Protected: Alien Mate Index Book 2: (Alien Warrior BBW Paranormal Science fiction Romance) (The Alien Mate Index) (36 page)

“That’s sick!” I spat at her.

“Is it any sicker than what you did to your own father?” she asked musingly. “I think not. I prefer to think of it as poetic justice.”

Before I could answer, she was bending over me.

“Now, I am going to unweb you my dear Gravex, but only because I need to get to your member,” she murmured in my ear. “If you try to fight me in any way, I’ll have my minions sting you into submission.”

She gestured to the large spiders and they all came scuttling down the web to stand around us in a circle.

Shit. I was in deep here—really deep—and I knew it. But what was I going to do?

Goddess of Mercy,
I prayed silently.
I don’t think it’s your will for me to die like this. I know I’ve been a son of a bitch all my life, but I have unfinished business—promises to keep. The sacred oath I swore will be broken if I can’t get out of here and get back to Leah and Teeny. So please, Goddess…help me!

I don’t know if the Goddess heard my prayer or not but a feeling of calm washed over me as the Widow leaned over and started cutting the webbing that held me with one sharp, claw-like fingernail. Her heavy abdomen rested on my legs and I could feel the eggs moving around inside it.
Gods!
I’d rather die in the Frozen Hells of Anor than mate with this creature but I knew I had to lie still and take it—at least until I was free.

At last I was released from the cable-like web-string that had so completely restricted my movement. I wiggled my fingers and toes, trying to bring feeling back. I needed to move fast when the moment came.

Not yet,
I told myself.
Not…just…yet.

Then she started scrabbling at the fastening to my trousers. I fought back a rush of revulsion and held up a hand.

“Stop—let me.”

“Why should I?” She leered down at me. “I rather
like
being in charge.”

“You’re still in charge,” I said evenly. “But my trousers fasten at the bottom
and
the top—you’ll never get them open on your own.”

“Mmm…being cooperative now, are we?” she purred.

“Yeah, well, what choice do I have?” I muttered. “At least tell me you’ll numb me before you, uh, implant the eggs.” The words stuck in my throat but I made myself say them anyway.

“But of course,” she purred. “If you lie still and cooperate, I promise the entire procedure will be entirely painless.”

Right—like being cut open and having your internal organs removed to make room for a thousand or so spider eggs would be painless. Somehow I didn’t think so. But I tried to keep my expression neutral and the Widow seemed to buy it.

“Look at it this way, Gravex—at least you’ll have the best mating of your life before you die,” she murmured. “Now unfasten your trousers and expose your member for my spermatic receptor.” Her bulging ruby eyes glowed and she leaned back, moving that huge, gravid abdomen off my legs at last, to give me room.

I knew the time had come. Leaning over, I reached for the bottoms of my trousers, which were tucked into my boots.

Also tucked into my boot was my best knife.

It wasn’t much of a weapon against a being like the Widow, but it was all I had and this was my only chance. I’d be damned if I wasn’t going to take it.

With a sudden move, I pulled it from my boot and waved it in her face.

“Get back!” I roared.

She hissed, drawing back momentarily, giving me just enough time to roll to one side.

Unfortunately, I rolled right up against several of the giant spiders. Since I didn’t want to be stung again, I just kept on rolling, right over their huge, squishy bodies.

I heard their high-pitched screams as they were smashed through the holes in the web and turned into goo. Some of them stung me anyway but I wasn’t stopping—not until I got the hell out of there!

“Stop him!
Stop him!”
the Widow howled. “The mating must take place! My eggs are ripening
now.
Soon they will hatch!”

A dozen or so more of the massive spiders scuttled forward and I swiped at them with my knife, cutting off some of their legs which made them hiss and scream shrilly in pain as they bled dark green ichor all over the white strands.

You might wonder why I didn’t just go for the Widow herself. Her bulging abdomen with its load of writhing eggs was the perfect target. But I took a vow as a Protector never to hurt a female.

And it wasn’t just that—my feelings about harming females went deeper than any vow—much deeper. Even in a dire situation like this, I didn’t want to do it. So I just scrambled around the web, swiping at the spiders and trying to get to the edge, to the platform where the Widow had been standing earlier.

