First Look: Bound (The Spider's Mate #3) Chapter One

Here is the first chapter of our upcoming release, Bound (The Spider's Mate #3)! The book will releasing December 23rd.

 
If you haven't started this trilogy yet, then don't read farther ahead!

SPOILER ALERT!


Chapter One

Darkness dominated the chamber. It filled the space down to the tiniest cracks in the cold, damp stone. It enveloped Ketahn, seeping into his core, and made his every thought heavy and black. But it could not snuff out his rage.

The fire within him blazed stronger than ever. Though it could not emit light, it radiated terrible heat.

He could not see the silk ropes binding him, but he struggled against them. His muscles strained to tear the strands apart, to create even the slightest slack, to find any spot along the coils he could reach with his claws. His snarls, growls, and ragged breaths bounced off the chamber walls; they were hollower and more impotent in their echoes.

For all his rage, he was being thwarted by simple rope.

His upper arms were lashed together over his head, and his lower arms were pulled back behind him. His right and left legs had been tied into tight bundles and pulled to either side with only their very tips touching the floor. More rope was wrapped around his middle, and another coil—only barely looser than the rest—was around his neck.

All those silk bindings were anchored to points on the ceiling and walls that were masked in the darkness. The rope bit into his hide, and each of his movements sharpened that bite, producing new sparks of pain that added to his existing agony.

Faces flashed through his mind’s eye. His sweet, beautiful mate, Ivy. His friends. His broodsister.

Somehow, the chamber’s already impenetrable darkness thickened.

He saw Korahla, concerned and unsteady. He saw little Ella, so innocent, so confused, so frightened.

He saw Zurvashi.

The surrounding shadows took on a bloody hue.

Ketahn roared. It was the sound of a wounded beast; ragged, raw, defiant.

Meaningless.

He threw his weight against the ropes. His body swayed forward, and the coils tightened around his limbs, creaking with tension. His right legs shifted forward by not even a handspan, striking debris on the floor—bones.

The images in his mind intensified.

Ella’s broken, bloody form pieced itself back together in his imagination. The damage wrought by the queen’s merciless hands was slowly undone, but the blood remained. The blood would not go away. That vision of Ella turned her head toward Ketahn.

But those eyes were the vibrant blue of a clear sky instead of green, and that blood-matted hair was golden instead of brown; it was Ivy looking at him. It was Ivy in Zurvashi’s clutches. And Ketahn could only watch as the queen squeezed and tore, as bone shattered, and veins burst. As everything he cared about, everything he loved, was crushed.

Ketahn’s struggles faltered. He sagged in the bindings, his arm and leg joints crying out in desperation as they were forced to take his weight without the aid of his muscles. All the while, his mind repeated that dreadful vision. All the while, he watched Ivy die at the queen’s hands. Over and over.

That sorrow and despair was enough to pierce his fury when nothing else could have.

The Fangs and Claws who’d dragged Ketahn down here had been no more than shades through the eyes of his rage. He could not recall their faces. They’d rained blows upon him the entire way, had beaten him before restraining him in this dark chamber. They’d left his body battered. But the pain they’d inflicted could never compare to the agony in his hearts.

Ahnset had brought Ella to Takarahl despite Ketahn forbidding it. Now Ella was dead, and Ketahn was Zurvashi’s prisoner, cast into the deep, dark place where the queen sent her enemies to wither and die.

My mate. My Ivy. My everything.

Zurvashi’s words rose from his memory, dripping with venom and the promise of suffering.

She is going to lead my Claws to the rest of these creatures.

“No.” Ketahn seized his fury and forced his legs onto the floor, relieving some of the strain on his arms. He flexed and stretched his fingers, seeking even the slightest brush with the silk strands no matter how awkward the angle.

Ella was gone; Ivy was not. His mate was out there waiting for him, and the queen’s servants were searching. Ivy was in danger. Ketahn’s entire tribe was in danger.

He needed to escape this chamber. To escape Takarahl. He needed the Eight to sweep him up upon a vengeful wind and hasten him to the pit so he could protect everyone who was left.

“Release me!” He pushed his arms in opposite directions, battling the restrictive rope. His limbs trembled with the exertion. He succeeded only in causing himself more pain.

If he had to tear them apart one thread at a time, he would break these bonds. He would get through that door. He would return to his mate and lead his tribe to safety.

Zurvashi would take nothingelse from him.

