Scared of Spiders

Chapter Ten

“Run,” Brandon ordered her before he ran toward the nightmare battle, his pale buttocks flashing until he shifted back into his wolf shape.

Josie stayed rooted to the floor. She couldn’t stop herself from watching. As wolves, Brandon and Clint were magnificent. Even injured, Clint lunged at the massive spider from one side while Brandon worried at it from the other. But the freak of nature was wily, not to mention multilimbed. It batted them away to bloody effect. Its many faceted eyes glowed red, and from its maw dripped a slime that made Brandon yelp when it touched his skin.

They needed help. But the only person left was her. I can’t do this. I can’t. Oh, my God.

Even as she whimpered in terror, she picked up a rusted piece of metal, its end jagged and dangerous. She forced herself on legs that shook to approach the spider. It turned its nightmarish head toward her, and even in its inhuman guise, she heard it chuckle. Whispers swirled around her, sibilant sounds that taunted her and made her whole body tremble. So focused was she on ignoring the voices, she didn’t see the hairy leg that arched out. She couldn’t miss feeling it, though.

Its clawed tip jabbed her in the stomach and knocked her down. As she lay there, stunned, pain spread its eager claws throughout her body. She heard howling, an eerie sound that preceded the invigorated sounds of battle.

Josie tried to push herself up, but the agony proved too much, and she slumped back.

Is this how I die?

Her fingers scrabbled against the hard floor and encountered the metal lance she’d dropped. She grasped it, only one thought in her mind-save the ones she loved.

She waited for her moment, free of fear for once in her life. Calm as a windless day, she prepared to face the end.

But not alone. When the lumbering body of the spider straddled her as it backed away from an intense attack, she gathered her last reserves of strength-and the love she carried for Clint and Brandon-and shoved the spear up through the soft underbelly of the beast.

The gushing ichor burned as it splashed down on her. Not that she noticed. Out of strength, she closed her eyes.

Clint couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw Josie-sweet, timid Josie-brave her fear and come back to help them. He didn’t have time to shift and yell at her to run away, but he saw with horrible clarity the leg that shot out to stab her in the stomach. She dropped to the floor, and a red film descended over his eyes. Grief and anguish gave him new energy, and he attacked the spider that wouldn’t die. He and Brandon had scored numerous hits on the beast, and while it leaked bodily fluids, they had yet to weaken it.

It didn’t help that his mind was in a constant battle to remain unfettered. The arachnid’s powers of persuasion were unbelievable, and Clint was thankful that the rest of the pack was busy elsewhere preventing the spider from calling its reinforcements.

A vicious swipe that he failed to dodge, staggered him. Shaking his head though, Clint and his wolf refused to give up. He prepared to run the leg gauntlet again, seeking the soft underbelly and the heart of the creature. The spider skittered back, right over Josie’s still body. Clint howled in renewed anguish.

Then the miracle happened.

Incredulous, he could only watch as Josie, not dead after all stirred beneath the arachnid. With her face contorted and her eyes squeezed shut in fear, she screamed as she thrust up with a jagged rod of metal. At the high-pitched squeal, Clint knew she’d hit the mark. As the light in the spider’s eyes faded, Clint with a burst of speed leaped at the bulky body that slowly folded downward. His momentum was enough to send the teetering corpse sideways and away from Josie, even as she exclaimed “gross” in response to the gushing fluids.

He had no sooner hit the floor, than he shifted to a human and ran to Josie, who’d barely missed getting squished. Her courageous act must have sucked at the last of her reserves, for she now lay still as death. As he scanned her body, Clint howled, for her injuries were numerous.

Brandon, who’d also shifted back, knelt beside him, his face twisted in grief. “Dammit, Clint, do something. She’s dying.”

I know she is, but how do I stop death? Clint gathered up her bleeding body, and tears pricked his eyes-unmanly perhaps, but he couldn’t help them. And Josie thought she wasn’t brave. He’d never seen anything more courageous in his life than her confronting her all-too-real nightmare. In that moment, he knew what to do. He just didn’t know if she’d survive it. However, if he didn’t try, she’d die for sure. “We need to shift and bite her.”

Brandon looked over at him with red-rimmed eyes. “But that could kill her.”

“She’s dead if we don’t,” Clint replied grimly.

Brandon stared down at her then glanced back to face Clint. “Both of us?”

“We haven’t marked her as our mate yet. Are you prepared to lose her as a mate if my bite alone alters the bond? Besides, it’s bound to be more potent if she receives the bite from two of us.” Or twice as deadly.

“Enough said.”

Clint lay her back down and shifted, as did Brandon. They both grasped her lower forearm in their jaws, and he projected one thought to Brandon before he bit down. “Now!”

As soon as Clint tasted the metallic tang of her blood, he backed off and shifted back. He and Brandon sat on their haunches, naked, bruised, and dirty, and waited to see if their action would save or kill the one they loved.

For a moment, Clint thought they’d failed. Her breathing slowed, her skin turned waxy.

Then she scared the crap out of him.

She let out a strident scream and she, arched her back. Clint and Brandon dove for her, trying to hold her down, but her body in the grips of the change, one like he’d never heard of, bucked them off. They could only watch as she thrashed on the ground. And then the most disturbing-perhaps even amazing-thing happened.

She shifted into a wolf, then a bear, then a bird. Then a panther. Almost too quick to see, her body morphed into a dizzying amount of shapes, and Clint finally understood what the spider had meant when he’d said Josie was a prize.

Clint had heard of them-shapeshifters who could adopt any shape-but like many he’d thought them legend.

Dozens, then hundreds, of shifts later, Josie resumed her human body, naked and without a single damn blemish to mark her ordeal.

There was only one problem. She wouldn’t wake up.