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Pete didn’t say anything for a while, watching the dead woman.
She didn’t dare look into him with her third eyes right then. The last thing she wanted to see in Pete’s aura was the kind of horrified disgust he felt for the widow spiders. But his silence told her volumes. She had only just managed to make a friend, and now hormonal realities she could not control had made her monstrous in his eyes.
“If we live that long, I will warn you so you can stay away,” Liliana almost whispered, human and third eyes focusing on her fingers as they systematically unraveled her skirt edge.
Pete turned to her, eyebrows lifted. He scooted closer to her, closing the distance she left between them. “No, Lilly, it’s okay.” He put an arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze probably meant to be comforting. It was a bit painful, since her venom still interfered with his motor control and he was really strong, even in human form.
“You won’t need to warn me away,” he said, raspy voice gentle.
Liliana firmly closed her third eyes, then looked up and met his eyes with her human ones for a moment. A trickle of hope filled her chest. She risked looking into him with her third eyes again. She did not see passion. She saw a deep relief that her reproductive cycle bore little resemblance to a widow spider’s, and beyond that, affection and gratitude.
Pete did not desire her. She already knew this and respected his loyalty to his beloved. It should not feel disappointing. “Why won’t I need to warn you?”
“Because by then, you will have found someone.”
“You can’t see the future.” His arm felt warm and heavy around her shoulders and a bit sticky from widow spider web residue.
“No, but I can see you. You’re beautiful and brave, and any man would be lucky to have you.” Pete believed what he said, that Liliana would find a mate before blood-fire madness chose some random fierce male for her.
He squeezed her shoulders again and patted her arm reassuringly if a bit clumsily.
Pete had more faith in her ability to find a true mate than she did.
Liliana recognized where she excelled and where she did not. She was very good at fighting and seeing. She was not very good at relationships and social interaction. She didn’t even have any friends—except now she had Pete. The likelihood that in the next four years she would find a fierce, handsome, brave, passionate man and convince this miracle man to choose her for forever was very, very low. She did not need her fourth eyes to tell her that. In fact, she very carefully did not look.
The one hard lesson she’d learned, the one lesson she tried to teach to all her clients, was never to ask a question if you really did not want to know the answer.
Oddly, she thought of the obsidian Sidhe prince, Colonel Bennet, for a moment. No one could say he wasn’t fierce, and she found him intriguing. But a Sidhe would be far more likely to treat her as a threat than a potential mate.
“We have nearly three hours before we can try to save Sergeant Giovanni,” she said. “You have a strong sedative, widow spider venom, and spider seer venom all in your body and deep puncture wounds on your throat. You need to heal. You should sleep.”
Pete looked over at the dead body and scratched at his arms. “Yeah, I don’t think I’ll be doing any sleeping in here.”
“I will keep you safe, Pete.” His eyes still had wide pupils and a slightly unfocused look, so her venom still affected how easily he would take orders. “Lay down and go to sleep right now.”
“Okay.” He stretched out long legs on the cold concrete and used his shredded jacket as a pillow. He fell asleep almost immediately. When Pete had no real objection to her suggestions, his resistance to them was no stronger than anyone else’s.
Liliana stroked his thick red hair gently, threading out remnants of webbing and wishing she had some oil. “I will keep you safe,” she whispered. She was not certain it was truth, but she was determined to do her best to make it truth.
For lack of anything else to do, she relaced Pete’s boot, thinking about the fight to come. His overly large boots made him seem clumsy in human form, but they would be very useful when he shifted to demi-wolf form and his feet, along with the rest of him, got much bigger.
The rest of his clothing was the same. It either fit loosely or was designed to stretch. Even the straps of the knife sheaths tucked into his boots and around his wrists were designed to adjust size with him as he changed shape. Clever. The wolf-kin could take demi-wolf form and return without damage to his clothes. Only full-wolf form would necessitate removing them.
While her hands busied themselves with his boot laces, her mind worried at the problems ahead. Perhaps there was some way to increase the odds in their favor in the fight to come. She searched her mind and the paths of the near future, seeking a path that would lead to Liliana, the red wolf, and the nice Army sergeant all walking out of this building alive.
She did not find one.
Chapter 14
Stella
Above them, Liliana watched as the nightclub and restaurant closed for the night. The raucous music went silent. The innocent hotel guests settled snugly in their beds. Most of the employees left.
Only three widow spiders remained: Lady Daphne, Stella, and Margaret, who Liliana discovered was the large woman in the flour-dusted apron from the restaurant.
Liliana walked over to the dead body of the young spider-kin she’d killed. The slightly swollen belly of the headless corpse moved subtly. Her second eyes could see the warm living cluster of spider-kin babies, growing restless as their mother’s body cooled. She put her hand gently on the dead woman’s belly and blinked tears. “I am so very sorry,” she whispered.
Sad and without hope, she sat back down next to her wolf-kin friend. Kristen’s life had been the price paid for Pete to survive, but it was a bad bargain if she could not find a safe way for him to survive the night. She had neither thought of nor seen any way to improve their chances beyond the tiniest of unlikely flickers.
