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Kristen knelt in front of him, back in her human form, her arms around her body as if hugging herself. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she murmured like a litany as she waited for her venom to do its grisly work.
Liliana’s first mother taught her about the effects of widow spider venom. Pete must already feel as if his veins were on fire and his throat filled with hot coals. In less than an hour, the young widow spider would begin to drink his liquefied insides while he still lived, unable to even scream.
Pete’s normally pale blue eyes were dark, his pupils blown wide. His freckles stood out starkly against a face gone paper white with a sickly green tinge. He coughed again and cleared his throat as Liliana tiptoed from the shadowed edges of the concrete room. He spoke to Kristen, the pregnant widow spider. “Look, it’s going to be okay. Just…” He swallowed. “Cut me loose, and it will be all right.” His roughened voice sounded calm, soothing.
Liliana looked with her third eyes to see if he were truly that unconcerned.
He was not.
His calm demeanor masked the neon green glow of abject terror. In his place, she would be rocking in a little ball in a corner. Liliana had not seen anyone show so much courage since before her father’s death in battle.
The young widow spider in the pretty blue dress shook her head and laughed a little, although it came out more like a sob. “It’s never going to be all right!” she yelled at Pete. “You’re not even the last one. So many people have to die because I thought it would be okay to date one guy.”
Blue eyes tracked Liliana’s stealthy progress for a moment as she edged closer, then Pete deliberately looked away from her. He kept talking to Kristen, keeping her attention on him.
“Okay, I know. It’s not all right. I get that,” Pete soothed, then coughed hard and spat blood on the concrete. “Look,” he said hoarsely. “Just give me one of my knives, and I’ll get out of this myself.”
Kristen looked up from her hands and shook her head. “It’s too late. You’ll die now, no matter what. The poison is incurable.”
Fear poured off Pete like acid-green fog. He couldn’t suppress a shudder. “That’s not true?” he rasped.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Liliana had been taught stealth by a lion-kin and a jaguar-kin. She grew up with big cats as her playmates and her brothers. Her ballet slippers whispered soundlessly across the concrete floor.
Pete’s eyes glanced up at her for a moment as she got within striking range of the pregnant widow spider.
Kristen was too immersed in her misery and guilt to notice the lapse.
Liliana flicked her right wrist. The razor-sharp, curved arm blade slid silently from her arm and locked at a right angle. She struck swiftly, focusing the force of the blow through her entire body to give it power.
Kristen’s head came off and rolled across the damp concrete floor, the word “sorry” still forming on her lips.
“So am I, little sister,” Liliana said softly. The cut was clean. The young widow spider’s death was quick. It was the only mercy Liliana could give her. She blinked a few times to clear tears. None of this had been Kristen’s fault, but the killing couldn’t be allowed to continue. Especially not if Kristen continuing to live meant Pete had to die. “I am so very sorry.”
Liliana pushed the kneeling body to the side, away from Pete. Blood spurted and pooled, steaming in the damp chill of the basement and ruining the pretty blue dress.
Pete’s pale eyes widened in shock. A few drops of the young woman’s blood dotted his cheek. “Lilly.” Pete’s voice rasped, and he grimaced in pain.
“Don’t speak. Widow spider venom destroys vocal cords first.” Liliana dropped to a knee and reached a hand to his face to wipe away the blood.
He flinched, eyes showing white all around. Her third eyes told her green terror still flooded him. He did not see rescue when he looked at her. He saw a different threat, come to add some additional torture to his already guaranteed slow, painful death.
Her swift, silent murder of the pregnant widow spider horrified him, even knowing Kristen had been killing him slowly.
“You told me Daphne was…the right kind of…” Pete’s sentence was lost in a wet coughing fit. He spat blood at the end of it. Liliana’s third eyes saw an image in his mind of what he meant. Pete thought she had deliberately sent him into a nest of widow spiders seeking prey.
“I didn’t know Lady Daphne was a danger to you, or I would never have sent you to her for information,” Liliana said. “This is all my fault, and I am very sorry, but it was not intentional.”
She reached her hand to his face again.
He nodded slightly and let her fingertips brush the blood off his cheek. She had no reason to lie to him when he was already dying from poison. She could see Pete took comfort from her touch. She watched his aura as a strange sort of peace overcame the glowing green. Fear still filled him, but it was lessened. She had accomplished that much. But she could do more.
“Kristen was wrong. You do not have to die tonight.” Liliana had bitten him against his will the first time. Her other choice had been to kill him. She had chosen for him, which was not honorable, but he had not fully understood the situation. Now he could choose for himself whether to accept her venom or die, with full knowledge of both options. This was honorable. “My venom can counteract widow spider venom.”
Pete looked at her for a long moment, hope blooming in his heart like a pink flower, but he was confused. He opened his mouth to question her reasons for offering to help him, then he closed it without saying anything and nodded. It didn’t matter why. He would take any chance to avoid this awful death.
Liliana hesitated. She owed him full knowledge of one important aspect of her venom’s magic before he made the choice. “Each time I share venom with you, our fates will become more closely intertwined.”
