Spider Game (14 page)

Trap didn’t like it, but he wasn’t the one with the empty stomach. She was up near the edge of the roof and she rested her forehead against the eave. Trap. He really detested that she’d robbed others. His disapproval made her feel ashamed and dirty. She didn’t like the feeling at all.

Taking a breath, she eased her body up and peeked over the roof. Scanning. She didn’t see anyone close, but she
felt
him. She shouldn’t do this. It went against her training – against all logic and common sense. She was allowing something she didn’t even understand to control her, but she knew it didn’t matter. She was compelled to see for herself that Trap was alive and well – that she hadn’t harmed him by injecting too much venom. Sliding carefully onto the roof, she flattened her body, maneuvering beyond what anyone would think possible. She knew it would be impossible to spot her when she wasn’t moving. She would look part of the roof structure.

Cayenne let the cool breeze drift over her for some time, reaching out into the night for scents and movement, but none came. Whoever was on the roof – and she was certain someone was up there with her, she just couldn’t locate him – was every bit as adept at hiding himself as she could be.

If she was going to do this, she had to take the chance of getting caught. The chimney was only a few feet from her. Cayenne began to inch forward. Slow. Barely moving. Making certain not even a whisper of her clothes sliding over the roof gave her away. For the first time, entering the Fontenot compound, her heart was in her throat.

She made it to the small chimney and folded herself inside. Once crammed into the pipe, she felt relief. Someone had definitely been on the roof with her. His energy was low, but very, very dangerous. There was a part of her that suspected he might have known she was there, but let her through anyway. The familiar elation was gone, leaving her anxious and afraid of Trap’s rejection. She’d sought that, even demanded it, although she knew it was really the last thing she wanted from him.

Cayenne resisted the urge to slip into Nonny’s room. She needed to – for some reason the room comforted her, and more than any other time, she needed comfort. She didn’t know anyone who could
give
her comfort – hold her in their arms like she’d seen Wyatt do Pepper. No one cared that much. She needed that more than she needed to stand in a beautiful room pretending.

In Nonny’s room she could and often did pretend she had a family and a grandmother who loved her. Someone. Anyone. She swallowed hard and made her way through the house. She might have had the chance with Trap if she hadn’t been so afraid and sent him away. Worse, if she hadn’t embarrassed him in front of his friends and maybe actually harmed him.

CHAPTER 6

C
ayenne made her way down the stairs like a human being, not a spider. She shouldn’t do that either, but she often did when she was in the house, because it made her feel as if she could belong. Walking like a human rather than clinging to the ceiling and making her way was dangerous because she was so much easier to spot, but tonight – tonight she needed to be real. A human being. Someone else. Someone not her.

Deep inside her, something was building – something big and terrible. With every step she took she felt the heavy weight of that dark force gathering. Her breath hitched and her chest felt tight. Tremors racked her body, so much so that she knew if one of the GhostWalkers found her, she wouldn’t be able to fight her way free. She kept walking toward him – toward Trap – because she
had
to.

She knew the way to his room, but even if she hadn’t, she would have been able to find him. The pull was so strong in her that she always knew where he was. The thought that she could have caused him real harm stabbed at her heart relentlessly. Her stomach knotted. She pressed a hand over her churning belly, over those tight knots, took a deep breath and put her hand on his door.

Trap.
She whispered his name. Her nemesis. The man who made her want to be human. The man she wanted more than anything in the world but knew she couldn’t have. She didn’t dare have him. She wouldn’t know what to do with him, and when she was overwhelmed and scared, she could easily make a mistake.

She half turned away, her breathing ragged, coming in little hitches. She didn’t know what that was either, only that it was uncomfortable and totally unfamiliar. She needed someone.
Needed
them. Not just someone, she needed the man she’d injected with toxins. The man she’d told to go away and stay away.

She hesitated and pressed her forehead against the door and slid her hand high, to the height his head would be, as if she could touch him. She pushed her body against the door as if his arms were around her and she could feel his body against hers. She tried to pretend that he was holding her, but there was no way to make that real for herself. No way.

She had rarely been out of her cell. She had despised her captors, and yet, if they were still alive, still around, she would have gone back because life outside that cell was
terrifying
. She had not wanted to believe them, that she wasn’t fit to walk around with everyone else, especially when she saw inside of them, saw how ugly and cruel they were, but they were right.

She was different. Not human. Not salvageable. She had all the knowledge in the world inside her mind, but not a single bit of practical experience. She didn’t know how to do anything but kill. The only person who had shown her any kindness, she’d struck out at and harmed.

Her heart pounded so hard it hurt, but she remained there, pressed tight against the door for a short while, trying to will everything to go the way she wanted. The problem was she was so confused she had no idea what she wanted. She wished… She stepped back from the door and dropped her hand to the knob resolutely.

She didn’t have to open the door more than a crack to slip inside. Instantly, she inhaled. Deep. There he was, and the terrible churning in her stomach settled. The knots were still there, but the relentless coiling ceased. He was wide awake, head turned toward her, his gaze on her. She froze a foot from him. His hands were linked behind his head, and his eyes were as cold as ice. A blue flame burned beneath that ice. Once his gaze locked with hers, she couldn’t look away. She was his captive as sure as if he had put her in shackles.

Every nerve ending in her body came alive. Her heart pounded and her stomach fluttered. Deep inside, something hot and wild moved. Persisted. She recognized that now, because every time she was near Trap, it was there, smoldering like a red-hot ember, ready to burst into flame at the slightest provocation.

