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"Oh, yes," I said "You’re mine And I want you-now"

I went up onhim deep inside me Owen pulledagainst each other as hard and fast as we could Until everything that we’d both been feeling tonight-all the fear and agony and passion and love-exploded inside us like a shower of stars falling from the sky

Chapter 24

The next day dawned all too quickly, bringing with it another round of snow-and most likely ht had taken its toll on us all, physically and emotionally, which hy everyone was still asleep when I slipped out of Owen’s war

Everyone except Jo-Jo, that is The dwarf sat at the kitchen table, wrapped in her pink flannel housecoat and sipping a cup of lavender tea The fragrant fu I breathed in, drahat comfort I could from this safe, quiet one-and perhapswith it

"Shouldn’t you be asleep like everyone else?" I asked Jo-Jo, as I opened the kitchen cabinets to see what supplies were on hand for a late breakfast

"I slept plenty before I spelled Sophia frouard duty," Jo-Jo said "Now, I’runted Restless wasn’t quite the word that I would use to describeaside and started pulling ingredients out of the cabinets Flour, sugar, salt, and all the other nonperishable staples that Fletcher had packed the cabin with If I was going to go out today, then I wanted a good breakfast to help rabbed fresh e before coht," Jo-Jo said "Just in case you were inclined to feel like "

I arched an eyebrow "Got a glinition?"

Jo-Jo grinned

"Tellthe e to kill Mab today before she kills et"

Instead of answering h she could read so Hell, ic After abecause she nodded and looked up at me with her clear eyes

"Did I ever tell you how I first met Fletcher?"

I shook my head and moved over to the counter where I’d placed the rest of the ingredients

"It was a week after Sophia was kidnapped"

I jerked around in surprise, and the milk almost slipped from my hands "Sophia-Sophia was kidnapped? When? By who "It happened alo There was a sick, sadistic bastard by the naiant, half dwarf, and all mean Grimes and the rest of his clan of miscreants lived way up in the mountains, even farther up than Warren’s store, Country Daze He saw Sophia one day, and he decided that he was going to have her When I wouldn’t give her to him, he came into my salon and took her Busted up the place, beat me real bad, then beat Sophia when she tried to stop hiotten, I slid into the seat across from Jo-Jo

Jo-Jo’s eyes clouded over, like she was reliving that terrible day-the day that her sister had been taken froe, the frustration, the helplessness They all pulsed through me with every beat of my heart

"I went after Grimes, of course, but I couldn’t find et past all the booby traps that he had strung through the woods Besides,But I’d heard stories about soht price"

"The Tin Man," I whispered Fletcher’s assassin nah the appropriate channels, and I ht Sophia back I would be his friend for life-that anything I had would be his, including reed to my deal and took off after Sophia"

I could al before , and in his prime as an assassin Jo-Jo, desperate for her sister’s safe return And Sophia-no, I couldn’t picture Sophia Not as she ht have been back then Before-before her innocence was taken away from her

"What-what did Grimes do to Sophia?" I asked

Tears welled up in Jo-Jo’s eyes and trickled down her face "Just about every awful thing that you can is He made her into a slave, made her work froht Griic in the her with it-burning her, blistering her skin, even ht crossed my mind "Is that-is that why Sophia’s voice is the way it is? So raspy and broken? Because Grimes ed her vocal cords soic, but she wouldn’t let rabbed Jo-Jo’s hand, trying to offer her what coh I hadn’t even been born when all of this had happened But so much made sense to me now Why Fletcher had such a close relationship with the Deveraux sisters, why they’d helped him so much all these years, even why Sophia was the way that she was-moody, withdrawn, broken My heart ached for the Goth dwarf My tor compared to what she’d endured

Jo-Jo swiped away her tears and continued with her story "Fletcher kept his word He went up that mountain, and he did what I asked him to do, what he’d trained hiuerrilla warfare tactics, but he killed a whole passel of Grimes’s men and hurt Grimes himself real bad Fletcher would have killed the bastard, if one of Griutshot Fletcher He was almost dead when he showed up on ht her back hoain Every ti around, Fletcher let him know exactly ould happen-that Fletcher would finish the job he started and kill Grimes if he didn’t stay up there on his damn mountain and leave us alone"

Jo-Jo fell silent, lost in her thoughts oncein her pale eyes<ins class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true"></ins>