Jennifer Estep - Deadly Sting

“You’ll see.”

I straightened up and trudged out from behind the bonsai trees. It took me a minute to walk over to the elemental and another one still to ease up the steps, but I managed it.

“I hate that I can never sneak up on you,” I teased. “You always took all the fun out of playing hide-and-seek when I was a kid.”

Jo-Jo smiled, the lines on her face grooving even deeper into her skin and adding to the welcoming warmth in her clear, colorless eyes. “Well, it’s nice to know that my Air magic is good for something besides patching up folks. Besides, I like keeping an eye on you. Someone has to.”

A gasp sounded, and I looked at Eva, who was staring at me with wide eyes.

“Gin?” she asked.

I grinned at her. “Back from the dead. Again.”

“Gin!”

She got to her feet, threw her arms around me, and hugged me tight. I winced as more pain exploded in my ribs, but I managed to choke down my discomfort enough to return her hug.

Eva drew back and looked me over. “But . . . but how ?”

“I’ll tell you all about it later,” I said. “Right now, I’d like to let Jo-Jo patch me up, if it’s okay with you. Clementine got a few good licks in on me before I managed to take her out.”

Eva helped me sit down on the step next to the dwarf. Jo-Jo eyed me, taking in my ruined dress, my cuts and bruises, and the dried blood that flaked off my skin with every move I made.

“I would ask if you had a rough night,” she murmured. “But I think that’s pretty self-evident.”

I laughed, even though it made my ribs clench with pain once more.

I wasn’t as bad off as Phillip had been, so it only took Jo-Jo a couple of minutes to heal me. When she finished, I drew in a breath, but the pain from Clementine’s punches had vanished like it had never even been there to start with. I still felt tired, though, and I knew I would for the next several hours. That’s how long it would take my brain to catch up with my body and realize that I was whole and well once more.

“Good as new, once again,” Jo-Jo said. “Sorry I can’t do anything about the blood, darling. Or your dress.”

I stared down at the ruined fabric. “Don’t worry about the dress. In a weird way, it saved my life tonight.”

Jo-Jo frowned, obviously wondering what I was talking about, but before she could ask what I meant, Phillip let out a small sigh and slowly opened his eyes. His blue gaze was tired and cloudy with confusion.

“Eva?” he rasped.

She smoothed back his golden hair. “I’m right here, Philly. Jo-Jo healed you up, and everything’s just fine now. So go on back to sleep. You need your rest.”

“Okay.” He nodded, closed his eyes, and drifted off once more.

Eva kept stroking his hair, although she stopped long enough to brush a few tears out of the corners of her eyes.

I turned to Jo-Jo. “Are the others still inside?”

She nodded. “Yep. In the rotunda, cleaning up the mess. They wanted to go check on you, but I told them that you’d be along in a few minutes.”

I left her to watch over Eva and Phillip and went inside. At first, everything was as quiet as ever, but the closer I got to the rotunda, the louder it got. Finally, I reached the entrance and stopped, staring at the scene before me.

Giants, giants everywhere. The bodies of Clementine’s crew littered the floor in a circular pattern—the same pattern they’d been standing in while they’d been guarding the hostages. From what I could see, most of them had been put down with headshots where they stood. I scanned the rotunda, but it didn’t look like any more of the guests had been killed. All the hostages were still here, clustered together on the right side of the room next to the elemental Ice bar. Everyone was talking at once, hence the noise.

I spotted Xavier holding hands with Roslyn, so I headed in that direction. The second Roslyn saw me, she opened her arms, came forward, and enveloped me in a tight hug.

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” she whispered in my ear.

“Me too,” I murmured back. “Me too.”

I stepped back, cleared my throat, and gestured at the closest giant. “Looks like our plan worked.”

Xavier nodded. “That it did. Bria and I sniped at the giants from the balcony. Most of them never knew what hit them, and without Clementine around to keep them in line, the rest just panicked. A few bolted out of the entrance, but the others raised their guns and returned fire. But since we had the high ground, we took them out pretty easily. We’d gotten all of them but one, and he waded into the crowd and grabbed a woman to use as a human shield. But Finn grabbed a gun from one of the other giants we’d already killed and took him out.”

An arm circled my shoulders, and I turned to find Finn grinning at me.

“In other words, all’s well that ends well,” he said.

I slipped my arm around his waist, rested my head on his shoulder, and just enjoyed the moment. My friends were all safe and sound, and I’d survived another night, another battle, another enemy intent on killing me.

As we stood there, it slowly dawned on me that I was once again the center of attention. Now that the initial shock of being rescued had worn off, everyone was looking around, seeing who’d survived and who hadn’t. The fact that I was still among the living caused more than a few folks to do a double take, their eyes darting from me to Jillian’s body and back again. Not to mention my ruined dress and how horrible I looked. The murmurs and speculation quickly spread, until it seemed like the only sound in the rotunda was the whisper of my name: Gin . . . Gin . . . Gin . . .

“I hate to say this, but not everyone seems happy that you’re still alive,” Finn said, picking up on the glares coming my way.

“You can’t please everyone,” I drawled. “And you know how much I hate to disappoint our dear friends in the underworld.”

He snorted.

One of Finn’s clients came up to talk to him about what had happened, and Xavier and Roslyn drifted a few feet away, having their own private conversation.

I stayed where I was and kept scanning the room. It took me two minutes to find the person I was searching for: Owen. He stood near the back of the rotunda not too far away from where my family’s runes were. Owen was talking to a dwarf with an unruly head of salt-and-pepper hair. The reddish plaid of the dwarf’s suit jacket matched the rusty color of his eyes. Cooper Stills, the Air elemental blacksmith who was Owen’s mentor and Jo-Jo’s date for the evening.

Cooper noticed me watching him. He grinned and waved, and I returned the gesture. Owen looked to see who the dwarf was waving at, and his eyes widened as he realized that it was me. Maybe it was my imagination, but after a moment, Owen seemed to relax, as though he’d been worried about me. He hesitated, then lifted his hand and waved at me too. Once again, I returned the gesture. We stood there, staring at each other across the room. I didn’t know whether to go over to him or stay where I was. I didn’t know if he would welcome me or turn away.

In the end, I didn’t have to decide. A hand touched my shoulder, and Bria stepped in front of me, blocking my view of Owen, perhaps for the best.

“Are you okay?” she asked. “Owen told us about the fight in the boathouse. That you were facing down Clementine and Opal alone. What happened?”

I shrugged. “Nothing much. I took out Opal easily enough. Clementine almost beat me to death, but I got her instead.”

Bria nodded, then glanced across the rotunda at Owen, who was still speaking to Cooper. “And what about Owen?”

“What about Owen?”