Elemental Assassin 05 - Spider's Revenge

of understanding—and maybe contentment too.
    Curled together, we lay there in bed until sleep claimed us once more.

Bria slept in late the next morning. Not surprising. Being magically healed by Jo-Jo had left her feeling drained, as her mind tried to catch up to the fact that her body was suddenly well again, despite the beating she’d taken from the dwarven bounty hunter last night.
    I’d been injured and healed as well, so I felt a little sluggish myself. But I didn’t have the luxury of staying in bed, since I still had appearances to keep up and a barbecue restaurant to run. I woke Bria up long enough to get her to promise me that she’d stay put in the house today, then left to go to work.
    The day passed by like any other at the Pork Pit. Sophia and I served up hot, steaming barbecue beef and pork sandwiches, along with thick, juicy cheeseburgers, sweet-and-sour coleslaw, baked beans, and more. All the while, a vat of Fletcher’s secret barbecue sauce simmered on the back of the stove, flavoring the air with its spicy cumin kick.
    People packed into the restaurant, standing three and four deep at the counter during the lunch rush. Everyone wanted a warm meal on such a cold, blustery day, and Catalina Vasquez and the rest of the waitresses who’d made it to work today swiped the plates of food as fast as Sophia and I could dish them up.
    Still, despite the crush of bodies, I kept an eye on everyone who came and left the restaurant. Now that I knew exactly who and what I was looking for, I spotted more than a few of the bounty hunters. Men and women with hard, flat features and even harder eyes who watched everyone and everything around them, even while they were stuffing their faces with barbecue. Real rough types, who’d turn on you in a heartbeat if they thought there was any money to be made from the effort. In some ways, bounty hunters were worse than assassins. Assassins only wanted you dead, but bounty hunters were more than happy to deliver you into the hands of your worst enemy—alive—and all the implied tortures that went along with that, as long as they got paid in the end.
    I kept a close eye on the bounty hunters who came into the Pork Pit, but none of them paid me any attention that they shouldn’t. They were here for the food and nothing else.
    I didn’t know whether to be flattered or worried.
    Finally, around three o’clock, after the daily lunch rush had come and gone, and the crowd had dwindled to only a few diners, the bell over the front door chimed, and Owen stepped inside.
    He wore a tailored, navy suit that could be found in the closet of any wealthy Ashland businessman, toppedby a long, matching coat. But on Owen, the layers of fabric went from being merely expensive to exquisite, draping over his shoulders just so and highlighting his tall, broad frame. Still, all the worsted wool in the world couldn’t hide the strength of his body, the inherent toughness that radiated off him like the faintest flicker of heat from a burning candle. The dark blue color brought out the paleness of his skin, although his cheeks were red and ruddy from the cold. My gaze lingered on his chiseled features—the scar that slashed across his chin, the crooked quirk of his nose, the intense violet of his eyes. All things that made Owen go from merely sexy to heart-stoppingly devastating.
    Owen stared at me, and I looked back at him. Emotions sparked and shimmered in the air between us. Heat. Desire. Need. Longing.
    After a moment, his lips lifted into a sly, playful grin, and an answering rush of warmth flooded my heart. Owen had forgiven me for going after Mab by myself. He wouldn’t have looked at me like that otherwise—not with such heat, not with such hope. The knowledge loosened a thick knot of tension in my stomach that I hadn’t even been aware of until right now.
    Looked like Finn wasn’t the only one around here who had it bad for someone.
    I’d called Owen last night while Bria was in the shower and had told him everything that had happened—the meeting at Northern Aggression, Lincoln Jenkins setting up Bria, the bounty hunters. Once again, Owen had been completely understanding of my situation, the way that he always was. I’d never had much in the way of luck, butI knew that I’d used up every single scrap of good that I had in finding him, a guy who was so at ease with my alternative career and lifestyle.
    I just wished that I had the courage to tell him that, to tell