Darkness, agony, and rage were all he had as he thrashed within his bindings. The pounding of his hearts marked the passing time, but time meant nothing to him; he did not know how long he’d been locked in the chamber, only that it had been far too long since he’d left the human ship in pursuit of his broodsister.

And that each moment brought Zurvashi’s forces another step closer to the pit.

My nyleea. My Ivy.

“Blood for blood, Zurvashi,” he snarled, his words rough and feral.

The claws of his forelegs touched the floor, and he raked them across the stone, searching for something to latch onto. The scrape of rock against his claws reverberated into his bones and made him clench his teeth, but he would not relent. His need to be with his mate would outlast every accursed stone in Takarahl.

Faint vibrations coursed through the floor.

Ketahn stilled, fine hairs standing on end. Something heavy had moved out in the tunnel. His body thrummed with discomfort, anticipation, and the boundless energy of his rage. A cold, unsettling weight churned in his gut.

A gentle, brief air current flowed around his legs. The entrance to the corridor beyond this chamber had been opened.

Despite his discomfort, Ketahn held his position, planting the tips of his legs as firmly as possible on the floor. Moments passed, and he felt nothing—nothing but the same cold, unyielding stone that had been beneath him since he’d been dragged into this chamber.

Ketahn drew in a deep breath. The silence that followed was nearly total. In such dark and quiet, it would have been easy to lose himself, to became nothing more than a seething cloud of pure rage and hatred floating in the impenetrable blackness between the stars.

But he was more than his fury. He still had love to hold him in the present. He still had Ivy.

He felt new vibrations through his legs, so faint at first that he might have missed them had he not been holding his breath. The vibrations gradually grew more distinct. The steady steps of approaching vrix—at least two of them by the feel.

There were only three sorts of visitors he could expect here—Fangs, Claws, or the queen herself.

Ketahn tipped his head back, trying to hook a mandible fang under the rope around his upper arms. He’d attempted such at least a hundred times already, and the result was no different now. Failure. His arms were drawn too tightly together, leaving him unable to turn his head to the right angle. The coils were just out of reach.

He growled and tugged on the strands, making his body shake, and causing fresh pain as the ropes rubbed his already irritated hide.

All he needed was a single hand free. By the Eight, all he needed was a damned chance!

The clinking of metal adornments drifted to him, just audible through the tiny gap under the door. That same gap was soon lit by a faint, bluish glow, so weak that it only deepened the darkness within the chamber.

The approaching group of vrix halted on the other side of the stone door.

Ketahn clenched his teeth and pulled hard on his bindings. His legs rose off the floor, and the ropes creaked as they reached their limits. The outer curve of his mandible fang brushed a silken coil.

Wood scraped stone on the outside of the door. The bars were being lifted out of place.

My Ivy... My mate.

Using every muscle in his body, he pulled his upper arms down while drawing everything else up. The haze of his fury could no longer dull the aches wracking him; from head to hindquarters, from fingertips to the ends of his legs, he throbbed. Yet he refused to give up.

Zurvashi had captured him, but she was not yet the victor.

Another scrape of wood, this one accompanied by a grunt. The door shuddered, and the strip of light at its base grew.

Ketahn’s fang caught on the lowermost coil of rope. His hearts fluttered, and his eyes widened. Just a moment longer. Just a moment longer and—

Stone grated as the door opened. That blue light, which had seemed so weak, struck Ketahn fully. Compared to the darkness that had become his world, the light was dazzling. It was blinding.

Ketahn snapped his eyes shut and turned his face away from the light. His fang tore free, fraying the rope but not breaking it.

Hope, that precious, delicate thing he’d cradled in his hearts through every challenge, cracked. His fury blazed into a firestorm, swirling around that fragile core as though it could act as a shield. As though it could act as a replacement.

He slitted his eyes open. The blue glow flooded the chamber, still overpowering to his unadjusted vision, but now he could make out the doorway and the shadowy figures stepping through it. The light gleamed upon the figures’ gold adornments with a sickly hue.

Ketahn dropped his legs again. They’d scarce touched the floor before he kicked away from it, swinging himself forward with claws turned toward his visitors. His hands didn’t come within even a few segments of the closest figure; his body had barely moved at all.

“Such fury,” Zurvashi said. Her voice crept through the small chamber like a jungle vine seeking another plant to strangle. “Would that you had chosen to turn it against my enemies.”

“You are the sole focus of my fury,” Ketahn growled, gnashing his mandibles. “My hatred is all you shall ever have of me.”

