Chapter 3

ChapterThree

I screamed,dropping my phone as I ran toward the door.

Something latched around my waist, pulling me off my feet and against the hard form of the spider’s body as human arms wrapped around my shoulders. I shouted even louder, my screams becoming muddled and quiet as the echoes hit the webs covering the tent’s walls.

I struggled against the monster’s grip, trying to ignore the fact that I liked the touch. There was something in the air. I was being gassed, drugged, poisoned somehow. I did not understand what the hell I had walked into, but I was not eager to find out.

Something grabbed my leg, holding it steady. I heard a small click as my ankle was encased in webs. The monster’s human arms held me against his torso as his spider legs worked to bind my ankles together. Then the webbing was wrapped around my waist, next around my wrist. I was bound and left dangling on a web in front of the monster. I cried out as I struggled against the sticky bonds. My body swung around in a slow circle, and I closed my eyes, not willing to look into the face of my captor.

Warm fingers brushed against my cheek, wiping away the tear that had spilled from my eye. I whimpered, flinching away from the touch.

“I am very sorry,” he spoke earnestly, a hint of regret in his tone.

The presence of his body moved away, and I hung limp in the air. There was a loud snap a moment later and bright lights pressed against my closed eyelids.

“Let me go,” I pleaded softly.

“I can’t,” Bishop said, a hint of regret in his voice.

“Please,” I begged.

I dangled in place for a moment, then took a deep breath and opened my eyes. The bright light stung my eyes. I saw that the tent was covered in webbing from floor to ceiling. It was a nest. The large mass in the top corner I had seen in the darkness must have been his bed. A bed made of webs. From his body. From his . . . spider body.

I turned slowly and whimpered as I saw the monster in front of me.

He was still pale, and I saw his hair was streaked with faint gray and blue hairs. The human part of him was corded with muscle. The spider-half of him . . . I stared at the large black abdomen with its faint blue and gray streaks. His legs shifted and I flinched, afraid he was about to lunge. Instead, looking up to meet his eyes, I saw that he was pondering me as I was observing him.

“Justine,” he said again.

The sound of my name on his tongue was both frightening and . . . arousing.

“What are you going to do with me?” I asked.

“Do you not know? Do you not feel it?”

Feel it? What was I meant to be feeling? Whatever gas was being pumped through the air was only causing my arousal to heighten. I felt the moisture increase between my legs and the monster – Bishop – stepped closer.

The shorter legs at his waist reached out, fluttering up my sides. I knew enough about spiders to realize that they were pedipalps. He was smelling me. A low growl sounded in his chest. The pincers around his mouth shifted, and he moved closer.

“Stay back,” I warned.

“You smell like dew,” he said, as if not hearing me.

His hands reached up, brushing over the thin line of skin showing on my stomach. My eyes fluttered closed, liking the feeling of his fingers against my flesh.

“Dew and nature . . . home,” he whispered.

“Home?” I asked.

“I have not smelt home in a long time,” he exclaimed.

“Are you going to eat me?” I asked.

Were those pincers going to pierce my flesh, melt my insides into goo that he would suck through his lips like a Justine cocktail?

“No,” he answered. “I don’t feed like that.”

“What do you feed on?” I asked, afraid of knowing the answer.

“My dinner was filet mignon, rare,” he answered.

A laugh escaped me of its own will. A spider man – spider-monster – ate steak for dinner.

“Roger gave you the key to my enclosure,” he said. “Did you not know why?”

“He said I smelt like nature,” I admitted. “He did not tell me you were here. What was here.”

Bishop nodded, that finger of his still tracing lazy circles along my abdomen. I tried to keep my brain focused on the situation and not the flutter in my core from that finger stroking back and forth across my flesh.

“Roger can smell pheromones like I can,” he answered. “He has been looking for someone for some time now. Years, I think. It is hard to tell, I see so little of the sunlight.”

“Pheromones?”

What was he getting at?

“You are ready to mate,” he explained. “I can smell it. It is why your cunt is dripping right now. You are primed for breeding. As am I.”

“I can’t smell you,” I told him.

“You can. You just do not know it. Humans can feel the pheromones, but they do not pick up on the scent.”

“You want to breed me?” I squeaked, not certain I was hearing things right.

Whatever gas they were pumping into this tent was muddling my brain. Maybe this was all a hallucination. There was not really a spider-monster stroking my skin, eyeing me with eight eyes filled with fondness and longing. I was not really considering what sort of pleasure such a monster could give me.