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While searching for his knives, she found Kristen’s head rolled into the same corner. Gently, she laid it beside her body, pushing the long hair away from the blood and closing the staring eyes. It was the best she could do to give the girl some dignity.
The panther-kin who raped Kristen had done so much damage with a single cruel act. So many had died, and there was more blood and death still to come. Ripples of pain would echo from that single dark deed through lifetimes.
Liliana wished others could see as she did, the many ways each act affected the fate of others, the way every life intertwined with the other lives they touched. Maybe if they did, they would take more care.
Or probably not.
Anyone who would rape a young girl on their first date probably didn’t care about the damage he did.
To the dead girl, Liliana murmured, “At least he paid for his crime with his life.” But it was cold comfort to the young spider-kin lying headless in a pool of her own blood with her orphaned children growing restless inside her.
Eight knives of various lengths lay in the darkened corner. She brought them back to the red wolf.
Pete’s eyes showed white around the edges as he stared at the dead widow spider.
Liliana’s third eyes saw into him, the dark horror of the basement full of blood, death, and terror, like he was in a living nightmare that he couldn’t leave. The knives sliding into place in their sheaths at his ankles and wrists and on his back comforted him somewhat. He felt safer with them, but he touched the empty shoulder holster with longing.
She would have to get his gun back for him.
He did not seem to want her to sit too close, so she left space between them.
After a while, he looked at her strangely. “Um, Lilly, don’t take this the wrong way, but are you likely to get pregnant any time soon?”
Liliana felt her face flush. “I am not yet adult, so I cannot become pregnant for four more years.”
He blinked. “How old are you?”
“One hundred and forty-six.” Wasn’t there some sort of social rule about not asking a woman’s age? Liliana suspected the venom made Pete forget that rule.
“You’re more than a hundred years old?” he said, incredulously. “If I were a bar bouncer, I’d card you.”
Liliana shrugged. “Spider-kin live a long time. My sister, Isabella, is nearly three hundred fifty and passes for a human in her mid-twenties.”
“I didn’t know anybody but Fae lived that long.”
They sat in silence for a while, watching the shadows move over the swollen belly of the headless dead girl.
“So, if you do get pregnant, will it be like, um…will you have to um…” Pete trailed off and gestured to the body.
“Spider seers are the opposite of widow spiders in many ways. We are born completely human and become more and more spiderlike as we mature. I got my arm blades when I was five, my second eyes at ten, my third eyes at fifteen. My fourth eyes didn’t open until I was twenty, but that is still childhood for a spider seer. The first time I become pregnant, I will become fully human again for a time, and I should learn how to take human form at will afterward. I should learn full spider form some time in the next century after that.”
“So, right now, you can’t be totally human or totally spider? You’re stuck in demi-spider form?” It was more confirmation than question.
Liliana nodded.
“Will you have a whole bunch of babies like that?”
“I will bear a single spider seer girl child if the child is conceived during the blood-fire time, a boy child of the father’s race any other time.”
“The father’s race? Isn’t that usually the same as yours?”
“There are no male spider-kin. We can mate with any Other, or even Normals, although that is rare. Spider seers seek mates who are fierce and strong, who can protect us when we are pregnant and less able to defend ourselves. One of my aunts married Genghis Khan. My father was lion-kin. My sister’s husband is Komodo dragon-kin.”
“What’s the blood-fire time?” Pete seemed less nervous now, just curious.
Liliana shifted uncomfortably on the concrete. “It is a time of…of…intense sexual desire, to the point of madness.” She picked a loose thread on the torn edge of her skirt until it unraveled. The idea of losing all inhibitions, even for a short time, disturbed her deeply. To her, losing control of her thoughts and actions equaled insanity, and maintaining her sanity had been the hardest battle of her life when she was younger. Her first mother, Solifu, had to kill the daughter she’d had between Isabella and Liliana. She never spoke of it, and neither did Isabella, but Liliana had seen her lost sister and the events leading to her mother making the choice to end the young spiderling’s life. A spider seer whose visions drove her mad became deadly dangerous. It was oddly comforting to know that, as much as her first mother loved her, Solifu would kill her rather than let her become a danger to everyone around her. Now she was on her own. There was only Liliana to make sure Liliana stayed sane.
“I have four years to choose a mate, or my body will force me to choose the nearest fierce male.” Liliana’s cheeks were very warm. Hormones would override her ability to choose and her honor. She would use her venom to make any nearby suitable male mate with her if she had no obvious mate by then.
