portal spit them out in front of Aidan’s mountain estate. Home, home, Rowan’s heart chanted, but the rest of her was too busy reeling from vertigo to pay much mind. She lay on the ground for what felt like hours, but was probably only a few minutes, before she felt a hand on her shoulder and heard someone calling her name.
When she opened her eyes to find Fenella’s face swimming in front of her, she supressed the urge to vomit, and thankfully, it passed after a second or two. She sat up.
“Lady Rowan? Is that you?” said a new voice which she recognized as Teague’s. She turned in his direction, giving him the bravest smile she could manage. “I never thought I’d see you again,” the bard said, kneeling down by her side.” But I’m glad you’ve returned. The Prince hasn’t been right since you left.”
“I know. I’ve come to set things in order. Where is Aidan?” The vulpine man winced, shaking his head.
“He’s already gone to the duel in that awful arena that his brother runs.” Rowan remembered it from what may as well have been another life. Niall had said she wouldn’t be interested, but she knew the truth was that she would probably be horrified by anything he might have considered a sport.
“You can take me there, can’t you?” she questioned, pushing herself to her feet. Teague searched her face and was apparently satisfied by what he found.
“I will. I hope you can help him, my Lady. Prince Aidan deserves better than this, and so does the Court.” Rowan turned to Fenella.
“I’d like you to stay here. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I’d like to have someone I know I can trust waiting for me.” Perhaps for the first time in months, Fenella bowed deeply, and Rowan knew it was not mockery, but a true indicator of respect.
“As you wish, my Lady. Good luck.”
*****************
Rowan had been prepared to be upset by what she found when she arrived at the arena. But when she looked down into the hollow beneath the stands and saw Aidan there in dragon form, bleeding from more wounds than she could count, she felt such fury rise up within her that she gained a new understanding of what he had felt the day they had been attacked.
And Lord Kennet was just sitting in a throne at the top of the stands, watching. The arena was scarred by recent magic, flames and ice and who knew what else, but the Lord of the Heavens watched with a face that was as bored and impassive as if he’d been watching paint dry. She sent Teague back to the estate. Better for him not to be involved.
She felt no fear as she stormed up to the Lord, though it was interesting that he appeared unsurprised to see her. Either that or he was even better at concealing his emotions than she thought. “Are you just going to sit there and do nothing?!”
He raised an eyebrow. “This was agreed to by both parties. I am forbidden to interfere.”
“By whom? Aren’t you supposed to be in charge of this nonsense? Aidan has been poisoned, for goodness sake!” She resisted the impulse to stamp her foot like a frustrated child.
Lord Kennet frowned slightly. Perhaps he hadn’t known. “He could have called for an inquiry. The duel has begun. There’s nothing to be done.” Below, Aidan roared with pain as the pale blue dragon that was Niall bit down on his foreleg.
It was too much for Rowan to bear. “This is ridiculous. I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit here and watch him die.” It was the first time in her life she’d ever cursed out loud, but she was past caring.
She recited the incantation that she had worked on for weeks, tracing the sigil in the air. She’d never drawn so much magic power intentionally, and it scorched her blood as it flooded through her, like drinking tea before it cooled. But the power was also intoxicating; it filled her and filled her until she felt she might burst, and she could feel herself changing, growing.
Wings burst from her back, and scales armored her skin; she was powerful and magnificent, and she roared loud enough to shake the foundations of the universe. Both of the males below looked up at her, stunned and awed. She glared down, feeling hatred burn in her heart as she looked upon the one with the white and cerulean scales.
How dare he think he could have her, a coward who couldn’t win except by cheating. She would show him what she thought of him. She would protect what she loved. With another roar, she dove down into the arena, slamming into the ground between the two males and showing her teeth to the pale dragon, the one she hated. Her fury was such that she could hardly remember his name.
He roared at her, raising his wings to intimidate, but she was not cowed. She slashed at him with her claws, which he clearly had not expected, since he didn’t even attempt to dodge. He screamed with pain and anger at the resulting wounds to his face and charged forward, snapping at her neck. They rolled together in the dirt, biting and clawing to little effect until she managed to get her hind claws tucked into his stomach, and she raked at him like an angry cat.
The male dragon leaped away before she could do him any true damage, but she could see that he was flagging. He had been fighting his brother for hours and was not only exhausted but completely out of magic. She was fresh and angry, and she shrieked a defiant challenge.
Behind her, the other dragon got to his feet, still darkly beautiful despite his wounds. He was the fire in her blood, the beat of her heart, and now they were together. His scent told her that he was weak, but that his injuries, though painful, were not life-threatening. They touched noses briefly in affection and affirmation, and then, as one, they turned to face their foe, wings mantling.
