Widow's Web (Elemental Assassin)

by Jennifer Estep

  “Okay,” he finally said. “We’ll go see her together.”

  Owen got down on his knees in front of my chair. He reached over and grabbed my hands, his fingers warm and rough against my own. Then he turned my palms up and slowly, gently, traced over my spider rune scars with his thumbs. He kissed first one palm and then the other, and I shivered at the feel of his lips on my skin.

  “Thank you for understanding,” he said. “For giving me this chance. It means more to me than you know.”

  Emotion clogged my throat, and I leaned forward and wrapped my arms around Owen, burying my face in his neck and breathing in his rich scent. I knew I had to let my lover speak his piece to Salina, but I also knew how things would play out—with me and Salina fighting to the death.

  I only hoped I’d be the one standing in the end, and that Owen could forgive me for killing his first love.

  26

  Eventually, Owen and I broke apart. I opened the door, and we went out into the kitchen.

  A butcher-block table with several stools stood in the middle of the room, while appliances done in soft pastel shades ringed the walls. Fat, puffy clouds—Jo-Jo’s rune and the symbol for her Air magic—covered almost everything in the kitchen, from the oven mitts piled next to the stove to a set of plates stacked in the sink to the fresco that stretched across the ceiling. Jo-Jo and Eva sat at the table drinking pineapple juice, while Finn was over at the counter, brewing himself a fresh pot of chicory coffee.

  “Where are the others?” I asked.

  “Bria had to get to the police station,” Jo-Jo replied. “She said she’d call and check in with you later. Phillip left too. Said he had some things to do on that riverboat of his. Cooper went with him to keep him company—although he’s going to call me later on today.”

  I arched an eyebrow. “Do I sense a little romance in the air?”

  “I just want to make sure that he’s all healed up properly,” Jo-Jo said, blushing again. “Besides, he’s a true Southern gentleman. It’s hard to find one of those these days.”

  I knew that Jo-Jo wouldn’t have let Cooper leave if she hadn’t completely healed him already, but I didn’t tease her anymore. Instead, I nodded and headed over to the cabinets. My fight with Salina and worry over Owen had taken a lot out of me, and I was in the mood for some comfort food. So I grabbed all the fixings for a classic Southern breakfast—biscuits and gravy.

  Flour, fresh buttermilk, and just a pinch of sugar and salt went into my biscuit dough, while I put a cast-iron pan into the oven to heat the shortening I’d coated it with. Once the shortening was melted, I cut the biscuit dough into rounds, coated both sides with the liquefied shortening, arranged them in the pan, and then slid the whole thing into the oven to bake. I also fried up some salty country ham, using the grease and drippings that were left in the pan, along with some evaporated milk and a generous dash of black pepper, to make my gravy.

  Thirty minutes later, I slid the hot biscuits onto a plate and ladled the gravy into one of Jo-Jo’s cloud-shaped serving bowls. We all gathered around the table and dug into my greasy feast. Yeah, it wasn’t exactly health food, but the biscuits were light and fluffy and made a perfect base for the flavorful gravy.

  “So,” Finn drawled when everyone had finished eating, “what did the two of you decide to do about sweet, sweet Salina?”

  Owen looked at me, then at everyone else in turn. “Gin and I are going to talk to her and try to convince her to get some help.”

  Eva’s fork slipped from her fingers and clattered onto her plate. Her eyes snapped up to mine, and she gave me a sharp, angry look. I could see the accusation in her pretty face. She thought I’d betrayed her, that I was going back on my promise to kill Salina. She just didn’t realize that I was only delaying the water elemental’s death, nothing more.

  My promise to Eva. Trying to understand Owen’s feelings. Salina and her deadly magic. In a way, I had just as much of a noose around my neck as Kincaid had that night on the Delta Queen. A noose that was slowly tightening as a final battle with Salina became more and more inevitable—and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. If I didn’t kill Salina, it was only a matter of time before she hurt someone else. And if I did take her out, it would impact my relationship with Owen—maybe even end it.

