“Don’t try your bullshit with me, Marcus. We’ve been partners too long. You’re good at what you do, but I know all your tricks.”
Fuck. “Exactly, Ian. We’re partners. Whatever shit you’re in, you should have come to me.”
Ian laughed. “Okay, partner. Come to Furyous Ink and we’ll see if you can get me out of this one.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to ask him not to hurt Megaera, but that would show his hand. “I’m on my way.”
“Oh, I uh…relieved the black-and-white on duty. Come through the back door.”
Marcus froze and the line went dead. He knew in his gut those officers were dead.
But Ian was in Meg’s home without an invitation. If he was walking around upright, that meant Megaera wasn’t.
Her power must have been cannibalizing her for Ian to have accomplished that. The clock was ticking.
Tick tock. Tick tock.
Marcus popped the cherry light on top of his Charger and drove like Cerberus himself slavered at his heels. Two blocks away, he turned off the light and slowed to a leisurely speed. He couldn’t let Ian see how agitated he was, how concerned for Megaera. That would give him the upper hand.
He spotted the patrol car as he passed, but it appeared to be empty. What had Ian done with the bodies? Images of what Clothos would have done with the bodies came to mind and Marcus shuddered, sick at the thought.
Marcus parked in the alley and took his time getting out of the car, made sure to scent the air to pick up all the clues around him that he could. The stench of the toxin was almost overpowering.
How could his partner have been an Arachnae and he’d never known? Worse, how could he be a serial killer?
And Marcus hadn’t even had the slightest clue.
He remembered the first time he’d climbed the stairs up to that lovely deck. Marcus hadn’t known it would set him on this path, bring him to this place. His whole life had changed in the last few days—his view of the world. He’d had nothing to live for and now he had everything.
And Ian Spinner was trying to take it from him.
Marcus took the stairs slowly. He was so casual in his approach that Ian opened the door before Marcus could. “You move as if lives don’t depend on you.”
Ian looked worse than he had the last time Marcus saw him. His gaunt and haggard appearance was now starved and emaciated. He looked like a specter of death.
Marcus summoned his courage before he spoke and followed him into the apartment. “I said it once and I’ll say it again, you look like shit.”
Ian shrugged. “What can I say? It happens that way with Arachnae women. Stop fucking them, they stop feeding you.”
“Sounds like a problem.” Marcus scanned the room and instantly spotted Megaera. She was held suspended and cradled by masses of spider silk. It was wrapped around her like a shroud. He could only see her lips, and they were cracked and ashen. His beast raged, but the beast wasn’t going to save Meg. The man would save her, and he had to stay calm, in control.
“It’s a very vexing problem, since you asked. When I didn’t show up for work, did the squad go to my house?”
“No, it was just me. Looks like you’re leaving town.”
“I am. But I have one thing to do first.”
“What’s that?”
“Start a war between the Amazon Nation and the Arachnae. It seems that four dead Amazons weren’t enough, nor was leaving Arachnae silk all over Galatea’s house.” He smiled, fangs descending from his mouth. “That’s the trouble you can help me with, Marcus. You can tell me how many bodies it will take to start a war.”
“How would I know?” Marcus shrugged—and then darted a hand inside his coat for his gun.
Even with Marcus’ preternatural speed, Ian was faster. And this time the army of spiders that swarmed up Marcus’ legs was real.
They functioned as one unit, lightning fast, rushing over him to pull his gun out of its holster and forming a black, hairy hand to pass it to Ian before they were absorbed back into his body.
“I’m still faster. I bet that chaps you, Lycanos. All of your secret bullshit and here I was, right under your nose. Literally.” His smooth features twisted into a maniacally gleeful expression.
“Why couldn’t I scent you?”
“I don’t give off pheromones to attract a mate or warn off other males. There’s only one male chosen to service females each breeding cycle. Only my toxin has a scent.”
“I could have helped you, Ian. We’re partners,” Marcus said, trying to get Ian to see him as a safe harbor. It would give him enough of an advantage so he could save Meg. Or so he hoped.
But Ian had the same training Marcus had. “Gaining the suspect’s trust? Please.” Ian snorted.
“I don’t have to gain your trust, Ian.” He made sure to use his name, as if they were friends. “I already have it. We’re partners.”
“You won’t choose me over her. You’ve bonded, marked each other. You’d let the world burn for her, Lycanos.”
“You’re right, Ian. I would. Which is why I’ll help you do whatever you need, if only you’ll let her go.”
Ian nodded toward the wall where she hung. “She’s dying,” Ian informed him. “I see the beast looking out from your eyes. You could kill me. You could rip my flesh off my bones. But that still wouldn’t save your precious Meg. Only I can do that. Only I can absolve her of the guilt she feels. You see, I told her she was the reason I killed Galatea.”
Marcus roared and slammed Ian against the wall, his tenuous hold on his control shattering with the Arachnae’s words. His army of spiders swarmed from Ian’s body but the Lycanos didn’t give a damn. He was poised to rip the Arachnae’s head off when Ian laughed.
“Yes, kill me! And it’ll be the same as killing your Fury.”
“What do you want, Ian?” Marcus still had his claws at his throat.
“I told you, partner.” He laughed maniacally. “I want you to help me start a war.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to be food for the next crop of Arachnae! I deserve to live my life the same as they do!”
“But those Amazons didn’t?” He had to keep him talking until he could come up with a plan, but it was hard to think with the beast vying for control and the maddening brush of furry spider legs scuttling over his body.
“You should know by now the nature of every creature is survival at all costs.”
“Don’t rationalize what you’re doing.”
