More deep feminine laughter resounded through the walls of the hive. But if it unnerved Thrax, as it did Rowan, he didn't show it.

They were moving steadily along the fringe of the tunnel where the web roots were less concentrated. It felt like they were straying deeper into the mountain. Thrax was heading the way, but as the tunnel widened, he motioned for her to climb atop his back.

She was swift about it, her hands bunching in his mane. He was still in what he called berserker fettle. His jaws were something between wolf and man, his eyes blazing yellow. So bright, she was sure the glow of them would betray their position. But the boulders and rocks were plentiful and the shadows thick. She couldn't see the queen yet, or much of anything, really. Just rock and web and hair-like roots dangling from above. Hopefully that meant they, too, were as yet unseen. Though, Thrax had told her once the vishwa could see better in the dark than any creature.

Thrax bounded from one jutting rock to the next, avoiding the impossible web roots. Impossible unless you were a warg with long dagger claws to sheath into rocks. The broad muscles in his back tensed beneath her as he worked his way deeper into the hive, his long animal strides eating up the expanse of treacherous ground. The sound of pounding water hemorrhaged through the hive, concealing any noise they made. It was getting louder as they neared the source.

As the ground leveled out, opening up into a vast chamber, he hunkered low and crept from one large stalagmite to the next. This section must've once been a cave, she thought, climbing off his back. The hive had likely been extended and burrowed out from here. From the heart. She knew it was the heart, the prickling along her spine told her so.

A shriek of laughter boomed through the chamber, jolting Rowan. Carefully, she followed Thrax's lead and peered around the rocks, keeping her head low to the ground.

A rounded chamber emerged into view. The ceiling was arched high just like inside the Temple of Korgon, which sat in the very center of West Gate. The floor was a giant crescent that spread out before them. On the far side was a drop-off, but Rowan couldn't tell what lay beyond. Only the upper half of what looked like a strange, domed temple. Something like the top of an egg. And rumbling water. The sound of it was everywhere. In this chamber, especially, it sounded more violent.

From the vaulted cavern ceiling, strands of lethal vishwa silk hung like strange chandeliers. Dew glinted on the span of web like diamonds in the darkness.

To her eyes, it was a bright chamber—this eerie throne room—but to the humans cowering at the center of the crescent, she imagined the darkness was obliterating. They couldn't see the vishwa drones looming around them, and they couldn't see the queen in their midst.

No, that wasn't true. Meera could see. Unlike the two men, her eyes were focused on the queen, horror-struck. So Thresh had shared the night gift with her!

The vishwa queen was even larger than her soldier drones. Her face was alabaster, human-like. She had a head of sweeping black locks and a lithe white body. Her breasts were like moon globes, bare and full as though she was pregnant. But the rest of her chest was similar to her drones—more of a hard, slitted carapace than skin. She was oddly shaped, too, her thorax spindly. But there, the similarities with her drones ended. From her pinched little waist downward, her abdomen was bloated like a spider's. It tapered out into a blunt tail with black and red markings. There were strange wispy tendrils of silk hanging from her body like a dress of sheer white tassels. They dragged along the ground as she walked. Brushing over the web roots that spread like fungi across the floor.

When she laughed, her pincer mouth became a horror. She was laughing now, brushing a long teasing claw down Thresh's arm as though she was flirting with him.

The gash on his chest was still seeping a little blood. And the queen's lips were smeared in blood as though she'd licked him there. His flesh was pale and covered in a sickly sheen of sweat. Something was wrong? It couldn't be the wound, though—what was a killing blow to a human was only a scratch to a warg.

As expected, he was thrashing at his web bonds and snapping his teeth at the queen whenever she stroked him. But what Rowan hadn't counted on seeing—what really disturbed her—was that the warg was fully erect!

With a silent gasp, she ducked back behind the rocks. She shot Thrax an incredulous gaze.

Thrax melted back, too, pressing his large frame as far against the shadowy rock as it would go.

"He's turned on!" she hissed quietly. "That's disgusting!" But it looked unnatural, and not at all like when he'd been with Meera in the woods. This was blatantly against his will, and it sickened her to see him thus.

Thrax's jaw was tight with fury. "She's stung him," he whispered, motioning for Rowan to stay low. A fact which seemed to turn his mouth even more grim.

Rowan shook her head. Why would the queen's venom make Thresh erect? She wanted to ask Thrax what the plan was but they couldn't risk speaking anymore because the awful laughter had died down again. With care, they crept around another rock for a better vantage point.

The queen was lovingly petting Thresh's engorged cock as he struggled. "I've never had a warg lover before," she said in wargish, smacking her hard lips.

Rowan brought her mouth close to Thrax's ear. "Does she want to fuck him or eat him?"

"Both," he mouthed, his gaze skewering the queen. Then he put his finger to his lips, shushing her. He didn't see Rowan's look of confusion.

