Six

NIA’N’AN

I wasn’t supposedto fall asleep—although I did.

I woke up, startled, just as the fire was just about to go out. I quickly added more fungi to fuel it, and then had time to be horrified with myself.

I hadn’t even set down any warning silks at our perimeter.

Anyone could’ve come in and taken her from me—or killed me, to get to her.

I had found my mate. I didn’t understand why I was still plagued with deterioration. Was it too late? Or was consummation literally required for my survival?

I would do nothing to her without her consent, of course, but—I made sounds of frustration at my own failings as I prepared her another meal.

We traveledinside of Threadstone for three more days like that. I carried her and cleaned her, and her leg seemed to be healing—I had taken the liberty of encasing it with firmer webs, mixing them with enough of my saliva to make them into a hard protective shell around her ankle.

I kept her trussed to my chest, to keep her warm and for her own safekeeping, and so that I would know when she finally, hopefully woke—and when I felt her start to move at last I could have shouted with glee, were I not so afraid it would bring rocks down on the both of us.

Then her struggles became frantic.

“Let me out!”

She punched me in the chest, and then cursed.

I put her down as quickly as I could.

“Please stop, my love,” I told her—but there was no way for her to understand me, without the translator. My ears were as good as hers, and I could understand her tongue without it, but there was no way for my lipless mouth to make her words.

She ripped herself out of the webbing I’d carried her in, and started bolting away without even looking back—until she put weight on her bad foot. That made her cry out, but it didn’t stop her, and I would have admired her bravery more had she not been running straight toward a cliff.

I lassoed her with webs, which she kept trying to tear off, as I opened up my bag to find the lantern to prove myself to her.

I cranked it on, and she flung an arm up over her eyes, blinded from having been below the earth so long—but asher vision cleared to reveal me, I watched horror flood her expression again.

I felt her tremble in fear through the webs I had laced around her, and she jumped backwards, yelping in pain anew, moving closer to the cliff behind her.

Only my webs kept her from falling into the very deep cavern below, and a horrible thought dripped through the purity of my love for her like the slowest moving acid.

My mate would rather die than be with me.

All I wanted was to truss her up and keep her still, to pull her to my chest and hold her like I had been, feeling the comfort of her heartbeat next to mine.

But I knew if I moved wrong right now I would scare her, and frightened people did foolish things.

If she leapt over the edge and somehow my web severed—I could not even dare imagine how I would react.

Then her eyes caught my bag and the lantern—the lone hallmarks of civilization I possessed.

“Oh my God,” she whispered. “Did my father send you?”

It was a simple question, and I could have nodded, but I didn’t—I was too stunned in the moment to be talking to her, wondering if she could ever want me back.

And when I was mute for too long, she assumed that I was.

Seven

SLOANE