Elemental Assassin 05 - Spider's Revenge

hurting you?”
    I laughed, although it wasn’t a pleasant sound, given my ruined voice. “Of course not. I was just thinking that there was nowhere else I’d rather be than right here with you, right now.”
    “Me too,” he murmured. “Me too.”
    “I’m glad that you were here when I woke up. More than you’ll ever know.”
    His arms tightened around me. “I’m just glad that you woke up, Gin. More than you’ll ever know. Because I just can’t imagine my life without you in it.”
    This time, my eyes were the ones that filled with tears. The salty drops slid down my cheeks and soaked through the gauze covering my face, stinging my new, healing skin, but I didn’t care.
    “You know,” I murmured. “You said something to me the night we made love before I went after Mab. Before all that crazy stuff happened in the courtyard. And I think it’s past time that I told you I feel the same way. I love you, Owen. Completely, totally, irrevocably. I have for a while now. It’s just that I’ve lost so many people in my life so brutally. My mother, my older sister, Fletcher. It’s hard for me—to let people in. To let people—get close. I wanted to tell you how I felt before, but I couldn’t. I just—couldn’t…”
    Emotion clogged my throat, cutting off my words. Butit was okay, because this time, I’d finally said all the things I’d needed to, that I’d wanted to for so long now.
    Owen’s arms tightened around me that much more. Underneath my ear, I could hear his heart beating in his chest, keeping perfect time with mine.
    “I know, Gin,” Owen rumbled in a soft voice. “I know. And I love you too. And now that I’ve got my arms around you, I’m never going to let you go.”
    “Good,” I said. “Because I don’t ever want you to.”

I went back to sleep, safe and warm in Owen’s arms. And when I woke up again, he was still there, still holding me. And I knew that he always would be.
    It turned out that I’d given everyone more than just a little scare—I’d been unconscious for the better part of three weeks. I slept through most of the next few days, only waking up long enough to endure round after round of healing from Jo-Jo.
    Slowly, the gauze was unwrapped from my body and replaced by new layers of shiny pink skin. My voice lost its harsh, grating rasp and went back to its normal tone once more. I could have left my voice the way it was, like Sophia had done after Harley Grimes had tortured her. But I had my spider rune scars to remind me of Mab—I didn’t need anything else.
    And that wasn’t all that Jo-Jo did. I also got longer, thicker eyelashes and a new set of perfectly sculpted eyebrows,since my old ones had been singed off. Jo-Jo even grew out my hair an extra inch so she could layer it into a stylish shag.
    “No reason not to do a little maintenance while we’re at it,” Jo-Jo chirped before letting loose with her Air magic again.
    Once the dwarf had fixed the majority of the damage, I started receiving visitors. Of course, my friends and family had all been in and out of Jo-Jo’s house ever since the night that they’d first brought me here. Still, I hadn’t wanted them to see me weak, helpless, and disfigured. They’d seen the horror show the night I’d killed Mab. I imagined that one time would have been plenty for them to stomach—forever.
    To my relief, everyone had survived the battle in the courtyard. Xavier had broken several bones in his hands, pounding on the other giants and bounty hunters, while Finn had taken a bullet in the shoulder from another sniper during the melee. Owen had been bruised and banged up, with two black eyes, several sprains, and a dislocated shoulder from swinging his hammer. Eva, Violet, Warren, Roslyn, and Jo-Jo had all been hanging back, out of range of the courtyard, so they’d been out of the frenzied fray. Sophia had come through without a scratch, and Jo-Jo had eventually healed everyone else.
    Bria, well, Bria had been burned, of course. Although her wounds hadn’t been as bad as mine, Mab had still horribly tortured my sister with her elemental Fire. Jo-Jo had healed all the outside damage. How much damage there was on the inside, only time would tell. But I thought that Bria would be okay. We’d survived the deathof our mother and older sister, our long separation, and everything else. We’d get through this too—together. It would just take time, the way it always did.
    Knowing that everyone else was okay