Elemental Assassin 05 - Spider's Revenge

magic and the precognition that went along with it.
    Owen was quiet too, not joining in the Greek chorus. Instead, he slung his arm over my shoulder and stood by my side while the others alternately bullied, threatened, and tried to cajole me into abandoning my plan. I leaned into his body just the smallest bit, letting him take the weight of the moment.
    Finally, when the others realized that they weren’t going to change my mind, they quit grousing and drifted off to bed. Jo-Jo shepherded the crowd and made sure thateveryone had enough pillows, sheets, and blankets for the night. I took a long, hot shower to wash the blood and grime from my body, then grabbed a spare set of pajamas from among the various clothes stashed at the cabin.
    Owen and I took the bedroom on the ground floor, while everyone else trooped to the upstairs bedrooms. I wanted to be downstairs, wanted to be the first line of defense, just in case any of the bounty hunters traced us here. The odds of that happening were next to impossible, especially since on paper the cabin was owned by Nick A. Medes, which was one of Fletcher’s rock-solid aliases. But Sophia had volunteered to stand watch, just in case. I would have done it myself, except that Jo-Jo bullied me into getting some rest.
    I was tired—so tired—but I couldn’t sleep. Instead, I paced back and forth across the bedroom, the wooden floorboards creaking under my bare feet. Owen watched me from his position on the bed. He didn’t say anything, but his gaze never left my tight face.
    “I’m sorry,” I said, finally stopping to turn and look at him.
    “For what?”
    I threw my hands out wide. “For all of this. For the fact that you and Eva are now on the run because of me, because of my being the Spider.”
    Owen sighed. “There’s nothing to be sorry for, Gin. I knew that this was a possibility when we got together. I knew that you were going after Mab, and I knew that it might come to this.”
    “Yeah,” I said, flopping down on the bed beside him. “But it’s not exactly what you signed up for, is it?”
    Owen shrugged. “Maybe it’s not, but I wouldn’t trade it—or you—for a second. You know how much I care about you, Gin. You know how much I love you.”
    He’d finally said the words that I’d been dreading and longing to hear.
    And I wanted to say them back to him.
    My mouth opened, but the words—the damn
words
—just wouldn’t come out. They snagged in my throat, choking me, even as the syllables squeezed my heart like a silverstone vise cranking tighter and tighter. My emotions were just too raw from everything that had happened tonight and all the awful things that might happen tomorrow. I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t do anything but just feel—feel all the love I had for Owen.
    Part of me knew that my gaped-mouth silence was stupid. I should tell Owen how I felt now, tonight, before another second passed. But part of me wanted to wait. When I told Owen I loved him, I wanted the moment to be about him, about us, and what we had—not because Mab was more than likely going to kill me tomorrow.
    But try as I might, I just couldn’t force out the words. Agony welled up in my aching chest, and a crazy, feverish sort of passion gripped my body. So I did the only thing that I could do—I leaned forward and kissed Owen.
    My tongue drove into his mouth, over and over again, even as I started tearing at his clothes. Maybe I couldn’t say the words, but I could show Owen how much he meant to me. I needed to—I was
desperate
to.
    I didn’t want to think tonight. I didn’t want to think about the fact that Mab had Bria. That the Fire elemental had already tortured my sister, would torture her evenmore before the night was through, and that there was nothing I could do to stop it. No way to rescue Bria. No way to break into Mab’s mansion without getting myself and everyone else killed in the process. No, I didn’t want to think tonight.
    But for once, I couldn’t bury my emotions, my feelings. Couldn’t pretend they didn’t exist or that my heart wasn’t breaking for Bria, even as it swelled with love for Owen. Everything I’d been through tonight—fighting Mab, feeling her Fire burn me, battling the bounty hunters, losing Bria in the woods—roared up inside me, a tidal wave of emotion that I just couldn’t fight any longer. It needed a release—now, before it consumed me.
    Owen let out a low growl, wrapped his hand in