  Eva, Owen, and Salina had all given me enough rope. All that remained to be seen now was when I was going to hang myself with it.

  “I’ve got to get to class,” Eva muttered, pushing her plate away. “Thanks for the juice, Jo-Jo.”

  “Anytime, darling.”

  Eva got to her feet and stomped out of the kitchen. A few seconds later, I heard the front door slam shut.

  Owen sighed. “Sorry about that. I’ll go talk to her.”

  My lover hurried out of the kitchen, leaving me, Finn, and Jo-Jo sitting at the table. My foster brother glared at me with the same fierce expression Eva had.

  “You can’t be serious, Gin. Salina tried to kill you, and you’re going to go talk to her? In case you’ve forgotten, you’re the Spider. You don’t talk to people—you kill them. I’ll ask you the same thing I did Owen. Are you out of your mind?”

  “No, I’m not out of my mind. Owen asked me for this,” I said. “He wants to give Salina one more chance, and I’m going to respect his wishes. He would do the same for me. Hell, he did do the same for me with Donovan.”

  Finn shook his head. “No, it’s not the same thing. Not at all. Donovan just had a stick up his ass about you being an assassin. Salina likes to use her water magic to torture people. They are two very, very different things.”

  I could argue with him until I was blue in the face, and Finnegan Lane would still out-talk me, especially in this case, when we both knew he was right. So I decided to switch tactics.

  “Forget about killing Salina for a second. I need you to look into something else for me,” I said. “Cooper said that someone had stolen several fountains off his property. Fountains that had been commissioned a few months ago by a guy named Henley.”

  Finn’s eyes narrowed. “One of Salina’s husbands was named Henley. Her last husband, as a matter of fact. The one she killed a few months ago.”

  I nodded. “So I’m guessing she got him to order the fountains so Cooper wouldn’t realize they were really for her. He wouldn’t have made them otherwise. Then, instead of paying for them, she got her giant bodyguards to steal them, possibly out of spite and so she could thumb her nose at Cooper. But that’s still a lot of trouble to go to. I think there’s something else going on. I want to know what’s so important about those fountains.”

  “I’m on it,” Finn said, pulling his cell phone out of the pocket of his suit jacket and hitting some numbers.

  While he reached out to his contacts, I gathered up the remains of our breakfast. I scraped a few leftovers into Rosco’s bowl, then put the dirty dishes into the sink. Jo-Jo brought her plate over to the counter, and she got out some towels to dry the dishes as I washed them.

  “I know you’re worried about Salina,” Jo-Jo said. “And Owen too.”

  I shrugged. “I only see this ending one way—with me killing Salina, or Salina killing me. She’s not going to get treatment, or whatever Owen thinks. Roslyn told me that Salina was cruel even before her father died, and I think she full-on snapped the night Mab murdered him.”

  I told Jo-Jo about Fletcher’s files and how they had triggered my dreams, my memories, of that night.

  When I finished, she nodded and stared at me with her clear, almost colorless eyes. “That would be more than enough to scar anyone for life. Deep down, I think Owen realizes that Salina, or at least the girl he remembers her being, is gone. But he cared for her once, and he doesn’t want to see her dead, even if he knows she’s brought it on herself.”

  “I know, and it’s one of the things I love about him . . . even though I have a feeling it’s going to tear us apart in the end. Kincaid asked me to kill Salina, and Eva begged me to. I promised her
, so that she wouldn’t go after Salina herself. Now I don’t know what to do.”

  “It’ll be all right, darling,” Jo-Jo murmured, reaching over to pat my hand. “You’ll see. Everything will work out the way it’s supposed to.”

  Faint, milky white clouds wisped through the dwarf’s eyes, and I got the sense that she wasn’t seeing me anymore. Jo-Jo had a bit of precognition. Most Air elementals did, since the wind whispered to them of all the things that might be, all the actions people might take, those events that might come to pass whether folks wanted them to or not. I wondered what Jo-Jo saw when she looked into Owen’s future, but I didn’t dare ask. I didn’t want her to tell me I wasn’t a part of it.

