Chapter 13
I didn’t ask why.
I dropped the sword that would only slow me down and ran.
When the trees gathered too tightly to allow for easy running, I veered west for what felt like hours but was probably a mere handful of minutes—until I heard it beneath my thunderous heartbeat.
Water.
Whatever it was we were running from, there was a good chance it couldn’t cross a large body of water. I hunted the sound and growing scent. Thick brush tried to tangle my feet. Something sticky met my cheek. Then my hand.
Spiderwebs.
I pulled and plucked them free, but the residue left behind had me wanting to gag.
At the sight of a thin creek, I skidded to a halt. It cleaved through the wretchedly dark forest in a gurgling and skinny line of silver. Too shallow. Panic clamped around my throat. But perhaps it would do if necessary.
I turned to look for Brey.
Only to find nothing but gently swaying ferns.
Panic returned. My breaths increased as I crept down the bank, listening and peering into the trees for any sign of him.
He was probably just fine. He had his sword after all.
A sword I’d dropped to run faster.
Withholding a whine, I slumped against a giant stone. Damned these wards, damned this fucking marriage, and damned my lack of foresight because I was so thirsty, I was tempted to jump into the creek and drink handfuls of it.
Unsure what lurked within, I decided it was best to avoid it and wait for Brey. But the ground shook, as if tree roots were shifting beneath me.
They were.
On either side of me, they rose, dirt falling as they bent. Not roots.
Legs.
My blood became icy sludge. Trembling, I inched forward from the rock I’d leaned against. I didn’t need to turn around to know it had never been a rock.
It was a giant insect.
No tithe, no safe passage.
The voice was a gravelly whisper, wrapped in fierce wind.
Soil rained over my hair and body as the monstrous creature rose above me like a tree slowly pulled from the earth. Its shadow darkened the creek. Then that shadow shifted. Spread. Those legs lifted.
A spider.
And it was preparing to strike.
Unmerciful Mother, I silently prayed. Find another way for me to die. Any other way.
But praying wouldn’t save me. Running was futile.
Which left the water.
I lunged toward the creek—just in time to avoid the bladelike legs that plunged into the earth where I’d stood.
Dirt and rock splashed into the water above me.
Slippery stones sent me careening into the deepest portion of the creek.
Staying beneath the surface, I swam toward the forest on the other side.
The embankment there was steeper. Using a tree root, I pulled myself up to the grass, then made the foolish mistake of turning back.
Right as the giant brown spider crossed the creek on those ever-long legs.
My eyes met numerous dark ones. That voice came again. No tithe, no safe passage. No tithe, no safe passage. No tithe—
“I don’t know what you mean,” I tried to shout, but fear rasped my voice—rattled each pounding beat of my heart.
The spider wasn’t willing to explain.
It sprang from the water, and I screamed as I hurried into the forest.
I ran the length of the creek, keeping within the boundary of the ginormous trees, hoping their closeness would make it difficult for the spider to reach me.
But it seemed to know as much—scuttling across the sharp embankment to hunt me. Half of its legs were submerged in the shallows of the creek, while the others plunged into the soil and brush alongside it.
No tithe, no safe passage.
Over and over, it repeated those same words in that horrifying voice.
“I don’t know about any tithe,” I shouted. “And I have nothing of value to give you.”
Liar, it snarled, then seemed to growl. No tithe, no safe passage.
My sodden boots squelched. Tears pricked at my eyes like needles as I ran and ran and ran. As rational thinking eventually seeped in and I realized the creek trickled west. Brey said we needed to head north.
I was running in the wrong direction of the ward. And him.
Goddess only knew where he was. But the only way to escape this spider and any other potential horrors was to find Brey and the ward. To do that, I needed to cross the creek again.
So quickly I almost fell, I spun on my heel.
And threw myself down the embankment into the creek behind the spider. Beneath the murky water, I swam until my fingers touched the mossy incline to the embankment. As I scrambled onto it, the spider released a blood-chilling screech.
One of unmistakable fury.
Again, those growled and hissing words. No tithe, no safe passage.
I’d barely reached the trees when a splash from the creek splattered me, and the spider gave chase.
And I was officially desperate and petrified enough to forget all about pride.
“Brey!” I hollered. “If you’re hiding somewhere and laughing at me, I swear I’ll live to see this monster eat you first.”
My heart slammed against my sternum. My feet nearly tripped on rocks and roots. Breath burned between my teeth as I pushed past tree after tree and frantically searched the dark for any sign of my rotten husband.
