Page 160 of The Spider Queen
“Not being intimate with you. It’s”—he sighed—“the insanity. Taking over.”
I balked. “We were intimate just a few days ago. On the altar.” My cheeks warmed when I thought about it and how eager I was to repeat it.
“Poppy”—his hand on mine tightened—“that was three weeks ago.”
“Three weeks? What do you—”
“When you chose me, you opened yourself up to your magic, but you weren’t prepared for it. You fell unconscious, and it took time to heal. You woke up as a human because that’s your most basic form. Elemental.”
I wrestled my hand from his. “Why didn’t you tell me? About me being unconscious for three weeks, I mean.” I was curious about the other stuff too, but I wasn’t ready to hear it.
He shrugged. “I didn’t think it mattered. We wouldn’t have been able to leave any sooner. Not until I knew you were healed. Not until I knew you were well.”
I swallowed. “We could be too late.”
“We could’ve been too late even when you were on your quest to free me. No way to know.”
I stopped walking and bent over at the waist, feeling lightheaded and in danger of fainting. “So, let me get this straight. If we’re not intimate on the regular, you’ll go insane?”
“You will too.”
“I looked in the mirror today, Thane. My eyes aren’t doing the weird shadow thing.”
“The insanity will be slower for you. Because you’re not—you haven’t already gone insane.” He blew out a puff of air. “I told you I lost years to insanity. It’s…like an autoimmune disease. Dormant at times. Flares up at others.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose.
“Have you noticed your mind feeling foggy? That’s usually one of the first symptoms.”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. I stood slowly, testing to make sure I wasn’t about to keel over. When I realized I was no longer in danger of fainting, I took a breath and then started walking again. “Three weeks, Thane? I lost three weeks of my life to—to some other physical state?” I hadn’t even been aware of it. I’d awoken and felt like I’d just had a normal night of sleep.
“I’m sorry. I thought about telling you, but I wasn’t sure how to—after everything else.”
I nodded. “I understand.”
“You do?”
“I’m trying to.” I flashed him a smile. “I guess there are worse things? Like Earth becoming a playground for ego maniacal immortals and humans are fodder for whatever horrors said immortals can think of.”
“Deities,” he corrected with a small humorless smile. “They’re deities.”
“Cassandra and I had a heart-to-heart,” I said, wanting—needing—to change the subject.
“Did you?”
“She’s bound to you?”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to release her?”
He sighed. “I’m not the one who shackled her to me. She did that on her own.”
“I don’t understand.”
“She’s bound by her human guilt. She took it with her when she died. Only she can free herself.”
“How like the ancient Greeks. But then again, she isn’t Greek. She’s Trojan.” I shook my head. “It’s all still hard to wrap my head around. Not to mention that every story about her is wrong.”
