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He coughed, spat more blood, and quirked up one side of his lips in a crooked half-grin showing bloody teeth. “I’ve seen the alternative,” he said. “Bite me.”
Liliana knelt beside him and put her arms around his wide shoulders.
Pete leaned into her. His muscular body trembled in her arms. His face still showed no signs of distress, but his body and his aura betrayed his fear and pain.
The sticky widow spider silk felt odd under her hands, familiar and yet not quite right, like an old favorite tune played slightly off-key.
His throat was the only part of Pete exposed.
“This will hurt,” Liliana apologized. She could not bite a safer spot, and she didn’t dare take the time to bite him like she would a lover, to minimize pain.
Rather than speak, Pete leaned his head to the side and pushed his throat toward her mouth.
Liliana bit carefully in the long strip of muscle that ran from Pete’s collarbone up the side of his neck to just under his ear, avoiding the big veins. Her needle-sharp fangs made pinpricks just above the gaping wounds the widow spider’s lion-sized fangs had left.
His damp skin smelled of fear sweat and the sickly sweet acidic rot of widow spider venom, but under that was formaldehyde and steel and a hint of wet fur: Pete’s scent. Liliana made sure he got a full dose of venom, then tasting the harsh acid in his sweat, bit a little harder to push more.
Pete grunted hoarsely next to her ear. A pained sound, but nothing like the agonized scream she heard earlier when Kristen bit him.
She hugged him as the venom’s euphoria burned warm and sunny yellow through him, washing away all pain and fear.
He rested his forehead on her shoulder as his breathing slowed and the trembling eased.
Liliana held him close and rocked him like a sick child.
After a few steady, deep breaths, the tension in Pete’s shoulders drained away. “Thanks, Lilly,” he whispered. “I keep misunderstanding you.” He snuggled more comfortably into her arms. “I can’t believe I tried to kill you last night,” he said with the unfiltered honesty of her venom. His voice was still raspy, but it no longer held the wet gurgle of blood.
“I can’t believe I nearly got you killed tonight.”
“Let’sh not do that anymore.” Her venom’s influence slurred his speech slightly.
“Agreed.” Liliana hugged him hard. For a man she had known only two days, this red wolf had become precious to her.
“Could you cut me loosh now?” he asked.
Liliana laughed and felt the relief in it, but they were deep in enemy territory. One wrong step would still end both their lives. Even if they stepped as carefully as her eyes could guide them, they had a strong chance of both dying tonight. “No.”
“Um…” Pete pulled back and looked at her. “Why not?” She could see him struggle to make sense through the fog of both her venom and lingering sedative.
“Sergeant Giovanni is sleeping in an office upstairs in the back of the restaurant.”
“Soooo…”
“If I cut you free, you will want to go and save her, and you are stronger than I am. I will not be able to stop you.”
His lips thinned into a stubborn line. “I’m not leaving Zoe.”
Liliana nodded. “I could not save you until after you were bitten. I was here, hiding, but I had to wait or we both would have died.”
A deep crease of confusion dug its way between his pale brows.
“I’m sorry I’m not explaining this very well.” The euphoric fog of her venom probably did not help Pete make sense of her nonlinear thoughts. “I wanted to save you before, but the widow spiders would have killed me, and you would still be dying now.”
“Wait, I think I’ve got this,” Pete said with the overly serious air of the very intoxicated. “You’re saying we have to wait until the right moment to save Zoe or we’ll die trying?”
Liliana nodded.
“And you won’t cut me out of these nasty webs because you don’t think I’ll wait?”
