence. “I only know of one widow spider in North Carolina, but just because I only know of one does not mean there aren’t many more. Widow spiders like to nest near each other in groups.”
Perhaps Lady Daphne, the widow spider, could explain to the wolf that Liliana could not possibly be the murderer. If he became convinced Liliana was not a killer, he wouldn’t hunt her. She also didn’t want this orphan wolf to think badly of her.
The wolf’s mind considered the possibility he had the wrong spider. “Where can I find this widow spider?”
“Lady Daphne is not your killer either. She lives in Raleigh, which is more than an hour away by car and twenty minutes by bullet train. She only has sex with other women, so she cannot be pregnant.” Liliana was not particularly fond of Lady Daphne, but she would not knowingly betray anyone but a bitter enemy to a hunting red wolf. “If you give me your word you will not kill her, I will tell you where she is.”
“I give you my word I won’t kill her, unless I must to keep her from killing me or someone else,” the red wolf swore carefully.
Liliana smiled. Precise oaths like that were the kind sworn by people who kept their word. She told him where in Raleigh to find Lady Daphne’s hotel and night club. It was called The Mirror. Raleigh was far enough away from Fayetteville, she doubted Lady Daphne knew anything useful about the soldiers’ murders. At least she could confirm the nature of widow spiders, and how they differed from spider seers.
“Is there anything you can tell me that might help me find the real killer?” he asked her.
She could see he still didn’t trust her, but he had seen her eyes, all of them. He believed she could see what he could not and was willing to give her a chance to convince him.
She chuckled at the thought she saw form in his head. It wasn’t like he was going anywhere in any case.
“Pregnant widow spiders kill only males. You said the widow spider has killed two men?” Liliana asked.
“Six soldiers went missing. Four bodies have turned up so far, and we suspect the others are dead as well, but we haven’t found them yet. We could only locate witnesses or evidence for two of the murders, and they both involved a woman who looked like you.”
“They were all Others, yes? No Normals?”
“Yeah. That was weird. There’s at least a hundred Normal soldiers for every Other. Private Simmons was raccoon-kin. Corporal Araus was crow-kin. The other two we found were Fae of both courts, a seelie sand-djinn and an unseelie pine goblin. So the killings are unlikely to be politically motivated. I don’t know about the two soldiers we haven’t found yet. I can’t test every soldier on the base for divergent biology, but they all reported to Colonel Bennet.”
In his mind, Liliana saw the colonel with the scarred face talking to Peter Teague. “Do whatever is necessary. I won’t lose any more of my team.” The tall Sidhe looked upset and very angry.
“If the widow spider has killed so few men, then more must die,” Liliana told Pete, her mind still lingering on the image of the intriguing Fae colonel. “They will all be Others. If she does not consume one Other male each week until she gives birth, her unborn children will begin to die. If she does not feed for too long, then the widow spider herself will die.”
She saw his heart that had begun to soften toward her now harden to sharp edges with the wolf’s determination to stop her before she could murder another innocent soldier.
Liliana sighed in frustration. The more information she gave him, the more Peter Teague believed she was the murderer he sought.
“Why are you so certain I am the killer?” she asked him. He might refuse to answer, but from five decades of coaching clients in the right questions, she knew it never hurt to ask what she really wanted to know.
He shrugged as best he could with his arms bound awkwardly under her web. “I only have your word for the whole widow spider thing. You’re the only spider-kin I’ve ever met or heard of. You match the general appearance of the killer and know intimate details about the killer’s MO. The victims were wrapped in webbing like this, and you’re carrying around the murder weapon in your mouth.”
“Oh!” Liliana put her hand over her mouth. Her fangs. He believed she was the killer because of her webbing and her fangs. “But my venom is not poisonous!”
“Sure,” the wolf said. He didn’t believe her.
If she freed this tiger, he would still hunt her down and eat her. She had to convince him she was not the murderer he sought, or no matter where she went, she would spend the next thirty years waking up screaming from nightmares of him coming to get her.
“People seek out spider seers for two things: our sight and our venom.”
“You lost me again.”
“I am sorry.” She pulled on her sleeves, wishing she had chosen a warmer top to wear. “I do not speak in riddles intentionally.” Perhaps if she were better at communication, she would be able to convince him with words. Everything she said just seemed to be making things worse.
The only way is to show him.
He was beautiful, both on the surface and beneath. To share venom with him would be a pleasant thing. Once the idea occurred to her, Liliana found she wanted it.
A cold breeze stirred the branches of the pine trees, making her shiver harder. She hugged herself tight and hesitated.
To share venom with someone unwilling was not an honorable act.
To kill him when a less drastic way of convincing him of her innocence existed would be even more dishonorable.
I should choose the lesser evil.
She smiled wide, showing him her fangs. The nightmare was at her mercy. Fear haunted his pretty pale blue eyes. Instead of trying to soothe it, she let herself enjoy the thrill of power it gave her. Her nightmare feared her.
She placed her hand on his chest, over his rapidly beating heart. His throat was tempting to bite, where the pulse raced, but she might puncture a vein that way. Muscle was safer.
“Uh, I thought we were just talking here.” The wolf’s eyes widened as she stepped closer.
She felt his powerful muscles bunch and tighten under her hand, but the bonds would hold, even against a Celtic wolf’s strength. Liliana had been afraid when she bound him. She’d tied him with enough silk to hold a troll.
“I must show you I am not the killer.”
The wolf swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing. “How’re you going to do that exactly?”
“I will show you the difference between a bite from a widow spider and the bite of a spider seer.”
His voice went up in pitch. “You’re going to bite me?” He struggled frantically against her webbing, but it didn’t budge.
She smiled with triumph over a hundred years of night terrors. This particular nightmare would never disturb her sleep again.
But this brave man was not a bad dream or a paid killer. She stroked his face. “The venom of a spider seer frees the inhibitions and the mind. It soothes and heals the body. It is a thing normally shared with one who is loved. It will not harm you.”
“How about I just take your word for that? You don’t have to…”
Liliana shook her head. “That is a lie. You only fear my bite because you still believe it will kill you.”
“Well, yeah.” He chuckled nervously and licked his lips. “Like you said, horrible way to die.”
Liliana pushed the synth-leather of his jacket and some of her webbing to one side and cut the neck of his T-shirt open with her arm blade, baring part of his shoulder. Warm smooth skin soothed her cold hands.
“Can’t we, um, talk about this?” Peter Teague squeaked.
Nothing she said would quell his belief that her fangs were deadly murder weapons.
The warm fog of his rapid breaths brushed her cheek as he struggled frantically, even trying to bite her. She stood on tiptoe to reach the thick muscle of his shoulder.
“I do not wish to kill you, nor let you kill me, so...” She bit him.