"You've never had a warg," Thresh gritted out, "and you never will."

The queen trilled and hugged him, dragging her black tongue over his cheek. "Such moxie!" she said, moaning excitedly. "Oh, how delicious!" With a shudder of pleasure, she tensed. The next instant, a pearly white blob squeezed out of a red slit on the underside of her bloated abdomen. The large blob looked almost like a moonstone, covered in slimy white muck. An egg!

In an instant, a drone rushed forward. One that looked nothing like the soldier drones standing around like glaring statuary. This one seemed to be a female drone, smaller and less armored. Even its pincers were diminutive. The creature snatched up the pearly egg and then trudged towards the far side of the crescent, slogging down what sounded like stone steps. In a moment, she was out of sight, disappeared towards the dome beyond.

Now that the queen was done laying, she circled Thresh again. "I'll be the first queen to birth a hive of vishi-wargs. How exciting!" She leaned in to rub her cheek against his. "They shall be glorious and powerful, unlike my human spawn." Then she gasped. "Oh! We could bring down that pestilent iron wall! I would have a colony of hives spanning west to east, and Wrais overrun with my spawn, all thriving on a steady supply of human blood." She turned to kiss his shoulder, avoiding his fangs. "What do you think, my pet."

"I think I'd rather chew off my ears than hear you talk."

She peeled with another round of laughter, caressing him. "You're marvelous!"

"Fuck off."

She eyed Merritt's blind, twitching eyes. "Not before I come."

His grin was hard and sharp. "Then come here so I can kiss you properly..."

"Not yet," she trilled, stepping away from his bared fangs, "I'm rather hungry." She turned to where Meera and the others sat struggling against their bindings. "I think a nibble first." Without releasing Meera from her glare, she motioned one of her soldiers over. "Bring me the girl!"

"No!" The wound on Thresh's chest wept harder as he struggled. "Let the girl go," he bit out, his cock bulging with angry veins. "I'll stay here willingly, just let her go."

"Of course you will, my pet." She laved him around his ear. When he snapped at her, she wrenched away with a laugh. "All right, all right." Then she swung her black eyes back to Meera. "Who is the girl to you, anyway? Your mate?" She sniffed the air, eyes zeroing to slits. "She reeks of you."

"She's not my mate," he snarled through a snout full of fangs. "She's nothing to me."

"Did you hear that, girl?" she said in Wraisian to Meera, "he called you his nothing."

Meera's beautiful wide eyes flicked from the queen to Thresh and then back again. But she held her tongue.

"Hmm, she can see in the dark, like a warg, how interesting." She sniffed the girl again. "Oh, Threshie, are you sure she isn't your mate? You wouldn't lie to me, would you?"

"My mate died long ago." The anguish in his voice was too raw to be feigned.

The queen appeared satisfied. She clicked thoughtfully, circling Meera. Click. Click. Click. "I believe you about your mate—" speaking wargish again "—but you're lying about the girl. She's is far from nothing to you."

Rowan tensed, hating the way the queen watched poor Meera. She was ready to lunge out from behind the rocks if the creature touched one hair on Meera's head. She could feel Thrax's hands clamping tighter around her as though he knew what she was planning.

But the queen moved off from Meera and came to stand beside the man who'd dragged Merritt into the pit trap when he'd fallen. The nameless soldier wearing Marwort livery.

Without a word of warning, she yanked him up to face level. As he kicked and screamed, she clicked hungrily. "I suppose you'll do," she said in Wrasian. A menacing stinger slid out from the tip of her black and red abdomen. It was long and curved at the end like a dark fang. Lightning fast, it impaled him in the chest, the noise sharp and sickening.

Rowan watched as the queen's abdomen pumped and undulated obscenely. The man's shrieks were terrible and guttural. A moment later, bloody spume frothed from his mouth. But what happened next was even worse.

The queen brought his neck up to her mouth, latched her teeth and, pincers anchored deep, began to feed from his veins. The man gurgled and writhed as she sucked loudly on him. Merritt was screaming, eyes frantic in the darkness, the sounds tormenting him. Meera was wreching on the floor, her hand clasped over her belly.

It was obscene! Rowan felt her gorge rise.

When the queen was done with the man, there was naught left of him except loose skin, protruding bones, and hanging clothes.

"What's happening!" Merritt screamed.

Thresh's brow was sheened in sweat, his face hard. He answered Merritt, his accent clipped and brutal. "She ate your man," he growled.

"Oh, Gods!" Merritt's eyes popped even wider. "Please!" He begged. "Spare me! I'll...I'll p-pay you w-whatever you want, just l-let me go! My family's rich!"

