The Spider Queen

by Emma Slate

“Where am I? How am I…not a spider?”

  He smiled faintly. “Will you sit and eat with me? I’ll explain everything.”

  “Everything?”

  “Everything,” he repeated.

  “You think I’m ready for that? You’ve been holding off telling me…”

  He gestured to the ornately carved chair next to the head of the table. It was huge and too heavy for me to move, but Thane easily slid it back. “If I’d told you all of this, back when you were in Charleston and I was in spider form, how do you think you would’ve reacted?”

  “I would’ve squashed you.”

  A crack of laughter escaped his beautiful mouth. I looked at him. His face had softened, and for a moment, he looked completely unguarded. “I’m unsquashable.”

  I sat down, and Thane scooted the chair closer to the table. My feet didn’t even reach the ground, and I felt like Alice in Wonderland where everything was too big or too small. Thane took his seat, a matching ornate chair, at the head of the long wood table. “Why is everything dark?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The decor.”

  He smiled. “I like it dark.”

  A tremble of awareness skated through my body. I sat up straighter.

  He waved his hand, and in a cloud of black smoke, a plate of food appeared in front of me. A salad sprinkled with bright red seeds and crumbled cheese. Maybe cheese.

  “Underworld goat cheese salad?”

  Thane chuckled. I was ashamed to admit I was growing addicted to the sound.

  “We’re not in the underworld, Poppy.”

  “Where are we?”

  “Eat your salad, and I’ll tell you a story.”

  Chapter 4

  I had an appetite. Apparently my stomach didn’t give a crap that the fate of the world rested on my very narrow shoulders. I picked up my fork and took a bite of the salad. I ate for a few moments and then lifted my eyes to Thane when I realized he wasn’t eating. In fact, there was no plate in front of him. Only a silver chalice.

  “You don’t eat?” I asked.

  “I’ve already had my meal.”

  “Do I want to know?”

  “No.”

  “Okay then.” I went back to my food. “I’m waiting for the story.”

  “I’m trying to find a way to piece it together. It’s…complex. And long. Very long.”

  “May I have something to drink?” I asked.

  A silver goblet appeared in another cloud of dark smoke. “Neat trick,” I muttered, reaching for it.

  “You’ll be able to do it, too. One day.”

  My eyes narrowed. “How?”

  “Being my…fated mate”—he shot me a sensual grin—“has some perks.”

  “What’s a fated mate?” I bypassed the smile but couldn’t ignore the want that rippled through me.

  “Fated mate… Humans call it soul mates.”

  I reached for the chalice and lifted it to my lips. I drank deeply, trying to cover my discomfort. I didn’t know if I believed in soul mates. And even if I did, Thane would not have been my first choice. I bit my tongue to keep from voicing that thought aloud. It wasn’t as if he didn’t know how I felt about him. Or about Hunter.

  “It’s good,” I said, referring to the liquid in the goblet. Everything Thane had given me had been delicious—and the drink was no different. It didn’t taste like wine. It wasn’t fermented.

  “Fruit juice,” he said in explanation. “A pomegranate. Of sorts.”

  “Amazing,” I admitted. I took a moment to examine the chalice. It was also adorned with arachnid carvings. “I’m sensing a theme.”

  He laughed. “God, Poppy. It’s been so long since I’ve felt…” He shook his head as he searched for the words. “When you’ve been imprisoned for as long as I have, you start to lose your sense of self. I’m not human. I was never human. Nor am I a deity, but I am immortal. I can still die. Not without a lot of effort, of course.”

  “Why were you imprisoned then? Instead of outright killed?”

  “I’ll get to that part of the story. Like I said, it’s long and involved. These past many years, I was…diminished. By magic.”

  “Do you suffer bouts of insanity?” I asked quietly. When he spoke, sometimes it didn’t feel like he was speaking to me, but to himself.

  “Yes.” He sighed. “I suppose I should start at the beginning.”

  “All good stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end.” I drank another gulp of juice. It didn’t quench my thirst at all. Instead, it made me want more.