He knew the tide had turned against him, and with an angry roar, he shot into the sky. They watched him fly away for several minutes, until he was no longer visible even to their keen dragon sight. Then, she felt the unraveling of a great magic beside her, and from a cyclone of feathers emerged a man, small and fragile in her eyes.
“Rowan,” he said in a wavering voice, and she remembered that Rowan was her name. It anchored her back to who she was. Aidan was the man she loved, and now he needed her to come back to herself. It was like being folded up, like the paper crane her father had once brought back from the Orient. Wings and scales disappeared, and she was once again a human woman. She darted forward just in time to catch Aidan as he started to falter.
“I’m here,” she said, wrapping her arms around his back.
“You shouldn’t have come,” he murmured, “but I’m glad that you did. You were magnificent.”
“No amount of compliments is going to save you from me, sir,” she said, scowling at him. “How could you send me back home with no explanation?! I love you, Aidan, but I am not a parcel to be placed out of the way whenever it is convenient!”
His eyes widened; he looked like he was unsure whether to laugh or cry, but then he embraced her tightly and kissed her cheek. “I’m sorry, Rowan. I’ve been an idiot. I love you, so very much,” he said, his voice breaking. “Please forgive me.”
“I have some questions for you, and then we shall see what happens,” she said archly, but she held him close, returning his relieved kiss with one of her own, full of promises for later.
“This is all quite touching, I’m sure, but shouldn’t you two be going before Niall comes back with his own reinforcements?” Lord Kennet approached them with a smile on his face, but Rowan glared. Whatever his intentions might be, she wasn’t ready to forgive his inaction.
Aidan gave her a wan smile. “He is right. It would be foolish to stay here any longer.” He drew himself up, perhaps intending to build a portal himself, but Lord Kennet put a hand on his shoulder.
“I will cast the gate. It is the least I can do.” It didn’t seem like such a concession, Rowan reflected, when one could make such a complex spell with a snap of the fingers. But there it was, a glowing portal in the middle of the arena. “You’ll have a few days before the hounds start calling for blood. That’s all I can promise.”
“I understand,” Aidan said, and he put his arm around Rowan’s waist. “Let’s go home.”
*************
Fenella and Teague were waiting when they arrived in the main courtyard. They both tried not to be shocked by Aidan’s visible injuries. “Shall I send for a healer?” Teague asked, eyes wide.
“No. I’ll tend to him myself,” Rowan said firmly. Though some of the wounds were ugly, there was nothing she couldn’t heal, especially considering the magic available here. Teague looked a bit sceptical, but Aidan waved him away.
“It’s fine. I would rather have Rowan do it, and it looks much worse than it actually is,” he said. But she could tell he was exhausted. He leaned into her shoulder as they walked back to their room, and just the thought of their room made her heart feel full.
Fenella followed behind them, bringing clean towels and bandages, and then she left them alone. Rowan led Aidan to the bathroom. “Do you need help undressing?” she asked, her cheeks flushed despite the fact that she had nothing untoward in mind. At present.
“Please,” he said wearily. “You don’t know how disappointed I am that the first time you undress me, I won’t be in any shape to take advantage of it.”
Her face grew hotter, but she couldn’t help smiling. “Something to keep in mind for later,” she said playfully, wanting to keep him distracted. The fabric was stuck to his wounds, so removing it would probably hurt. Unfortunately, she did not know the spell that would magic his clothes away, and he obviously did not have it in him to cast. She started unbuttoning his shirt, trying to keep her mind firmly anchored on the fact that he was injured and needed her help rather than the smooth expanse of his bared skin.
She looked up at him as she finished with the buttons and started to peel the shirt away. “Fenella told me she’s been working for you the whole time.” He drew in a sharp breath, and she wasn’t sure if that was due to his wounds or what she had just said. “I think you ought to tell me why you’ve been watching me most of my life.”
“I should have told you long ago,” he said hoarsely. “I wanted to believe that it didn’t matter anymore, but I owe you an explanation.” Rowan nodded, and his shirt fell to the floor. The number of wounds clotted with dried blood made her want to cry, but she took a deep breath and dipped a clean cloth into the warm water that filled the tub.
“I’m not angry, but I do want to know the truth. Sit down here. I’ll try to be as gentle as I can, cleaning your wounds, and you keep talking.”
He nodded, swallowing thickly. She picked up the dark mass of his hair and tied it at the top of his head, and then started washing the dirt and blood away from his back.
“I was there when your father brought you to Lord Kennet, barely clinging to life. It was a good opportunity for him, buying the allegiance of a powerful mortal wizard, but he was hesitant. My father is not a healer, and to bring someone back who was already on the brink of the afterlife would be a significant use of power.
