Page 96 of The Spider Queen
Hunter gestured for me to take the window seat and then sat down next to me before asking the flight attendant for two breakfast sandwiches and coffee. A few moments later, she returned with our meals.
I unwrapped a breakfast sandwich even though I was suddenly no longer hungry. “You were saying goodbye to me last night, weren’t you?”
He turned his head toward me. “Yes.”
“What happens to you,” I asked. “If I pass the test and Thane is freed?”
“Youwillpass the test,” he assured me.
“Fine.” I rolled my eyes. “Assuming I pass the test… What about you, Hunter? What happens to you?”
He took a sip of his steaming coffee and then winced when he realized it was too hot to drink. “Gruesome punishment, I imagine.” His tone was surprisingly blasé.
My breath hitched.
“Thane is…unhappy, to say the least. I was intimate with you.” A faint rose blush stained his high cheekbones. “He’ll want retribution for that.”
“I’m not his,” I retorted.
“But you are.”
“I won’t let him hurt you,” I assured him. “I promise.”
He smiled faintly. “How can you promise me that?”
“I’ll beg Thane if I have to. I’ll do whatever it takes for you, Hunter. I love you.”
“Stop saying that,” he insisted. “It only makes it worse.”
“For Thane?FuckThane,” I seethed.
Hunter shot me a cold look. “Don’t, Poppy. Don’t say that. You have no idea what he’s capable of. You have no idea what it’s been like since he was imprisoned. You don’t know what that can do to a man, how it can change him.” He closed his mouth, unwilling to say more about it.
“And you know? Because he’s shared that with you?” Hunter stilled, barely breathing and I went on, “Stop, Hunter. No matter what you say to plead his case, I won’t cave. He is not the one for me. You are.”
“Poppy—”
“Yeah, I know. Okay? You can’t explain. I get that. But Thane isn’t here. And I can’t communicate with him anymore. I’m in the dark, and I’m just supposed to, do what? Blindly accept my fate? Fuck fate. Fuck that. I wantyou.”
“You have me,” he whispered, broken. “And that’s the problem. He even tried—”
“Tried? Tried what?”
“To keep us apart.”
I paused and suddenly I understood. “When you went home? To deal with a family emergency.”
He nodded. “Thane summoned me. I was in Charleston the entire time, but I was…by the time I…surfaced…”
“Oh.”
I thought back to the conversations I’d had with Thane as a spider. He’d been arrogant, jealous, possessive. But funny, sweet, andthere. In my head. We shared a connection, a silky link between our minds.
I wanted the story, from beginning to end, about how Thane became imprisoned, how he could manifest himself as a spider, how we shared a bond. About what the hell hewas.
Curiosity overpowered my fear—fear that I was headed for my death.
Chapter 36
