A Kiss of Venom (An Araneae Nation Novella) (6 page)

The rapid rise and fall of his chest, the dilation of his gorgeous lavender eyes, I couldn’t resist.

He was air to me, and I’d gone too long without breathing him in.

I stood before him, running my fingers down the lapels of my robe. My nipples pearled beneath his gaze. I rubbed those too, recalling how he loved to nip and tease me into orgasm with his mouth.

His voice broke. “You don’t play fair.”

“Life isn’t fair.” I untied my belt. “Why should I be?”

The robe slid from my shoulders to pool at my feet. His eyes were drawn straight to my sex, and I chuckled as his lips went slack. He must not have expected my hair to be teal and indigo everywhere…

His gaze was as tangible as a caress. “There’s something you should know.”

“Oh?” I rolled my nipples between my fingers. “What’s that?”

“I tie knots for a living.” His
muscles bunched, and my scarf drifted to the floor. “Yours need work.”

He was on me before I registered he had moved. His mouth covered mine, swallowing my gasp. My head hit the wall, but dazed as I was, I didn’t care. The taste of him was on my tongue, and I was desperate for more. I clawed at his shirt, flung it aside. His hips pinned m
e to the wall as he shivered.

“Pants
.” He cursed, his lips mashed to mine. He had tied a knot in his laces.

“You’re right.” I laughed, gasping for breath, grasping for him. “Your knots are
much
better.”

His response was a hard nip to my collarbone that melted my knees.

I reached blindly beside us, knocking odds and ends off the dresser until I felt my shears.

Armand paled when he saw where I was headed
.

“Stop.” He caught me by the wrist. “It’s Araneidae silk. You can’t cut it. Not with th
ose.”

“I should have remembered that.” I tossed the shears on the floor behind us. “Are you all right?”

He blinked down at me. “I think my life just flashed before my eyes.”

I patted his chest. “What did you see?”

“I’m not sure.” He reached down to check himself. “I closed them.”

Rolling my eyes at him, I pushed him back
and forced myself to take a breath while I tackled the knot he had tied. When the laces came undone, I shoved his pants down his hips and took his hard length in hand. I stroked it once, running my thumb over the head.

“Nicolette.”

“Hmm?”

He braced his forehead against the wall behind me. His hot breath shuddered over my shoulder.

“I want—” He bucked into my hand. “Gods damn it, I want you.”

Grasping my waist, he lifted me higher, parted my thighs with his and plunged home. I cried out when
his hips started moving. Head thrown back, I was shocked when he struck. His fangs sank deep in my neck, holding me steady for his onslaught as though I were his prey. His venom stung in my veins. I had forgotten the heady rush of his poison, the way it made my sex clench and heart trip. He groaned at my ear, slid his hands down my sides to cup my arse and pin me as his thrusts grew harsher.

Tears pricked my eyes. I bit them back, thankful when he lowered his head, when he sank fangs into the tender skin of my breast and let his tongue caress away the pain. I arched against his mouth, into his bite, and when his thumb at last parted the lips of my sex, I exploded around him.

He came later, much later, and several times after that.

It was a well-spent afternoon by any standard.

Armand’s snoring jarred me awake. When I tensed, his hand tightened its possessive hold on my left breast. Shifting onto my side, I winced as a spangle cut into my hip. We’d never made it to the bed. The clothes I had discarded last night were the cushion we lay on, and the ornaments were sharp.

Armand nude was a sight worth savoring. Claw marks reddened his chest and flanks.
His mouth was swollen from my kisses and hung open, hence the rendition of an ursus in its death throes.

Lifting his arm, I slid from under it and fought to keep my sore legs under me.

A bath would have been divine, but I settled for using the rose-scented water left in my basin to wash away all traces of my folly, except the blemish left on my heart. That stain refused to budge no matter how I scrubbed. Foolish to think I could be so close to him, touch him and remain unaffected.

“It’s too early in the day for remorse.” Armand pushed upright with a grunt.

He sat on a blanket of my gowns, his legs crossed, his hair mussed, looking utterly ridiculous. My heart really shouldn’t have tumbled at the uncertainty in his gaze.

“The day is almost over.” Difficult as it was telling time without the sun, it must be near dark.

He stared at me until I had to look away. “Do you regret what happened?”

“I gave you two hours.” I rescued my robe from the knob of the dresser where it hung
, and eased into it before using the detangling of my hair to avoid Armand ruining my afterglow. “It’s time to go.”

“Where are we going?”

His voice came from behind me. His palm slid across my stomach, through the part in my robe. I shivered when his hand lowered, caressing the crease in my thigh. I popped his wrist with my brush.

I gestured around us. “I have to tidy this before Maisy arrives.”

He winced at the mess we’d made. “We employ people happy to perform that service for you.”

“I met
one such person, remember?” He must have seen Holly leave my room. “This isn’t her mess.”

“Then I’ll help you.” He waved a pair of my undergarments like a flag. “It’s the least I can do.”

Heat burning in my cheeks, I snatched them from him. “Are you always so hard to get rid of?”

He appeared to give the matter genuine consideration. “I’m harder since meeting you.”

There was a time he couldn’t scrape me from his boots fast enough. What had changed?

A pang rocked me on my heels. The girl I had been… That girl was no one. Was the prestige I
’d cultivated as Nicolette, companion to one of the brightest musical minds of our age, so impressive as to bypass the humble origins he must expect from me? Was that the difference? She—
I
—still lacked the most basic qualifications as a potential wife. I could not spin Araneidae silk. I could not produce the hormone required to nurture productivity among their spinners. This—
us
—it would never work.

