I didn’t contradict her. She was too young to know sometimes it was the only way.
She talked around a bite of food. “Them Theridiidae bastards did it. Always thought they were better than us, working up here for the Araneidae, and what did they go and do? Broke their oaths. They sacked the city—” she pointed up, “—the one up there, killed tons of people before my kin arrived to stop them. Now here we are.”
After assuring her I shared her admiration for Mimetidae prowess, I clicked my tongue. “It’s a pity they never found the poisoner.” I added, “With the riots, it could have been anyone.”
Throwing back her drink, my guest swallowed the last of her wrap and began eyeing mine.
I offered it to her, waiting until she got the first mouthful down before clearing my throat.
“Oh, they found them. It was Maven Lourdes’s sister and a Theridiidae guard she was fu—” Her cheeks glowed. “I mean to say they were in a relationship, a secret one. I guess he thought by killing the old maven, his girl would become the new one. Or maybe he was after Lourdes for himself.” She shrugged. “Don’t know, and I guess it doesn’t matter. He’s dead and Pascale’s, well, no one knows.”
I laced my voice with a dollop of curiosity, careful to arrange my features just so. It wouldn’t do to seem too curious about Pascale. “If she helped kill her parents, wouldn’t she have been punished?”
Gods knew she would be once I found her.
“Araneidae are soft,” she said again, slowly, as if I hadn’t understood her the first time. “I never saw her. She was gone before I got here. All I know is what I’ve heard, and that’s the weirdest part. I heard they locked her in her room, like the spoiled brat she must have been. One day there’s an order not to enter the west end under any circumstances. Guards were posted there and everything. A week later, there’s an order for the west end to be tidied.” She dusted her hands. “No guards, no Pascale.”
I stood to pace, biting my thumbnail. “She can’t have vanished.”
She went to her feet. “I’ll tell you what I think.”
I waited.
“I think they killed her.” She straightened her clothes. “There’s plenty who have heard the weird noises down in the west end. I think it’s her spirit and that she’s haunting this bloody nest for revenge.”
Suppressing the urge to laugh, I covered my smile with a hand. “That would be terrible.”
“Nah.” Her shoulders slumped when she glanced at the door. “Losing my job, that’s terrible.”
“You haven’t lost it yet. I won’t say anything about what we talked about today, I swear it.”
“I appreciate it, I do.” She sighed. “If not you today, then it will be someone else tomorrow.”
I circled around to get between her and the door. “Can I ask one more question before you go?”
Another careless roll of her shoulders. “Don’t see why not.”
“How did you earn money in Cathis?”
“I raised fowl.” She grinned. “Harvested the eggs and sold them. That was my favorite part.”
“Why didn’t you bring them with you?” I leaned against the door. “Surely there’s room here.”
“The plague killed the lot of them.” Her smile slipped. “If I had stayed…”
She would have died too. There was no cure for the yellow death, at least not as far as I knew.
“I’ve kept you long enough.” I showed her into the hall. “Thank you for keeping me company.”
“It was nice having someone to talk to.” She gestured around. “Someone who isn’t part of all this.”
I leaned against the doorframe, watching her go.
“So you aren’t adverse to company after all.” Armand stepped from the shadows. “Just mine.”
“You followed me.” I don’t know why I was surprised.
“You weren’t feeling well.” He came closer. “Then you vanished. Call me concerned.”
“You could have your pick of females.” They were putty in his very capable hands. “Why me?”
“If I knew that,” he said, “I wouldn’t be humiliating myself chasing after you to get the answer.”
“Humility has to be a new sensation for someone with so many admirers.”
He cocked his head. “Jealous?”
I scoffed. “Those females line up and pay for the privilege of speaking to you.”
“No.” His voice lowered by degrees. “They pay gold for the right to gawk at me.”
I pushed from the frame. “Doesn’t that bother you?”
“What if it does? What can I do about it?” He spread his hands. “Marriage or priesthood. Those are my options, because as long as I’m single, that same line will form every evening. Are you as willing to slide on my gold band as they are? Because I’m no saint.”
I retreated behind the safety of my threshold. “You’re being dramatic.”
“Dramatic is one female tripping another because I dared speak to her in particular.”
“Ah.” I touched the sore spot on my skull. “So you did notice.”
“I did.” He frowned while I rubbed the tender area. “But at the time her interference suited me.”
I laughed at him and folded my arms over my chest. “You are too used to getting what you want.”
“Perhaps I am.” His lips curved. “Yet the one thing I want now doesn’t want to be gotten.”
“Is that it?” I genuinely wondered if I had figured out this new Armand. “I told you no when we met and your pride can’t handle it. Will you hound me until I surrender?”
He came one step nearer. “You were right to tell me no, you were right to shut your door in my face this morning and you would be well within your rights to slam it in my face now.”
“But?”
“I don’t think you will.” He braced his palm to one side of my door. “Whatever this is, I think you feel it too.”
I gestured between us. “This is nothing.”
He took my hand. “This is everything.”
I yanked it back. “Sex is not everything.”
“True,” he agreed, “but it’s not nothing either.”
“Are you listening to what you’re saying?” I tapped the side of his head. “Do you hear yourself?”
