Chapter 11 #2
“Beautiful,” he breathed, his hands hovering just above her skin, not quite touching. “So impossibly beautiful.”
“You can touch me,” she whispered. “I want you to.”
His hands made contact with her bare skin, and the sound he made was almost anguished in its intensity.
His palms were warm and slightly rough, sending sparks of electricity through her everywhere they touched.
Behind him, his spider legs shifted restlessly, and she could see golden threads beginning to form in the air around them—not binding, just beautiful patterns that spoke of his emotional state.
“Ava.” He said her name like it was the only word that mattered.
She reached for him then, her hands moving to the strange boundary where human merged with spider. Where his hips would be, following down in the V shape. The claspers were to either side, and there was a…
Well, she wasn’t quite sure how it was supposed to work, but now she was deeply curious. It seemed he—well—to answer Izael’s question, the answer was mermaid, and his bits were stored internally.
Part of her was deeply relieved that she wasn’t going to be flat on the ground underneath a ten-or-fifteen-foot long spider body.
There was a small slit in the fur of his lower abdomen where she assumed his manhood was, well, kept.
Gently, curiously, she ran her hand along it.
There was a hard, rigid shape within that twitched beneath her palm.
The texture was unlike anything she'd ever felt—warm and smooth but with an underlying strength that spoke of power barely contained.
At her touch, he shuddered violently, his multiple eyes falling closed.
“Is this…?” she started to ask.
“Yes—” The word left him in a rushed exhale. “Voids, please…don’t stop.”
The claspers near his hips were reaching for her now with obvious intent, and she could see that his control was hanging by the thinnest of threads.
Everything about his posture, his breathing, the way his hands trembled against her skin—it all spoke of someone on the very edge of losing himself completely.
“Have you ever…made love like this before?” She stroked her hand still over the hard length still hidden within his body. It had those same strange ridges she had felt inside herself when they’d had sex. Inhuman and bizarre—but certainly not unpleasant.
“No.” The confession was quiet. Barely audible.
She didn’t press for details.
Leaning forward, she kissed the center of his chest. “That changes now.” She undid the clasp of her bra and tossed it aside.
Her shoes, socks, pants, and underwear followed suit a moment later.
When she was fully naked in front of him, she went back to her task.
This time with both hands, she stroked her hands over the skin of his chest before trailing lower, to the fur of his lower abdomen, where he was clearly struggling to keep himself contained.
“I know you’re still hiding from me.” She kissed his chest again, slower that time, savoring it, feeling his muscles twitch beneath her. “At the very least, let me touch you…”
He let out a low groan, everything in him tensing up as if he were a rabid animal at the end of a rope that was ready to snap. Each second that she was touching him was one more thread of his restraint visibly popping loose.
“I do not know if I will…” He grimaced, his fangs already dripping venom. “I do not know if I will attempt to breed you, Ava—” The word sounded loathsome to him. Disgusting. Heinous. “If I lose control of myself, that base animal within me may seek to mate with you…I do not know what I will do…”
The length of him still concealed within his body beneath her hand twitched at his words, clearly excited by the prospect despite how much he clearly hated the idea in his mind.
As for her? The thought of him, pinning her down, filling her, claiming her, breeding her—twisted something up in her and lit it on fucking fire.
God damn it. Every time she was around him, she learned something new and twisted about herself.
She let out a wavering breath, and nipped at his skin, dragging her teeth along the smooth, soft, peach-fuzz surface.
“Do we even know if I can get pregnant? Being that I’m not really human anymore? ”
His answer was ragged, thick with lust. “I do not think anyone would have the answer.” He shuddered. His claspers were once more desperately reaching for her. She felt one brush against the bare skin of her thigh.
“Well, you’re science-minded…right?” She stroked her hand harder over his concealed length. “Consider it research.”
“Ava—” He snarled, almost angrily. His hips bucked forward, clearly of their own accord. “This is not a game. I am not playing with you—”
“Neither am I.” She met his golden gaze.
“I love you, Serrik. I am here with you. And I am going to accept what happens—all of it. And I…I want this. I want you. I don’t know if that’s me, or the Web, or what.
But I do. I want all of you. The beast. The fae.
Serrik. Both halves that make the whole.
I want you to finally—finally—snap the leash you’re on. ”
His eyes flicked between hers in a mix of disbelief and hunger. “And when you wake from a poisoned stupor, twelve hours from now, ravaged, mauled, and possibly pregnant with—” He broke off, unable to even finish the words.
“Then we will raise our children in whatever world we wind up in. This one. The Web. Earth. Tir n’Aill.
Or whatever bizarre new fucked up pseudo-reality we create instead.
If that’s even a thing that can happen. Which we don’t know.
” The idea of having his children was such a wild idea it would’ve made her laugh if it weren’t for the dire expression on his face.
But, all things considered…she knew in a weird way?
He’d be a good father. If he didn’t try to, y’know, murder them all for being quarter fae. Or…whatever.
She wanted to focus on the now.
Children were later.
Right now, she had a very large, very attractive, very angry, very horny spider-fae-monster standing in front of her.
