AllFreeNovel
Share Us
They were not the source of the clicking, however, nor was the quiet crackle of the fire. MaryAnne blinked groggily, turning her head slowly as she peered around the room. Her eyes fell upon a mass of spider silk and her heart nearly stopped beating. The elongated mass bulged where it encased its victim, and tears sprung to her eyes as her gaze rose to the child’s pale face that was left bare, her eyes closed as if asleep.
And she wasn’t the only one. All throughout the room she could see similar bundled masses suspended against the walls of the tree trunks, one after the other like a string of sad pearls counted between the fingers of death as he bided his time.
But where was that clicking coming from? She frowned and looked to her left, and a pale face peered at her and grinned. Dark lips stretching, the drya chuckled softly, her amethyst eyes gleaming in the firelight with a ghoulish look as she stared at MaryAnne. Her arachnid legs moved around her body, weaving silk between their long claws. The long, woven skein of silk was laid over MaryAnne and plastered to her. Nivira hummed with approval and her claws began to move again, drawing up the long, shimmering threads as they began to weave a new chain.
“Poor little moth,” Nivira crooned. “You were just too busy, fluttering here and there where you didn’t belong. Too curious searching for what I warned you ought to be left forgotten.”
“Nivira, why?” MaryAnne croaked and the female laughed softly. “These children—your sister!”
The drya’s head tipped consideringly. “My sister… yes. It pained me to see what it did to Ayla. I did not wish for things to end that way. If only she held out until her season had ended. She would have been more reasonable. I could have shared all of this with her as we were always meant to if not for her senseless jealousy, and her betrayal.”
She looked up at MaryAnne, her lips twisting bitterly. “My sister was not a web reader, and yet somehow she suspected my intention just as she had suspected that I had mated and concealed it from her. She tried to save her little moth that she was so fond of, even in her frenzy she tried.” She sighed regretfully. “In the end, what I did for her was kinder than she would have received from him.”
“And the children?” MaryAnne whispered. “Is thiskindtoo? To steal them away from their families and murder them?”
If she thought to get through to Nivira, she was mistaken. Unlike the haunted look that Ayla often wore when speaking of the children, Nivira now met her eyes with a cold, piercing stare.
“Why not? A drya will do anything at all for their family, and I owe no loyalty to them. They are not my young, though they will likely feed my brood sleeping above.”
Ayla looked further above her and MaryAnne followed her gaze, her throat tightening at the enormous egg sack stretched across the woven branches that made up the ceiling. A shadow moved within it, and MaryAnne jerked, her heart stuttering frantically within her chest. A fond smile crossed the drya’s face.
“Aren’t they glorious? That egg sack holds at least four of my eggs and they’ve been very busy growing. They are going to be quite hungry when they emerge.” She smiled wistfully. “In the forest, if the male should survive his mating, he would spend weeks hunting and filling their den with meat for their offspring. My mate did not, but he has offered them even more with this bounty.”
“But they aren’t meat,” MaryAnne choked.
Nivira laughed softly. “Silly human. Of course they are meat. Everything is potentially meat to a drya, even other drya whom they do not know and trust. Males are more… sentimental, I fear, but a female understands the necessity of the hunt for she must constantly feed herself and the eggs she is growing within her.” Her eyes glittered down at MaryAnne. “You understand that, of course. Your body has been doing the same. I’ve seen it in the web.”
She dragged her claws over the webbing encasing her abdomen. “I saw the moment this life stirred and added their thread to the web of the carnival. And my mate was very, very interested,” she whispered with a soft hiss. “Yours will be the final sacrifice he needs to awaken our grove.”
“I don’t understand.” A tear rolled down MaryAnne’s cheek. “I thought you were my friend.”
Nivira’s eyes clouded, and she looked away. “It was a dream. Nothing more. And dreams must come to an end when it is time.”
A lengthy, masculine sigh filled the air, and the drya recoiled from her and spun toward the sound, Nivira’s arachnid legs flexing alertly from where they rose along her spine.
“You have returned,” she greeted, a fawning note in her voice as a tall, lean silhouette broke from the shadows and stepped into the circle of the firelight.
Nathiel peered at MaryAnne as he would a cut of meat, his gaze cold and calculating. It made her hair stand on end, and MaryAnne couldn’t rectify this against the smiling, cheerful male that she’d come to know.
“There should be no doubt that I would,” he replied dryly, his gaze turning toward Nivira, dismissing MaryAnne’s presence entirely. “This ismygrove, after all.”
The drya winced at his proclamation and cast another glance up toward her egg sack. “Yes, of course it’s your grove. But it is also ours together… and our brood,” she added with a soft smile as she drew nearer. “We should kill them now,” she whispered fervently.
“Now you know we can’t do that. I must wait for sunrise. The grove needs blood when the sun touches its leaves. You know that.”
“Yes. Yes, I know. But I worry about having them here. Raskyuil will come for her.”
An impatient huff left him, but he smirked as she approached with her graceful, swaying gait. He cupped a hand under Nivira’s chin, holding her in place as his lips caressed hers.
“There’s no need to worry. Did you get what I need?” he whispered, his lips barely an inch from her mouth.
The drya shivered and nodded, her hand dipping into the pocket of her gown, pulling out something that seemed to pulse with darkness.
“An aelf heart,” she whispered. “I seduced one of Elwyn’s attendants as you told me and he brought me to the cortex of the carnival. I bound him there by magic and thread, joining his heart with the stone you delivered to Elwyn. I weaved the magic deep into his heart and tore it from his chest. It is now bound to your service, as you desired. As onlyIcould have accomplished.”
The corner of his mouth quirked at her reminder. “Yes, of course, my pet. It’s why I chose you, after all. Only you were cunning and ruthless enough to be my grove queen. Only you had the skills that I required to help me lure them from their beds. You’ve been very useful, indeed,” he murmured, pressing another kiss to her lips.
“And now,” he whispered against her mouth, his hand sliding over the knot of hair wound at the back of her head. He twisted her head sharply between his hands, the sound of bone breaking filling the space for a long, terrible moment before he released her and stepped away. “Now you’ve outlived your usefulness,” he murmured, staring down at the heart with an expression of pure adoration as he carried it across the room.