My plan was to get off the web and go find my ship. Or if it was too damaged, some other shuttle to get me to wherever Doloroso had gone. It wouldn’t be far—I had the feeling he was still inside the Spider’s Web around the Lavara system. He knew no one could reach him there, not with the Web activated again.

I just hoped I could get to him before it was too late and he hurt Leah or Teeny in some way. Because if he hurt them…

I could feel the rage building within me at the thought. Could see the red haze that wanted to cloud both my vision and my reason. But I kept it grimly at bay. Before I could find and kill Doloroso, I had to get out of my own mess first.

“Get him! Catch him!” the Widow shrieked. Was it my imagination or were the eggs inside her writhing faster and faster? Her immense white abdomen looked like a pot of water coming to a boil. “You fools!” she gasped at the spiders. “If you cannot catch him, I’ll do it myself!”

From beneath her abdomen, a long white fleshy coil rose up like a vast snake. It spasmed and I ducked just in time as a coil of white webbing shot out. Holy fuck, I needed to get out of here
now!

“Stay still!” the Widow ordered me imperiously—like I was going to obediently wait while she webbed me up again. “My eggs are almost fully ripe—they must be fertilized and implanted
now.”

“Sorry, lady,” I growled, dodging another loop of white webbing. “Not my fuckin’ problem.”

I had almost reached the platform by then. The Widow’s abdomen was writhing crazily. It seemed to get worse every time she shot her white, fibrous web at me—almost as if she was agitating the eggs inside her—but she wouldn’t stop.

I dodged again and gripped the edge of the platform, heaving myself up. And that was when I heard it—a grinding crash like an outer airlock door being thrown open.

“This way!” someone shouted in a familiar voice.

Suddenly, that fuckin’ Captain Verrai and about five other Gold Skins appeared. They were standing just inside the arched doorway leading out of the web room, as I had begun to think of the huge area where the Widow kept her lair.

The captain and the rest of the Imperial guards came charging in, blasters ready. I had to duck as one of them discharged their weapon right at my head.

Great, now I was getting shot at from the back
and
the front.

“Don’t shoot, you fuckin’ idiot!” I shouted at them. “I’m not the enemy here!”

“What’s this? What’s going on here?” Verrai asked, his rainbow eyes taking a quick sweep of the room.

I could only imagine how it looked—the Widow howling in her web, her spider minions scuttling everywhere and me—wielding a knife, covered in welts from being stung, and dripping with poison-green goo.

“What do you
think
is going on?” I snarled at him. “She wants a mate to implant with her eggs and it’s damn-sure not gonna be me. You better fuckin’ run before she decides it should be you or one of your men!”

But the idea had apparently already occurred to the Widow. She’d told me she searched for years to find just the right mate, but now that her eggs were about to hatch right inside her, it was any port in a storm.

“You—you’ll do!” she hissed at Verrai. That fleshy tube that came from between her spidery legs spasmed again and a length of white webbing wrapped around his thighs.

“Ugh!” he gasped and lurched forward as she tugged at him.

“Here.” Without thinking, I grabbed his arm and yanked him back before he could be pulled out onto the web. He was holding a blaster in his hand and it discharged with a flash of light and a sound like thunder in the large, echoing room.

I don’t know if he meant to aim for the Widow—I don’t think so, honestly—but he couldn’t have made a better shot if he’d tried. The blast of energy hit her directly in the center of her swollen, writhing belly and a sudden, gaping hole appeared, eating away her white flesh like fire eats away at paper.

“No!
No!”
I heard her wail as she fell backwards, her massive body splayed like a ruined mountain in the middle of the web.

And then I saw a sight that I knew wouldn’t leave me for years.

The wound had opened her belly but it hadn’t killed her—-or most of the eggs inside. They were mounded up like insect eggs, white and pulsing but I thought I could see red eyes inside them as they writhed frantically in the open air.

As we watched, I saw them breaking open, the thin white membrane around them tearing as if their occupants were particularly eager to come out. And come out they did, pushing their little bald heads into the world, looking around eagerly with the same bulging, ruby-red insect eyes their mother had.