One she very, very much wanted to make good on all the threats he was making at her.
“Serrik…” She took his hand and ran it up along her side, encouraging him to touch her.
“Please. Believe me when I say I love you. Believe me when I say I want this. But most of all, believe me when I say that I trust you.”
“That is, I think, the matter which I am struggling with the most.” His words were little more than a whisper.
But he was beginning to surrender, his gaze trailing down from her face as he moved his hand from her side to her breast, cupping it.
Gently. He was still testing the waters.
He had to crouch to reach it at his height.
“Then let me prove it to you by doing this.”
“Ava…”
“Snap the leash, Serrik. Let go.” Using both hands, she stroked his still-hidden length. Bowing her head—at his increased height, she didn’t have to go far, she licked at just above the spot where his skin turned to fur.
Sharp-nailed hands dug into her hair and yanked her head back so quickly she gasped. He tilted her head back to look up at him. His eyes had blown out in that instant, becoming almost black as they glared down at her. “No.”
“B—”
“You. Shall. Obey. Me.” There was no venom in her veins, and yet the words ran through her like quicksilver. “No.”
The resonance made her shudder. All she could do was nod meekly in his grasp.
All eight eyes were fixed on her with desperate intensity. “This is your last chance, Ava. Right now. Tell me you wish to stop. Tell me you have suddenly come to your senses. Please.”
She did no such thing. “Kiss me, Serrik. Then I want you to shut up and fuck me.”
A shudder passed through him that was visceral. He lifted her up onto her tiptoes, bowing his head the rest of the way to kiss her, harder than before. His nails dug into her scalp, and she could feel him teetering on the edge. This was it. This was the point of no return.
Good.
When he released her, he put her back down on her feet. His eyes were now fully black, the gold having been entirely overtaken. Now, he truly looked like a spider, with the eight black orbs gazing at her with nothing but predatory hunger.
She wanted this—needed this—just as badly as him.
Even if it terrified her.
No. Because it terrified her.
With a flick of his wrist, golden threads snapped forward.
They caught her wrists and mercilessly yanked them over her head.
She pulled in a breath, but didn’t make a sound and didn’t fight.
She agreed to this. Looking up, she watched as the gold wound around her wrists several times, creating a band they could lift her from without acting like a garrote.
More lashed out and wrapped around her waist. She wasn’t surprised when they lifted her up from the ground, suspending her. She was utterly at his mercy. And that did…terrible and undeniable things to her. Swallowing thickly, she chewed her lip, unsure of what to do or say.
Serrik’s chest was rising and falling with heavy breaths. “Beautiful creature, behold what will ruin you…Behold what you have allowed to despoil you already.” It seemed he had full control over whether or not his bits were concealed or not.
Oh.
Oh.
Oh, that made sense.
And…oh.
Oh, she was in trouble.
He hadn’t…
She hadn’t…
Ava had yet to experience the whole thing.
He was entirely inhuman. Pointed at the tip. The ridges that she had felt were there, growing larger as they went. The swell at what she thought was the base wasn’t…the end. There was more. Clearly the part that was meant to…
Suddenly the comment about breeding made more sense.
It didn’t help that the whole thing was a gradient of dark green to black which just made it all the more inhuman and impossible.
A rush of heat ran through her and she knew she must have been absolutely beet red.
“Are you afraid?” Those black orbs bored through her.
“No.” She met his gaze. And it was true. She wasn’t. Not really. This was the kind of fear she had going through a haunted house…safe fear. Fear she trusted not to hurt her for keeps.
One of his long spider legs reached out, the golden tip tracing delicately along her bare shoulder.
It was needle-sharp and the touch was exceptionally light.
But it carried an implicit threat—a reminder of exactly how dangerous he truly was.
“I will not be gentle with you, Weaver…I am not able to be.”
“Show me.” She tilted her head back and to the side, baring her throat. “Show me what you need, Serrik.”
The sound he made was purely monstrous—a growl that seemed to resonate from somewhere deep in his chest. His human hands framed her face as he stepped up and leaned in close to her, his multiple eyes drinking in every detail of her expression.
“You have no idea what you do to me,” he said, his breath warm against her throat. “What you have always done to me.”
She could feel the sharp points of his fangs against her skin. Her pulse hammered in her ears.
“Then show me,” she repeated, her voice barely a whisper. “And let me show you how much I trust you.”
Serrik sank his fangs deep into the soft skin of her throat.
The sensation was immediate and overwhelming—a sharp sting followed by liquid fire flooding her veins. The venom spread through her system like warm honey, dissolving every thought, every fear, every inhibition until there was nothing left but pure sensation and the desperate need for more.
Her head fell back as the poison took hold, her body going pliant in his golden bonds. The world narrowed. Everything was simply that moment, that feeling, and the overwhelming presence of the creature who held her so completely.
“Mine,” Serrik growled against her throat, his voice muffled by the contact. “Finally, you will now become completely mine.”
And as the venom carried her into blissful surrender, Ava knew with perfect clarity that she was exactly where she belonged.