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Somehow I'd gotten from the muddy bank of the Aneirin River all the way across town to the dwarf's house. I wasn't too concerned right now with exactly how that had happened, just the fact that I was safe and warm and could actually feel my arms and legs again. I wiggled my fingers and toes and was pleased when they all responded to my internal command. Looked like I hadn't lost any digits to frostbite or hypothermia, no doubt thanks to Jo-Jo's healing Air elemental magic. Good. It would be hard to hold on to my silverstone knives with no thumbs.
A faint scuffle sounded, and I lifted up my head.
Over the mound of blankets that covered me, I spotted Natasha standing at the foot of the bed. The little girl had been cleaned up since the last time I'd seen her in the train yard. Her dark brown hair had been pulled back into a ponytail, and her face was free of the grime and tears that had covered it. The puffy bruise was gone from her cheek, and I didn't see any other injuries on her. Jo-Jo had probably used her Air magic to get rid of those, as well as heal me.
Now the girl was dressed in what looked like one of Sophia Deveraux's black Goth sweatshirts, given the fact that it was covered with bloody broken hearts. Matching sweatpants and socks completed the ensemble. Sophia might be a dwarf, but the sweatshirt still reached down to the girl's knees, looking like a dress on her thin frame. The legs on the sweatpants had been rolled up several times too.
"Hi," I croaked.
Instead of answering me, Natasha stared at me a second longer, then turned and ran out of the bedroom.
I put my head back down on the pillow and lay there in bed for a few minutes, just letting myself adjust to being alive, awake, and in one piece again. Slowly moving my body, flexing my fingers and toes and making sure that everything was in more or less working order. Jo-Jo had outdone herself again, because I felt almost as good as new, except for the bone-deep weariness that made me want to curl up and sleep for eight more hours. But that was just an aftereffect of being magically healed by the Air elemental, nothing more. Especially since I was pretty sure I'd resembled an ice cube by the time the dwarf had gotten her hands on me last night.
The most important thing was that Elektra LaFleur hadn't killed me yet. And now that I knew that my baby sister, Bria, was on her hit list, I was even more determined to end the other assassin's existence.
Which I wouldn't accomplish by staying in bed all day. So I sat up and threw off the blankets. I really must have been frozen when I'd gotten here because I had on not one, not two, but three sets of flannel pajamas-along with five pairs of wool socks. I looked like a marshmallow with so many heavy, dense layers covering my body. I shook my head and got to my feet.
I took a step, stumbled, and almost did a header into the cherry dresser next to the bed. My feet might still be attached to the rest of me, but apparently they weren't accepting orders just yet because more needles of pain flared to life deep in my muscles. I gritted my teeth and planted my hands on the wooden dresser, waiting for the sensation to pass. I was damned if I'd collapse back onto the bed. Not while LaFleur was still breathing. Not while the assassin had her sights set on killing Bria.
"You shouldn't be up yet," a low voice drawled.
I looked up to find Owen Grayson standing in the doorway, a steaming mug of something clutched in his hand.
Owen looked just as tired as I felt. His blue-black hair was rumpled, stubble covered his face, and shadows darkened his violet eyes, as though he hadn't gotten much sleep last night. He was dressed casually in a thick, black turtleneck sweater that highlighted his broad shoulders, but mud covered his boots and stained the knees of his jeans.
I frowned. "Why is there mud all over your clothes?"
"Because I'm the one who found you last night," Owen said. "You called me. Don't you remember?"
I had a vague recollection of hitting Owen's number on my speed dial instead of Finn's but that was all. I concentrated, and more flashes of light and sound swam up in my mind, filling in some of the blanks from last night.
"I called you, and you came looking for me," I said. "But how did you find me? I didn't exactly give you directions. "
Owen leaned against the doorway and took a sip from his mug. The smell of sugary-sweet hot chocolate made my mouth water. "No, but I called Finn, and he told me where you were and what the two of you had been doing. When you called me, you said that you'd jumped into the river and were downstream. I told Finn that, and he was able to guess where you might have washed up. So I got in the car and went looking. "
"And Eva was with you too, wasn't she? I remember hearing her voice. "
Owen nodded. "She wouldn't let me go without her, and I thought that the two of us searching would be better than just me. "
I shook my head. "But even if you had a general idea of where I was, it would still take hours to search the riverbank, especially in the dark. So how did you find me?"
Owen walked into the room and picked up something from the nightstand on the other side of the bed. Sunlight streaming in through the window glinted off the edge of one of my silverstone knives.
"These," he said. "I knew that you had to have at least a couple of them left on you, not to mention the metal melted into your hands. So I just concentrated and focused on finding any silverstone in the area. They led me right to you. "
Of course. Owen had what he considered to be a small elemental talent for metal, which was an offshoot of Stone, although I knew that his magic was anything but weak. The bottom line was that Owen could sense, control, and manipulate metal just the way that I could Ice and Stone. Still, it must have taken every bit of magic he had to specifically sense the silverstone in such a big area, especially with all the cans and other metal debris that littered the riverbanks.
"That's why you look so tired, isn't it?" I murmured. "You used up all your magic to find me last night. "
Owen shrugged as though it was nothing. But it wasn't nothing to me. Besides Finn and the Deveraux sisters, I couldn't even remember the last time someone had cared enough to come looking for me when I was in trouble. I was so used to being on my own for so long, always being the tough, strong, capable one, that I'd forgotten how nice it felt to have someone else look out for me.
To have someone else care about me.
And just like that, the fragile strings of my feelings for Owen joined together, all the tangled threads wrapping around and weaving their way through my heart. Scary and painful in some ways, but necessary in others too.
Ignoring the needles still tingling in my legs, I managed to walk around the bed. Owen put his mug down and opened his arms. I stepped into his embrace. For a moment, I just laid my head against his chest, breathing in his rich, earthy aroma. Then, when I felt steady enough, I stood up and pressed my lips to Owen's.
Maybe it was my frame of mind or the fact that I'd almost frozen to death last night, but I felt so much in our kiss. Owen's lips against mine, his body flush with my own, his tongue slowly stroking against mine. The familiar passion sparked to life deep inside me. The feel of Owen, the smell, the taste of him, heated me in a way that all the wool socks in the world just couldn't.
