My mouth dropped open, but no words came out. I blinked and blinked, but the name on the paper didn’t change. If anything, it seemed to loom even larger, as though the black letters were some sort of rune that was smoking with elemental Fire and about to explode in my face.
“We didn’t think much of the guns either, until we found that,” Bria said in a flat voice.
“The same note is on all of the cases in all of the cars,” Finn added.
Once again, I wondered about the person I’d seen at Grimes’s house. I still didn’t know if it had been a man or a woman, but now I had a much more pressing concern. Had that been the mysterious M. M. Monroe? Or a hired hand whom M. M. Monroe had sent to deal with Grimes? It could easily be one or the other or some third option that I hadn’t even considered yet. I had no way of knowing which one, only that it meant trouble.
I let out a long, loud, vicious curse. For the first and only time, I wished that Harley Grimes was still alive, so I could question him.
But he was dead, along with Hazel and the rest of his men, which meant that there was no one left to give me any information about M. M. Monroe, who he or she was, and what he or she wanted with so many of Grimes’s guns.
Finn and Bria watched me stalk back and forth in front of the trunk. Finally, Finn spoke up.
“Well,” he drawled. “I guess your plan to draw M.M. back to Ashland worked.”
“And I think we know that this person isn’t here for anything good,” Bria added. “There’s only one reason you buy that many guns, at least in Ashland.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Because you’re planning to start your own little criminal enterprise. Or not so little, in this case.”
“It looks like M.M. plans to follow in Mab’s footsteps after all,” Finn said.
I stopped pacing. “Please tell me that there’s some way that you can track these guns back to whoever ordered them.”
Finn shrugged. “I can try, but it won’t be easy. Grimes doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who kept meticulous records.”
“Yeah,” Bria said. “And the weapons that I’ve looked at already all conveniently have their serial numbers filed off, so I can’t trace them in the system that way.”
I bit back another round of curses. It wasn’t their fault that we’d just killed off our best—and only—lead about M. M. Monroe.
As I looked at the guns, I couldn’t help but think that I’d just traded one enemy for another.
* * *
Soon after that, Finn and Bria took off together, promising to check in with me later, both of them eager to work their sources and see if they could find out anything about the guns and M. M. Monroe.
I waited until Sophia had packed the last body into Roslyn’s car and went inside the house with her, where we found the others in the den. Phillip was sitting in a chair in the corner, while Jo-Jo and Cooper were both sitting on the coffee table in front of the sofa where Owen was lying. I perched on the arm of the couch and watched Jo-Jo instruct Cooper on how best to use his magic to heal the remaining burns on Owen’s body. Jo-Jo had taken care of the worst of the damage earlier in the yard, but it had quickly exhausted her, leaving Cooper to finish patching up Owen.
“Feel the Air around you,” Jo-Jo said in a soft, patient voice. “Imagine it flowing through Owen’s wounds, like a gentle breeze that takes all of his pain away with it.”
Cooper gripped Owen’s hand a little tighter and leaned forward, his eyes glowing a bright copper in his lined face.
“Good,” Jo-Jo said, once he’d followed her instructions. “Now, picture the Air flowing through his wounds again, this time slowly smoothing out all of those nasty burns and pulling all of those cuts and scrapes together the smallest fraction. You need to do that again and again, until the wounds are completely healed . . .”
Cooper listened to Jo-Jo’s instructions, and I watched as the remaining burns on Owen’s body slowly grew soft and pink, then scarred out to white, then faded away altogether. I looked at Owen with a critical eye, but if I hadn’t seen it for myself, I wouldn’t have realized that he’d body-slammed himself into a couple of Fire elementals. With Jo-Jo guiding him, Cooper had done as good a job on Owen as she would have. He’d even fixed Owen’s hair and eyebrows. No trace remained of his fight with Grimes and Hazel.
Jo-Jo nodded. “Good job, Cooper. We might make a healer out of you yet.”
