“So what?” Mab snapped. “Because believe me when I tell you that your precious sister is in no position to do any such thing.”
“So this, bitch. Bria isn’t the one that you want. She isn’t the one with both Ice and Stone magic—I am.”
Silence. I didn’t know what effect my words had on Mab, and I didn’t care. My whole world shrank to what I could hear on the other end of the line, to straining as hard as I could to just hear Bria’s voice, a whimper, a murmur, something, anything that would tell me she was still alive—
“You’re lying,” Mab said. “Lying to keep me from killing your precious sister.”
I laughed. “Please. I have no need to lie. Not about this. How the hell do you think I survived being trapped in that coal mine with Tobias Dawson after the dwarf knocked me out at your party a few months ago? I used my Ice magic to collapse his own mine right on top of his head and then my Stone power to help me find my way out after the fact. That’s how. Ask Bria. She’ll tell you the same thing. Or better yet, get her to use her magic. Because she only has Ice, not Ice and Stone like I do.”
More silence. A swishing sort of noise filled my ear, and it took me a moment to figure out what it was—fabric rubbing together, like Mab was walking across whatever room she was in.
“What kind of magic do you have?” the Fire elemental hissed.
No answer.
My heart twisted in my chest, and I wondered if Mab was just playing a game with me. Why wasn’t Bria answering her? Was she in such bad shape already? Was she—was she dead already? That paralyzing, icy numbness began to fill my body again, one cold inch at a time—
“Ice,” Bria finally mumbled, her voice sounding faint and far away, so very far away. “I only have Ice magic. Gene—Gin’s the one with both Ice and Stone magic.”
Relief punched me in the gut, doubling me over. The others stared at me in alarm, and Finn started toward my side, but I waved him off. I couldn’t stop the cold tears of relief from streaming down my face, though. Alive—Bria was still alive. Which meant that I still had a chance, however small, however remote, to save her. As long as Bria was still breathing, Jo-Jo could fix whatever damage had been done to her.
More noises sounded, more voices, and then something crackled. Whatever happened, whatever Bria said or did, Mab didn’t like it. The Fire elemental hissed out a scream of rage and frustration that was so loud that even the others in the cabin heard it through the phone.
Despite the situation, I smiled. It always felt good to rattle your nemesis.
“Say that I believe you,” Mab said, coming back on the line. “How do I know that this isn’t some trick? Over these past few months, I’ve learned a lot of things about you, Spider, one of which is your rather uncanny ability to trick your opponents, to sense their weaknesses and exploit them to your own advantage.”
“It’s not a trick, Mab,” I replied. “Once again, you were just too stupid to make sure that you were targeting the right sister. Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy, letting me keep on breathing all these years.”
“I could kill Bria right now for your insolence,” she snapped.
“You could, and that would be the end of you—of everything. Because there would be nothing left for me—nothing left for me to do but get my revenge on you.”
This time, Mab laughed. “Something that you haven’t had any success with so far. You’ve missed me twice already this week.”
“True. But if you kill Bria, then I promise you this—I will destroy you. No matter how long it takes, no matter what it costs me. I won’t sleep, I won’t eat. I won’t do anything but plot your downfall. I will mow down your men like they’re weeds. I’ll kill so many of them so viciously, so brutally, so horribly that no one will dare to work for you. And sooner or later, I’ll get you too. We both know that you can’t hide in that big, fancy house of yours forever. I almost got you there this week. You really think that you can keep me out forever?”
Mab didn’t respond.
“Face it,” I said. “Bria’s not the one who’s a threat to you—I am. Me. Gin Blanco, Genevieve Snow, the little girl that you tortured all those years ago. And if you kill my sister, I will stop at nothing to end your existence. Nothing. And by now, you should know exactly how good I am. I’m the Spider, bitch—I’m the best there is.”
More silence.
In the cabin, the others stared at me, shock filling their faces at my harsh words—and the fact that I meant every single one of them. My hand tightened around the phone. I turned away from my friends and stared out the window into the dark. I needed to be hard right now, as cold, hard, and unfeeling as winter itself. That was the only way that I was going to buy Bria some more time.
