Page 6 of Black Widow's Bite

I blinked at him, assuming I’d misheard. “I’m sorry, what?”

“A couple of the grad students told me they’d seen a snake loose in the department. We have a few people checking around, but I just wanted to check and see if you’d, uh, seen it?” I looked behind him, trying to see if there was a group hazing going on.He was alone, and I had a sinking feeling this wasn’t just a coincidence. Pete was watching me nervously, as if I might lunge at him. I’d never been particularly rude to him. Maybe he just had a nervous constitution.

“Someone in the zoology department is probably panicking over their missing research project,” I laughed, and Pete lightened up with a smile. “I haven’t seen any snakes here, but I’ll be sure to scream if I do.” Giving him a polite smile, I stayed frozen as he nodded at me and shut my door. I waited a beat to make sure he was gone and then quickly looked under my desk. Nothing. Checking the other side of my desk, nothing slithered into view there either. Great, not only was I crazy, but I was also full of myself. Not everything weird that happened on campus had to do with me.

Getting up, I went over to the coffeemaker to freshen up the cold dregs left in the bottom of my mug. When I grabbed the pot, I saw a small tail disappear behind the machine, and I nearly dumped the coffee in shock. I quickly put the coffeepot back on the machine and moved the entire unit over to the side. There, curled up over a water stain, was a small garter snake. I looked around to make sure no one else was nearby and held out my hand tentatively. The snake uncoiled and slithered into my palm, wrapping itself around my wrist with a light squeeze. Coffee forgotten, I walked back to my office before anybody came out and witnessed me charming a snake.

“You don’t belong here, do you?” I whispered to it after my door was safely shut and locked. I lifted my wrist so I could look it in the eyes. It, being a snake, did not answer me, and I felt ridiculous. What the fuck was I supposed to do with a snake? It seemed cozy enough wrapped around my wrist, but I couldn’t just walk around campus with it. My reputation as the aloof spider lady was bad enough. I didn’t need to give people any more reason to pay attention to me. Giving the snake a little pat,I sat back in my chair to think. Technically, I was done with my in-lab work for today anyway, and it’s not like my hours were being logged anywhere but in my thesis journal. I packed up my books, careful not to jostle my little tag-along, and locked up my office for the day.

“Heading home for the day?” Pete piped up, and I jumped back from my door, bumping into him in the process. He grabbed my elbow to stop me from falling, his hand brushing against my bare skin. Fuck, I’d rolled my sleeves up to avoid getting pen ink on them, and with all the snake nonsense, I hadn’t bothered to fix them.

“Sure am, have a nice day,” I told him kindly, quickly pulling out of his grasp. His eyes were glazed over, and he looked confused. I felt a moment of guilt, hoping he wouldn’t be too affected by the brief contact. Hiding my other arm behind my purse, I turned and left the lab as quickly as I could manage without actually running. Luckily, I made it off campus without bumping into anyone else.

When I reached the tattoo studio, it still looked abandoned. I tried the front door this time, and it was unlocked, so I let myself in. The main floor of the building looked similar enough to other tattoo studios I’d seen, except it was missing a storefront. There was a side table set up near the door with a credit card scanner on it. That must be the front desk. There was no seating, or waiting room of any kind, just a hallway that led to a couple of rooms with tattoo chairs and tools. One of the doors was closed with an ‘Occupied’ sign on it, so I left that one alone for now. I looked over at the stairs leading up to the second floor, and my living bracelet moved its head to look up as well. I took that as its way of saying “Go that way” and headed upstairs, ignoring the ‘Do Not Enter’ sign taped up on the wall.

The second floor opened into a small kitchen area, with appliances that would’ve been in their prime back in the 90s.A shabby-looking table with four mismatched chairs sat in the centre of the room. A door down the hallway creaked open just as I was peering up the stairs to the third floor, and Cain appeared in the hallway, looking murderous. Great, of course, I just had to run into him. He must’ve just woken up. His reddish-blond hair was adorably messy, which was a sharp contrast with the scowl on his face. He was holding his shirt, just about to put it on, and I caught a glimpse of some wicked-looking scars covering his chest before he pulled his shirt down to cover them. Cain ran a hand through his hair to smooth it down as he stalked towards me, his lip curled up in a snarl.