His cocky grin stretched his cheeks. “I like the sound of my voice if that’s what you’re asking.”
He kept closing the distance, heading toward my room as if invited.
I put my hand on his chest. “I’m not in the habit of inviting strange males into my bedroom.”
“I distinctly remember introducing myself.” He bent down to me. “That means it’s safe to invite me in.”
Tempting. Gods, his offer was tempting. To have him just once more, to see how my memory of him compared. What would be the harm? My leads on Pascale were exhausted. The only person who I wielded any influence over stood in the hall facing me, wanting me, and he held all of the answers.
I kept him still. “Why did you make me that necklace?”
He shrugged. “You inspired me.”
I rolled my eyes. “Just how often are you inspired?”
“I could hardly be an artist if I lacked vision.” He cupped my cheek. “But you are the first female who has tempted my muse.”
I wet my lips. “My sister…”
“Lourdes has plans for her tonight. She won’t return until after dark.” His mouth brushed mine. “We have hours. Spend them with me. Let me discover what it is about you that drives me mad.”
He made it sound so simple. Perhaps it was. I couldn’t have Armand, but Nicolette could. She could sample the pleasures of a handsome male’s attention as I had never allowed her to.
I had kept us both faithful to the memory of Armand, and here he was. Here I was, as I would never be again. Salticidae believed in marriage before sex. In my heart, Armand and I had been as good as wed. This was my last chance to enjoy my husband’s body, because there was no divorce in Salticidae society, an
d even if there had been, I had already tried and failed to cut him from my heart.
“One time.” Warning bells clanged in my head. This was a bad idea, a horrible idea.
“One afternoon,” he coaxed, a wicked gleam in his eye. “Once is not enough.”
“Two hours,” I countered, fearful of how much damage he could deal my heart in so short a time.
His teeth scraped my throat. “I can work with that.”
Fisting his collar, I pulled him inside the room then slammed him against the door.
His hands went to the hem of my shirt, lifting it higher, until his fingers brushed my breast band.
“I need a moment.” I couldn’t risk him finding me armed. I planted my palms on his chest. “Don’t move.”
I backed away, and he tried to follow. The hunger in his eyes made it hard to think, to speak.
I stumbled over a chair, grasped its back to keep from falling and came away with a scarf in my hand.
Heart racing, I patted the seat. When Armand got near enough, I shoved him down, captured his wrists and tied them behind his back. One more knot secured him to the chair as he tested his bonds.
I circled around to his front. “I told you not to move.”
He continued to flex his arms. “I told you that, and look where it got me.”
“Tied up in my room.” I tapped my lips. “Not a bad deal from where I’m standing.”
“From where I’m sitting, I can’t complain.” He grunted. “About my hands…”
“What about them?” I eased behind his back, out of sight. My trunk was still open, so I flung my clothes and weapons into it, taking care to situate the vial before I shut it as quietly as I could. I kept a hand on the lid, debating, but the preventative I’d brought with me was as effective before intercourse as it was afterward. Considering its foul taste, I would do Armand a favor and wait until after he left to put my herbs to use. My robe lay crumpled on the bed. I slid it on and padded around to face Armand. Until that moment, I wasn’t sure I wanted this, wanted him.
The rapid rise and fall of his chest, the dilation of his gorgeous lavender eyes, I couldn’t resist.
He was air to me, and I’d gone too long without breathing him in.
I stood before him, running my fingers down the lapels of my robe. My nipples pearled beneath his gaze. I rubbed those too, recalling how he loved to nip and tease me into orgasm with his mouth.
His voice broke. “You don’t play fair.”
“Life isn’t fair.” I untied my belt. “Why should I be?”
The robe slid from my shoulders to pool at my feet. His eyes were drawn straight to my sex, and I chuckled as his lips went slack. He must not have expected my hair to be teal and indigo everywhere…
His gaze was as tangible as a caress. “There’s something you should know.”
“Oh?” I rolled my nipples between my fingers. “What’s that?”
“I tie knots for a living.” His muscles bunched, and my scarf drifted to the floor. “Yours need work.”
He was on me before I registered he had moved. His mouth covered mine, swallowing my gasp. My head hit the wall, but dazed as I was, I didn’t care. The taste of him was on my tongue, and I was desperate for more. I clawed at his shirt, flung it aside. His hips pinned me to the wall as he shivered.
“Pants.” He cursed, his lips mashed to mine. He had tied a knot in his laces.
“You’re right.” I laughed, gasping for breath, grasping for him. “Your knots are much better.”
His response was a hard nip to my collarbone that melted my knees.
I reached blindly beside us, knocking odds and ends off the dresser until I felt my shears.
Armand paled when he saw where I was headed.
“Stop.” He caught me by the wrist. “It’s Araneidae silk. You can’t cut it. Not with those.”
“I should have remembered that.” I tossed the shears on the floor behind us. “Are you all right?”
He blinked down at me. “I think my life just flashed before my eyes.”
I patted his chest. “What did you see?”
“I’m not sure.” He reached down to check himself. “I closed them.”