The queen studied him, wiping blood from her curling lips. Good thing he couldn't see it or he'd have pissed himself again. Her Wraisian accent was the antithesis of Thresh's, sweet and cheerful. "Where are my manners? I always forget your human limitations in the dark," she lied. "I see Threshie didn't share his warg gifts with you, hmm?" She then paused to wink at a trembling Meera who was kneeling in her vomit. "You—" turning back to Merritt "—must indeed be a nobody."

"I'm not a nobody, I swear it! My mother is even richer than the High Lady."

"Is that so?" Long white fingers templed beneath her chin. "Your mother sounds like a queen."

"She's as rich as one!"

"Does that make you a princeling? I do love royalty."

"Well...Yes. Yes!"

"Ahh!" She clicked at the nearest soldier drone. "Lights! For Hekki's sake, put on the lights for our sweet prince. Quickly now!"

Her drone jumped into action, moving to the rock wall. It yanked a web rope down, uncovering a hidden mirror high above the cavern chamber. Shafts of muted light shot down in an instant, refracting against other mirrors scattered about, and the entire chamber exploded with light. Muted from the storm, but light nonetheless.

Rowan gave a hiss, shutting her eyes against the onslaught. But the sound of Merritt whimpering had her steeling herself against the pain. Her eyes adjusted quickly. She saw that Merritt was staring at the dead soldier still clutched in the queen's spindly grasp.

The queen puckered her hard lips at Thresh, ignoring Merritt's continued pleas. "It's so much better when they can watch." She spoke wargish again, giving the body in her hand a little shake. "Like one hog watching another at the butcher block—makes the meat so much the sweeter when they watch."

Thresh grinned back at her with so much hate that she actually looked momentarily taken aback. She turned away, discarding the soldier's desiccated body. "My venom," she said to Merritt who was staring in horror at the drained body, "you see, liquifies the viscera."

"P-p-please, I'll pay you w-whatever you want! Oh, gods, let me go!"

"No chewing required," the queen went on, deaf to Merritt's prayers. She trailed her fingers over Thresh's wide shoulders, circling behind him, ignoring his vicious growls. "It has other uses, too, my venom..." Her eyes followed her fingers across Thresh's skin. "Just a drop of it and I can have my pick of any bedmate."

Thresh ripped his shoulder away. "Pathetic! You're ugly enough to shrivel any cock, so you drug yourself a fuck-mate." He spat at her feet.

His sneering contempt was finally getting to the hive queen. Her fingers drew blood as she dug her claws into him. But instead of unleashing her temper fully on Thresh, she set her slitted eyes on Meera. "Careful, Threshie. You forget, I have your fuck-mate, at my mercy." She licked her bloodied finger.

"I told you, she's nothing to me," he said, teeth clenched. But it was obvious he was lying. Wargs could smell lies, but they had no talent for telling them, either.

The queen's smile was knowing. "Then you won't mind if I have a little taste of her, hmm? Maybe I'll rip off a toe or two. Keep her alive for a while, so you can hear each other screaming."

"If you touch her," he growled, "I'll rip your cunt of a face wide open. Release her!"

"Your little human isn't going anywhere," she snapped. Then she gestured for one of her drones to grab Meera. "Let's make her a little more comfortable until I decide what to do with her." Then she chuckled to herself. "Well, I know what to do with her, it's only a question of when."

Thresh roared as the drone hauled Meera off towards the drop-off. The girl screamed and clawed at the ground.

Laughing, the queen yanked her hand back as Thresh struck out with gnashing fangs. "Don't worry, Threshie, I'll let her watch me fuck you to death first." Then she nodded at her drone.

It clicked obediently and shoved Meera off the ledge out of sight. Meera's scream ripped through the chamber, ending abruptly as she hit the bottom.

Rowan tried to shoot to her feet, but Thrax held her back.

"Listen!" he growled low. "She's fine! I can hear her."

Rowan covered her mouth and nodded frantically. He was right. Over the sound of rushing water, she could hear Meera sobbing somewhere on the other side. She'd landed hard—not in the water—but she was alive. For now. That was what mattered.

"We'll take advantage of the light," Thrax whispered, taking the mirok dagger from her belt. He looked to be devising a plan. "The vishwa see better in the dark—she's giving us the advantage. Let's not waste it." He slipped away, moving stealthily to the next rock.

She began to follow after him, but quickly realized she was stuck. A broken link from the chain of her iron cuff had become wedged in a fissure when she'd lunged up a moment before. With a silent curse, she tugged. She opened her mouth to get Thrax's attention, but he'd vanished. She was trying to stay calm and keep quiet, but a smothering panic was setting in fast.

Finally, the link slipped free. With a jagged sigh, she turned to go. Her stomach gave a violent drop as she came face to face with a vishwa drone that'd snuck in. It'd come up behind her as she'd been struggling with her chain.

The drone spread its pincer mouth wide and let loose an earsplitting screech. As he sounded her death knell, her legs buckled and black panic crashed down with blinding force. They were caught.