Heart of Venom

A piece of wood in the fire cracked, causing a few sparks to drift up into the air like fireflies. Owen watched them burn out before he continued his story.

“I hiked around the mountain until I reached the river, then followed it downstream for a few miles. I was searching for you, but I was also using my magic. I was just hoping that you still had on your silverstone vest.”

“So you used your elemental talent for metal to see if you could sense any of it in the area.”

He nodded. “And I finally did. I saw you half-submerged in the water in the canyon and fished you out. After that, well, here we are.” He spread his hands out to both sides, gesturing at the fire and the dark woods beyond.

His story touched me. “You went to all that trouble for me?”

“I’d do all that and more for you,” he said. “I’d do anything for you, Gin.”

I looked at him, wondering at the sudden fervor in his voice. “Owen?”

He hesitated. At first, I thought that he wasn’t going to say anything else, but then he squared his shoulders, lifted his chin, and looked me square in the eyes. “I’m sorry,” he finally said.

“For what?”

“For everything,” Owen replied. “But especially for the way that I treated you after you killed Salina. It was stupid and inexcusable of me.”

I thought back to everything he’d said at Fletcher’s house when he’d told me that he was going to help me rescue Sophia. “Is this one of those things that you’ve been an idiot about?”

He gave me a rueful grin. “One of many. Isn’t it obvious?”

“What changed?”

“I did,” he replied. “I finally grew up. I finally wised

up. And I finally realized just how much I love you.”

I blinked, taken aback by his words—words that I never thought I’d hear him say again. Hope blossomed in my heart that he really meant them, that we were finally dealing with our issues and making some real progress, but I tempered that warm, soft hope with cold, logical reason.

“But you loved Salina too,” I said in a soft voice. “You were . . . upset when I killed her.”

Owen grimaced. “That’s putting it mildly, don’t you think? I turned my back on you. I did the exact same thing to you that Donovan caine did, even though I’d made myself a promise that I would never hurt you like he did, that I would never take you for granted, and that I would especially never judge you for being the Spider. But I did it all anyway, just like he did. Like I said, I’m an idiot.”

I shrugged. Owen’s reaction had hurt, but it hadn’t been unexpected. It was always hard to watch someone you loved die, even when she wasn’t the person you thought she was, even when she’d hurt the other people you cared about.

“You were just trying to protect me from Salina,”

Owen said. “From having to deal with her myself, from having to kill her myself. Because that’s the kind of person you are, Gin. You take care of the people you love, no matter what. I think that’s the thing that I love the most about you.”

The words hung in the air between us, seeming as in— substantial as the smoke curling up from the fire. For a moment, the only sound was the cheery crackling of the flames. I didn’t say anything, but I let him see the doubt in my eyes—doubt that he really meant what he said.

Owen threw his stick down close to the fire, came over, crouched down in front of me, and took my hands in his.

“I love you,” he said. “I will always

love you. Sometimes it scares me just how much I love you. I will never love anyone the way that I love you.”

I couldn’t help but ask the question. “Not even Salina?”

“Especially not Salina,” Owen said. “I was a kid when

I met her, when I loved her. I was young, and I was blind to the kind of person that she really was. I loved who I thought she was, who I wanted her to be, not who she actually turned out to be.”

“But you still didn’t like me killing her. So what changed?”

His lips curved up into a humorless expression. “I did. It was a small thing, really. I’d gone out to have drinks one night with Phillip at Northern Aggression. We got into . . . some trouble, but we managed to get ourselves out of it.”

“Then what happened?”

“I took Phillip home to the Delta Queen, and he said something about how the fight that we’d gotten into was just like the good old days. He grinned at me, and I saw the scrawny kid he’d been back then. And I finally realized how much time Salina had cost me with him and with cooper too. Time that I can never get back. How she’d ruined Eva’s trust in me. How she’d hurt the people I’d cared about over and over again. I knew it all before, of course, but when he said that, it made me realize that I didn’t want to waste any more time, especially not with you. That I needed to quit feeling sorry for myself and guilty that I hadn’t been able to protect Eva, Phillip, cooper, and you from Salina. That what I really needed to do was fix things between me and everyone else.”

He stared at me. “I came up here today to help you rescue Sophia because it was the right thing to do. But I also came because I plan to spend the rest of my life making up for how much I hurt you . . . if you’ll let me.”

“And how long have you felt this way?” I whispered, my heart tightening painfully in my chest.

“I’ve always known it,” Owen said. “I knew how much I loved you the night that you killed Salina so I wouldn’t have to. I knew it at the Briartop museum when you burst into that vault to rescue me. And I knew it again today when you sacrificed yourself so that I could get Sophia and Warren to safety. The people you care about . . . you love them completely, no matter what. And that’s the way that I feel about you too. I was just too much of a coward to admit it to anyone before. Not even to myself—and especially not to you.”

I sat there, digesting his words. For a long time, Owen held my hands and waited—just waited. Finally, though, he spoke again.

“I know that I don’t deserve it,” he said. “Not after everything that I’ve put you through, but I want to try again. I want a second chance, Gin. Please.”

These were the words that I’d longed to hear, that I’d longed for him to say to me for weeks now. And if he’d said them to me when I’d been facing down all those men on the ridge or Grimes and Hazel on the cliff, I would have said yes with no hesitation.

But words meant one thing in the middle of a life-or— death battle and sometimes quite another after the fighting was done.

He’d wounded me so badly, undermined all the trust that I had in him, in us—and especially in him not to hurt me the way that Donovan had. I loved Owen, had opened myself up to him, and he’d still hurt me. I’d had a lot of time to think these past few weeks that we’d been apart. Maybe too much time to think, to worry and wonder and obsess. Because when everything was said and done, I didn’t know if I wanted to go through that again, not even for him. Owen wasn’t the first person who’d broken my heart, but he was the one who’d done the most damage to it.

Maybe he wasn’t the only one here who was a coward.

“Gin?”

“I don’t know,” I finally said in a soft voice. “You . . . you broke my heart, Owen.”

“I know,” he said, his face tight with guilt. “I know how much I hurt you. But I promise you this, Gin, I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you. And if it takes you some time to trust me again, to love me again, then that’s okay. Days, weeks, months, years. I don’t care.

Because I’ll wait for you. I would wait forever for you.”

All the love that I had for him welled up inside me, blotting out everything else—except for a tiny, stubborn whisper of doubt in the deepest, darkest, blackest part of my heart. I almost said yes then, but I held back at the last possible moment.

Because I couldn’t ignore that tiny whisper and all the dread and fear that it brought along with it. Because