From the waist up, they looked like babies. Ugly, bald babies with paper-white skin and bulging red eyes, true but still—babies. From the waist down, though, they were spiders. I saw them scuttling around, their tiny limbs flailing as they tried to get free of their egg membranes. If the Widow could be believed, all of them were female but it was hard to tell from here. All I could see was the mutant spider-babies were extremely active.

And apparently, extremely hungry.

I don’t know which one was the first to take a bite and I don’t want to know. I saw one open its mouth revealing tiny pointed teeth. At first I thought it was yawning and then I saw it duck its head and sink those sharp little points into the Widow’s white flesh. Another spider baby looked up with a red-smeared mouth…and another, and another. Soon they were all feeding while the Widow thrashed feebly and cried out in agony.

It was a fuckin’ nightmare.

“No! No, stop them—stop them!” the Widow wailed to her spider minions. But they only shifted from leg to leg uncertainly. I thought they were probably genetically programmed to protect the spider-babies at all costs and so were unable to come to the aid of their mistress.

“This is sickening,” Verrai said in a low voice. For once we were in total agreement. He raised his blaster and aimed it this time. There was an echoing blast, a burst of silver light, and the Widow’s head suddenly exploded in a spray of crimson.

I didn’t have long to admire his marksmanship. The sound drew the attention of the spider-babies. As one, they looked up, their cherubic white faces smeared in red, their bulging ruby eyes trained in our direction.

There are some kinds of animals—herd animals and insects mostly—that share almost a kind of telepathy. It’s like one has a thought and it transmits to all the rest in a flash.

In this case the thought was obviously, “Fresh meat!”

They came at us in a swarm, spilling over the blood-soaked carcass of their mother in a flood of long, slender legs and gnashing teeth.

For a moment, we all stood frozen. And then I turned to Verrai and shouted,

“Run! Fucking
run!”

“I
can’t!”
He pointed down at the webbing still wrapped around his upper thighs.

I started to grab my knife to cut him free but there was no time—the tide of spider-babies was getting closer, rushing towards us in a flood of blood-soaked death.

There was only one thing to do—with a grunt, I leaned down and tossed him over my shoulder. Then I ran as hard as I could with the other Imperial Guards right behind me and the mass of swarming spider-babies right behind them.

Let me tell you, if you’ve never run flat out for your life with an Imperial Guard thrown over your shoulder, well, I don’t recommend it. There are easier ways to get your cardio in.

Verrai wasn’t quite as broad as me across the shoulders—then again, I’m built like a Xerusian tank—but he was at least an inch taller and every bit of him was solid muscle.

What I’m saying is that it wasn’t nearly as easy to run holding him as it had been to run the same way holding Leah. For all that she thought she was too curvy, my little Earth girl was light as a feather—I could carry her all day. Not so with the Captain of the Imperial Guards.

Luckily, just as I was beginning to feel winded, one of the other guards pointed to a wide silver door off the main corridor.

“There! Air lock! The shuttles!” he gasped.

I ducked in along with the other guards, Verrai still slung over my shoulder like a wounded Terran buck. As I got in, I turned to look and saw the white and red swarm of
Spidier~o
young was right on our heels. They were skittering along, not just on the floor but on the walls and even on the ceiling as well—coming as fast as they could, their tiny arms outstretched, their mouths gaping to show the bloody, jagged points inside.

“Shut the door! Shut the fucking door!” I shouted and one of the Gold Skins—who was more pale than gold at the moment—started hammering on the door-close mechanism as hard as he could.

Just as the writhing swarm reached us, the metal door slid down with a
bang.
I heard the disappointed hissing from the other side as well as the sound of thousands of tiny claws scrabbling at the metal.

I couldn’t help thinking that it could have been me instead of the Widow. Or me
and
the widow, that the wicked little cannibals ate. Hadn’t I thought to myself that her bulging abdomen made the perfect target? And yet, if I had slit her open, all those eggs would have come pouring out and hatched
on me
instead of
inside
her
.

I never would have gotten away in time if I’d been in the web instead of up on the platform when they broke out of their eggs. Those hungry spider-babies would have had Braxian for dinner. Only my vow had saved me.