The queen became more distinct as Ketahn’s vision adjusted. She stood at the center of the newly arrived group with a Fang positioned to either side of her. Her eyes reflected the light of the glowing blue crystals the Fangs held high, staining their usual amber a pale green. The color did nothing to soften her gaze.

She chittered. The sound was as full of malice as it was humor, and it sent a chill through Ketahn despite the heat of his rage.

“Even now you are too great a fool to see what is plain.” Zurvashi stepped closer, a long swath of purple silk trailing behind her.

The Fangs hung back, keeping their crystal shards raised. As the queen advanced, the shadows on her face thickened, giving Ketahn the fleeting impression that her eyes were spiteful spirits glowing eerie green in the dark of the Tangle.

Ketahn’s instincts were torn between the urge to attack and the urge to recoil—not in fear, but in disgust. He spread his mandibles wide and strained toward her despite those conflicting instincts. He could no longer hide his thirst for her blood. Zurvashi’s death would be the closest thing to justice Takarahl had seen since Ketahn was a broodling.

He snapped his mandibles closed once she was before him. His fangs clacked together on empty air, sending a jolt through his skull.

The queen did not flinch. She held Ketahn with her gaze, his fangs no more than a finger’s width from her chest. Voice becoming low and raspy, she said, “You are already mine, little Ketahn. Your fury and hatred, your joy and sorrow, your arms, legs, and hide. Your past, present, and future. All mine. And soon, I will have your seed—and your broodlings.”

Those inner flames flared, their heat blazing up from Ketahn’s core and scorching his chest and throat as they emerged in a thunderous roar. “Never!”

He strained toward the queen, envisioning himself shredding her flesh with his claws, tearing out her eyes, ravaging her throat with his mandibles. Envisioning a thousand bloody deaths for Zurvashi, none of which was punishment enough.

Her hand darted out and caught him by the throat. Despite the dim lighting, he swore that hand was covered in blood. Glistening, crimson, human blood.

Zurvashi leaned closer. Her fingers tightened around his neck, one of them pressing hard into the soft spot beneath his mandible to render it motionless; her thumb did the same to his other mandible.

Her scent filled his nose holes, heady and overwhelming even though it did not possess the fullness of her lust.

“You deserve only death,” she growled, “and yet here you are, lingering. Clinging to the warrior’s spirit that has carried you through so many trials. You exist because it is my will. And despite your dishonor, despite your betrayal, you remain the only male worthy of siring my brood.”

Ketahn answered her with a growl of his own; it was the only sound he could make given her hold on his throat. His fists were clenched, his claws digging into his palms, and the fire in his chest had only intensified.

He would return to his tribe, to his nyleea. Zurvashi could not stop him. She would not get what she wanted.

“You behave like a wild beast,” Zurvashi continued. Her mandibles twitched, making the shadows on her face tremble. “The best male Takarahl can offer. Disloyal, disrespectful, and incapable of achieving his true potential. Such a waste.” She shoved Ketahn’s head back hard, releasing his throat. “I had hoped for so much more from you.”

He gritted his teeth and sucked in a breath that burned into his lungs. “I will give you more. Your death.”

“Oh?” Zurvashi chittered again and threw her arms out to the sides. “Do you mean to claim Takarahl as your own? Does my little hunter think he can succeed where so many females have failed?”

The queen’s scent strengthened; the tang of her desire sharpened. Ketahn’s insides twisted against the influence of that fragrance. He fought to draw Ivy’s scent from memory so its sweetness could comfort him, so its potency could ward him from the queen. But only one smell surfaced—that of human blood.

“You have never found your equal because you are beneath every other vrix in the Tangle,” Ketahn said.

Those hard, piercing eyes remained on Ketahn, their light intensifying.

“Your cruelty is not strength,” Ketahn continued, holding her gaze. “The fear you instill in those under your rule is not strength. For all the might in your body, Zurvashi, you are the weakest vrix in Takarahl.”

True strength was found not in muscle and bone, but in hearts and spirit. True strength was in staring at a world so much larger than oneself, a world determined to crush you, and fighting on even when there seemed to be no hope of success.

True strength was Ivy.

The queen could never match Ketahn’s mate. There was no comparison to be made.

Zurvashi did not move, but menace radiated from her, wave after wave of it slamming into Ketahn. He had not succumbed to her scent. He would not succumb to her withering wrath, either.