“What are you proposing?” Mab finally asked.
“A simple trade. My life for Bria’s.”
My friends gasped, but I kept my eyes fixed on the blackness. This was the way it had to be—the way it was always going to be.
Trading myself for Bria was a price that I was willing to pay—a price I’d been paying ever since Mab had duct-taped my own spider rune in between my hands and then superheated it with her Fire magic. Everything that had followed afterward—my thinking that Bria was dead, living on the streets, being taken in by Fletcher, training to be an assassin—all of that had just been leading up to this one, inevitable moment. Maybe it was fate, or maybe it was just my own bad luck, but there was nothing I could do to change the past. All I could do now was try to survive long enough to give Bria a new future.
“And how do I know that this isn’t some kind of trick?” Mab repeated.
“You don’t,” I snapped. “But we both know you want to kill me too badly to turn down a free shot at me. And one more thing—I want Bria there in one piece. That means no rape, no torture, no burning her alive with your Fire magic like you did to the rest of our family.”
Mab let out a little chuckle. “I’m afraid it’s too late for that last one, Genevieve. Your sister’s already screamed quite nicely for me.”
For a moment I thought I might lose it. That I might start screaming and never, ever stop. Mab had tortured Bria, had burned my baby sister with her elemental Fire magic. The thing that I’d feared the most had already come to pass, but there was nothing I could about it now, no real way I could help Bria, except by trying to spare her more of the same and keep her alive long enough for me to try to rescue her.
“Then you stop the torture right now.”
“Or what?” Mab sneered.
“Or I won’t show tomorrow, and you’ll spend the rest of your miserable life looking over your shoulder—until I kill you. That’s what. You really want to take that chance just so you can get a few hours’ amusement out of torturing Bria? Besides, we both know you’d have more fun with me anyway. I didn’t break and tell you what you wanted to know when I was a kid. Just think of all the long hours you could work on me this go around, the happiness that would bring you. Bria’s a small fish, Mab. I’m the catch of the day—the catch of a lifetime. You can either stop torturing Bria and have me, or you can start counting down the days until I kill you. Your choice.”
More silence.
Finally, Mab huffed out a sigh of displeasure. “Fine. I won’t torture your sister… much more.”
It was the best I could do, given the circumstances—no matter how much it hurt. No matter how much my heart was breaking for Bria and what she was suffering right now. “Good. So why don’t you tell me when and where, and we can get on with things?”
“Tomorrow. Dusk. As for the place, why don’t we go back to the beginning?”
My stomach twisted at her nasty tone. “What do you mean?”
“Let’s go back to the very beginning, since you seem to be such a fond student of history,” Mab said. “Meet me at your old house, Genevieve Snow. The place where I tried to kill you all those years ago. I’m sure you remember where it is. And don’t worry. Because this time I plan on succeeding.”
I ope
ned my mouth, but for once, Mab hung up on me.
I closed the cell phone and turned to face my friends. If they’d been shocked before, they were simply horrified now—eyes wide, mouths open, faces pinched white with fear for me and what I was about to do.
“What did Mab say?” Finn asked. “Will she go for the trade?”
I handed his phone back to him. “She’ll go for it. She wants to kill me too badly not to.”
“You’re not actually going to go through with it?” Eva piped up from her spot on the couch. “It’s suicide, Gin!”
I shrugged. “No more so than any of the other things that I’ve done over the years.”
Roslyn, Xavier, Finn, Eva, Violet, Warren—they all tried to talk me out of it, of course. They listed all the reasons why meeting Mab would result in nothing but my own death, along with Bria’s. They ranted and raved up one side and down the other that I was being foolish, stupid even, if I thought that Mab would let either one of us live.
But they didn’t change my mind.
If I had to sacrifice myself to save Bria, so be it. I didn’t care anymore as long as she was safe. It was all I’d ever wanted since this whole thing had started.