He beamed at her praise. Jo-Jo smiled back at him, but she couldn’t hold back the tired yawn that escaped her lips. Cooper jumped up and took her arm. He helped the dwarf out of the den. Sophia followed them, and I heard their slow, steady tread on the stairs, then one of the doors of the guest bedrooms opening and closing. Sophia and Cooper would see that Jo-Jo was comfortable for the night, so I turned my attention back to Owen.
Phillip cleared his throat and got to his feet. “I need some fresh air. All this postbattle rah-rah-we-lived sentimentality is a bit cloying. I’ll call you tomorrow, Owen.”
“Thanks, Phillip,” Owen replied.
I arched an eyebrow at Phillip, but he grinned and left the den. A moment later, the front door of the house opened, then closed.
When I was sure that we were alone, I went over and dropped down on my knees on the floor in front of Owen. He started to sit up, but I put a hand on his shoulder.
“Just lie there and rest a minute. You’ve definitely earned it.”
Owen sighed. “I won’t argue with that.”
I took his hand in mine. “How are you feeling?” I asked, searching his face for any sign of pain or discomfort.
His lips curved up. “Like your barbecue, roasted low and slow.”
His words made me chuckle, but the more I stared at him, the more I flashed back to how he’d looked lying in the yard, burned, bruised, and battered. The mere memory made my heart squeeze tight with pain and fear.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I finally said in a soft voice. “You didn’t have to throw yourself into the middle of my fight with Grimes and Hazel. You could have shot one of them with your gun instead. What were you thinking? They could have easily killed you . . .”
“I wasn’t thinking about my gun or shooting them,” Owen replied. “I was thinking that I couldn’t stand by and watch you die, Gin. That I was going to do whatever it took in order to save you.”
“Well, I appreciate that, but I’m pretty good at taking care of myself.” I tried to keep my voice light, but it didn’t work. “More important, you don’t have to prove anything to me. I know that you care about me. That was just a foolish risk to take.”
This time, I couldn’t stop Owen from getting up. He slid off the couch and onto the floor so that we were sitting side-by-side. Then he turned to face me.
“That’s where you’re wrong. I do have to prove something to you: that I’m as committed to you as you are to me. That I would do anything for you, anything.”
I sighed. “You don’t have to make up for what happened with Salina. That was a difficult situation. An impossible situation. I’m not going to hold it over your head.”
Owen let out a breath. “I know you won’t, because that’s not the kind of person you are. But I’m holding it over my own head. I need to make up for it. Because you were only trying to help, only trying to protect me, Eva, Cooper, and Phillip, and I let you down in the worst possible way. I’m going to spend the rest of my life making up for it, if that’s what it takes to win you back. To undo the damage that I did to you—to us.”
It was more or less the same thing that he’d told me that night in the forest by the fire. His violet eyes locked with mine, letting me see how serious and earnest he was—and just how much he loved me.
Fletcher had always said that pretty words were all well and good, but people’s actions were what really mattered in the end. In the past few days, Owen had climbed a mountain to help me rescue Sophia, searched miles of forest for me, fished me out of the river, and kept me safe from Grimes’s men. Then he’d thrown himself into the m
iddle of my fight with Grimes and Hazel, with no hesitation and no thought to the damage that he might do to himself. I hadn’t asked him to do any of that—not one single thing—but he’d done it all anyway.
That told me everything that I needed to know, especially about how he really felt about me.
“I asked you before on the mountain, and I’m going to ask you again now,” Owen said, his eyes still searching mine. “I want to try again, Gin. Please?”
My heart swelled with love for him, and this time, I didn’t try to fight it, and I wasn’t afraid of it, or him, or even of having my heart broken again. I might have lost sight of it in the forest, but if there was one thing that all my years as the Spider, all the battles, all the brushes with my own death, had taught me, then it was this.
That this was what was important. This moment right now and all the ones that we were lucky enough to have after it. Today, tomorrow, hell, maybe even forever.
Me. Him. Us. Together.