“Was I not clear last night?” he demanded, his voice rough from sleep. “You’re trespassing now. This is private property.” He stopped just short of me, looming over me like I was supposed to cower before him. I held up my arm, revealing the snake on my wrist.

“Does this guy look familiar? I found him in my lab today.” I replied tartly. For a split second, he looked genuinely baffled before his mask of anger slipped back down.

“You experiment on snakes in a lab?” Cain asked, frowning, and I rolled my eyes. God save me from the stupidity of men.

“No, I don’t experiment on snakes. But I think someone here might be missing a snake, and I came to return it. Trust me, I’m not here to see you,” I snapped and moved to head up to the third floor. Cain stepped in front of me and I gave his chest a frustrated shove. His hand wrapped around my wrist before I could flinch away, and I watched the rage on his face melt away into confusion. His grip was white hot, and I felt heat seeping up my arm, a flush rising on my cheeks. I tried to pry my wrist away from his hand, but he had a grip like iron. Fuck, this wasn’t good. I yanked at my arm, but Cain seemed frozen on the spot, gaping at me like I’d grown a second head. I gave his chest a shove with my free hand, but he didn’t move. In desperation, I slappedhim hard across the face, and that knocked him back a step and loosened his grip enough for me to slip away.

He was still staring at me, but with a renewed intensity I’d never seen before. He took a step closer to me again and my breath hitched, but he didn’t try to touch me at least. I was still warm from his touch, and the heat was starting to build somewhere a lot lower than my arm. Cain was looking at me like he wanted to devour me, and it was terrifying because he was obviously unhinged, but oddly sexy as well. I think I needed to get my head examined, either by a shrink or by an M.D., maybe both. I took a step back, but he closed the distance immediately, warmth radiating off his chest.

“How the fuck did you do that?” he asked hoarsely. I opened my mouth to answer, but the words died off in my throat. I tried to take another step, but my back hit the wall, and he had me pinned. For the second time in two days, I had the overwhelming sense that I was about to die in this building.

Chapter 8

Austin

You wouldn’t really think it, but snakes actually have an amazing sense of smell. Mine wasn’t as good, but it was a lot better than most people’s, and I could smell Addy as soon as Wyatt had brought her into our home. I’d watched her for a bit while she was on the couch. Wyatt had asked me to keep an eye on her while he rooted around for some bandages in the kitchen. She was pretty, I guess, although she didn’t have many piercings. Just two in her ears, like a lot of women seemed to have. She smelled amazing, though, with a similar undercurrent of sharp spices that Wyatt, Piper, and Cain had. It was that dark spice that marked her as different, just like us. I hid again when she woke up, choosing to listen from the shadows as she and Wyatt talked. He was good at the talking part. He had to be because his job took longer than mine. I just stabbed people and got paid. I preferred it that way.

We never have people over. Piper said it was because we were unsettling. When Wyatt got in one of his moods, he said it was because god had forgotten about us, and people didn’t like that. I didn’t need the company of people anyway, so that didn’t make me sad. But I’d been so curious about the girl who smelled so good that when I heard Wyatt explaining things to her, I figured it might be safe to join in. Addy had looked right at me and she hadn’t been scared or disgusted. She’d just looked at me like you would anyone on the street. This is what it must feel like to benormal. I enjoyed listening to her talk, watching as her hands moved, noticing how her tongue poked out to lick her lips after she took a drink.

I was so disappointed when she’d had to leave. Why couldn’t she stay? We all had after Piper had called us here. I don’t think Cain liked her much. He didn’t like anybody though - sometimes I didn’t even think he liked Piper. Wyatt told us after she left that her touch was dangerous. She was like a drug, and we had to be careful about that. He looked like he wanted to touch her more. He always liked drugs, though. Drugs didn’t always work right for me. Sometimes I could feel something and sometimes they just made me tired. I wonder if touching her would make me tired, or if I would feel normal, like I did when she looked at me. Piper called her a spider, but she didn’t have fangs. I had checked when she smiled. Maybe they were just hidden and slid out only when she was close enough to bite.

