Jennifer Estep - By a Thread

Bria came outside a few minutes later, and we drove back to the Blue Sands hotel in silence. It was still early, not quite nine o’clock, but we both went through the motions of getting ready for bed. Pulling robes and pajamas out of our suitcases. Laying out clothes for tomorrow. Showering.

Eventually, I wound up on the patio, staring out at the endless black sea from three stories up. A light, steady breeze blew in off the ocean, carrying the tang of salt and sand with it. It was full dark now, but the night was warm, pleasantly so, and the humidity felt like a welcoming hug instead of the hot, suffocating embrace of earlier in the day. The silvery moon was as big and bright as I’d ever seen it, and the stars burned with pure, white light, like they were seconds away from falling from the sky. All around me, the stone of the hotel drowsily whispered of another day of fun in the sun and the promise of more of the same tomorrow.

But the revelry wasn’t over for everyone. Down below, tiki torches blazed around an enormous, palm-tree-shaped swimming pool. Palm trees were a common rune in these parts, being the symbol for coastal beauty, and the elaborate shape of the pool was in keeping with that theme. More than a few folks had decided to go for a late swim, relax in the lounge chairs, or down some more daiquiris from the bamboo-and-grass-covered bar nearby. Couples swayed to cheerful calypso music on a patio on the far side of the pool. Beyond that, a few bonfires flickered on the beach, the folks milling around them backlit by the orange flames.

Bare feet whispered on the patio behind me, and Bria came up to lean next to me on the wrought-iron railing. We watched the swimmers, dancers, and drinkers until the song ended and the live band decided to take a brief break.

“So what’s the deal with you and Donovan Caine?” Bria finally asked.

I sighed. Bria was a cop, a good one, and she could be just as tough and tenacious as me when she set her mind to it. I’d known that the questions about Donovan were coming—I just hadn’t figured out what the answers were to them yet.

“We used to have . . . a thing.”

“A ‘thing’?”

I sighed again, a little deeper and a little longer this time. “I’ve told you about Alexis James, the Air elemental who killed Fletcher and framed me for a murder I didn’t commit?”

Bria nodded.

“Well, Donovan was a detective with the Ashland Police Department back then. He got caught up in the conspiracy and found out that I was the Spider. But one of his superiors was working for Alexis, so we joined forces to take them both down. Later, he helped me out a bit with Tobias Dawson when Dawson was threatening Warren and Violet Fox. Along the way, Donovan and I slept together a few times.”

“Until . . .”

“Until Donovan decided that he couldn’t be the kind of man he wanted to be and still be with me at the same time. Basically, his chose his morals and his sense of right and wrong over me, the evil assassin who’d seduced him.”

Bria winced. “Ouch.”

“Yeah, ouch.”

We lapsed into silence, listening to the laughter and splashes that floated up from the pool and the lively, pulsing beat of the calypso music as the band members returned from their break and picked up their instruments again.

“So what are you going to do now? About Donovan,” Bria asked.

I shrugged. “Donovan made it perfectly clear when he left Ashland that he didn’t want me, that he didn’t want anything to do with me, and he did the same thing again tonight at the restaurant. We’ve both moved on. He has Callie, and I have Owen. Donovan also made it clear that he didn’t want my particular brand of help in dealing with Randall Dekes.”

“Can’t blame him for that, can you? He is a cop, after all. He’s supposed to follow the rules. Asking you to assassinate Dekes would not be following the rules.”

I looked at her. “Yeah, but you’re a cop too, and here we are.”

Bria shifted on her feet. “That’s different. You’re my sister.”

I didn’t say anything because we both knew that it wasn’t different, not really. In her own way, Bria had just as tough a time accepting my being the Spider as Donovan had. She was just trying harder than he had to get past her aversion to my bloody, violent profession because we were family and I’d ultimately rescued her from Mab. Bria thought she owed me something for those things. She didn’t realize that I would have saved her whether we had a relationship or not, whether she wanted me in her life or not—whether she hated me or not.

But running into Donovan and seeing the old, familiar disgust in his eyes made me wonder when Bria would quit trying. When she’d just give up on me. Donovan had, and my sister was the same kind of good, honest cop that he was. It wasn’t too much of a stretch to think that someday she’d make the same choice as Donovan. That someday she’d tell me she’d had enough, leave me behind, and never look back. Now that Mab was dead, she was free to do it anytime she wanted.

I’d had plenty of pain in my life already, but I knew that if Bria turned her back on me like Donovan had, the tiny scrap of my heart I’d been able to salvage from my ugly childhood would break—and it would never, ever mend.

All I’d wanted had been a simple, fun, carefree vacation, a weekend when I could relax from being the Spider and finally try and connect with my sister. But now I was right back in the middle of another messy situation whether I wanted to be or not. I might not love Callie like Bria did, but I just couldn’t stand by and do nothing either—not when I knew a good, decent person was being threatened and in very real danger of being murdered—burned to death, even. Fletcher had taught me better than that, even if I was an assassin.

“And how do you feel about Donovan now?” Bria asked in a soft voice.

I shrugged again. “You know I’m not good with feelings.”

My sister raised her eyebrows at that particular understatement. She turned to face me and crossed her arms over her chest, her eyes level with mine. Waiting, just waiting. I knew she wouldn’t leave without an answer.

“Donovan is a smart, strong, capable, attractive man,” I finally said. “That’s what drew me to him in the first place.”

“But?”

“But I love Owen,” I said in a firm voice. “Owen Grayson is one of the best things that’s ever happened to me. I’m not going to forget that—ever—and I’m certainly not going to do anything to mess up our relationship.”

I meant every word that I said. Seeing Donovan again had only made me appreciate Owen that much more because Owen did the one thing that Donovan never had and never would—he accepted me for who and what I was. My bloody past as the Spider didn’t bother Owen because he’d gone through the same things that I had—losing his parents, living on the streets, trying to protect his younger sister, Eva. And he’d done some of the same things that I had—including killing people who threatened him or Eva. Owen hadn’t necessarily done all those dark things for money, not like I had as an assassin, but he understood them and me all the same. That’s why I loved him.

Bria nodded. “Good. Because Callie’s my best friend, and she wouldn’t get engaged to someone if she didn’t love him with all her heart. I don’t want her to get hurt by being in the middle of you and Donovan and your . . . ‘thing.’”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “She won’t get hurt. Not by me. But Randall Dekes is another matter, and we both know it.”

“I talked to Donovan in the restaurant,” Bria said. “He’s been investigating Stu Alexander’s death, trying to find some way to connect it to Dekes and put the vampire in jail where he belongs. But he keeps running into problems with his superiors, who are getting heat from their superiors, because the vamp is so chummy with all the muckety-mucks on the island.”