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Over my back.
In my hair.
Across my face.
I scream, my cries muffled, and try to sit up, spinning around, rolling on the floor, pure horror tearing me apart. I fight against the ropes, still feeling tiny rough things brushing over my legs, skittering over my skin.
The door to the room suddenly opens, a column of flickering light with Absolon’s broad-shouldered silhouette.
He flicks on the lights overhead, my eyes burning from it.
I manage to turn away, just in time to see spiders running away in wafts of black smoke, disappearing into the wooden slats behind me.
I scream again, trying to get away, except I’m still attached to the wall by the rope, and then Absolon is grabbing me by the waist and hauling me up, carrying me until he places me on the wooden chair within reach.
He eyes me with amusement, as if the whole fucking thing is funny, but I can still feel them on me, and I cry out, muffled by the gag, squirming in the chair, my heart pounding.
“Oh, please. Calm down,” he says to me, pressing a shockingly cold hand on my shoulder, but it does nothing to calm me. “Or do you need to be tied to the chair too?”
I growl at him, trying to kick him in the balls.
He captures my calf in his hand, nails digging in, growling right back.
“Fine,” he says gruffly. “Your choice.”
He takes the ropes and makes quick work of it, tying my hands behind the chair, spreading my legs, tying each ankle to the legs of the chair.
Then he steps back, giving me a look of marked disapproval.
“You could make things so much easier on yourself, Lenore,” he says. “You know I’m the one who might save you in the end.”
“Fuck you,” I try to say through the gag.
“What was that?” he asks. Then he leans over and I catch his scent, like roses and tobacco and cedar, a smell that floods every part of me. Something about it makes my heart pump harder, my skin growing hot.
He unties the gag and I gasp for air, moving my jaw, everything sore.
Then I look at him dead in the eyes.
“I said fuck you,” I say, my voice raw and broken.
The corner of his mouth curls. “Such brave words for someone so afraid of spiders.”
I turn my head and look at the back wall, at the wooden slats and the darkness behind it. “I think you have an infestation back there.”
“You should let me worry about that,” he says, and I meet his eyes again. “You should stay focused on worrying about your own life.” He pauses. “Though I must say, it’s a good sign that they like you. It means you’re already changing. Creatures of the night will always seek out creatures of the night. One day you might want to look at the world through their eyes.”
I can’t make heads or tails of this man. I close my eyes, trying to cut off his hypnotic gaze, but I still smell him, and it makes my blood run hot.
“What do you mean, I’m changing?” I ask him, keeping my eyes shut. “Changing how?”
I don’t know why I’m even asking. To indulge him? What’s the point? What’s the point of any of this?
He doesn’t answer. Silence fills the space.
Except it’s not silence at all.
I swear I can hear things scurrying behind the wall, hear the blood pumping in my veins, the electrical buzz of the overhead lights, footsteps in some place far away, cars on a street. The more I concentrate on the sounds, the louder they get, until they start taking over my brain.
