Jory Strong: Spider-Touched

The dragon lizards grew more animated, their tails thrashing as they backed up, their eyes never leaving Raoul. They were capable of climbing trees, though the heavier they grew, the less they chose to do it. They were also capable of bursts of speed. But their true deadliness came from the venom and bacteria in their mouth. A single bite killed a man of the same weight within twenty-four hours. And if their prey escaped, their keen sense of smell allowed them to follow until they found the dying or dead.

At the top of the cage Raoul opened a hatch. He shrugged, and for a second time sent Rudy’s corpse to the floor. The dragon lizards were on it as soon as it struck the concrete, savage jaws ripping flesh and clothing, crunching bone.

The trapper grunted and turned his attention to Tir, though Tir could see the man watched Raoul out of the corner of his eyes. “I’ve got a little evening entertainment planned for you,” Hyde said.

Tir offered no response, verbal or physical. He remained on the straw bed and waited for events to unfold.

After centuries of being at the mercy of humans, he no longer had the capacity for curiosity when it came to what his captors planned for him. He endured. He survived. He dreamed of freedom and vengeance.

Raoul dropped from the ladder, his gaze going to the woman and growing heated, hungry, then flaring with anger when Hyde said, “Open the cage, bitch, and get in there with him.”

Disgust came to Tir with understanding. Over the centuries hundreds of women had been put in his cage for him to breed. Many had been killed in front of him the next morning when his jailers arrived to find them untouched.

“No, Hyde—”

A slap silenced her.

“Get in there and service him. I’m not likely to get my hands on something like him again.”

“No—”

This time she was interrupted by Raoul’s lunge.

A long, agonized scream followed as the trapper shot a taser round into the Were.

The scream gave way to whimpering and thrashing as electricity continued to surge into the boy’s body.

Urine wet the front of his pants in a growing stain. Material shredded as Raoul convulsed, skin and bone contorting as black hair covered flesh until a wolf lay panting, insensate on the floor.

“Get the silver wire the witch in Sacramento warded,” Hyde said, jerking the keys from his pocket and handing them to his wife before sliding the gun from its holster and leveling it on her.

She obeyed, remaining cowed even in proximity to the weapons stored in the cabinet. He holstered the gun when she returned with a spool. The charmed silver was spun like thread and mixed with another metal to give it physical strength.

Hyde took the offered wire and removed a tool from his belt. He knelt beside the wolf and sent a jolt of electricity into it to ensure the unconsciousness wasn’t a ploy.

The body twitched and jumped, but Raoul’s eyes remained closed while his breathing grew more erratic. It was enough confirmation for the trapper to set the taser down and wrap a thin band of silver thread tightly around Raoul’s neck, trapping him in the wolf form.

Until now, Tir’s time around shapeshifters had been limited to hearing their screams echoing through pitch-black catacombs in centuries past, as torturers tried to extract the names of others like them before war and plague brought the existence of supernaturals out into the open.

Given the band around his own neck, he was surprised at how little it apparently took to keep a Were confined to the furred form. Whatever the sigil-inscribed collar was that stole his history and his power, it was like no metal he’d ever encountered, nor was it the work of a human, of that he was certain.

Across from him the wereman was trembling, his misshapen body pressed tightly into a corner, his face hidden as Hyde dragged Raoul into the cell next to Tir’s and left him there, lying in the stink of the dead human’s body fluids.

The trapper retreated to the doorway then gave a savage jerk to free the taser barb before closing the cell and locking it. A few steps and he was once again in front of Tir’s cage. It took only a glance at his wife for her to shuffle forward.

“The next time I see you, you better look good and fucked, bitch,” Hyde said, unlocking the cage then slamming the door after she entered.

The hyenas cackled as if they approved. The wolf convulsed as if consciousness struggled to return.

Hyde put the taser and the spool of silver in the cabinet then left the building, locking and barring the door behind him. The woman remained cowered against the front of Tir’s cage, her image overlaid onto hundreds of others in his memory.

For the most part they’d all been terrified. Afraid of eternal damnation if they lay with him. Equally frightened of the death waiting for them at the hands of his captors if they didn’t. But some of them had been willing, and paid well, to seduce him.

None had succeeded. None stirred either desire or pity enough for him to take them.

Even when he’d been bound so he couldn’t prevent them from putting their hands and mouths on him, from rubbing their slits against him in an attempt to entice him, he’d easily maintained control over his body so his cock didn’t harden.

He would never mate with a mortal.

ARAÑA sat with her back to the wall, her knees up to provide a pillow for her head. Her hair, freed from its braid at gunpoint, was a welcome curtain against the eyes of the men watching her.

Some sat on the concrete floor of the cage holding them. Others paced along the bars separating them from her.

They all wore the tattoos of lawbreakers. The majority were there because they’d been found guilty of rape or murder. A few of them were thieves caught for a third time, and from their conversation Araña knew they’d been given a choice between running the maze or being put to death under a three strikes law.

If the history books spoke truly, once there’d been an uncount able number of prisons and jails in the United States. Places that filled up as fast as they could be built, providing jobs and financial security for those who worked on and in them.

Now prisons existed only for the wealthy and powerful, those who could afford the cost of keeping a loved one incarcerated in order to avoid the death sentence or a criminal’s tattoo. In most places small crimes were punishable by restitution and community service, more serious ones by hard labor and a tattoo—or death.

The framed “Wanted” pictures of Erik and Matthew rose in her mind. They’d been convicted in absentia on charges of piracy and murder. The first would have gained them a tattoo, but they’d been sentenced to die for killing the son of a councilman when they boarded his boat and discovered he was a child molester.

Araña’s arms tightened around her legs as she fought against the wave of agony thinking about Erik and Matthew brought with it. A shuddering breath was her only concession, but it was noted by the men watching her.

Catcalls came, lewd offers of comfort if she’d push her pants down and bend over to press her buttocks against the bars of the cage separating her from them. She ignored the men, ignored even the sudden silence that came with the opening of a door.

She followed the visitors’ footsteps as they walked down the aisle and stopped in front of the cell she was in. A melodic, unfamiliar voice said, “She’ll make a nice addition to the entertainment tonight.”

Farold, the man who’d paid the guardsmen a handful of bills when they’d presented her at the maze, said, “I thought you’d approve, Anton. The betting audience has grown tired of seeing nothing but hunting. It’s been a while since a woman ran. I thought you’d want to put her in the maze with only the convicts at first… Perhaps they’ll even kill each other for a chance at one last f—”