Free The Golden Spider (The Elemental Web Chronicles Book 1) by Anne Renwick Page B

moved about their cages with a soft rustle, going about their nocturnal business, gnawing on seeds. Her own stomach complained in sympathy, but she couldn’t leave the laboratory yet. Already, mental clarity was returning, and she felt the sharp edge of a breakthrough scraping her mind.
    She spun on the laboratory stool to face her research notes and grabbed a fresh sheet of paper. Her hand moved as if of its own accord, sketching out the image forming in her mind. She added lines and notes and details as to which pins, gears, springs and guards to use. Several minutes passed before she set down her pencil and sat back to stare at the plans for a new‌—‌and better‌—‌neurachnid before her.
    It just might work. Satisfaction tugged her lips into a small smile. Wait. She tipped her head and sighed. In that position, the reaper guard might fail to catch. Unless she‌—‌
    “No. That won’t work.” Thornton’s voice wrapped around her, deep and dark. More than just the thought forming in her mind melted.
    She froze. She’d been so lost in thought that she’d failed to note his approach. Despite his limp, the man moved as quietly as a panther on the hunt.
    For all the long hours she’d spent in his laboratory over the past few days, she’d seen precious little of the renowned Thornton outside the lecture hall. Now, here he was, standing so close she could feel his body heat. So close that as he reached past her to place a finger to her sketch, his arm brushed hers and a thrill ran through her, settling low inside.
    She risked a glance, then found herself staring. The shadow of a beard darkened his jaw. Wild dark curls fell across his forehead. Wide, soft lips pursed in thought. Her heart tripped before picking up its pace, disregarding her mind’s insistence that theirs was a purely professional relationship. Would that it was her right to reach out, to run her fingers over his rough beard and into the tangle of that hair, to pull those lips to her own.
    Her breath caught, and she dragged her gaze away. “What won’t?” she asked. They were colleagues, that was all.
    Focusing on the benchtop didn’t help. Thornton’s shirtsleeves were rolled back, exposing a scattering of dark hairs across strong forearms. As his large hand snatched up her abandoned pencil and began to modify her design, joints and tendons and muscles flexed and shifted in a strangely alluring manner.
    She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, forcing much needed air past the struts of her corset and into her lungs. Then, with a large quantity of willpower, she opened her eyes and began to objectively evaluate his alterations and his comments.
    “If you move this spring and connect it to this gear instead…‌” He went on at length, pinpointing every issue before solving it with ease.
    The small, simple adjustments would allow the thoracic gears to turn unimpeded and increase the angle to which the spinnerets could bend as they wove. The hardest to reach parts of the central nervous system would now be reachable. The man was breathtakingly brilliant, his mind an intricate seduction. She wanted…‌ what she could not have. Time to leave. Flee.
    “I’ll start on the changes tomorrow.” Amanda looked up. “Thank you.” The words fell automatically from her lips, but came out as a whisper.
    For his expression was unreadable, his eyes different somehow. Darker. More liquid. Then he blinked and addressed his next words to a space over her left shoulder. “I’d like to apologize,” he said, straightening. “For the public set down I gave you that first day in class. A knee jerk reaction, I’m afraid, when one works too secretively for too long. To discover an untrained student’s work might very well hold the key to solving a long-standing problem…‌” He cleared his throat. “This neurachnid, along with the nerve agent, might very well improve the acousticocept surgical process and resultant outcome.” He waved his hand