A mistake—not to focus on the terrain right before me.
As I slid around a particularly giant tree, a hidden root caught my foot. I met the damp earth. My teeth clacked. Winded and dazed, I struggled to get up quickly.
A force slammed into me from behind.
I flew into the base of a tree before crumpling upon the ground.
Groaning, I grappled for something—anything—to use as a weapon. But there were only leaves and twigs and tiny rocks.
As the spider’s shadow engulfed me, I threw my miserable findings at it.
It hissed, then spoke in that eerie voice. Vampiric speed is wasted on a creature as clumsy as you. The forest disappeared as the spider’s giant form covered me. No tithe, no safe passage.
Knowing I shouldn’t but unable to stop myself, I looked up. But I couldn’t see its many eyes. Couldn’t see its fangs. All I saw was a terrifyingly large and hairy underbelly.
No tithe, no safe passage. No tithe, no—
Another screech cleaved the air as my foot collided with that hideous underbelly, and the spider reared back, legs raised and swaying.
Then it dropped, and those legs aimed straight for my torso.
I rolled.
Not fast enough.
The leg was a serrated blade plunging through my thigh. A silent scream scraped my throat as that leg scraped along bone to pin me to the forest floor.
I scent more than one pain.
Agony seared, vicious and unending. I writhed on my back.
It permeates your blood, the spider said. Who broke your immortal heart?
I couldn’t have answered if I’d wanted to. Pain hazed my vision, threatening to render me unconscious, as the spider lowered over me.
No tithe, no safe passage.
The noises escaping my clenched teeth smothered the spider’s voice.
Not even for pretty little vampire queens.
I stilled. Not from those words.
From the whispering whoosh of something falling.
The spider sensed it too—then that something landed upon it.
Bouncing from the impact, the spider’s hairy body grazed my cheek as it screeched again. It rose and attempted to shake whatever it was from its torso. Its leg remained within mine, trapping me against the ground.
A flash of steel delivered a spark of hope to my flailing heart before I heard his lilting drawl. “I knew I’d find someone atop you one of these evenings, but I must admit…” A brief chuckle. “I never expected this.”
Brey.
To the spider, he said, “We’re new to this ward-feeding business.” A moment later, he spoke again. “There’s no way of knowing what awaits on any of these isles, let alone you and your precious tithe.”
It was then I realized the spider hadn’t been speaking. Not aloud.
It spoke into our minds.
The spider bucked, attempting to throw Brey from its back—which caused its leg to move within mine.
I screamed.
Brey cursed.
Silver glinted like a star floating just beyond the spider’s head, and I thought I might be losing consciousness until Brey clambered higher over its torso, a dagger in hand. “You’ve already spilled her blood,” he seethed.
An unearthly hiss revealed fangs as large as the blade in Brey’s hand, as the spider no doubt continued to speak into his mind.
A moment later, the scent of Brey’s blood stained the air before falling in drops onto the forest floor beside me. “Now you have both,” he said.
Numerous beady eyes drank me in—then the spider thrashed.
Another scream tore from my throat.
Brey snarled, “It is enough.”
My vision blurred. Darkened.
As it cleared, I saw Brey atop the spider’s fuzzy head, his sword now in hand and poised to plunge. “Make your choice.” Gone was his typical dripping cadence. Cold and oozing menace, he warned, “Release her or die.”
Not a fractured breath later, he pushed the tip of the blade into the spider’s head.
Its growled screech cooled my clammy skin.
Then, that whispering wind of a voice entered my mind. Tithe is paid. A clicking laugh as the spider added, His blood smells like yours, vampire queen.
If I weren’t in so much pain, I might have asked the spider what it meant by that.
The only thing I could manage was a rasped, “It said the tithe is paid.”
Brey didn’t leap down from the spider until it had withdrawn its leg from my own.
It did so slowly, and I could have sworn I heard more of that clicking laughter in my mind. But I couldn’t be sure when all I knew was agony.
When all I could hear was my never-ending scream—so loud, it echoed into the dark that claimed me.
Pain blistered every part of me, a trapped blaze that raged and crackled. My body shook. Not because of the fire within, but because of whoever was holding me.
Shaking me.
I opened my eyes. Fear and relief tangled around my struggling heart.
Brey.
His features were blurred by a surge of tears. A ragged curse filled my ears. Then the scent of it was everywhere.
Heady, tempting, and desperately needed blood.
“Drink,” he said.
But I couldn’t drink from Brey. I loathed him, and he loathed me.