“Leave us,” she finally said, her words low and measured.

The Fangs behind her exchanged a hesitant glance.

“Now.” Though she’d spoken no louder, there was command in the queen’s tone.

One of the Fangs stepped forward, offering the queen her glowing crystal. Zurvashi did not accept it. She’d not even looked at the Fangs; apart from her order, she had not acknowledged their presence.

The Fang withdrew her extended hand, made a quick gesture of apology, and retreated from the chamber with her companion. Darkness gripped the space again, combated only by a faint glow from the corridor that turned Zurvashi into a looming shadow, a mass of darkness that would surely swallow up everything—even the light.

But the blue crystal glow died when the door was pushed shut, leaving Ketahn only with Zurvashi’s cloying scent, with the stifling heat radiating from her body, with his roiling rage. He exerted force against the bindings on his upper arms—against the rope that had been damaged by his fang.

He knew that even were it to break, it would not do so quickly enough to matter.

“The offspring of a weaver thinks to tell me what strength is?” Zurvashi’s voice seemed to emanate from the walls all around, the echoes making its true source impossible to determine.

Ketahn’s fine hairs bristled, and his hide tingled with unsettled heat. He could feel her nearby, but he was helpless—blind and bound. The resurgence of rage in his chest could not help him.

“Do you know anything of my bloodline, Ketahn?”

The faintest clink of gold drew his attention to the left of the doorway, where there was only more darkness to be seen. His head snapped aside when cloth rustled from the same direction, even closer than the first sound.

Ketahn clenched his fists harder. Warm droplets of blood oozed from the wounds his claws had inflicted upon his palms. “Only that it will end with you.”

“It will not.”

Something hard and thick rubbed against Ketahn’s left legs, and he felt the queen’s fine hairs brush his. Her scent assaulted him anew, made bolder and more powerful through that contact. The bindings allowed him no slack to pull away from her touch.

“My broodmother was a Queen’s Fang”—Zurvashi withdrew her leg—“and her mother before her. For generations, my ancestors served Takarahl by protecting the queens and enforcing their will. For generations, my ancestors fought and bled. Thornskulls from beyond the mire, spiritstriders from the Great Dark, fireeyes from the rock lands where the sun crests. My ancestors battled any vrix that threatened our home, and Takari’s heirs claimed all the glory.”

Ketahn grunted and opened his hands. Blood trickled down his wrists as he curled his fingers, straining to reach the ropes. “So you slew your queen instead.”

A large fist struck his abdomen, the blow forcing the air out of his lungs.

“I took what should have been mine by right!” Zurvashi’s thunderous words vibrated into Ketahn, enhancing the pain she’d just caused. “I spent my youngest years in service, fighting Azunai’s battles for her. Crushing her enemies. My body bore the scars, not hers. My blood was the price paid, and yet hers was the name shouted by Takarahl in reverence. My victories were claimed by her.”

Ketahn drew in a ragged breath. That shallow inhalation made his chest ache further, and it wasn’t nearly enough to fill his lungs.

Zurvashi flattened her hand on Ketahn’s abdomen, pressing the tips of her claws against his hide. She raked them downward slowly, and he drew his claspers in, firmly closing his slit. Her lust-laden scent was entirely at odds with the rage she emitted.

Whenever Ivy grazed Ketahn’s hide with her nails, it sparked a thrill in him. It roused his hunger, his desire, made him yearn to have her hands all over his body, caressing, teasing, and exploring.

The feel of Zurvashi’s claws made him want to tear off his own flesh so she could never touch it again.

The press of the queen’s claws grew firmer as they trailed lower. “Too long had my mothers and sisters gone without their due. Too long was my prowess overlooked.”

“She made you her Prime Fang,” Ketahn rasped.

Her hand stilled, with those huge, sharp claws far too close to Ketahn’s slit. His hearts raced, and liquid fire flowed through his veins, but he could not get hold of the rope. Even with his wrists bent harshly enough that they felt likely to snap, he could not get hold of the rope.

The queen was right in front of him. One bite of his mandibles could’ve ended this. One bite could’ve meant his friends, his mate, his tribe, would be safe.

“Not enough,” Zurvashi hissed. She flexed her fingers, and her claws pricked Ketahn’s hide. “Especially when she lacked the strength and will to see our enemies truly defeated. How many of my spear sisters died only for that coward to order us back?”

“You have never acted for anyone but yourself.” One of Ketahn’s claws brushed a coil of rope, scraping the outer threads. “You do not care for your spear sisters or Takarahl.”

