Page 97 of The Spider Queen
“First time on a private flight?” Hunter asked, reaching for my hand and then stopping himself.
I watched his struggle, felt it too—I warred withthe pull— toward Thane.
“If I weren’t already impressed by you, buying a private flight for us definitely would’ve done it.”
Hunter gave me a watery smile, but his heart wasn’t in it.
We buckled our seatbelts as the engines of the plane came to life and the propellers began to spin.
Raising the slat over my window, I glanced out at the runway. “Are you allowed to explain what happened to me—the trance state I was in, I mean?”
“Thane has enemies.”
“Right,” I said. “But you refuse to expand on that.”
Hunter ignored my statement and moved on. “You were engaged in a battle, Poppy. The golden wasps are servants of Thane’s enemies.”
“They already know who I am then,” I stated. “They were trying to kill me…only I didn’t know it.” I sat up straighter. “The spiders? If the wasps are servants of Thane’s enemies, then the spiders are—”
“Servants of Thane’s,” Hunter finished, nodding. “And you called them to you.”
“How? I didn’t ask, I—”
“Anita said you were chanting gibberish, remember? It wasn’t gibberish. You were calling them to you for protection.”
“How could I do that?”
“Because of your bond with Thane. But he didn’t send them, Poppy.Youcalled them. And they came because theywantedto.” He took my chin and forced me to look at him. “That’s how we know.”
“Know what?”
“There have been many women over the generations, Poppy. And not one of them has held even a fraction of the power you do. You’re it.Youare the one who will free Thane.”
“Why is he trapped? Who put him in his prison?”
Hunter’s hand dropped my chin. My skin tingled from his touch. “That’s not for me to tell you.”
He wouldn’t tell me what the test in Ireland entailed.
He wouldn’t tell me why Thane was in a prison.
He wouldn’t tell me a damn thing.
An hour later, I ordered my first mimosa. Hunter and I weren’t communicating. Well, he was trying to talk to me, but I wasn’t talking to him. I was tired of his cryptic bullshit.
By the third mimosa, we were somewhere over the Atlantic, and I was finally speaking to him.
Yelling, actually.
“This is all your fucking fault!” I shouted, not caring if the flight crew heard me.
“My fault?” Hunter repeated, eyes wide. “How do you figure?”
“I don’t know! You sat down at my library table! And you’re the one who took me to that bar where I found Thane.” I shook my head as if to clear it. “And now it was all for this—this—shit! There’s not even a name for what all this is!”
Hunter grasped my face in his hands and forced me to look into his eyes. “Poppy,” he whispered. Aching, beautiful, heartbroken.
“I have never wanted to shirk my duty, my obligation. Not until I met you.”