“I don’t have to. It simply is what it is.”
“Why Galatea? Weren’t you seeing her?”
Ian blinked and black oil seemed to fill his sclera. He knocked Marcus’ hand away and Marcus allowed it. They both knew he wouldn’t strike until Megaera was safe. Goddess, but if he lost her…
“That was mother, actually. To bring me to heel. So I would come home to the nest and do my duty.”
“So you didn’t kill her? Didn’t choose to be with Galatea because of Meg?”
Ian’s crazed laugh sounded again. “No. I didn’t even know they knew each other!”
With that, the spider silk holding Megaera burst into flames and she emerged like a phoenix from her own ashes.
Her beauty was terrible and wonderful all at once. The webbing melted away like spun sugar in the rain. The silver fire of her hair and body blazed brightly, the fiery aura surrounding her while blood tears—the trademark of her Fury power—coursed down her cheeks.
Megaera was safe.
Now Marcus was going to do exactly as Ian had described and rend his flesh and muscle from bone.
“No, Lycanos. You gave your word to me that he would belong to the Amazon Nation.”
“He hurt you,” Marcus growled.
“Your word.”
Marcus struggled for control of his thundering heartbeat and the Change that surged over him. But Megaera trusted him to keep his animal in check. She’d already turned back to Ian.
All
the spiders that had swarmed to do his bidding stopped moving, their furry legs closing in on their mummifying bodies. Ian tried to run but couldn’t.
“Your punishment, Ian Spinner of the Arachnae Nation, to balance the scales of justice—you will return to your nest and seed the next generation of your kind with the strength of your skin, organs, flesh and blood.”
“No, I won’t.” He bared his fangs. “You have no power! It’s your fault Galatea—”
Meg didn’t let him finish. With a flick of her wrist, the window flew open. Ian was dragged toward it by an unseen force.
“A token mercy,” Megaera said, and the flames behind her crawled up the wall and slithered over to Ian, wrapping around him just as his webs had cocooned her. Then a fiery rush of power erupted from Megaera and propelled Ian through the open casement, hurling his body to the street below.
Marcus took cover from the flames but found they didn’t burn him. He rushed to the window as the fire flickered out and saw Clothos, bent over the ragged remains of her son…
Spinning.
Her webs wrapped him over and over and over again. When she looked up and saw Marcus, there was no sadness on her face. Only hunger.
“Pleasure doing business with you, Lycanos.” She hauled the cocoon of her dead and mangled son over her shoulder as if he weighed nothing, and Marcus noticed two spidery legs sticking out from her back, holding Ian in place. Then she blew him a kiss.
Marcus backed away from the window and turned his attention to Meg.
The flames had cooled and her face was ashen.
“Meg?” Marcus hauled her up against him. “Oh Goddess, Meg! I thought I’d lost you.”
She clung to him like a child, all the power he’d witnessed moments ago gone. But she was Meg again, body whole and healed. “I thought you had, too.”
“Swear you’ll never leave me. That there’s no guilt, no truth, no punishment more important to you than me.”
“Swear to me that there’s no truth, no noble deed, no question of honor more important to you than me,” she countered.
“I swear. I love you, Meg.”
“Forever, Marcus.”
Forever was a long time for supes, but with Megaera, Marcus knew it still wouldn’t be long enough.
“Take me back to bed, Lycanos.”
And being the noble beast he was, Marcus could do nothing but comply.
Epilogue
Megaera Eumenides watched the flex of her husband’s biceps as he carried the large box into the second bedroom. She never got tired of watching his golden skin, the play of muscles when he moved.
She especially liked the new tattoo on his arm that she’d just finished the week before. It was a great horned owl. It covered his arm from shoulder to elbow. She’d spent days on the detailing of the feathers and the expression on the owl’s face—especially its eyes. It was her best work. And when Marcus moved his arm at a certain angle, it looked as if the owl was winking at her. Almost like Athena reminding her, “This is what I had planned for you all along, my girl.”
Meg was okay with that. She was more than okay. Life was good.
She looked down at her own tattoo. It was a copy of the one on Marcus’ other biceps, the German woodcut of a werewolf with a woman in its mouth. But in the tatt on Megaera’s forearm, the woman in the wolf’s mouth was Megaera herself. Instead of an iron cross, she wore the badge of Athena—a great horned owl with its talons clenched around a spider.
The symbols meant so much to both of them.
As Marcus assembled the bookcase, Megaera wondered if it was time to tell him it wouldn’t be used for his collection of true crime books, but books for a much younger reader. So young, in fact, Meg and Marcus would have to read them to her.
Marcus seemed to notice her scrutiny and he flashed a smile.
Her fingers drifted to her still-flat belly as she thought to herself again…life is good.
About the Author
Saranna De Wylde has always been fascinated by things better left in the dark. She wrote her first story after watching The Exorcist at a slumber party. Since then, she’s published horror, romance and narrative nonfiction. Like all writers, Saranna has held a variety of jobs, from operations supervisor for an airline, to an assistant for a call girl, to a corrections officer. But like Hemingway said, “Once writing has become your major vice and greatest pleasure, only death can stop it.” So she traded in her cuffs for a full-time keyboard. She loves to hear from her readers.
Saranna welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email addresses on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.
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Also by Saranna DeWylde
Lust and Other Drugs
Ellora’s Cave Publishing
www.ellorascave.com
Furyous Ink
ISBN 9781419941108
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Furyous Ink Copyright © 2012 Saranna DeWylde
Edited by Kelli Collins
Cover design by Syneca
Photos: Fotolia.com
Electronic book publication July 2012
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