Queen of Shadows

“I would have pegged you for a proud member of the anti-finery crowd.”

“Clothes are weapons, too,” he said, pausing on a black velvet gown. Its tight sleeves and front were unadorned, the neckline skimming just beneath the collarbones, unremarkable save for the tendrils of embroidered, shimmering gold creeping over the shoulders. Rowan angled the dress to look at the back—the true masterpiece. The gold embroidery continued from the shoulders, sweeping to form a serpentine dragon, its maw roaring toward the neck, the body curving down until the narrow tail formed the border of the lengthened train. Rowan loosed a breath. “I like this one best.”

She fingered the solid black velvet sleeve. “I saw it in a shop when I was sixteen and bought it immediately. But when the dress was delivered a few weeks later, it seemed too … old. It overpowered the girl I was. So I never wore it, and it’s hung here for three years.”

He ran a scarred finger down the golden spine of the dragon. “You’re not that girl anymore,” he said softly. “Someday, I want to see you wear this.”

She dared to look up at him, her elbow brushing his forearm. “I missed you.”

His mouth tightened. “We weren’t apart that long.”

Right. To an immortal, several weeks were nothing. “So? Am I not allowed to miss you?”

“I once told you that the people you care about are weapons to be used against you. Missing me was a foolish distraction.”

“You’re a real charmer, you know that?” She hadn’t expected tears or emotion, but it would have been nice to know he’d missed her at least a fraction as badly as she had. She swallowed, her spine locking, and pushed Sam’s clothes into his arms. “You can get dressed in here.”

She left him in the closet, and went right to the bathroom, where she splashed cold water on her face and neck.

She returned to her bedroom to find him frowning.

Well, the pants fit—barely. They were too short, and did wonders for showing off his backside, but— “The shirt is too small,” he said. “I didn’t want to rip it.”

He handed it to her, and she looked a bit helplessly at the shirt, then at his bare torso. “I’ll go out first thing.” She sighed sharply through her nose. “Well, if you don’t mind meeting Aedion shirtless, I suppose we should go say hello.”

“We need to talk.”

“Good talk or bad talk?”

“The kind that will make me glad you don’t have access to your power so you don’t spew flames everywhere.”

Her stomach tightened, but she said, “That was one incident, and if you ask me, your absolutely wonderful former lover deserved it.”

More than deserved it. The encounter with the visiting group of highborn Fae at Mistward had been miserable, to say the least. And when Rowan’s former lover had refused to stop touching him, despite his request to do so, when she’d threatened to have Aelin whipped for stepping in … Well, Aelin’s new favorite nickname—fire-breathing bitch-queen—had been fairly accurate during that dinner.

A twitch of his lips, but shadows flickered in Rowan’s eyes.

Aelin sighed again and looked at the ceiling. “Now or later?”

“Later. It can wait a bit.”

She was half tempted to demand he tell her whatever it was, but she turned toward the door.

Aedion rose from his seat at the kitchen table as Aelin and Rowan entered. Her cousin looked Rowan over with an appreciative eye and said, “You never bothered to tell me how handsome your faerie prince is, Aelin.” Aelin scowled. Aedion just jerked his chin at Rowan. “Tomorrow morning, you and I are going to train on the roof. I want to know everything you know.”

Aelin clicked her tongue. “All I’ve heard from your mouth these past few days is Prince Rowan this and Prince Rowan that, and yet this is what you decide to say to him? No bowing and scraping?”

Aedion slid back into his chair. “If Prince Rowan wants formalities, I can grovel, but he doesn’t look like someone who particularly cares.”

With a flicker of amusement in his green eyes, the Fae Prince said, “Whatever my queen wants.”

Oh, please.

Aedion caught the words, too. My queen.

The two princes stared at each other, one gold and one silver, one her twin and one her soul-bonded. There was nothing friendly in the stares, nothing human—two Fae males locked in some unspoken dominance battle.

She leaned against the sink. “If you’re going to have a pissing contest, can you at least do it on the roof?”

Rowan looked at her, brows high. But it was Aedion who said, “She says we’re no better than dogs, so I wouldn’t be surprised if she actually believes we’d piss on her furniture.”

Rowan didn’t smile, though, as he tilted his head to the side and sniffed.

“Aedion needs a bath, too, I know,” she said. “He insisted on smoking a pipe at the taproom. He said it gave him an air of dignity.”

Rowan’s head was still angled as he asked, “Your mothers were cousins, Prince, but who sired you?”

Aedion lounged in his chair. “Does it matter?”

“Do you know?” Rowan pressed.

Aedion shrugged. “She never told me—or anyone.”

“I’m guessing you have some idea?” Aelin asked.

Rowan said, “He doesn’t look familiar to you?”

“He looks like me.”

“Yes, but—” He sighed. “You met his father. A few weeks ago. Gavriel.”

Aedion stared at the shirtless warrior, wondering if he’d strained his injuries too much tonight and was now hallucinating.

The prince’s words sank in. Aedion just kept staring. A wicked tattoo in the Old Language stretched down the side of Rowan’s face and along his neck, shoulder, and muscled arm. Most people would take one look at that tattoo and run in the other direction.

Aedion had seen plenty of warriors in his day, but this male was a Warrior—law unto himself.

Just like Gavriel. Or so the legends claimed.

Gavriel, Rowan’s friend, one of his cadre, whose other form was a mountain lion.

“He asked me,” Aelin murmured. “He asked me how old I was, and seemed relieved when I said nineteen.”

Nineteen was too young, apparently, to be Gavriel’s daughter, though she looked so similar to the woman he’d once bedded. Aedion didn’t remember his mother well; his last memories were of a gaunt, gray face as she sighed her final breath. As she refused the Fae healers who could have cured the wasting sickness in her. But he had heard she’d once looked almost identical to Aelin and her mother, Evalin.

Aedion’s voice was hoarse as he asked, “The Lion is my father?”

A nod from Rowan.

“Does he know?”

“I bet seeing Aelin was the first time he wondered if he’d sired a child with your mother. He probably still doesn’t have any idea, unless that prompted him to start looking.”

His mother had never told anyone—anyone but Evalin—who his father was. Even when she was dying, she’d kept it to herself. She’d refused those Fae healers because of it.

Because they might identify him—and if Gavriel knew he had a son … If Maeve knew …

An old ache ripped through him. She’d kept him safe—had died to keep him out of Maeve’s hands.

Warm fingers slid around his hand and squeezed. He hadn’t realized how cold he was.

Aelin’s eyes—their eyes, the eyes of their mothers—were soft. Open. “This changes nothing,” she said. “About who you are, what you mean to me. Nothing.”

But it did. It changed everything. Explained everything: the strength, the speed, the senses; the lethal, predatory instincts he’d always struggled to keep in check. Why Rhoe had been so hard on him during his training.

Because if Evalin knew who his father was, then Rhoe certainly did, too. And Fae males, even half-Fae males, were deadly. Without the control Rhoe and his lords had drilled into him from an early age, without the focus … They’d known. And kept it from him.

Along with the fact that after he swore the blood oath to Aelin one day … he might very well remain young while she grew old and died.