I had opened my window a crack this morning, letting the smells of the street waft into my room. I waited all morning, hoping I could catch her scent. She said she lived close by, and she worked someplace she could walk to, so maybe she would walk past us again. I waited and waited at the window, curled up next to my heating block. It was mid-morning when I finally caught a whiff of her on the breeze. It was faint, but unmistakably Addy. One of my friends slithered over to the windowsill to check it out with me, and I whispered to him in a language only we knew. I asked him to find out where she was going and keep her safe for the day. My friend slipped out after her, and I waited by the window until I couldn’t smell her anymore.

Eventually, I wandered out of my room to check the fridge, but Piper wasn’t back with the groceries yet. I didn’t go out much unless it was late, otherwise people would stare at me. Wyatt wore sunglasses to hide his eyes, but I didn’t like wearing themvery much. They made it too difficult to see. Piper was lucky. People didn’t mind it when he went outside and walked around. He even would visit the farmer’s markets on the weekends when he wasn’t too stoned to get up, and he made extra cash telling fortunes. He told me that a lot of the fortunes he gave out were bullshit, but occasionally someone would come along and he’d feel a little extra about them. Those people would often come back and see him again later in the studio.

I had a couple of clients booked in today, two septum piercings back to back. Septum piercings were in style right now, and most of the people who wanted them didn’t have any other piercings yet, which led to problems. I’ve had a few fainters and a few people who panicked when they saw the needle. I try to calm them down as best I can, but people rarely feel at ease around me, so it doesn’t seem to help. Today, at least, both girls were excited to get them done and managed not to faint in the room. They took a lot of pictures though, which I didn’t like, and they even asked to take a picture of me. I said no politely because Wyatt told me we needed good reviews to keep up business. One of the girls seemed to want to talk to me a lot, and she slipped me a piece of paper with her number on it. I tossed it in the trash after they left. She smelt sour, like the tang of curdled milk, and I didn’t like that.

After I cleaned up my tools, I wiped everything down with a pungent antiseptic wipe that cleared away the smells of the clients. It was so strong it plugged my nose, and I didn’t realize until I was already halfway up the stairs that Addy must’ve been nearby. I had heard a commotion upstairs, but I assumed it was Cain in one of his dark moods and had dismissed it. I bounded up the steps and nearly crashed into both of them.

“You came back,” I whispered, ignoring Cain. He seemed mad about something, but he was usually mad. I saw my little friend wrapped around Addy’s wrist - he’d not only found her,but he’d brought her home! I grinned broadly, and Cain moved back, still looking weird. Addy smiled back at me, holding out the hand where my snake was coiled around.

I forgot Wyatt’s warning in my excitement and brushed my hand against hers as I reached out for my friend. My skin buzzed like bees had crawled into my bloodstream, and her smell enveloped me completely, making my head spin. I was only distantly aware of the snake slithering over my hand and up my arm. When she pulled her hand away, the feeling dissipated immediately, leaving an aching emptiness in my chest. Letting out a small whine, I reached for her again without thinking, wrapping my hand around the back of her neck. I coiled around her, pressing as close as I could and burying my face against her neck so I could inhale her scent. Addy squeaked as my other hand wrapped around her waist so she couldn’t move away again. I shuddered, nuzzling against her neck where I could feel her heart racing. My body was responding in a very human way, and I pressed against her, making her gasp, her hips moving against me. My teeth grazed along her neck, and her breath hitched, her scent getting stronger, threatening to drown me.

I was never letting go of her again.

Chapter 9

Wyatt

I’ve walked in on a lot of weird things living here with these guys. There was the time Cain had a violent fit and nearly melted all the kitchen tiles, his clothes burning away to cinders when I walked in. Then there was the time Austin hatched a nest of vipers in the bathroom sink, and everyone had to piss in the alley until he wrangled them all back into his room. Piper liked to meditate naked on the kitchen table, so that was almost expected at this point. I had never walked in on Austin trying to kill someone though, that was new.

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