Page 24 of Owen

She winced. “I, erm… was inside her head for a short time.”

Her words slammed against my already bruised consciousness. “You what? Do you realize what a violation that is, Hecate?”

“Violation,” Iris snorted. “The girl is descended from witch hunters, and we are supposed to care about whether we violate her. This is rich.”

“Perhaps you had best leave if you can’t detach your personal feelings from the situation at hand,” Hecate murmured. “Molly has done nothing wrong. As far as we know, no one in her family has, for many generations. She believes the diadem to be nothing more than an article from the past. Or, she did before we met. Now she’s a bit more suspicious of it.”

“And of us, I would wager,” I interjected with a sinking heart. She knew now. At least, she knew something was wrong, even if she had no understanding of the full truth.

She must have regretted the moment we’d met and every moment thereafter. If only I could speak to her, tell her something to ease her mind. Anything. She would listen to me.

Wouldn’t she?

“What happened out there?” Dallas sat at the foot of the bed, pointedly ignoring the bickering between the witches.

I ran a hand through my hair while I attempted to make sense of it and brushed up against the bandage Molly had provided. I didn’t need it any longer, not that I ever had. Poor lass. She had done her best for me, and look where I had led her.

“I saw the light from her fire and found her out there. I thought perhaps someone had become stranded due to the storm and was in need of help, and I was right. She spent the entire hurricane where you found me.” I assumed that was where they found me.

“She was out there the entire time?” Even Iris sounded impressed.

“She’s quite the outdoorswoman,” I explained with no small bit of pride. “Though she was frightened, of course. Afraid she would die alone and unnoticed.” My heart ached at the thought. How could anyone who’d ever known her allow her to be forgotten? Unthinkable.

“And you decided to assist her somehow?” Dallas asked.

“I could hardly leave her alone out there. No telling what might happen in the woods at night, with the animals emerging from their dens. I couldn’t pretend I hadn’t found her, and I could hardly lead her back here.”

“You should never have gone out there,” Iris grumbled.

“I don’t recall asking for your opinion,” I retorted. “It’s in our nature to want to help. My dragon would never have allowed me to forget she existed, and had something befallen her I never could have forgiven myself.”

“And it means nothing to you that she carries one of our treasures as if it means nothing. What did she call it? A good luck charm?” She stared at Hecate, who shrugged.

“If she knew not what value it carries for us, she could believe it to be whatever she wished it to be. She knew it must have held value at some time, but if no museums saw its worth, it might as well have been a piece of plastic,” she reasoned. “You forget, Iris, that I was in her head. I examined her feelings—not deeply,” she was quick to add, glancing my way. “I did what I could to be gentle, to stay away from that which did not involve me.”

“You would have done better to avoid entering her head at all,” I snapped. “Where is she? I need to see her, now.”

“That isn’t possible,” Dallas warned.

“I don’t want to hear that, and I refuse to believe it,” I fired back. “If she is somewhere in this cave, I want to see her. There’s no reason why I cannot, aside from your desire to keep me away from her. I cannot imagine why you would keep us apart when you’ve just admitted she carries no ill will toward us.”

“And I cannot imagine why you feel it so important that the two of you are together,” Dallas observed.

I glared at him. If he couldn’t understand, who could? He had already found his mate, and quite recently. He had to know what it meant to experience that immediate connection, so intense and all-consuming.

“I see no harm in it,” Hecate reasoned, her voice soft. “If anything, it would go a long way toward easing her mind. She is so nervous.”

“I can’t imagine why,” I muttered. “She’s had her head examined, and I can imagine you placed her under physical control to bring her here.”

“I did.”

“Can any of you just for one moment put yourselves in her place?” I asked, looking over the three of them.

Hecate sat by my right hand, Dallas remained near my feet. Iris stood by the door, sulking as she tended to do.

I shook my head in disappointment. “She had no understanding of any of this until tonight. She still doesn’t understand. She only knows someone invaded her thoughts, then took control of her body. Imagine what that must mean to her. And now she’s alone, I assume.”

“She is,” Hecate murmured. To her credit, she appeared more than a bit regretful under my scolding. Rather than immediately leap to the defensive, as Iris did, she could look at a situation with a thoughtful eye.

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