The Spider Queen Read online

  The Spider Queen

  Emma Slate

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  ©2019 by Emma Slate. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute or transmit in any form or by any means.

  Contents

  Part I

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Part II

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Part III

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Epilogue

  Thank You!

  SINS Series

  Additional Works

  Part I

  Prologue

  I woke up in a cold, quiet room. My eyes flipped open to a white ceiling with fluorescent lights above me. My brain seemed foggy and I couldn’t figure out where I was.

  The soft sound of approaching footsteps hit my ears.

  I moved to sit up only to find I couldn’t.

  “Poppy? Poppy, can you hear me?”

  A face swam into focus—female—and someone I didn’t recognize. She had brown eyes, gray hair, and wore a white coat a few shades brighter than the stark white walls of the room I was in.

  She reached into her jacket and pulled out a light. With a click, she turned it on and shined it into my eyes.

  I shrank back and attempted to move my arms. They refused to budge. I tugged harder, feeling panic well up inside me.

  “Easy,” she said in a soothing tone.

  I wanted to throw something at her.

  My limbs wouldn’t budge because they were bound.

  “Poppy, listen to me. You’re at MUSC.”

  My mouth was too dry to speak.

  The doctor recognized my struggle to talk, went to the bedside table, and poured a cup of water from the blue plastic pitcher. She had to hold the straw in the cup to my lips because I was restrained.

  Restrained.

  Like a mental patient.

  After a few swallows, I turned my head, signaling I was finished. She set the cup down and then drew up a chair to my bedside. “Do you know what day it is?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “It’s Tuesday, and you’ve been here since Saturday.”

  “Saturday?” I whispered. There was only blankness in my mind. Four days of nothing. “How did I get here? Why am I here?” I looked down at my wrists. “Why am I tied up?”

  The doctor looked like she was debating what to say for a moment before deciding to answer. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

  I thought back as far as I could. “I think I was having trouble sleeping. I took half a sleeping pill I was prescribed…but it couldn’t have knocked me out for days though, could it?”

  “That’s doubtful.” She leaned over and rested her elbows on her knees, her eyes on mine. “Poppy, your cousin came home a few days ago and found you in an altered mental state.”

  I frowned. “Altered? What does that mean?”

  She took a steady breath. “You were singing.”

  “Singing?”

  “In your sleep. Singing something completely nonsensical.”

  “People talk in their sleep all the time,” I protested, “but they’re not taken to the hospital and—” I looked at my wrists.

  “She was worried for your safety. She says you haven’t been sleeping and you haven’t been acting like yourself. You’re here because she couldn’t wake you, Poppy—”

  “How did I get here?”

  “She and her boyfriend brought you to the hospital—”r />
  Boyfriend.

  “I need to call my boyfriend, Hunter,” I said. Panic surged inside of me again.

  “Your cousin has already called him,” she assured me. “But I think it’s best if you rest now.”

  “I don’t want to rest!” I yelled, fighting against the restraints. “I want to get out of here! I want to go home!”

  The doctor called for a nurse, and a moment later a plump brunette came into the room. She injected something into my IV and a few moments later, lethargy settled over my body.

  My senses went foggy, words faded to a dull murmur around me, and my eyes drifted shut.

  Oblivion came once again.

  Chapter 1

  “Ew! What the hell is that?” my cousin asked, leaning over my shoulder to stare at the webpage.

  “It’s a Cebrennus rechenbergi spider. Nocturnal and native to the Erg Chebbi desert in Morocco.”

  “That’s disgusting,” Anita exclaimed, giving a dramatic shiver.

  “It’s not. It’s beautiful! Watch.” I clicked a link and a YouTube video popped up. A moment later, a spider cartwheeled across the sand, doing acrobatic flips, impressing the hell out of me.

  Not so much with Anita.

  “I love you, but spiders are gross.”

  I peered closer at the screen, enraptured with one of nature’s most unique species. “They’re not gross,” I said, knowing we were about to engage in a conversation we’d had a dozen times already. “If it weren’t for spiders, the bug population would be out of control. They eat mosquitos. Not to mention—”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard this all before. They’re still creepy as hell.”

  Anita left my side and went over to the red couch and flopped down. Putting her feet up on the coffee table, she reached for the remote. Moments later a soccer game captured her attention. Just like Anita couldn’t understand my fascination with spiders and my desire to study them, I didn’t understand how she wanted to study sports medicine. Broken bones and blood?

  No, thanks.

  “Oh, yes!” Anita said, jumping up with a fist pump.

  “Injury?” I asked without taking my eyes off the computer.

  “Yes! I just saw an ankle snap!”

  “And you call my interests weird,” I teased.

  Anita laughed. “They are weird.” She muted the TV. “You study bugs.”

  Rolling my eyes behind my glasses, I said, “I do not study bugs. I study spiders.”