  We split up. Eva left to go to her classes, Finn went out and about to see what his contacts had to say, and Jo-Jo geared up for a busy day at the salon.

  Owen drove me over to his house. He insisted on tucking me into his bed, despite the fact it was after eleven and the day was already turning warm. He sat down next to me.

  “I would offer to fix you breakfast in bed, but you took care of that already this morning,” he joked.

  I laughed. “It’s okay. You know how much I enjoy cooking. It’s therapy for me, as much as anything else.”

  “I know.” Owen’s face turned serious. “I’m sorry for what Salina did to you, Gin. Sorrier than you will ever know. But I’m glad you’re going to let me talk to her, to give her one more chance.”

  I didn’t say anything. I didn’t trust myself to speak where Salina was concerned. Not right now, not to Owen. The last thing I wanted to do was push him away, but I knew that was what would happen if I told him Salina had run out of chances.

  “Thank you for that, Gin.”

  Owen leaned forward and pressed his lips to mine. He started to pull back, but I deepened the kiss, drawing him closer to me. He hesitated, but his hands began to slide over my body in that strong, confident, familiar way that always made me shiver with anticipation.

  “You should rest,” he said.

  “I feel fine now,” I whispered against his mouth. “In fact, I want to show you exactly how fine.”

  I wrapped my arms around Owen and pulled him down on top of me. We took things slow and easy. We lay there on the bed for a long time, just kissing, our mouths pressed together, our tongues flicking back and forth, our hands gliding, gliding everywhere, just letting the need, the desire, build one soft kiss, one gentle caress, at a time.

  But what started as a slow, simmering burn of want quickly escalated into hot, liquid, aching need. We undressed each other, and Owen grabbed a condom out of the nightstand drawer. I took my little white pills, but we always used extra protection.

  We lay back down on the bed together and continued with our explorations. No matter how much I touched him, I always wanted more. I marveled at the feel of Owen’s firm body under my hands, at the strength in his muscles, and the ever-quickening thump-thump-thump of his heart as he responded to my caresses. Owen lay back and let me take the lead. I pressed my fingers into his skin, kneading his warm muscles and trying to ease the tension in him—the tension we both felt.

  When he was relaxed, I made my touch softer and lighter, more playful and teasing. A kiss here, a lick of my tongue there, a gentle nip or two with my teeth as I worked my way down his body.

  I took him in my mouth, making my caresses hard, then soft, then harder still, until his eyes burned violet, and he trembled beneath me. But every time Owen was ready to let go, I brought him back down, just a little bit, before amping up his need once more.

  Again and again, I did this. Hard, then soft. Quick, then slow. Playful, then seductive. I used every trick I knew to bring my lover as much pleasure as possible. Maybe it was selfish, but I wanted him to remember this. I wanted him to remember the way I made him feel and how good we were together. I wanted to do everything in my power to erase the memory of Salina from his body, his mind, and most especially his heart.

  I needed to do it in a way I never had before.

  “Gin,” Owen rasped, the raw, aching desire apparent in his voice. “Gin.”

  I grabbed the condom from where he’d placed it on the nightstand and unrolled it over him, still teasing, still caressing, still sliding my fingers over him.

  But Owen had other ideas. He reached up and drew me down on top of him. He crushed his mouth to mine and plunged a finger deep inside me. I gasped as he stroked me, hard then soft, fast then slow, over and over again until I was shuddering with the same pleasure he was.

  “Two can play this game,” Owen murmured in a sly, satisfied voice. “I don’t know about you, but it’s one of my very favorite games. I love the way you respond to me. I love the way you feel against me.”

  All I could do was clutch his shoulders and ride the wave of desire pulsing through me.

  But it wasn’t enough, and I rose up above him, then sank down, taking him deep inside me. Owen’s hands wrapped around my hips, and he urged me on, urged me to give us both the pleasure we wanted, the pleasure we needed.

