They’d not had any sort of ceremony. There was no need. Taking a mate in Araneaen culture was essentially a marriage vow, and there were no additional particulars that needed to be addressed. For her part, it didn’t matter. She had never been that little girl dreaming of her wedding day, and it wasn’t as if she had any family left to stand witness for her. Who could she call? Jack Hemming? Holt? She didn’t need to go through the motions when there was no one there to share in her happiness.
But he’d been making himself scarce, and she’d been so busy, she’d barely taken notice. She could never be busy enough for him to simply slip away on the breeze, exiting her life without a murmur, but she knew that was exactly what he would do if he thought her reputation was at risk because of him.
“I am, my beautiful little witch.”
His voice was serious and his face unsmiling, despite his earnest declarations. She grinned for both of them, leaning up to kiss the corner of his sharp jaw. She didn’t need him to be anything but what he was, other than to believe that this was his home as well.
“But you are so much braver than I. Do not think I am unaware of the burden my presence beneath your roof is on your standing in the community, my sweet Ladybug.” He held up his fourth and only unoccupied hand to stave off her sputtering denial of his words. “You do not need to tell me a pretty fairy tale. I might not be with you in town to hear the things people are undoubtedly saying, but I don’t need to be, for I have heard them all before.”
Too dangerous to live in town. Ought to be outlawed.“I don’t care what Kestra Kittredge or anyone else says,” she grumbled angrily, but Anzan’s dark chuckle allowed them both to return to their steaming bowls.
“I am sure the fox woman across the street is not the only one, and yet you still leave the house every day and exist in the world. This market has you worried, I know. But you don’t need to fret. You are already so much braver than you realize.”
She declined the comfort of her bed that night, deciding instead she was much happier pressed to his chest, his long fingers moving through her hair. Tomorrow, as long as Holt didn’t have more busywork for her, she would get back to working on her pheromone project. She was close to a breakthrough, she was sure of it. And what better way to celebrate the end of winter than being greeted by that heavy, plummy smell, dark and thick and resinous, announcing the arrival of his heat?
“Tell me again what will happen when you go into heat.”
The silver-white moonlight sliced across her torso, highlighting the intricate webbing that held her aloft in the corner of the attic, leaving her head and shoulders concealed in shadow. When he slipped two curved fingers into her already-slick heat, her head dropped back, and she wondered if he could see the thump of blood in her exposed throat.
“I will bite you,” he murmured, pressing his lips to her pulse point with ease, answering the unspoken question. “Right here. My venom will be a burning fire within you, and then I will have you, little bug.”
The pad of his thumb moved over her clit as his fingers stroked her inner walls. He knew exactly where to rub and press, drawing her climax out of her with an expert precision.
”— over and over again, until you are too weak to continue. And then you will sleep a dreamless sleep, my perfect little reina.”
When she clenched around his fingers, her breath wheezed and Anzan hummed in satisfaction, continuing to stroke her until she slumped boneless in his web.
“As you’re going to do tonight, I suspect.”
He was right. The women of Cambric Creek had no idea what they were missing out on, keeping Araneaens away, for she had slept heavier and deeper that past year — a year of having his quiet companionship, of movies and bickering and laughter and orgasms that turned her mind to mush — than she’d done her entire life.
“That’s what I should be making,” she murmured sleepily. “Intimacy aids. Araneaen venom creams, for the best sex you’ve ever had.”
Consciousness was already receding, and his laughter was like a black cloud as she was cut free and gathered in his many arms.
“Well, if you ever decide to expand your product line, my little bug, you know where to find your ingredients.”
Ladybug wasn’t entirely sure when he’d put her to bed.
Only that when she woke to the dim light of the breaking dawn — the chorus of songbirds outside her window in the tulip magnolia a cheerful reminder that spring was, in fact, returning to the world — she was alone once more.
It was only a few days later when she was forced to accept that perhaps her intuition was not as shoddy as she’d half-hoped.
She brought her business license with her on her errands, following Holt’s instruction that she needed to submit a copy of it for the city council’s records. She was technically able to send them a scanned copy via email, but so far doing things the old-fashioned way worked out in her favor, and she decided to keep up the streak.
“Is that her?”
“I think it is! Can you believe it? She’s such an unassuming little thing.”
“It’s always the quiet ones.”
The speakers were two women, on the other side of the paper-thin partition in the City Hall office. Surely they should have realized how their voices might carry. Or perhaps, Ladybug thought, they simply didn’t care. The only people in line were her and an aged amphibious couple, their once glossy blue-green skin dull and wrinkled, a testament to lives well-lived, she thought. There was no one else in the office.Shewas the source of the gossip.
Her skin itched and she shifted uneasily in place, rocking her weight back and forth from heel to toe. She hated this feeling. She never knew when she was the butt of the joke, whether she was being laughedator laughedwith, and her teenage years had taught her that to voice the question only made her sound insecure, which she was, of course.
There was no question in this moment, though — much like the morning in her driveway, with the visual distraction of the speakers removed, she could focus on their words, and there was little chance they were talking about the elderly amphibious couple. Her earbuds were in her bag, and her fingers twitched with the desire to pull them out, to slip them in and allow the repetitive familiar sound of one of her lessons obliterate this uncomfortable moment, but some little shiver of intuition stayed her hand, as a prickle moved up her neck.
Why are they talking about you? You should keep listening.