Yeah, we’d hit a big bump in the road, and we still had some work to do. I needed to learn how to trust him fully again. He needed to forgive himself for Salina’s crimes. And we both needed to learn how to let go of and move past the pain that we’d caused each other, learn how to work on our problems together.
“Gin?” Owen asked yet again, his eyes burning into mine.
I leaned forward so that my forehead was touching his. “Yes,” I whispered. “Yes.”
I cupped his face in my hands. Owen snaked his arms around my waist. Our lips met somewhere in the middle.
It was a slow, languid, lingering kiss, a perfect meeting of lips and tongues and mouths and breaths. That familiar spark of desire flared to life low in my stomach, then spread through the rest of my body, but this wasn’t about giving in to that want. At least, not yet. No, this was about the silent, heartfelt promise that we were both making to each other, never to take this, us, for granted again.
Finally, the kiss ended, although I kept staring into Owen’s eyes, wondering at all the love that I saw there.
I drew away from him, got to my feet, and held out my hand. He took it.
I led Owen to a bathroom on the other side of the house, where we would have some privacy. This was the largest bathroom in the house, with two sinks and an oversize, walk-in shower that took up most of one wall. I shut and locked the door behind us, then turned the water on in the shower. Not too cold, not too hot.
We’d both be that, soon enough.
The steady hiss of the water was the only sound as we slowly undressed each other. I helped him shrug out of his shirt. He unzipped my vest. I unbuttoned his jeans. He did the same to mine. Our clothes quickly disappeared, until we stood there naked in front of each other. I smoothed my hands over his broad, muscled shoulders and then down his chest. He traced his fingers down my neck, before leaning forward and pressing a soft kiss to the hollow of my throat, making me shiver.
I held my hand out again. He took it, and I drew him into the shower.
Steam rose all around us as I grabbed the soap, lathered up my hands, and ran my fingers over his body, from his slightly crooked nose to his flat stomach and strong legs and all the way down to his toes. I went slowly and carefully, gently washing off all the blood and dirt of his battle with Grimes and Hazel. Owen had done the same thing for me once upon a time, and it seemed fitting to return the gesture. A fresh start, a clean slate, a new beginning, in more ways than one.
I kissed every spot that I cleaned, lightly nipping at some of the more sensitive areas with my teeth. By the time I’d worked my way down to his hard length, he was more than ready for me. I kissed that too, running my lips and tongue all over him.
Owen groaned. “If you keep doing that, this shower is going to be shorter than either one of us wants it to be.”
I grinned and kept up with my ministrations a minute longer before kissing my way back up his body.
“Tease,” he muttered in a hoarse voice, his violet eyes as bright as amethysts.
“And don’t you love it.”
He grinned and reached for the shampoo.
Owen turned me around so that my back was to him, then started washing my hair. I moaned at the feel of his fingers digging into my scalp. Soap suds cascaded down my body, and Owen’s fingers quickly followed. Still behind me, he cupped my breasts in his hands, his fingers circling and massaging my nipples before moving lower. His fingers tangled in the curls at the junction of my thighs before sliding lower still. He dipped his fingers inside me, rubbing slow, lazy circles that made every part of me thrum with desire.
I arched back against him. “Tease.”
“And don’t you love it,” he whispered, mocking me with my own words.
He stroked me until I was just as ready for him as he was for me. I turned around to face him, and we moved together with one thought. Our lips met and opened, our tongues stroking together, slow and soft at first, then quicker and more demanding as our hunger built. The water trailed down our bodies, and our hands followed suit, gliding, sliding, caressing, even as our kisses grew harder and greedier.
Owen left the shower long enough to grab a condom from his wallet. I took my little white pills, but we always used extra protection.
He stepped back into the warm spray of water. I reached for him, but he was quicker. He picked me up, put my back against the wall, and slid into me with one smooth thrust. I groaned and wrapped my legs around his waist, my hands digging into his shoulders.
“Now, this would be teasing,” Owen rasped against my lips.