Rolling my eyes at him, I pushed him back and forced myself to take a breath while I tackled the knot he had tied. When the laces came undone, I shoved his pants down his hips and took his hard length in hand. I stroked it once, running my thumb over the head.
“Nicolette.”
“Hmm?”
He braced his forehead against the wall behind me. His hot breath shuddered over my shoulder.
“I want—” He bucked into my hand. “Gods damn it, I want you.”
Grasping my waist, he lifted me higher, parted my thighs with his and plunged home. I cried out when his hips started moving. Head thrown back, I was shocked when he struck. His fangs sank deep in my neck, holding me steady for his onslaught as though I were his prey. His venom stung in my veins. I had forgotten the heady rush of his poison, the way it made my sex clench and heart trip. He groaned at my ear, slid his hands down my sides to cup my arse and pin me as his thrusts grew harsher.
Tears pricked my eyes. I bit them back, thankful when he lowered his head, when he sank fangs into the tender skin of my breast and let his tongue caress away the pain. I arched against his mouth, into his bite, and when his thumb at last parted the lips of my sex, I exploded around him.
He came later, much later, and several times after that.
It was a well-spent afternoon by any standard.
Armand’s snoring jarred me awake. When I tensed, his hand tightened its possessive hold on my left breast. Shifting onto my side, I winced as a spangle cut into my hip. We’d never made it to the bed. The clothes I had discarded last night were the cushion we lay on, and the ornaments were sharp.
Armand nude was a sight worth savoring. Claw marks reddened his chest and flanks. His mouth was swollen from my kisses and hung open, hence the rendition of an ursus in its death throes.
Lifting his arm, I slid from under it and fought to keep my sore legs under me.
A bath would have been divine, but I settled for using the rose-scented water left in my basin to wash away all traces of my folly, except the blemish left on my heart. That stain refused to budge no matter how I scrubbed. Foolish to think I could be so close to him, touch him and remain unaffected.
“It’s too early in the day for remorse.” Armand pushed upright with a grunt.
He sat on a blanket of my gowns, his legs crossed, his hair mussed, looking utterly ridiculous. My heart really shouldn’t have tumbled at the uncertainty in his gaze.
“The day is almost over.” Difficult as it was telling time without the sun, it must be near dark.
He stared at me until I had to look away. “Do you regret what happened?”
“I gave you two hours.” I rescued my robe from the knob of the dresser where it hung, and eased into it before using the detangling of my hair to avoid Armand ruining my afterglow. “It’s time to go.”
“Where are we going?”
His voice came from behind me. His palm slid across my stomach, through the part in my robe. I shivered when his hand lowered, caressing the crease in my thigh. I popped his wrist with my brush.
I gestured around us. “I have to tidy this before Maisy arrives.”
He winced at the mess we’d made. “We employ people happy to perform that service for you.”
“I met one such person, remember?” He must have seen Holly leave my room. “This isn’t her mess.”
“Then I’ll help you.” He waved a pair of my undergarments like a flag. “It’s the least I can do.”
Heat burning in my cheeks, I snatched them from him. “Are you always so hard to get rid of?”
He appeared to give the matter genuine consideration. “I’m harder since meeting you.”
There was a time he couldn’t scrape me from his boots fast enough. What had changed?
A pang rocked me
on my heels. The girl I had been… That girl was no one. Was the prestige I’d cultivated as Nicolette, companion to one of the brightest musical minds of our age, so impressive as to bypass the humble origins he must expect from me? Was that the difference? She—I—still lacked the most basic qualifications as a potential wife. I could not spin Araneidae silk. I could not produce the hormone required to nurture productivity among their spinners. This—us—it would never work.
Beneath this façade…I was still me.
And I had a task to perform. It was time I got back to it.
“Has that line had as much practice as you have?” I eyed my trunk, wishing I could dress.
“You’re upset.” He stood and pulled on his pants. “Is that why? You think this meant nothing?”
I snorted. “You’ve known me the better part of a day.”
“Sometimes I wonder.” He tilted his head, studying me. “You remind me of someone.”
I faked surprise. “You remember their faces?”
“Their names too.” He sighed. “The list is much shorter than you would believe.”
“There’s no need to recite it.” I held up my hands. “I trust you.”
“No you don’t.” He scoffed. “You’re tricking me again.”
“Fine.” The words popped out of my mouth. “Who do I remind you of?”
“A childhood friend.” His voice grew coarse. “She passed away some time ago.”
Pressure mounted under my breastbone until I reached up to rub it away. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you.” He cleared his throat. “I suppose that is the fate of those left behind, to glimpse the departed in strangers’ faces.”
Perverse curiosity forced me to ask, “Is that why you’re here with me now?”
“I laid that ghost to rest,” he said softly. “I’m here with you because there’s nowhere else I would rather be.”
“Armand—” I massaged my temples. “Never mind, it wouldn’t do any good.”
He walked up behind me, wrapped his arms around me and pressed his lips to where it hurt.
“What were you going to say?” He nuzzled my jaw. “Tell me. I can handle it.”
“Why pursue me?” I turned to face him. “You and I, we don’t work. Why pretend?”
Araneae Nation: The Complete Collection Page 87