  “Do you believe in Heaven and Hell?” he asked.

  I paused, cocking my head to the side as I replied. “I don’t. I didn’t grow up religious.”

  He leaned back in his chair and peered at me. “After everything you’ve seen—things that are impossible in the mortal realm—you still don’t believe in Heaven and Hell?”

  “Are you going to tell me your story, or do you want to get into a theological debate?” I sniped. I gently pushed away my empty plate, and a moment later, it disappeared. Another took its place. Aromas of delicacies I’d never experienced gently teased my senses. Otherworldly, no doubt.

  “Heaven and Hell do exist, Poppy. The Guardian of the Bridge weighs the souls of the dead, judging them at the end of their lives. Good go to Heaven. Evil go to Hell. You’ve heard of Purgatory, of limbo? This—my domain—is what humans call Purgatory.” He gestured to the room, but clearly he meant beyond.

  “You weigh souls?” I asked, my curiosity piqued. “How?”

  “My spiders. They are the judges. I am merely the lord over them. Or I was, until I was imprisoned. Another took my place and used his own to judge.”

  “There’s another? Like you? One who commands spiders and weighs souls?” I was trying to wrap my brain around his explanation, but like anything to do with Thane, there was a lot to take in.

  “Not another. An imposter. Only the true Guardian of the Bridge can command an army of spiders.”

  “But I called an army of spiders—”

  “I’ll get to that.”

  “Okay,” I said with a nod. “So what is this imposter Guardian using to weigh souls, and how has he gotten away with it for years while you were locked away?”

  Thane sighed and rubbed his forehead. “This is coming out in pieces—and not the way I want it to. My brother, Poppy. My own brother imprisoned me. His name is Xan, and with the help of a powerful mage, he was able to imprison me. The mage wove a spell to make it appear as if Xan were me. His wasps were also charmed. Gods, deities, those that could’ve intervened, had no idea what he’d done.”

  “Why? For power?”

  “To help Lucifer overpower his brother and rule the realm you know as Heaven. Heaven and Hell truly exist Poppy,” he reiterated. “And like Xan, Lucifer has always been jealous of his own brother’s realm. He wants it for himself as Xan wants to be Guardian of the Bridge. But Lucifer wants so much more, and he won’t be happy until he rules over it all.”

  “So Xan betrayed you. And Lucifer plans to betray his own brother, too. A betrayal of two brothers,” I murmured.

  “Yes.” He paused. “Don’t you see, Poppy? A war is brewing between Heaven and Hell, but the battles won’t be waged in either realm.”

  When I frowned in confusion, Thane said, “Earth. The war will rage on Earth, and all of humanity is at stake.”

  It was a heavy thought. Power, greed, jealousy. Maybe they weren’t human emotions at all—maybe they’d belonged to the gods first.

  “How is your brother wrapped up in all of this? Why imprison you and impersonate you?”

  “Remember what I said, for generations Xan has been pretending to be me, the Guardian of the Bridge. Instead of sending evil souls to Hell, he’s been sending them to Heaven to lie in wait like wolves in sheep’s clothing. When the right time comes, Lucifer will start a war, and then his army of evil souls will arise from within and topple Heaven.”

  “A Trojan Horse,�
�� I said in understanding. “How do you know all of this? If you’ve been imprisoned, how do you know this was Xan’s plan?”

  Thane looked away from me to stare off into the distance, like he was envisioning all the things that could come to pass if Lucifer succeeded. “Because we, too, share a mental connection. We’re twins.”

  Chapter 5

  “Identical twins?”

  “No. Fraternal. With the power from the mage, Xan was able to conceal himself and pretended to be me.”

  “So how do we stop all of this? How do we prevent Lucifer and the war from coming to Earth?”

  “Before we can even do anything, we have to free me.”

  “Free you? I thought you were already free?”

  He shook his head. “I am released from my prison. But Xan warded Purgatory so that on the very slim chance someone was able to liberate me, I still wouldn’t be able to leave my realm. A prison within a prison, if you will. We have to break the wards on Purgatory if we have any hope of stopping Xan and Lucifer.”