Beneath this façade…I was still
me
.

And I had a task to perform. It was time I got back to it.

“Has that line had as much practice as you have?” I eyed my trunk, wishing I could dress.

“You’re upset.” He stood and pulled on his pants. “Is that why? You think this meant nothing?”

I snorted. “You’ve known me the better part of a day.”

“Sometimes I wonder.” He tilted his head, studying me. “You remind me of someone.”

I faked surprise. “You remember their faces?”

“Their names too.” He sighed. “The list is much shorter than you would believe.”

“There’s no need to recite it.” I held up my hands. “I trust you.”

“No you don’t.” He scoffed. “You’re tricking me again.”

“Fine.” The words popped out of my mouth. “Who do I remind you of?”

“A childhood friend.” His voice grew coarse. “She passed away some time ago.”

Pressure mounted under my breastbone until I reached up to rub it away. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you.”
He cleared his throat. “I suppose that is the fate of those left behind, to glimpse the departed in strangers’ faces.”

Perverse curiosity forced me to ask, “Is that why you’re here with me now?”

“I laid that ghost to rest,” he said softly. “I’m here with you because there’s nowhere else I would rather be.”

“Armand—” I massaged my temples. “Never mind, it wouldn’t do any good.”

He walked up behind me, wrapped his arms around me and pressed his lips to where it hurt.

“What were you going to say?” He nuzzled my jaw. “Tell me. I can handle it.”

“Why pursue me?” I turned to face him. “You and I, we don’t work. Why pretend?”

“I pretend because reality is too harsh.”
His warmth faded. “I have duties to my clan, responsibilities to my family. I have known since I was a small child who I would marry and when. She’s a fine girl with a good heart who’s been groomed to bring me pleasure since she was born. Can you—with all your freedom to do as you please—judge me for wanting to spend what little time I have left as a bachelor with a female of my choosing? One who fascinates me rather than fawns over me?”

“The way you act
cultivates the perception that you welcome the attention.” I scowled at him. “That first night you treated me as if my bedding you was a certainty. That all you had to do was crook your finger and you could have me.”

“All of us hide our true selves from time to time.” He ran a lock of my vibrant hair through his fingers. “Some of us are just more obvious about it.”

Before the old argument swept me away, before my anger swelled and I confessed all, I walled up my heart. His pain radiated through me, through the filament that tied my soul to his, and it still hurt me.

I wiped my eyes where he couldn’t see. “I think you should go.”

“I think you’re right.” He pulled on his boots and grabbed his shirt. “Thank you for this.”

“You don’t
…” I flinched when he slammed the door, “…have to thank me.”

Sinking to the floor, I gave into the sobs welling up the back of my throat.

Nothing had changed. Stare hard enough and illusion shattered. Armand was still the Araneidae heir. The only difference was these days he chose to take refuge under the skirts of females freer than himself while I took refuge under paint and dye.

We were older. I liked to think wiser. Yet we were still fools where each other were concerned.

I wiped my eyes and crawled to my trunk. I worked a latch on the underside of the lid and opened a hidden compartment where I kept medicinal herbs for Maisy and myself. The packet I lifted felt too heavy for its contents. I shook several of the wild carrot seeds into my palm then tossed them into my mouth and chewed.

I g
rimaced. They tasted as good as unwashed feet smelled, but I ground the seeds into a pulp before I swallowed them.

While my friends had sworn
by the effectiveness of smartweed leaves, when I had been with Armand, I nibbled them daily in preparation for the nights we spent together and still became pregnant. According to the Salticidae healer who acted as midwife for Maisy’s birth, wild carrot seeds were much more effective.

Not that I regretted
having Maisy. How could I? She was the one thing I had ever done right in my life.

But our circumstances being what they were, I was in no hurry to add to our family.

Straight-faced, I armed myself as much as with steel and poison as I did with paint and perfume. When I struck out to explore the west end, I strode with purpose. If Pascale had been held there, she must have left clues to where she had gone. Failing that, I could try the guards, but that was a dangerous proposition. Known for their cannibalism, the Mimetidae were more than feared. They were reviled. Their grins seemed sharper somehow, and they liked that edge of fear.

I
usually avoided them at all costs, but I might not have the luxury this time.

The west end was as far in that direction as the tunnels went. Unless the area had changed, there was nothing down that stretch but guards’ quarters and a
few token cells used by those whose guilt a council of their peers had yet to determine. If I got caught, I had no excuse. Being captured would be a very bad thing. Females who dressed as I did, who lived as I did, without a male to protect them, had better learn to protect themselves if they wanted to preserve those freedoms Armand had mentioned.

The long walk gave me too much time for reflection.
My head was down, my mind elsewhere, when a figure coalesced from the shadows and stepped into the center of the hall, barring my path.

“You’re a long way from where you ought to be.” His gaze slid down my body.

I returned the favor. He was tall, broad and grinning like a sweet roll had just fallen into his lap.

I put a hand to my throat
and let my voice quaver. “You startled me.”

He rested a
palm on the hilt of his sword. “What are you doing down here?”

“I’m a guest of the maven’s.” I stepped back.
Let him think it was out of fear. I had no desire to let a skilled swordsman trap me in such close quarters. “I must have gotten turned around.”

“Is that right?” He squinted at me.

I bobbed my head. “Everything here looks the same.”

“You look familiar.” He rubbed his jaw. “Oh. I remember you. You’re here with the girl.
Pretty little thing. Young too.”