She thought the demon mark would kill the next man who tried to touch her. This time spent with Tir felt like stolen moments. But then she was a thief and had been for the last ten years.

She leaned forward, rubbing her palms against his tiny hardened nipples, the change in angle sending sharp spikes of pleasure through her each time her clit struck his abdomen. Her lips covered his and she closed her eyes.

He swallowed the cries she couldn’t contain, the gasps. And finally gave her what she wanted.

Effortlessly he held himself up on one elbow as his fingers tangled in her hair, his arm across her back making her a prisoner as he took charge despite her being on top of him. His tongue thrust aggressively against hers, the force of it controlling the rhythm of her fingers on his nipples, the squeeze and release of pain that blended to pleasure for him.

His cock throbbed inside her, a second heartbeat held motionless in her channel until she whispered a nearly silent please against his mouth when they parted for breath.

He relented, the arm trapping her upper body sliding downward, the hand going to the small of her back, remaining there as his hips thrust upward, in counterpoint to hers, driving his cock into her channel hard and deep.

Araña tangled her fingers in his hair. Her own fell curtainlike on either side of their faces, spider black strands twining with his on their way to the ground.

She took the sounds of his pleasure along with his breath, their lips never far apart, their tongues rubbing, stroking, their bodies writhing in a wild joining, fighting for and finding that place of perfect union.

Araña nuzzled Tir afterward, loving the feel of his arms around her, his solid strength beneath her as she lay sprawled on top of him like a human blanket. They needed to leave. It would take them half a day to get to Oakland and they didn’t know what waited for them there.

Her stomach knotted—worry about the Constellation, about Rebekka and Levi, chasing her contentment away. She turned her head, thinking only to delay when she’d have to leave Tir’s warmth in order to wash and dress, but the instant she faced the dying fire, her soul tumbled into the flame, defenseless against its summoning.

No, she screamed silently, her voice unheard in the surreal whispers held deep in the fire. The pain arriving without pause, insistent, sharp, excruciating, as if this time she wouldn’t be allowed to linger or fight against choosing one of the soul threads.

Araña tried anyway, out of habit and fear. But the battle was over almost as soon as it began. There was no conscious decision, there was only a forced yielding, a reaching blindly, convulsively, for a twisted strand with various shades of brown and a swirl of gray.

The pain dulled, enough so she slid from the spider’s domain to the waking vision of someone’s life. Oakland again, but she wasn’t surprised. She wondered if she’d ever truly escape it now that she was caught in its web.

The city crept past her in slow, familiar jolts, the glass she was looking through smudged and cracked. There was no true sensation other than what she held in her memory, but she could smell the interior of the bus, could feel the rumble of its engine vibrating through metal and torn vinyl seats.

They were heading toward the heart of the city, backward along a route similar to the one she’d taken with Erik and Matthew. And though she had no corporeal presence, she felt the phantom close of her throat, the swell of grief she’d managed only to give a shallow burial.

Real pain spiked through her in a sharp reminder that the past was done with, its strands already woven into place. And in pain’s wake came knowledge. She walked in the immediate future now. Minutes away. No more than an hour.

If she’d had a physical form, she would have frowned even as her heart raced with foreboding at what lay ahead. Until Oakland, until the vision of Tir, the only hint she’d ever had of present and future was what she could glean from her surroundings. Until Oakland, she might go months without being trapped by flame. But here, in two days she’d been drawn into the fire as many times.

Trepidation filled her as she forced her attention away from the window. It escalated into horror when she saw the trapper’s child, positioned on the lap of the soul she was ghosting, Rebekka’s slender arm around his waist.

Denial screamed through Araña. But there was no undoing the choice, no releasing the strand she’d taken.

Nothing good would come of this. Nothing ever had. Her demon-born gift brought only death and pain and suffering.

Araña became aware of a presence next to Rebekka. Her dread deepened when she saw Levi.

The pain returned, an excruciating flash of agony forcing her back into the black heart of the demon flame. There was no respite from it as a kaleidoscope of colors swirled around her, accompanied by the streaming whisper of voices.

In desperation Araña fought her way forward, remembering the blue-black of Tir’s soul thread, looking for it but not seeing it. She endured the searing punishment of delaying until the instinct for survival forced a choice.

The thread was gold with flecks of scarlet. Araña had the fleeting impression of wealth and unrealized power, of old bloodlines and unacknowledged gifts, before she was in a building, ghost-walking down a long corridor with framed photographs of men in guardsmen uniforms.

Horror filled her. She fought to escape, but she was trapped, the pain blackening the edges of phantom sight but not spreading so she passed out.

Glass doors came into view. She caught the image of the man whose life she ghosted before he exited the building.

Oakland again. Downtown, where the guardsmen and police would have their headquarters. There was the bustle of people. Food-stand vendors called out their menus, and the man who’d been in the guard headquarters bought a pastry from one of them before moving to stand next to a black sedan to eat it.

The bus would appear in a few minutes. Araña knew it with grim certainty.

Visceral waves of fear and guilt and mingled rage made her fight more desperately to escape back into the heart of the flame. The pain was excruciating, deadly—her struggles pointless.

What she expected came to pass—a bus rounded a corner.

It stopped, disgorging passengers and taking on new ones—none of them Rebekka or Levi.

Disbelief settled for the span of a phantom heartbeat, hope flared into existence—she’d been wrong.

But she hadn’t.

The bus began moving again, closing the distance until it came alongside the black sedan. And there was Rebekka in the window, gazing outward.

Araña knew the moment when the two threads she’d chosen intersected, changing the weave of the future. She felt it rippling forward as she slipped from the hold of the flame to find herself in Tir’s arms.

“You’re bleeding,” he said, making her aware of the blood streaming from her nose, the price for her continued struggles against the demon gift.

“I’m okay,” she said, attempting to pull away though she craved the comfort he offered.

Tir’s arms tightened, as if he’d force her to remain with him. But then he let her go abruptly, as if on some level he knew she was dangerous to him, understood the same gift that had led to his freedom might one day cause his enslavement.

Araña rose to her feet and went to the stream to wash. She felt raw, haunted, besieged by guilt. When they got to Oakland, they would learn of Rebekka’s fate—perhaps—if Levi survived to tell of it.

Her throat tightened, remembering the night she’d run from the settlement and been taken in by Erik and Matthew, remembering her run in the maze, her escape to find Rebekka waiting, a stranger offering shelter.

Those who helped her or knew her weren’t any safer from her demon gift than the multitude of strangers whose lives she touched when the flame took her. If she were braver, perhaps she’d go willingly into the embrace of death, and face the demon that had left its mark on her, rather than continue to do the demon’s work on earth.