  “So how do we get out of Purgatory if we can’t leave it?”

  “The prophecy explains how to find the mage who warded my realm. We will find him and release him from Xan’s hold.”

  “Xan’s hold?”

  Thane nodded. “The mage is under Xan’s control. We must free the mage, and when we do, the spell binding us to this realm breaks.”

  “Us? Did you say us?”

  “Yes. Poppy, something happened to you Beyond the Veil—when we were in Queen Aisling’s realm. You’re as trapped as I am, now.”

  “Because I chose to stay,” I said in realization. “Because I…did I really turn into a spider? Or was that just a magical enchantment?”

  “You changed.”

  I inhaled slowly. “Then how am I my human self now?”

  “While in Purgatory we can adopt whatever body we choose. However, while Purgatory is charmed, we can’t leave, and we can only project our spider form to certain humans in the mortal realm.”

  “You mean Earth,” I clarified. “Like how you were a spider with me when I was in Charleston. It was how you could communicate with Hunter, too, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes.” Thane nodded. “We have to journey across Purgatory. On foot. When we find the mage and free him, my kingdom will no longer be enchanted.”

  “What happens to our forms then? Will we all of sudden shape-shift into spiders, and be forced to crawl on multiple legs?”

  “No. We will retain our human bodies. If we wish.”

  “Thank God for that,” I muttered, not at all ready to relive the sensation of having a thorax.

  “There are no exact laws to magic. It is not”—he paused to smile—“science.”

  “Don’t mock me.”

  “I wouldn’t dare.”

  I leveled him with a stare. “And then what happens?”

  “And then we hope we’re not too late.” His face was grim but determined.

  I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes, feeling lightheaded, like there was no way on Earth—pardon the pun—we were going to be able to do this.

  I didn’t say anything, and Thane didn’t press me to speak. It was all so…fantastical. But in the short time Thane had been in my life, every belief I held sacred had been challenged.

  “Heaven, Hell, mages, spells, wards, charms, enchantments.” I shook my head. “I wonder what kinds of things we’ll discover on our way.”

  “It might be better if you don’t know. Otherwise you might refuse to come. And I need you, Poppy. I can’t do this alone.”

  Was there ever a woman who didn’t like to hear that she was needed?

  I steeled my spine. “Do you want me, Thane? In my own right, and not because I was the one who was able to free you?” I realized I hadn’t truly freed him. Not if his realm was still enchanted.

  “Do you want me to lie to you? Because I can. But if I do, you’ll never trust what I say. And I want there to be trust between us.”

  “Trust…and lust,” I muttered.

  “Lust can turn to love.”

  “I didn’t know you were such a romantic.” My tone was snide, nasty, and I instantly regretted it. “I’m sorry. God, I’m sorry. I feel like I have no control over my own mouth anymore. No control over anything anymore.”

  “When you…changed, it wasn’t just physical. Your chemical and emotional makeup changed, too. You’re still changing, actually.”

  “I’m transforming,” I said flatly. “Into a callous, lust-filled bitch that suffers from Tourette’s.”

  Thane let out a laugh, almost like he was unable to keep it in. “An immortal one, though.”

  “I’m becoming immortal? Great. Add that to the pile of crap I need to work through.”

  “You don’t want to be immortal?”

  “I would’ve liked the choice.”

  Thane was silent for a moment. “You haven’t touched your dinner,” he reminded me, gesturing with his chin to the plate.

  I picked up my fork and took a small bite. “It’s good.” As I chewed, I mulled over some other questions I had for him. If we were going to be traveling together, I had to ask them. “Are you still in an honest mood?”

  “Yes.”

  I swallowed. “This morning—or I think it was morning—when I woke up. I felt…a hand. Trailing down my spine, but I was alone in bed.”

  He clenched his jaw. “It nearly killed me to let you sleep alone. I wanted to be in bed with you, but I didn’t think you’d appreciate it.”