He withdrew, then surged into me again, making me groan once more.
“I think I’ve had enough teasing,” I said, nipping at his lower lip with my teeth. “Haven’t you?”
He responded by thrusting into me again, even deeper than before. My nails dug into his skin. Oh, yeah. We were definitely done teasing.
What started out slow, soft, and sweet quickly boiled up into something quick, hard, and wickedly good. Owen thrust into me over and over again, and I matched him, rocking my hips against his. Our movements were so quick, so hard, so frantic, that my wet back slid down the shower wall. Owen growled and lowered me to the ground, the water pounding into his back even as he kept moving inside me, going deeper and deeper.
We rolled together, and then I was on top. I drew back, then rocked my hips forward in a long, slow glide that finally sent us both over the edge. Owen growled again, even lower and fiercer than before, and pulled me down on top of him. His lips met mine, both of us sucking the air out of each other’s mouth, even as we moved together in that perfect rhythm.
And then . . . bliss—pure, white-hot bliss that blotted out everything else.
I collapsed on top of him. Owen pressed his lips to my temple and pulled me even closer, cradling me in the strong circle of his arms. I rested my face in the curve of his neck. No words were necessary. Not now.
And we stayed like that for a long, long time, the water cascading down all around us.
31
Three days later, the news broke about the grisly discovery of dozens of bodies at what looked like a small encampment in the mountains above Ashland. A couple of retired folks who were hiking part of the Appalachian Trail apparently noticed legions of flies in the clearing at Grimes’s camp and went to investigate. They probably wished that they had just kept on walking.
But the hikers made a frantic call to the forest service, which in turn called in the po-po. Bria and Xavier were lucky—or unlucky—enough to be assigned to the case.
The po-po set up a staging area at the picnic tables in the park at the bottom of Bone Mountain, which was where I was right now. Bria had been practically living on the mountain for two days straight, and I’d brought her some food from the Pork Pit, along with enough for her to share with Xavier and her fellow boys in blue. I figured that it was only fair, since I’d created a good portion of the mess that they were dealing with now.
Bria, Xavier, and I were sitting at one
of the blue fiberglass picnic tables, several feet away from everyone else. The two of them were scarfing down cheeseburgers with all the fixings, along with crispy steak-cut fries, coleslaw, potato salad, and some double-chocolate-chip cookies that I’d baked fresh that morning.
“We’ve got more than two dozen bodies in the pit alone,” Bria said, washing down a bite of burger with some raspberry lemonade that I’d also made. “All in various states of decay. Not to mention all of the men that you killed.”
Xavier nudged Bria with his elbow. “Tell her about the coroner.”
She snorted. “Oh, he’s having an absolute field day with all of this. You’d think that he was a kid, and it was Christmas morning, given how giddy he is. It’s like he actually enjoys working on dead people.”
Speaking of the coroner, he was taking a break too and standing in the food line with some of the other cops and crime-scene techs. He held out his plate, and Sophia dished him up some baked beans and fries, and a thick, hearty, barbecued-beef sandwich. He noticed me watching him. He smiled and gave me a cheery wave before scurrying over to take a seat at one of the tables.
“Maybe he just enjoys all the overtime that the city has to pay him and his assistants for schlepping all the way out here,” I murmured in response.
Xavier looked at me over the tops of his aviator sunglasses. The noon sun beating down on his shaved head made his ebony skin gleam. “With all the bodies that you’ve dropped in and around Ashland in the past year, you’ve probably paid for a summer home for that man.”
“Well, it’s good to know that I have such a positive impact on our local economy,” I drawled. “If not so much on its citizens.”
Both Xavier and Bria grinned at my dark humor. We sat there and chatted about other things while they finished their food. Xavier excused himself, got up, and went to go get seconds from Sophia, but Bria stayed at the table with me.
I glanced around to make sure that no one was within earshot, then asked her the question that had been on my mind ever since Finn had shown me the note on the guns in the back of Grimes’s trunk.
Heart of Venom Page 27