Jennifer Estep - Spider's Revenge

Ashland Police Detective Bria Coolidge was a beautiful woman. Or maybe I was just a little biased, since she was my younger sister.

Bria’s mane of blond hair, cut into a series of lush, shaggy layers, just skimmed her slim shoulders, while her blue eyes glinted in the soft curves of her face. The frosty air had painted her cheeks a pleasing pink that showed off her skin’s perfection. Given the bitter chill outside, Bria wore a long, black wool coat over a pair of black boots, jeans, and a royal blue turtleneck sweater that further brightened her stunning eyes. Her detective’s badge glinted a cold gold on her leather belt, right next to the inky blackness of her gun.

My gaze fell to Bria’s throat, and the rune necklace hanging there. The one that she always wore — the one I’d never seen her without. A delicate primrose. The symbol for beauty. Bria’s rune, the silverstone medallion given to her by our mother, Eira Snow, when she was a little girl. Our older sister, Annabella, had worn an ivy vine around her neck, representing elegance, while our mother’s rune had been a snowflake, the symbol for icy calm.

Once upon a time, I’d had a necklace as well — a spider rune, of course. A small circle surrounded by eight thin rays. The symbol for patience. My assassin name. And so much a part of who and what I was.

In a way, I still had my spider rune and, like Bria, never went anywhere without it — because the metal medallion had been melted into my palms by Mab.

The memories of that night swam up in my head and, for a moment, I was back there. Tied down to a chair. Sweat streaming down my face. Choking on the stench of my own charred flesh. The silverstone melting, burning, searing its way into my palms—

My hands tightened into fists, and I felt another piece of metal dig into my skin — a small silverstone ring on my right index finger. The slight sensation was enough to derail my memories, and I dropped my gaze to the ring, latching on to the distraction.

Truth be told, it wasn’t much to look at. The ring was completely plain and featureless, except for the tiny spider rune stamped into the middle of the thin band. But to me it was more precious than any diamond because it had been a gift from Bria.

My sister had given me the ring for Christmas. She’d worn it for years as a reminder of me, her big sister, Genevieve Snow. Even now, two more silverstone bands glinted on her left index finger — with runes carved into both surfaces. Snowflakes for our mother, and ivy vines for our older sister. Bria wore the rings every day, along with her primrose rune, as a tribute to them, our lost family.

I pulled my gaze up from the jewelry and looked at Bria. For seventeen years, I’d thought that she was dead, that I’d accidentally killed her. After Mab had tortured me that night, I’d heard Bria scream and thought that the Fire elemental had found the place where I’d hidden her. So I’d lashed out with my Ice and Stone magic to try to escape from the ropes that had held me down, to try to get to Bria before Mab killed her. But I’d used too much magic far too wildly. As a result, I’d collapsed our whole house — and I’d thought that Bria had been crushed to death by the falling stones. A secret guilt that I’d carried with me until just a few months ago when Bria had come back to Ashland.

My sister had been drawn here by a picture of the spider rune scar on my palm that Fletcher had sent her. Just as I’d started looking for her when the old man had arranged to leave me a photo of her from beyond the grave. Fletcher had wanted us to find each other, and we had. But our reunion hadn’t exactly been a rosy one. As a detective, Bria had dedicated her whole adult life to being a cop, to helping people, to doing the right thing and making sure that bad guys like me got exactly what they deserved. As the assassin the Spider, all I’d done was kill people for money and contribute to my retirement fund. The two worldviews didn’t exactly mesh.

But Bria and I were working through our differences — or at least trying to find some common ground. It had started at Christmas, when I’d saved Bria from getting dead at the hands of LaFleur and had told my sister who I really was. Bria had been shocked and horrified that her big sister, Genevieve, had grown up to be the Spider, but she was trying to accept me, which is more than I’d dared to hope for.

Now, almost two months later, we weren’t exactly best friends, but we weren’t enemies either. We had coffee sometimes and tried to talk. But even when we just sat there staring at each other, searching for something to say, I was grateful that my sister was back in my life. I thought that Bria felt the same way. At least, I hoped she did.

Bria wasn’t alone. Xavier, the roughly seven-foot-tall giant who was her partner on the force, stepped inside the Pork Pit and shut the door behind him. I knew Xavier well and counted him among my few friends. The giant had helped me out of some tough situations a time or two, and I’d returned the favor a while back by going after Elliot Slater, the sick, twisted bastard who’d been stalking and terrorizing Roslyn Phillips, Xavier’s main squeeze. Roslyn had eventually killed Slater, but as the Spider, I’d claimed responsibility for his death to take the heat off her.

The two of them headed over to the counter. I leaned down on my elbows and waited for them. Sophia stood off to my left, peeling potatoes in case anyone else came in this afternoon who had a hankering for the thick, steak-cut French fries that the Pit was famous for, among other things.

“Hey there, baby sister,” I said to Bria. “Xavier.”

They nodded at me.

“Here for a late lunch?” I asked.

Xavier grinned at me, his teeth flashing like opals against his onyx-colored skin. “Something like that. Think the owner will give us a break on the price?”

“Oh,” I drawled. “She might make an exception for two of Ashland’s finest.”

They both took off their coats and settled themselves at the counter. Xavier sat down first, forcing Bria to move in between him and Finn or risk being left out of the conversation that was sure to follow. My sister sighed but slid onto the stool.

For his part, Finn was all too happy to swivel around in Bria’s direction and give her his most charming, winning, aw-shucks smile.

To say that Finnegan Lane was something of a womanizer was like telling someone that it was a little steamy in the South in the summertime. Old, young, fat, thin, blonde, brunette, bald, toothless, face like a steel trap, Finn didn’t care as long as it was breathing, female, and had the breasts to prove it. He wasn’t even particular about how perky they were. Finn regarded pesky little things like wedding bands, engagement rings, and jealous, hulking menfolk more as amusing challenges than immovable obstacles that could be hazardous to his health. It always amazed me that some jilted husband hadn’t hired me, the Spider, to kill my foster brother long ago. But Finn had his own sort of magic when it came to charming the ladies.

At least, until he’d met Bria.

Finn had laid a hell of a kiss on my sister during a Christmas party at Owen’s mansion. The kind of kiss that would make most women melt. Some men too. But Bria wasn’t most women. Oh, I could tell that my sister was attracted to Finn. She’d have to be blind not to be. But she was going to make him work for every sly innuendo, every heated look, every steamy kiss. Which, of course, only made Finn pursue her that much harder. So far, though, Bria had proved to be just as wily and elusive as Finn was clever, rebuffing every attempt he made to get close to her.

Still, there was something in Finn’s eyes when he looked at Bria, something that made me think that all this effort might be a little more serious than he let on, something I’d never seen before — a touch of fear. Like maybe he was afraid of what he could actually feel for her — of falling for her the way that he’d made so many other women fall for him.