Jo-Jo and Sophia didn’t join in the others’ protests. Instead, the two dwarven sisters stood still and silent by the fireplace. They both knew that there was no use trying to talk me out of meeting Mab. Hell, maybe Jo-Jo had seen this was what was going to happen, thanks to her Air 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 that everyone 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 even more 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 my hair, and pulled me down on top of him. His tongue met mine, dodging and darting just as fast and hard as mine did, even as we sucked the air out of each other’s mouths. Owen raked his teeth across my earlobe before his lips dipped lower, nipping at my neck.
“Mmm,” I murmured, feeling my desperation melt into a far more pleasurable form of agony. “You know how much I—I love it when you kiss me there.”
“And you know how much I love you,” he rasped against my neck.
I responded by ripping open the flannel shirt he’d changed into after taking his own shower. The buttons flew everywhere, landing on the wooden floor, but I didn’t care. I was already leaning forward, tracing my tongue down his broad, muscled chest. Owen kneaded my back, urging me on, letting me take the lead. But I was feeling too much, too hard, too fast, and my hands shook as I tried to work the button on his jeans, my fingers slipping off the smooth metal.
“Here, let me,” he murmured.
Owen popped open the button, then drew down the zipper. He lifted his hips, and I peeled the jeans off him. He wore nothing underneath, and I stopped a moment to admire his muscled body, and his erection that was already waiting for me. I started to lean down and put my mouth on him, but Owen grabbed my arms.
“Not yet,” he whispered. “Let me take care of you first.”
I didn’t have time to protest before Owen rolled me over onto my back. He took a little more care with my borrowed clothes than I had with his, but they disappeared soon enough. Owen’s lips scorched a path down my neck before his mouth closed on my right nipple. Over and over, he ran his tongue over the peak before gently scraping his teeth across the tip. He repeated the process on my other nipple until I wanted to scream with pleasure and frustration. I arched up off the bed, already wanting to feel him moving inside me.
Owen had other ideas. His tongue moved from my breasts and dipped into my bellybutton before sliding lower. I opened my legs, and he put his mouth on me, flicking his tongue against me with exquisite precision, ratcheting up my desperate need that much more.
Where he had been gentle, patient even, before, now he became as hard and wild as I had been, his tongue driving deeper and deeper into me, making me thrash and moan beneath him.
br /> “Owen,” I rasped, my fingers digging into his shoulders. “Owen.”
Finally, just when I thought I couldn’t take any more, Owen got up on his knees and pulled me up to him. Our arms locked around each other, and our bodies melded together.
Now we were both out of control—our passion for each other, our desire, our need, burning, burning, burning. Our hands were everywhere, kneading, caressing, stroking, and our tongues dueled back and forth as we moaned into each other’s mouths.
Finally, I got the upper hand. I pushed Owen down onto his back, straddling him. I took his hard cock in my hand, thumbing the wet tip before lightly raking my nails down the whole length of him. He shuddered with pleasure under me, his muscles straining.
I reached over, opened the nightstand drawer, and drew out a condom from the box there. Of course, I took my pills, but we also used extra protection for a variety of reasons.
Owen arched an eyebrow. “You’re always prepared for everything, aren’t you?”
I smiled down at him. “The cabin is nothing if not well stocked.”
Using my hand and then my mouth, I teased his cock a little more, until his hands were fisting the sheets just as mine had been a few minutes ago, before I unrolled the condom over his straining shaft.
“Gin,” Owen murmured. “My Gin.”
“Oh, yes,” I said. “You’re mine. And I want you—now.”
I went up on my knees, then sank down, taking him deep inside me. Owen pulled me down on top of him, and we rocked back and forth, thrusting against each other as hard and fast as we could. Until everything that we’d both been feeling tonight—all the fear and agony and passion and love—exploded inside us like a shower of stars falling from the sky.
The next day dawned all too quickly, bringing with it another round of snow—and most likely my messy death at the hands of Mab Monroe.
Last night had taken its toll on us all, physically and emotionally, which was why everyone was still asleep when I slipped out of Owen’s warm arms around ten the next morning.