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I traveledfor the better part of two days. I sank into ever darker tunnels, climbed on ceilings over frigid rivers, crawled up—and down!—sheer rock walls, scraping my carapace through tunnels barely wide enough to grant me passage, letting the strength of the scent tell me what path to take.
While I still felt the tiredness that’d clung to me in my apartment, I managed to shake it off. It always returned, like a dog asking for a ball to be thrown, but I gave it no mind, because freedom was nearly at hand.
And all the surrounding blackness let me imagine my perfect world with my perfect mate more clearly.
She would be beautiful, of course—her legs would be exceptionally even. I hoped her shell would have eye-catching splashes of color to get lost in: gray like the surfaceof the moon, blue like the summer sky, or perhaps a robust yellow, like the noontime sun.
She would be smart—she would have to be, to have survived in Threadstone alone all this time. My mother had never been clear on what reason our people had to leave Threadstone, but I knew they had not long after my mother had been captured. Any Arachnaea that had remained behind on its own would have to be exceptional.
And lastly, she would be eager—because surely she had been waiting to be mated for just as long as I had. Was she also in my position? Had she, too, almost given up hope?
Could she scent me, the same as I could scent her, and was she traveling to meet me just as fervently?
I hauled myself up into a fresh tunnel where her smell was impossibly strong.
She had to be near. I felt it, right through my shell. I crawled up onto the ceiling and kept moving forward, until I could spot a pinprick of true light.
I had to stop myself from thundering across the distance to it—I knew if I did, I’d blind myself after having been in the darkness so long, and I’d lose the element of surprise, which was a thing I knew I needed, because now the pure scent of my perfect mate was tainted with another smell—man sweat.
It made a sick amount of sense, because it was men who’d captured my mother centuries ago. And my mate being trapped was the only thing that would explain her not rushing to meet me the same as I was her.
She must require rescuing—I had to be prepared.
I rocked my fangs in and out, tasting the air around me as thoroughly as I could with my tongue, the spiracles that lined my abdomen that helped me breathe, and the chemical sensors that lined my feet.
There were seven different men ahead: each had a slightly different scent. All of them were rough—I knew they hadn’t partaken of any baths in the icy waters of the caves.
I could taste panic and fear too, but not because of my presence; they didn’t know about me yet.
I lowered my body and crept forward as cautiously as only one of my kind could, listen-feeling-breathing, intuiting the surroundings of the room ahead of me by the currents of wind moving around objects before I could even see them.
They were arguing inside a large, high-ceilinged cavern, where there were plenty of shadows for me to hide in. The area below was illuminated by lanterns, and it looked like they’d been bivouacked there for quite some time, with trash wrappers for rations scattered around sleeping bags, and one suspiciously empty cage.
The second I spotted that, I was driven to bloodlust.
They’d hurt her.
I knew it.
The claws on my feet tightened, and a shard of rock dropped free—I shot a line of silk after it to stop it from clattering to the ground.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” an older human with a beard was busily shouting at a red-headed man half his age.
“I didn’t think she could get out!” the younger one shouted back, swinging his arms wide. “I mean, if we’re trapped down here, I figured she’d be the same!”
“If I recall correctly, shouting’s what got us into this mess,” said another, calmer man, putting himself between the two of them.
They didn’t have equipment to reach the tunnel in the ceiling I’d used to get in. I scanned the edges of the cavern. There appeared to be a fresh rockfall blocking a tunnel—perhaps they’d trapped themselves down here?
Acid began to drip from the tips of my fangs.
Easier for me to kill, if so.
“I didn’t think—” the younger red-head began to protest again.
“Yeah, you didn’t,” said the older man.
“Well, she can’t have gotten far,” said another man, inspecting a narrow gap in the rock—which was apparently where my Arachnaea had escaped through.