Right then, even that flame didn’t matter, because the terrible, vicious storm that had been building with every step she’d taken to get to him was close – too close and that terrified her. She couldn’t catch her breath. Her eyes burned like fire. Hot and uncomfortable and there was no way to stop it. No way to shove away the force that had to find a way out before she shattered into a million pieces.

“Ezekiel spotted you, Cayenne,” he said.

Cayenne. Not baby. His voice was neutral, not soft and caressing. She’d really blown it. She needed him. At least she needed the fantasy of him. She just
needed
, and this was the only human being she trusted enough to go to for… what? What did she expect from him? She didn’t even know, yet she’d come for something. Something she was desperate to have. His eyes were arctic cold. So cold she found herself shivering.

She shrugged as if it didn’t matter. Maybe it didn’t. If she didn’t have him… If she didn’t have
this…
What was there for her? She may as well have been terminated there in that cold, dark basement. She couldn’t look away from his eyes. Those eyes that saw everything, saw right past her armor. Right past her fight. Right into the heart of her, where she was most vulnerable. He
saw
her. He had to know what she was – not human. Made for one purpose – to murder. That alone should have had her running, or killing him.

She did neither. She stared at him while her vision blurred and the burning in her eyes worsened. Her throat clogged until she was fighting for air. She pressed a hand to her knotted stomach.

“Come here, Cayenne.”

There was hard authority in Trap’s voice. She didn’t accept authority. Not from anyone. People manipulated and corrupted. She didn’t trust anyone enough to recognize them as an authority. She had vowed she’d never do anything anyone said. She’d been five years old and so tired of the needles and the fear and the punishments when she had first made that vow.

Her captors didn’t like her. She was nothing but a specimen. Not human. Nothing. A throwaway. They made certain she knew it, and she despised them all. And herself. She despised that she couldn’t get away from them, that they’d taken all her power from her and made her helpless. She’d vowed never to be helpless again. But here she was. In Trap’s room. The last place she should have gone. Feeling helpless. Lost. Completely lost and very vulnerable.

“Baby, just come to me. Two steps. I’ll do the rest, but you have to take those two steps.”

There was no give in his voice – or his eyes. He was implacable, and she had no idea what would happen when she did what he said and took those two steps toward him. Still, she obeyed the command in his voice, in his eyes, moving toward the side of the bed, not looking away from him, but no longer seeing him. Not when her vision was totally blurred. She felt a trickle of wetness making its way down her cheek.

She felt as if she were giving herself to him with every step she took. Letting him take the last little part of herself that she guarded so carefully. Her throat closed, but she forced her body to move, because if she didn’t, she would lose everything. She would have nothing. She couldn’t live like that anymore, believing she was worthless. That child in the laboratory, in a tiny little cell with eyes staring at her all the time. She had to be more, and she had to have someone see that she was more. That someone had to be this man.

Trap’s fingers shackled her wrist as she lifted her hand to wipe at the drops. He tugged until she was forced to put a knee on the bed. Then she was up on the bed with him. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t catch air. Her throat was too clogged, and her eyes burned like hell.

“Don’t, baby,” he whispered.

There it was. That voice. His beautiful, sensual voice that caressed her skin, but more, slid deep inside to caress her empty heart. He could fill her with just his voice. Give her an anchor, something to hold on to when she was being tossed around in the wind like so much silk. Instinctively, she knew he didn’t use that tone on anyone else. Just her.

“I could have really hurt you,” she confessed, a hitch in her voice. Her throat was so tight she could barely squeeze words out.

“You didn’t,” he assured, dragging her down over his chest, pressing her face into his neck. Showing no fear in spite of the fact that she’d bitten him. Injected venom. She couldn’t detect the least bit of fear. None.

Everyone was afraid of her. She couldn’t remember a time that anyone came near her without elevated heart rates and weapons close. Even when she’d been a child. She had often watched every member of the Fontenot household – even the scariest of them – cuddling the triplets. Holding them close, just as Trap was holding her.

Her body lay curled over his chest. Her front to his front. She straddled him, her legs on either side of him, pressed tight to his ribs. She took up his entire chest, her face in his neck, breathing him in, pulling him straight into her lungs. Her heart pounded harder than ever and blood roared in her ears, but she didn’t move, because the storm kept building and she knew it was going to be terrible.

She held herself very still. Fight or flee? She didn’t know what to do. He was warm and his hand was soothing in her hair. He was comforting, like Nonny’s room, only better. His arms went around her, holding her close, not demanding anything from her. Not speaking, but he began to hum softly. Like Nonny’s music box, only better. He had a beautiful pitch to his voice. She’d never really heard anything that beautiful in person before and she knew it was only for her.

Cayenne loved his speaking tone, but found his music voice even better. She closed her eyes because she couldn’t help herself. She was completely vulnerable to him in that moment and she knew it. She just didn’t care. All the fight was out of her. She just needed. Trap. She needed Trap. She was giving herself to him and she knew it, and she was acutely aware that he knew it as well. She allowed the last bit of feral spider in her to move aside enough to let the soft notes Trap hummed to penetrate until she stopped shivering.

The storm broke, wild and uninhibited, yet quietly, sobs welling up uncontrollably, terrible, from her heart. From her soul. Her fingers curled into his shoulders and she pressed her face tighter against his neck while the storm took her.

Her eyes leaked tears and she wasn’t certain why, only that she felt safe enough in his arms, there in the dark, to shed them. She had years of tears stored up, so she was very happy when the humming turned to words and he sang softly to her, stroking soothing caresses through her hair and down her back. She could spend a lifetime right there, letting the tears flow, listening to his voice and feeling the warmth of his body against hers while his hands moved through her hair and massaged the nape of her neck.