  “Archna-what’s it called?”

  “Arachnology.”

  “Are you sure we’re cousins?” she demanded in good humor.

  “Nope,” I said. “Not sure at all.”

  She sighed. “I worry about you.”

  Her tone was anything but teasing—and it was sincere. I looked at her. “Why?”

  “Why? Really? You don’t date—”

  “I had a pseudo-date a few weeks ago.”

  “I’m talking about a date that doesn’t involve bio books, a lab, or a microscope.”

  “I aced my bio lab, remember?”

  “There’s studying biology and then there’s studying biology.”

  “You’re gross.”

  Shrugging, she turned her attention back to the soccer match on TV. “Wouldn’t hurt you to live a little outside your comfort zone.”

  “I like it there.”

  “It involves a lot of sweatpants and your nose stuck in a science book.”

  “Anita—” I warned.

  “They aren’t all like him, you know.”

  “Just stop, okay? I don’t want to talk about it. Just focus on your own love life and I’ll focus on mine.”

  “I am focusing on my love life. There’s a frat party tonight. Wanna come?”

  I smiled. “Not even a little bit.”

  “If you come for an hour, I’ll stop bugging you about your social life.”

  Closing my laptop, I peered at her. My cousin was being even more insistent than usual. “Who is he?” I shoved my laptop into my messenger bag along with my notebook and a deluge of pens.

  Her brown eyes opened wide. “A cute Sig Ep. Like, really cute.”

  I felt myself caving. “Fine, I’ll go with you, but I’m going to the library first, okay?”

  Anita squealed, bounced over, and then hugged me to her. “Best cousin ever!”

  “Yeah, yeah. Just give me a heads up before you ditch me.” I headed for the front door.

  “Be back here no later than six.”

  “Six?” I groaned. “What time is the party?”

  “Nine. We need three hours to get ready.”

  Translation: Anita wanted three hours to make me over.

  “I’ll be back by seven—no earlier.” When she was about to protest, I glared. “Or, I don’t have to go at all. And you can find a new wing-woman.”

  “Seven,” she grumbled.

  Though February in Charleston wasn’t like February most places, it still had its rainy and cold winter days, and today was one of them. But I’d still take winter in Charleston over winter anywhere else. Forty and raining I could do. Twenty and snowing I couldn’t.

  I made it to the library just as the sky opened up into a downpour. I’d forgotten my umbrella, so hopefully it would stop in a few hours before I went home. The library was a new construction completed a couple of years ago—and it still had that sawdust smell. It had a cafe with a Starbucks, which stayed open twenty-four hours a day during finals week. Currently only one barista was behind the counter. She looked annoyed that she had to be at work when everyone else was already out and starting their weekend.

  I loved it when the library was deserted; it meant I could spread out at one of the long, polished wood tables and not have to worry about taking up too much space. And I had my choice in seats. I chose a table by one of the large windows and set my book bag down.

  My paper was due the following week and though I’d already written it, I liked to let it sit. Nothing I hated more than being pressed for time and feeling like I hadn’t done my best work. After I read through it a few times and made minor changes, I put it away. I wasn’t ready to go home yet, so I pulled out my sketchbook, plugged in my ear buds, and turned on a Classical music playlist.

  I flipped open to a fresh page in my sketchbook and a few minutes later, I had a decent outline of the cartwheeling spider I’d shown Anita.

  A navy blue backpack slid across the table, startling me into a jump. I looked up and glared at the impolite intruder.

  “Sorry.” The cute guy apologized with a sheepish smile.

  My gaze dropped back down to my sketchbook, but my hand stilled. There were ten other tables, most of them unoccupied, and this guy had to sit down at mine. I tried to ignore him, but the wiry, blond invader made it impossible. Not only was he taking forever to get settled, but when he finally did sit, his left leg bounced in rapid succession.

  “Do you mind?” I asked, yanking out one of my ear buds. “I’m trying to concentrate.”

  “Who’s stopping you?” he asked with a teasing grin. He shoved a pencil behind his ear and flipped open his binder, letting it hit the table with a thud.

  “You. This is a library. Try being quiet—and still.”

  “Sorry, I have a lot of energy. I drank three Red Bulls before I got here.” His smile was light, his tone friendly.

  “Explains the inability to sit still,” I said. “Why are you at the library on a Friday afternoon?”

  “Why are you?” he countered, his eyes trying to get a look at my sketchbook.

  I covered it with my hands. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I was working on a paper.”

  “That doesn’t look like a paper.”

  “I already wrote the paper. This is something else.”

  “Art class homework?”

  “No.” I bent my head and pretended to get back to sketching, but I could still see him out of the corner of my eye. His fingers wandered across the table toward my drawing. I slid the
sketchbook into my lap and glared at him.

  He grinned.

  “Do you have any sense of personal space?”