He was reluctant to weaken himself that way. I was young, not as young as you obviously,” he added with a small smile, “But I had only recently returned to my father’s side, and I was eager to be useful to him. Besides, I suppose I was moved by such a showing of parental love. Certainly, my father would never have sacrificed so much for me.”
“So you’re the one who brought me back,” she said, drawing a surprised breath. “I heard that my father went seeking the most powerful healer in the Otherworld, but I didn’t imagine it was you.”
“Healing is not my specialty, but I am one of the strongest magic users currently living,” he said, not as a boast but as a fact. She didn’t doubt him. “Still, you were so close to death that it took nearly all of my strength to call you back. And when you opened your eyes, you smiled at me and patted my cheek. You weren’t afraid.
I suppose I was moved, but probably nothing would have come of it, had my father not insisted that I continue to keep an eye on you. He wanted to ‘protect his investment.’ After all, if you died before your twenty-first birthday, the contract would be void.”
He winced as the cloth passed over a particularly ugly wound. She carefully wiped the clotted blood away and held her hand over the injury. In a moment, green light flowed from her palm and the wound closed. Aidan sighed with relief.
“Go on,” she prodded.
“I sent Fenella and others like her to be my eyes and ears. They gave me regular reports, but I didn’t give them much more than cursory interest until you started learning magic in earnest.”
“I was sixteen,” Rowan said thoughtfully. “My father finally consented and let me call my own familiar.” She moved to tend the wounds on Aidan’s chest, and he leaned back, his eyes closed.
“I’d never watched a mortal call a familiar before, so I decided to observe. But your father had intended to deceive you. He didn’t want you to learn magic, so he set magic dampening wards all around the house so that you would fail.” Rowan paused at this revelation. She didn’t want to think that her father was dishonest, but it sounded exactly like something he would do.
“I understood his motivation,” Aidan continued, “but I still thought it was cruel. Had I had time to prepare, I might have made you a little animal myself, but being pressed for time, I asked Fenella to take the place of your familiar.
She was a bit reluctant at first, but I think she actually came to enjoy those years,” he said with a smile. “Although I know she often wished she might speak to you as an actual friend and not a cat.”
Most of the wounds on his torso were gone, except for a few that seemed superficial enough to heal on their own. “Is there anything I need to see to on your legs?” she asked, carefully wiping a cut on his forehead.
“Nothing that needs healing,” he said, a little roughly. He wrapped his arms around her, pressing her against his chest, and she allowed him to kiss her once before she pulled away.
“You’re not done with your story,” she said sternly. “Into the tub with you. I’ll wash your hair.” He pouted a little, but did as she asked. She tried not to stare as he bared the rest of his body and climbed into the tub, but he was even more beautiful than she remembered. He wet his hair and sighed as she started to run her fingers through his hair.
“There isn’t much else to tell. Once Fenella became your familiar, I took more of an interest in your doings. It was curiosity at first; I knew very little about mortals, and I was interested to see how they managed with so little magic at their disposal, but I gradually came to admire your tenacity and intelligence.
I suppose I became…infatuated with you,” he admitted somewhat bashfully. “But I didn’t expect anything to come of it until you decided to bargain with my father.”
“But you treated me so coldly at first. I was sure you hated me, and I couldn’t understand why.”
Aidan chuckled softly. “Well, I was embarrassed, in part. I realized my father knew I’d been watching you with far more interest than was necessary. And I was angry at him for dragging you into Court politics.”
He reached his hands up to cup her face. “Also, I felt like it would only be honorable to give my brother a chance to get to know you first. After all, I knew nearly everything about you. I felt like I had cheated without knowing it.”
She leaned down and pressed her lips to his. “It wasn’t really a fair contest,” she agreed. “I suppose I ought to scold you; you’re quite the scoundrel, spying on a lady for years. But I love you, and I’m glad you found me, so I suppose I’ll forgive you.”
“I love you, Rowan. I apologize for not having been honest with you sooner. And even more so for sending you home. I was afraid for you, and I overreacted. I want to be with you. Not just for a year or two. Forever. As long as you’ll have me.”
“That’s all that I want, Aidan,” she said, sniffing back a surge of emotion. “But I feel cruel to ask it of you. You will live so much longer than me, and I…”
He kissed her fears away, pulling her halfway into the tub so that she was soaking wet, but she hardly cared. “Nothing is certain. I could be killed tomorrow, almost as easily as you. But I want to spend every moment that I can by your side. Right now, I think we should go to bed.”
“To sleep,” she said, holding up a finger in censure. “You need to rest.”
“You are a cruel mistress,” he said, but he was smiling. “As long as I can sleep next to you, it won’t feel like a punishment.”