“What chance you might have had to know me, little Ketahn, has long since passed.” She sank her claws in deeper and moved her head close enough for him to feel her breath on his face. “I am Takarahl. Takarahl is mighty because of me.”

He gnashed his mandibles, but they found only empty air.

Zurvashi’s hand caught his throat again, and she slid a foreleg along all three of Ketahn’s bound left legs. He strained against his bindings, a bestial growl rumbling in his chest. Her scent assailed him, but that tang of human blood, whether imagined or not, prevented Ketahn from wavering.

The queen had killed Ella. The queen wanted to kill Ivy.

Zurvashi’s thumb claw sliced a tiny cut on Ketahn’s jaw. “My line will continue on forever. My brood will be rulers of Takarahl, and my legacy will eclipse that of Takari and her weak descendants. All the Tangle will know of Zurvashi, and they will speak my name in awe and terror for all time.”

Her hold on his throat prevented Ketahn from speaking, but he stared at her unblinkingly; Zurvashi was the deepest darkness, impenetrable and terrible. Not a monster of legend—she was much, much worse.

“You will sire my brood, Ketahn, and fulfill your every duty as my mate while I craft my legacy with our offspring. But first you will watch as I slaughter all the rest of your little creatures”—her hold on him strengthened, drawing out fresh blood—“and everyone you care about, your broodsister included. You will learn your lesson, but it will be much too late to help you.”

Another of her hands came up, and she stroked the outside of his mandible with the pad of her finger. The darkness grew fuller, and her smell crashed against his willpower, reaching into him to rouse the instinctual reactions he’d fought so hard to resist. She was everywhere, all around him, a ravenous cloud, a hungry mire from which there was no escape.

No.

There would be escape. So long as blood flowed in Ketahn’s veins, so long as breath filled his lungs, so long as his hearts beat, he was for Ivy. The light with which she’d instilled his heartsthread could never be overcome by the queen’s darkness.

Through Zurvashi’s relentless grip on his throat, Ketahn chittered.

The queen roared and yanked him closer. The ropes pulled agonizingly taut, especially the one around his neck—but the strand coiled around his upper arms loosened, if only barely. Her fingers locked his mandibles open even as her fangs dug into the sides of his face.

“Each time you utter a sound, you encourage me to devise a new punishment for you,” Zurvashi snarled. As she continued, her voice stretched into a purr. “But you will not be granted the release of death. It will be much more satisfying to know you are suffering for all the wrongs you have done me.”

The queen released him and withdrew. The bindings pulled Ketahn back slightly, reclaiming the bit of length the queen had forced out of them. The coils around his upper arms loosened further still.

He sucked in a desperate breath.

Ketahn’s hide pulsed painfully everywhere she’d touched him, and blood trickled from the small, stinging wounds she’d opened on his abdomen, neck, and face.

Nearby, the queen moved, the sounds of her clinking gold and rustling cloth dominant in the silent shadows.

Ketahn grasped at his inner fire, desperate to flood his limbs with a surge of strength—the queen’s back was turned toward him, he could sense it, and this was the moment to strike, to end her with all the honor and respect she deserved. But his lungs and throat were ablaze, and the pain was more intense and pervasive than ever. He strained for a few heartbeats before his body sagged in the bindings.

The door opened with a scraping that made it feel like all Takarahl was quaking. Ethereal blue light crept in through the doorway, turning Zurvashi into a hulking shadow-beast with dully gleaming scales.

“I will visit you again soon, my little Ketahn,” Zurvashi said. “Our next encounter will be far more pleasurable…at least for me.”

The door slammed shut with deafening boom; Ketahn’s hearing was still recovering when the wooden bars slid into place on the other side. There were no words venomous enough, no curses vile enough, nothing brief and firm enough to fit the situation but a simple human term.

Fuck.

He would not allow his body to fail. He would not allow weakness to steal this opportunity. Even if he’d missed his chance to strike the queen, he still had a chance to free himself. He still had every reason to keep fighting.

Growling, Ketahn tipped his head back, pulled his body up, and hooked the damaged rope with his fang again, twisting his arms back and forth as much as the restraints allowed to put more stress on the strand. He ignored the thrumming aches in his shoulders and wrists.

Between his harsh breaths, he thought he heard the faint but distinct sound of silk threads breaking, one by one.

Soon, Ivy. I will be with you soon.