Queen of Shadows

Aelin brushed her thumb against the back of his hand, and then pivoted toward Rowan. “What does this mean where Maeve is concerned? Gavriel is bound through the blood oath, so would she have a claim on his offspring?”

“Like hell she does,” Aedion said. If Maeve tried to claim him, he’d rip out her throat. His mother had died for fear of the Fae Queen. He knew it in his bones.

Rowan said, “I don’t know. Even if she thought so, it would be an act of war to steal Aedion from you.”

“This information doesn’t leave this room,” Aelin said. Calm. Calculating—already sorting through every plan. The other side of their fair coin. “It’s ultimately your choice, Aedion, whether to approach Gavriel. But we have enough enemies gathering around us as it is. I don’t need to start a war with Maeve.”

But she would. She would go to war for him. He saw it in her eyes.

It nearly knocked the breath from him. Along with the thought of what the carnage would be like on both sides, if the Dark Queen and the heir of Mala Fire-Bringer collided.

“It stays with us,” Aedion managed to say. He could feel Rowan assessing and weighing him and bit back a snarl. Slowly, Aedion lifted his gaze to meet the prince’s.

The sheer dominance in that stare was like being hit in the face with a stone.

Aedion held it. Like hell he’d back down; like hell he’d yield. And there would be a yielding—somewhere, at some point. Probably when Aedion took that blood oath.

Aelin clicked her tongue at Rowan. “Stop doing that alpha-male nonsense. Once was enough.”

Rowan didn’t so much as blink. “I’m not doing anything.” But the prince’s mouth quirked into a smile, as if saying to Aedion, You think you can take me, cub?

Aedion grinned. Any place, any time, Prince.

Aelin muttered, “Insufferable,” and gave Rowan a playful shove in the arm. He didn’t move an inch. “Are you actually going to get into a pissing contest with every person we meet? Because if that’s the case, then it’ll take us an hour just to make it down one block of this city, and I doubt the residents will be particularly happy.”

Aedion fought the urge to take a deep breath as Rowan broke his stare to give their queen an incredulous look.

She crossed her arms, waiting.

“It’ll take time to adjust to a new dynamic,” Rowan admitted. Not an apology, but from what Aelin had told him, Rowan didn’t often bother with such things. She looked downright shocked by the small concession, actually.

Aedion tried to lounge in his chair, but his muscles were taut, his blood thrumming in his veins. He found himself saying to the prince, “Aelin never said anything about sending for you.”

“Does she answer to you, General?” A dangerous, quiet question. Aedion knew that when males like Rowan spoke softly, it usually meant violence and death were on their way.

Aelin rolled her eyes. “You know he didn’t mean it that way, so don’t pick a fight, you prick.”

Aedion stiffened. He could fight his own battles. If Aelin thought he needed protecting, if she thought Rowan was the superior warrior—

Rowan said, “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.”

The words echoed in his head, his heart.

Blood-sworn.

Aelin went pale.

Aedion asked, “What did he just say?”

Rowan had taken the blood oath to Aelin. His blood oath.

Aelin squared her shoulders, and said clearly, steadily, “Rowan took the blood oath to me before I left Wendlyn.”

A roaring sound went through him. “You let him do what?”

Aelin exposed her scarred palms. “As far as I knew, Aedion, you were loyally serving the king. As far as I knew, I was never going to see you again.”

“You let him take the blood oath to you?” Aedion bellowed.

She had lied to his face that day on the roof.

He had to get out, out of his skin, out of this apartment, out of this gods-damned city. Aedion lunged for one of the porcelain figurines atop the hearth mantel, needing to shatter something to just get that roaring out of his system.

She flung out a vicious finger, advancing on him. “You break one thing, you shatter just one of my possessions, and I will shove the shards down your rutting throat.”

A command—from a queen to her general.

Aedion spat on the floor, but obeyed. If only because ignoring that command might very well shatter something far more precious.

He instead said, “How dare you? How dare you let him take it?”

“I dare because it is my blood to give away; I dare because you did not exist for me then. Even if neither of you had taken it yet, I would still give it to him because he is my carranam, and he has earned my unquestioning loyalty!”

Aedion went rigid. “And what about our unquestioning loyalty? What have you done to earn that? What have you done to save our people since you’ve returned? Were you ever going to tell me about the blood oath, or was that just another of your many lies?”

Aelin snarled with an animalistic intensity that reminded him she, too, had Fae blood in her veins. “Go have your temper tantrum somewhere else. Don’t come back until you can act like a human being. Or half of one, at least.”

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.

Aedion laughed, the sound brittle and cold, and smiled at Rowan in a way that usually made men throw the first punch.

But Rowan just set his chair upright, sat down, and leaned back, as if he already knew where he’d strike Aedion’s death blow.

Aelin pointed at the door. “Get the hell out. I don’t want to see you again for a good while.”

The feeling was mutual.

All his plans, everything he’d worked for … Without the blood oath he was just a general; just a landless prince of the Ashryver line.

Aedion stalked to the front door and flung it open so hard he almost ripped it off its hinges.

Aelin didn’t call after him.

29

Rowan Whitethorn debated for a good minute if it was worthwhile to hunt down the demi-Fae prince and tear him into bloody ribbons for what he’d called Aelin, or if he was better off here, with his queen, while she paced in front of her bedroom fireplace. He understood—he really did—why the general was enraged. He’d have felt the same. But it wasn’t a good-enough excuse. Not even close.

Perched on the edge of the plush mattress, he watched her move.

Even without her magic, Aelin was a living wildfire, more so now with the red hair—a creature of such roaring emotions that he could sometimes only watch her and marvel.

And her face.

That gods-damned face.

While they’d been in Wendlyn, it had taken him a while to realize she was beautiful. Months, actually, to really notice it. And for these past few weeks, against his better judgment, he’d thought often about that face—especially that smart-ass mouth.

But he hadn’t remembered just how stunning she was until she’d taken off her hood earlier, and it had struck him stupid.

These weeks apart had been a brutal reminder of what life had been like until he had found her drunk and broken on that rooftop in Varese. The nightmares had started the very night she’d left—such relentless dreams that he’d nearly vomited when he flung himself out of them, Lyria’s screaming ringing in his ears. The memory of it sent cold licking down his spine. But even that was burned away by the queen before him.

Aelin was well on her way to wearing a track in the rug before the fireplace.

“If that’s any indication of what to expect from our court,” Rowan said at last, flexing his fingers in an attempt to dislodge the hollow shakiness he hadn’t been able to master since his magic had been smothered, “then we’ll never have a dull moment.”

She flung out a hand in a dismissive wave of irritation. “Don’t tease me right now.” She scrubbed at her face and huffed a breath.