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“Does your blood run blue or red? You decide. If it runs blue, it turns out I have jurisdiction over you. Little shits like Vernon can’t do as they will to my kind—not without my permission. If your blood runs red … Well, I don’t particularly care about humans, and seeing what Vernon does with you might be entertaining.”
“Welcome to the Blackbeaks.”
Rowan was the most powerful full-blooded Fae male alive. And his scent was all over her. Yet she had no gods-damned idea.
But Aelin … Aelin had struck that bargain. For him. Again, breathing became hard. How many scars would she add to that lithe, powerful body because of him?
“Need I remind you, Captain, that you went to Endovier and did not blink at the slaves, at the mass graves? Need I remind you that I was starved and chained, and you let Duke Perrington force me to the ground at Dorian’s feet while you did nothing? And now you have the nerve to accuse me of not caring, when many of the people in this city have profited off the blood and misery of the very people you ignored?”
“You want to pick a fight, you come to me, not her.”
“I don’t leave without Dorian.”
“I’m sorry—about Dorian.”
“We’re not enemies. You can trust us—trust Aelin.” “No, I can’t. Not anymore.” “Then it’s your loss,”
“You’re good at this, aren’t you—half truths.”
“Has anyone ever taught you humility?” “You didn’t learn it, so why should I?”
“Rowan.”
He was here, he was here, he was here.
He brushed back a loose strand of her hair, his callused fingers scraping against her cheek in the lightest caress. The gentleness of it made her choke on another sob.
Fae warriors: invaluable in a fight—and raging pains in her ass at all other times.
“From tears to sass in a few minutes. I’m glad the month apart hasn’t dimmed your usual good spirits.”
Washing his hair was intimate—a privilege she doubted he’d ever allowed many people; something she’d never done for anyone else. But lines had always been blurred for them, and neither of them had particularly cared.
“Whatever my queen wants.”
The two princes stared at each other, one gold and one silver, one her twin and one her soul-bonded.
But she would. She would go to war for him. He saw it in her eyes.
“I’m blood-sworn to you—which means several things, one of which being that I don’t particularly care for the questioning of others, even your cousin.”
Rowan had taken the blood oath to Aelin. His blood oath.
Aedion swore at her, a filthy, foul curse that he immediately regretted. Rowan lunged for him, knocking back his chair hard enough to flip it over, but Aelin threw out a hand. The prince stood down. That easily, she leashed the mighty, immortal warrior.
But he hadn’t remembered just how stunning she was until she’d taken off her hood earlier, and it had struck him stupid.
Rowan waited, knowing she was gathering the words, hating the pain and sorrow and guilt on every line of her body. He’d sell his soul to the dark god to never have her look like that again.
“You will make mistakes. You will make decisions, and sometimes you will regret those choices. Sometimes there won’t be a right choice, just the best of several bad options. I don’t need to tell you that you can do this—you know you can. I wouldn’t have sworn the oath to you if I didn’t think you could.”
“It was so much easier being alone.” “I know,”
And of all his cadre, only Gavriel had stopped that night to help Aelin against the Valg.
“If you’re a monster, I’m a monster,”
Fool—he was such a stupid fool when it came to her.
No one else had ever been able to get under his skin so fast, so deep, in the span of a few words.
“Vain until the bitter end.”
That gods-damned nightgown. Shit. He was in such deep, unending shit.
“You’re even more dramatic than I am.”
The demon had taken control of the body completely. He’d let him, after that woman with the familiar eyes had failed to kill him.
“But I will not be led into this with a blindfold over my eyes.”
“if you ever speak to her again the way you did last night, I’ll rip out your tongue and shove it down your throat. Understand?”
A small part of Aedion understood why his cousin had offered the prince the blood oath.
Here—Rowan was here with her, in Rifthold. And there was so much more she wanted him to see, to learn about what her life had been like. She’d never wanted to share any of it before.
“Really—you Fae males and your dramatic speeches.”
“I will never forget, not for one moment, what you did to him that day in Doranelle. Your miserable existence is at the bottom of my priority list, but one day, Lorcan …”
“One day, I’ll come to claim that debt, too. Consider tonight a warning.”
“You never stop surprising me.”
“A world where people like me don’t have to hide.”
“Let’s go hunt ourselves a pretty little demon.”
“Lorcan probably spent the entire fight imagining each of these creatures was you,”
It was so easy to forget how much smaller she was than him. How mortal. And how utterly unaware of the control he had to exercise every day, every hour, to keep her at arm’s length, to keep from touching her.
“There’s a grave I need to visit.”
She had planned to come alone. But this morning she’d awoken and just … needed him with her.
SAM CORTLAND BELOVED Arobynn had left it blank—unmarked. But Wesley had explained in his letter how he’d asked the tombstone carver to come.
