“You’re going to need your strength for when I start healing you. Because it ain’t going to feel good, darling. Especially your face.”

Sophia strode over to the vehicle. Jo-Jo opened the backdoor for her. Owen Grayson walked over and stopped the Goth dwarf before she could set me inside.

“I’d like to know how you got out of the mountain too,” he said. “Maybe you’d like to tell me one night over dinner.”

I thought of Donovan Caine and the way he’d turned his back on me. I wasn’t sure how I felt about the detective at the moment, much less someone new like Owen Grayson. But I thought of the way Grayson had looked at me—openly, directly, with no hint of judgment in his violet eyes. “Perhaps.”

“You have my number,” Grayson replied.

I snorted. “Oh yeah, I do.”

“I’ll be seeing you, Gin. Real soon, if I have my way.”

I wondered at the confident promise in his tone—and the strange bit of eagerness it stirred in me. The thought crossed my mind that maybe it would be… nice to be chased, to just be… wanted, without any guilt or strings or morals attached. Either way, I knew I hadn’t seen the last of Owen. Whatever his interest in me was, it wasn’t going away anytime soon.

He gave me another grin before Sophia put me into the back of the Cadillac, and our eyes locked. Gray on violet. Oh yes, I thought, staring through the tinted glass at him.

Owen Grayson was definitely someone worth watching.

———

Finn drove slowly, but it was still a bumpy ride down the access road. Every jar made my bones rattle together. Now that I was among friends, I could let my guard down, let go of that cold, hard will I’d held on to for so long. And it made everything hurt that much worse. I must have blacked out because the next thing I knew I was lying on top of the square counter in the front of the Country Daze store.

“What are we doing in here?” I murmured, staring up the ceiling fan spinning above my head.

Jo-Jo’s face hovered over mine. “Because when you collapsed the mountain, it created a gigantic sinkhole out back. It’s already filled in with water. It hasn’t reached the house yet, but it might. So we brought you to the store where it was safer. Now, relax, Gin, as much as you can. Because this is going to hurt.”

Jo-Jo’s eyes flashed a brilliant white, and her Air power rolled off her like invisible waves. The dwarf put her hand against my forehead. The hot pain of her magic filled me, and I knew nothing more.

———