“Jeremy brought you halfway, but the rest is mine. I’ve had you the rest of the way.” He said as Jeremy handed me over and pressed a kiss to my cheek.
I looked up at Cage as he tucked my arm into his and bestowed me with one of his soul-stealing grins. “It’s time we start our always, Eva.”
I turned to face him. I stood on my tiptoes and pressed a kiss to his lips. Then I whispered, “We already have. We’ve been working on our always since you walked into my world with a cocky swagger and a smile.”
"I was so worried about you," he whispered.
"I know. I'm sorry."
I didn't tell him that something like this wouldn't happen again because we both knew it would. Like it or not, violence was a part of my life. It had been ever since I was thirteen, and it wouldn't stop now just because Mab was dead. But I was the Spider, and Fletcher had trained me to face whatever the world threw my way. He'd made me strong enough to do it time and time again, to take my licks and come back even tougher and more determined than before. I wasn't about to disappoint the old man now, even if he was dead and gone.
I pulled back, stood on my tiptoes, and gently kissed Owen. He returned my kiss, drew back, and rested his forehead against mine - just holding me like I was holding him. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the feel of his body against mine, letting his warmth spill into the cold, dark places in my heart and mute the horrors I'd faced last night. And then I sighed with relief, with love, with everything I felt for him but always had so much trouble putting into words.
"I know," he whispered again. "Me too."
I could have spent the rest of the day in Owen's strong, comforting embrace, but as tempting as that was, it wouldn't solve the problem of how to kill Dekes. Like it or not, it was time for me to put on my game face again. So I opened my eyes and pressed another kiss to Owen's lips before slipping out of his arms and heading into the kitchen.
I pulled open the refrigerator door and eyed all the vittles inside that we'd brought home from the grocery store yesterday, before moving over and doing the same thing to the cabinets. Once I'd taken stock of everything, I started grabbing the items I wanted. Buttermilk, flour, cornmeal, chicken, olive oil, shortening, salad fixings, and more soon crowded onto the kitchen counters.
"You're not seriously going to cook now, are you?" Bria asked, eyeing the boxes and bottles that I'd lined up in neat rows. "Shouldn't you still be resting?"
"I think I've rested enough," I said. "Besides, I'm starving. Being drained by a vamp will do that to a girl."
My sister didn't smile at my gallows humor, but she did step into the kitchen and start rifling through the drawers, looking for dishes, glasses, silverware, and more. Finn, Owen, Sophia, and Jo-Jo settled themselves around the long, square table in the dining room that branched off the kitchen.
I washed my hands and got to work. First I added a generous dash of salt and black pepper to the flour that I'd poured into a small, shallow dish. Then I cleaned and soaked the chicken in a bowl full of buttermilk before dredging it in the flour mixture. A few seconds later, the first piece sizzled when I put it in the skillet full of olive oil that I'd heated on the stove. More pieces joined that first one, until the smell of meat filled the kitchen. Once I got all the chicken in the skillet, I took the rest of the buttermilk that was left in the carton and mixed it with the remaining cornmeal, forming a thick, creamy batter, while a black cast-iron skillet went into the preheated oven so that the shortening I'd coated it with would melt.
Cooking was one of my passions in life, and it never failed to make me feel better, even if I'd almost had my neck chewed off by a vamp last night. The familiar motions of mixing and stirring soothed me, as did the aromatic smells of the hot oil and spicy seasonings in the air. By the time I slid a pan of cornbread into the oven to bake, I was starting to feel like my old self.
While I got started on a spring spinach salad, I told the others what had happened at Dekes's mansion. How the vamp had known who I was thanks to McAllister and how Dekes had used Vanessa and Victoria as hostages against me and drugged me into submission. How I'd pretended to be dead and had found my way through the marsh over here to the other side of the island. The only things I skimmed over were the brutal details of the vamp's attack on me and that he'd almost torn my throat open in order to get every drop of magic he could out of my blood.
"So he's using the two women against each other," Finn said. "Vanessa can't leave or fight back because Dekes has Victoria as leverage."
"And he's draining the blood and their magic out of them again and again," I said. "That's probably why I didn't sense Vanessa's magic, because Dekes had recently fed off her. And Victoria was in really bad shape: thin, unconscious, and anemic. It won't be long before Dekes kills her. Then he'll do the same thing to Vanessa because he won't have her sister to keep her in line anymore. After that, he'll find some more elemental women, bring them to his mansion, and do the same thing to them. He's one sick bastard."
"Sick," Sophia rasped.
The sound of the Goth dwarf's hoarse, broken voice reminded me that I wasn't the only one here who'd been tortured. Many years ago, Sophia had been kidnapped by a man named Harley Grimes and had been forced to submit to all the unspeakable things Grimes had done to her, including making her breathe in elemental Fire, which had destroyed her vocal cords. Jo-Jo could have easily healed Sophia and made her voice whole once more, but the Goth dwarf had refused her sister's offer. I supposed Sophia felt the same way about her ruined vocal cords as I did about my spider rune scars. They were both reminders of what we'd gone through - of what we'd survived.
I looked at Sophia and saw the sadness that always glittered in her black eyes. My suffering at the hands of Dekes had been nothing to what she'd endured with Grimes. Somehow, the dwarf had found the strength to survive all the horrors Grimes had inflicted on her. She was one of the strongest people I knew, and she made me want to be just as tough as she was. I was going to be, I vowed. Because I'd be damned if I left Blue Marsh while Dekes was still alive.
"So what happened on your end?" I asked, turning the pieces of chicken over in the skillet so that the other sides could brown.
Finn shrugged. "We could all tell that Dekes's giants were getting a little too interested in us, especially after you left with the man himself. So I suggested to Bria and Owen that we make good our getaway. We slipped away from the pool, but two of the giants followed us. They chased us into another wing of the mansion, well away from the press conference."
"Did you have any trouble with them?" I asked.
"Not after I blasted the first one's brains out of his skull with the help of my new silencer," Finn said in a not-so-modest voice.
My foster brother might be a slick, polished investment banker, but he also could shoot the wings off a fly with any gun he picked up. Finn was even better with firearms than I was, and he always had one or two tucked away on his body somewhere, just like I did my knives.
I thought of my knives lying on the mantel in Dekes's library. That was something else the vampire was going to pay for - taking away my weapons.
"As you can imagine, the other guy got a little upset that his buddy's blood was all over his face," Finn continued. "Which gave Owen enough time to pick up a nearby candlestick and do his thing with it."
"It was solid silverstone," Owen said. "A couple of good whacks across the back of the head, and the second giant went down."