Page 20 of Owen

“My, you’re full of snappy comebacks, aren’t you?” I barely had it in me to continue this repartee, though it kept me alert and aware when I wanted nothing more than to return to sweet, dreamless sleep.

Which worried me more than I could say. It was unusual, to say the least, for me to feel this way. We enjoyed perfect health, all of my kin, health which only failed us while in the presence of iron. We would weaken when bound in iron. The ability to shift was lost to us.

Even then, I’d been inoculated against the metal’s effects. We all had, along with a follow-up shot on arriving at the cave. That antidote was the only reason we’d been able to escape our confines in the research lab.

I should have been impervious to everything, then. Instead, I might as well have been mortal. Weak, tired, even a bit foggy-headed.

I’d spoken of the treasure. Why? I hadn’t dreamed of it…

But I had touched metal in her pack, hadn’t I? Yes!

“There’s something metallic in here, isn’t there?” I reached for the pack.

“Wait!” She reached it first, pulling it beyond my grasp. “No way. You’re not going through my things. I don’t appreciate any of this.”

“I don’t recall asking whether you appreciate a damn thing,” I snarled, swiping an arm in her general direction. I was so tired. “Just let me see it, please. I believe something inside did this to me.”

“You’re deluded,” she snapped, holding the bag close. “And I’m seriously starting to regret spending so much time with you tonight. This is nuts. You’re a total stranger, and you’re acting like a weirdo. There’s nothing in here that could possibly make you do what you did, and I don’t want you pawing through my things. Just… go away now.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Don’t tell me what I mean!”

I lunged forward, half in a crouch, and managed to wrap my hands around the bottom of the backpack.

And just like that, somebody turned out the lights.

No burning this time.

Just darkness.

Again.

8

He dropped like a sack of potatoes at my feet after grabbing for the backpack. Eyes closed, mouth slightly open. Dead to the world.

“No way. No freaking way!” I wanted to shake him. Hard. If I thought I could’ve lifted him far enough off the ground to do it, I would have.

I settled for kneeling next to him and slapping his cheeks a few times. “Owen! What the hell?”

He had seemed okay, hadn’t he? I thought back for any clues that he was about to go out on me again, but I couldn’t think of anything. He had seemed normal.

Yes, he had seemed that way. For the few hours we had spent together at that point. I didn’t actually know him, or how he normally acted. He could’ve been completely different from his usual self, and I would have no idea.

It only felt like I had known him my entire life. The truth was, no matter how comfortable he made me or how important it was that he wake up and be okay, he was a stranger.

A stranger who couldn’t seem to stay conscious. No big deal. I wondered if our fighting had done something, like it had stressed him out so much he’d blacked out again.

No. That was dumb. People didn’t just randomly pass out because they were stressed—maybe in extreme situations, but I would hardly have called our argument extreme.

Now, looking down at him, I couldn’t remember why I was ever so angry. There was something wrong with him. He was sick. I only wanted to take care of him now.

“I wish I knew how to,” I whispered, leaning close. “I wish I knew how to take care of you, but I don’t even know what’s wrong. How can I do anything if I don’t know why this is happening?”

“I’m telling you. I heard him down here somewhere. He must have built that fire, though it’s nearly out.”

I sat up at the sound of another male voice, with another Scottish brogue.

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