  I took him deeper and rode him harder until we were locked together as tightly, as closely, as two people could be. The whole bed shook with our frenzied movements, and, still, it wasn’t enough.

  And when we finally reached that sweet, sweet pinnacle of pleasure, we exploded over the edge together—our desire finally satisfied and perhaps our hearts a little lighter too.

  At least for this moment.

  I must have been more worn out than I’d thought, because sometime after Owen and I finished making love, I fell asleep, nestled in his strong arms. My eyes still closed, I stretched, feeling completely, happily sated, and reached over for him. I didn’t know about Owen, but I was ready for round two, maybe three—

  Instead of the warm body I’d expected to find, my hands only met empty air and cold sheets.

  My eyes snapped open. “Owen?”

  No response.

  I sat up, but my lover wasn’t in the bedroom or the adjoining bathroom. He was probably just somewhere else in the mansion, snacking in the kitchen maybe. Still, something about the silence seemed ominous.

  I picked up my clothes from where they had fallen onto the floor and quickly dressed. I left the bedroom and went to Owen’s office, with its wall of weapons, but he wasn’t there. The foreboding feeling welled up inside me like a storm cloud gathering strength. I searched the rest of the first floor of the mansion, but he was nowhere to be seen.

  Finally, I came across Eva sitting at the kitchen table, a piece of paper in her hand and a stricken look on her face.

  “Eva? What’s wrong?”

  She looked at me, and somehow I knew what she was going to say even before the words left her mouth.

  “It’s Owen. He’s gone.”

  27

  I frowned. “Gone? What do you mean Owen’s gone?”

  She waved the paper at me. “I mean I came home from class, and I found this on the kitchen table. Here. Read it for yourself.”

  I took it from her and realized that it was actually expensive stationery. The cream-colored paper smelled faintly of a sweet, cloying, floral scent—and it had Salina’s mermaid rune embossed in blue-green ink across the top. But it was the handwritten message below that chilled me to the bone.

  Darling Owen,

  We need to talk about us. Come to my dinner party tonight, and I’ll show you the marvelous plans I’ve made for us, for all of Ashland. Black tie dress only. And come alone—or your whore of an assassin dies.

  XOXO

  Salina

  I didn’t know what was more disturbing—the fact that Salina had threatened to kill me or that she’d signed the letter like a love-struck teenage girl. Then again, that was what she was when it came to Owen—obsessed and determined to get him back no matter what. I couldn’t help but think that if Salina couldn’t have Owen, then she would be more than happy to make sure that no one had him, especially me.

  And Owen had walked right into her stick
y web once more. I knew he’d gone to the water elemental to protect me from her threat, even if it meant putting himself in harm’s way, but anger spiked through me just the same, that he’d left without telling me what was going on. Owen thought he could get through to Salina, that he could convince her get help, but he was wrong. I just hoped I could get to him in time—and bury the bitch once and for all.

  “Damn and double damn,” I cursed. “When did you find this?”

  “About five minutes ago. His car was pulling out when I was coming in.”

  I looked at the clock on the wall. I’d fallen asleep in Owen’s arms around one, and it was after seven. No doubt Owen was on his way to Salina’s estate right now. I cursed again.

  “I told you,” Eva said in a cold, accusing voice. “I warned you about Salina—and Owen too.”

  I sighed. “Yes, you did. Don’t worry, Eva. I’m going after Owen. I’ll get him back—”

  The front door of the mansion banged open.

  “Are you expecting Violet or one of your other friends?” I asked in a low voice, already moving toward the butcher block on the counter and grabbing two of the knives there. I’d left my weapons in the bedroom when I’d come searching for Owen.

  Eva shook her head, her eyes wide. I gestured for her to get down on the far side of the kitchen table, where she’d be out of sight, while I crept up to the doorway, ready to deal with whomever had decided to barge in unannounced. No matter what her note said, no matter what she promised him, I wouldn’t put it past Salina to lure Owen away from the mansion and send some of her giant bodyguards to try to take me—or even Eva—out.