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The Drone stumbled back, eyes wide and pawing at his chest. Then he doubled-over and let out an almighty howl. “What have you done?”

The spiders wobbled, spinning around and snarling with feral expressions. Were they mindless? Disorientated?

It was that flickering moment, that beautiful distraction of time, that allowed Michio to launch. His arms hooked around my back, and his fangs slammed into my neck.

The sting of twin pricks bloomed into a blistering heat and crashed through every cell in my body. The energy in my core flared to life, throbbing and humming as it sought to bring him closer.

I felt it the instant the power inside me latched onto him. The strength in his sculpted body hardened around me, and his fangs dug deeper as he released the venom. No, my unborn child pulled his venom into my system, drawing it deep inside me, and her.

The Drone lifted his head and growled with a low, deadly reverberation that conjured images of bleeding dungeons and horned beasts. “Release her.”

Michio crowded around me, suspending us way too close to the perilous edge as he greedily sucked, his jaw locked against my throat. The drugging sensation of each pull on my vein, the feel of his strong arms folded around my body, and the hardening of his cock against my hip curled waves of pleasure between my legs.

But the distraction with the Drone had only given Michio a moment of freedom. The spiders snapped into a rigid formation, and Michio’s movements began to jerk and stiffen as he fought the Drone for full control of his body. The longer he drank, however, the stronger he seemed to become.

He dragged me off the ledge and tore his mouth from my neck. The caverns of his black eyes stirred to life, sharpening and glinting with the promise of vengeance. The sinews in his neck stretched, and a series of twitches raced across his arms and chest, his strength flexing and tightening.

Slumped against the wall and unable to move in my restraints, all I could do was watch, mesmerized, as he regained control of his body.

His teeth clamped together, and his lips retracted, exposing red-stained fangs. He threw his head back, and his cheeks puffed with the violent escape of a roar. The guttural resonance penetrated my chest in a silken explosion, his rage thrumming through my bones and pebbling goosebumps along my skin.

He was magnificent and terrifying, and holy shit, I was so glad that anger wasn’t aimed at me.

Michio spun, but his target was already charging. The Drone’s cape fell to the ground, and his wings snapped out. He blurred around Michio, his vicious eyes locked on me.

My heart raced as I tried to hobble away from the ledge, but I hadn’t managed a single inch before he collided with my body and flipped me head first off the side.

The ground disappeared, replaced by air and the dizzily whirl of the canyon walls. I was sinking. Oh God, I was falling, and there was nothing to catch me but…fate.

Michio’s pained roar followed me over as I left my stomach, my breath, and my heart on the ledge.

My pulse hurdled past my ears as I fell head first into the Black Canyon. Indescribable fear exploded in my chest and spilled out in an anguished cry. The torment was unbearable, knowing I wasn’t the only one dying. I would’ve sacrificed my life for the future of humanity, but she was plummeting with me, bound to my womb and my fate.

Michio’s roar thundered through the gorge, and my insides tore apart at the sound. Bloody tears streaked from my eyes, carried away by the whipping wind. I’d only fallen a few yards, yet it had lasted an eternity.

Before I could contemplate the remaining seven-hundred feet, the ropes snapped against me, pinching my skin and wrenching the air from my lungs. My feet continued to plunge for a half-second as my torso jerked upright and slammed against the concrete wall.

I came to a sudden halt, suspended sixty-some stories in the air. I gasped at the jarring pain in my bones, my head spinning with disorientation, and jerked my chin skyward.

The nylon around me cinched and pulled toward a knotted point at my back. From there, the extra length of rope reached ten…twenty feet up and disappeared over the concrete ledge.

The fibers creaked as I twisted and swayed. Holy fuck, I was caught. For now. Had Michio grabbed the rope or did it snag on something? Oh God, how long would it hold?

All that training Jesse had put me through wouldn’t help me now, not without the use of my limbs. The bindings from my ankles to my biceps had been tied in a way that distributed my weight, the loops around my upper thighs and pelvis providing a makeshift seat that didn’t put pressure on my womb. Michio had planned this, or at the very least, prepared for it. But how did he do it while the Drone was infiltrating his thoughts?