  My body would’ve appreciated it. My mind, however, was another story. A shame they couldn’t reconcile and get on the same page where Thane was concerned.

  “Waking up next to you would’ve sent me into another… No, it’s better that we slept apart. But it was your hand, wasn’t it?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  I took a deep breath. “And the magic bath water? Care to explain that?”

  He frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Never mind.”

  “Poppy,” he said gently. “If we have any hope of building trust between us, then you have to be honest, too.”

  “I—” My cheeks flamed when I thought back to my time in the pool. “The water. It…pleasured me.” It was ridiculous, ludicrous. Yet it had happened. I chanced a look at Thane.

  He wasn’t laughing at me. Or mocking me. “The pool gives what you need,” he said simply.

  “So it wasn’t you?”

  “No. My turn to ask a question.”

  “All right.”

  “Did you think of me while you were being pleasured?”

  “You’re asking this why?” I demanded, feeling breathless, the knell of desire ringing like a bell inside of me.

  “Answer me, Poppy,” he commanded, voice low.

  “Yes.” I gritted my teeth. “Yes, I did.”

  “I thought about you. Every moment I was confined in my prison, wondering if it was delusion or hope that you’d free me. And when I felt your emotions come through our connection, your passion, your humor, I’d wait until you fell asleep, wait until I knew you were dreaming of me, and then I’d take myself in my hand and come to a vision of you. Night after night. Those moments kept me sane, Poppy. But it was nothing—nothing—compared to having you under me on the stone altar as I slid into you.”

  His words had me rising from my chair. My heart stuttered in my chest like I’d just run for miles. The place between my legs quivered with need and a desire to be filled.

  “Now that I’ve had you…” His voice pitched low and covered me like sinful velvet. “Had you in the flesh, I can’t go back to visions.”

  Thane’s dark eyes grew darker. Glittered with lust. He was more beast than man. “Do you know what it’s like to want someone more than they want you? I know you don’t want me. Not really.” He hung his head and then lifted his face ever so slightly to peer at me with gleaming ebony eyes. “Get out of here, Poppy.”

  “Thane.” His name cam
e out a moan, needy and demanding.

  “I won’t tell you again.”

  I somehow managed to let go of the table. With one final look into Thane’s dark, ancient eyes, I turned and fled, the winking flashes of light in the floor illuminating the way.

  Chapter 6

  The doors to the bedroom slid open, revealing privacy and opulence. I threw myself across the massive bed. It was too large for one person. I wanted Thane next to me, crowding my space, throwing his leg over mine while we slept naked.

  I gritted my teeth and tried to shake the thoughts loose so they came out and stopped plaguing me. But whatever was going on with me, here in this place, with Thane, I couldn’t purge him from my thoughts. I was doomed to remember forever how he felt inside me.

  It had never felt that way with Hunter.

  Crushing guilt, something I’d never felt before, swamped me. Not only had I betrayed Hunter, I’d abandoned him. I had no idea if he was safe. I just had taken Thane’s word as truth.

  Did I feel things deeper now that I was tied to Thane?

  I rolled over onto my back and gently tapped the invisible silken thread that linked Thane’s mind with mine.

  Poppy.

  I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry. I heard the sensual caress in his voice.

  What is it?

  Where are you?

  Why?

  I tried to log off our mental connection, but it was like Thane had reached into my head and held me there. Held me, imprisoned by my desire.

  Don’t run. Ask what you want.

  What happened to Hunter?

  The tendril between us pulsed with anger. I tried to back away, but Thane’s mental grip on me was unrelenting.

  Give me a moment to calm down. I can’t hear his name without wanting to—just give me a moment.

  So I did. I stared at the ceiling of the bedroom. It looked like I was peering through a skylight to see bright, glittering stars as well as red, blue, and purple galaxies. I had no idea if I was seeing a magic illusion, or if this was how the sky looked in Purgatory.

  Do you remember when you were climbing the ladder to the tunnel to get to me? And the wasps came to sting you, but you called your spider army?