My gaze met his. In the depths of his differently colored eyes, barely leashed fury burned.
If she but gives me the tiniest of excuses, he said, mind voice flat and in many ways scarier than even Hunter herself, she will be dead.
She won't. I lightly brushed some spider goo from his cheek. His skin was far cooler than usual, and concern sharpened anew. Will you please shift into energy form and burn away the venom?
Your wound is not fully healed, and I am in no danger as yet—
I don't care about my wound—
A continuing problem with you, he cut in. There was both amusement and frustration in his mental tones.
I smiled. I'm okay, so just humor me and heal yourself, will you?
If you insist.
He disappeared, leaving me once again staring at the scene in front of me. There actually wasn't that much to see anymore. All that remained of the spider woman were the bits I'd sliced off—some leg pieces, her fang, and one of the spinnerets. Everything else—all the gore and other body parts—had been consumed.
Hunter turned and our gazes met. I froze again, pinned by the awful darkness of her eyes, and for a moment feared that I was about to become her second victim. Then she blinked, and the darkness retreated.
But the air still burned with the wrongness of her being. Worse still, blood and flesh covered the lower part of her face and dripped from her chin, and her shirt was soaked with gore.
My stomach once again threatened to rebel, but I had a feeling vomiting all over her no-longer-shiny shoes would be a sign of weakness I could not afford. I just wished I could control my pulse rate as easily, because right now it was through the roof.
"So," she said, "have you got anything to say?"
Her voice was cool, unthreatening, but my skin crawled. "Absolutely nothing."
She smiled, revealing razor-sharp, blood-stained canines. "Wise choice."