Demon Bound

insult you. I was trying to decide if you knew about it. I’ve known people who become all offended if they don’t get a formal invitation, even when it’s just a thrown-together thing like this is.”
    How surprisingly thoughtful. “I’ve known several people like that, too.” Her eyes narrowed. “You’re here to offer me transport?”
    “Yeah. But it might be a little bumpy.”
    That was of no consequence. Teleporting would save her an hour’s flight—and if Ethan knew Teqon’s location, it would allow her another advantage, as well. She couldn’t carry living things in her cache or through the Gates, but they could be teleported.
    “May I bring a passenger?”
    Jake appeared confused for all of a second. Then he grinned. “A spider?”
    “Yes.”
    “Go for it.”
    Alice focused her Gift upstairs. Most of the widows were sleeping, full and lazy after their feeding. But although her body was heavier than the others’, Lucy was awake and moving restlessly beneath her web.
    Alice caught hold of Lucy’s mind and pushed.
    “So that’s how you knew where you were going in the temple,” Jake said. “You had spiders in there.”
    “Yes. I brought in cave weavers.”
    Lucy reached the window. Alice stepped out into the courtyard, watching her descend on a gossamer dragline.
    “What happened to them when the temple vanished?”
    Nothing should have happened. Alice usually took the spiders with her when she left—but, preoccupied by thoughts of Teqon, she’d forgotten.
    “I don’t know,” she finally said. With her Gift open like this, she couldn’t hide the sorrow in her psychic scent.
    Sorrow, for weavers she hadn’t even bred and raised.
    Her crimson markings gleaming against her ebony exoskeleton, Lucy dropped into Alice’s outstretched palm. She lowered her Gift to a soothing hum, hoping to quiet the widow’s anxiety—and her own.
    Jake looked at her curiously, but he only said, “Grab on to me, then. And she’ll have to be touching me, too.”
    He only tensed a little when Lucy crept onto his forearm and secured herself with silken thread. Alice took his hand.
    And waited.
    His brow had creased with concentration. A powerful wave swept over her psychic senses—his Gift. His mind was strong, his effort undeniable. Yet they hadn’t teleported.
    “Would you like help?” She adjusted the focus of her own Gift until she heard the rapid click of Nefertari’s claws from inside her quarters.
    “I don’t think it’d work this time.” He expelled a long breath. “Not when I know it’s an illusion.”
    The skittering paused just long enough for Nefertari to push open the front door.
    He glanced over Alice’s shoulder—and laughed. “Come on. You can’t expect me to believe that.”
    “Jake.” She tightened her grip on his hand. “Am I projecting anything?”
    His eyes widened.
    “You wanted to meet her,” she reminded him, just as Nefertari jumped.

    He lay on short, dried grass that pricked and itched, even through his shirt. He opened his eyes. Stars shone above, too bright to be near a city.
    At least he hadn’t screamed, Jake thought. He’d just landed on his back in the middle of God-knew-where. A little awkward, but not emasculating.
    Warm fingers brushed his arm, and Jake lifted his head. Alice knelt beside his hip, murmuring to the spider she’d scooped into her palm.
    “That wasn’t a tarantula,” Jake said. “That was a bear.”
    “Oh, come now. She isn’t that large.”
    “A dog, then. A wolf.”
    “She’s more like a cat. She even purrs.”
    “I’ll bet.” Probably while eating kittens. “A mountain lion.”
    “ Perhaps an ocelot.”
    “Too small.”
    Alice met his gaze, and instead of freezing him, the ice in her eyes sparkled with humor. “But she so loves to jump.”
    Hot damn. So the Black Widow didn’t always bristle with disapproval. And with her mouth set in that prim, trying-not-to-laugh line, Jake remembered why kissing her in the temple had seemed like such a good idea.
    He must’ve hit his head. “How’s your friend?”
    The spider wasn’t in her palm now, and he was pretty sure the itch on his left arm wasn’t just the grass.
    “She’s fine. The disorientation only lasted a moment.” She got to her feet in that disjointed, creepy way. “Shall we go?”
    “Just a second. Let me figure out where we are.”
    He rolled onto his knees. They were in a farmhouse’s backyard—the kind that was just a scraggly patch of dead