Queen of Shadows
He watched her throat bob as she swallowed. “It’s your call then, Rowan. Do as you see fit.”
He wished she’d told him one way or another, but giving him the choice, respecting their history enough to allow him to make that decision … “Thank you.”
She rested her head against his chest, the tips of the bat-wing combs digging into him enough that he eased them one at a time from her hair. The gold was slick and cold in his hands, and as he admired the craftsmanship, she murmured, “I want you to sell those. And burn this dress.”
“As you wish,” he said, pocketing the combs. “Such a pity, though. Your enemies would have fallen to their knees if they ever saw you in it.”
He’d almost fallen to his knees when he’d first seen her earlier tonight.
She huffed a laugh that might have been a sob and wrapped her arms around his waist as if trying to steal his warmth. Her sodden hair tumbled down, the scent of her—jasmine and lemon verbena and crackling embers—rising above the smell of almonds to caress his nose, his senses.
Rowan stood with his queen in the rain, breathing in her scent, and let her steal his warmth for as long as she needed.
The rain lightened to a soft sprinkle, and Aelin stirred from where Rowan held her. From where she’d been standing, soaking up his strength, thinking.
She twisted slightly to take in the strong lines of his face, his cheekbones gilded with the rain and the light from the street. Across the city, in a room she knew too well, Arobynn was hopefully bleeding out. Hopefully dead.
A hollow thought—but also the clicking of a lock finally opened.
Rowan turned his head to look at her, rain dripping off his silver hair. His features softened a bit, the harsh lines becoming more inviting—vulnerable, even. “Tell me what you’re thinking,” he murmured.
“I’m thinking that the next time I want to unsettle you, all I need to do is tell you how rarely I wear undergarments.”
His pupils flared. “Is there a reason you do that, Princess?”
“Is there any reason not to?”
He flattened his hand against her waist, his fingers contracting once as if debating letting her go. “I pity the foreign ambassadors who will have to deal with you.”
She grinned, breathless and more than a little reckless. Seeing that dungeon room tonight, she’d realized she was tired. Tired of death, and of waiting, and of saying good-bye.
She lifted a hand to cup Rowan’s face.
So smooth, his skin, the bones beneath strong and elegant.
She waited for him to pull back, but he just stared at her—stared into her in that way he always did. Friends, but more. So much more, and she’d known it longer than she wanted to admit. Carefully, she stroked her thumb across his cheekbone, his face slick with the rain.
It hit her like a stone—the wanting. She was a fool to have dodged it, denied it, even when a part of her had screamed it every morning that she’d blindly reached for the empty half of the bed.
She lifted her other hand to his face and his eyes locked onto hers, his breathing ragged as she traced the lines of the tattoo along his temple.
His hands tightened slightly on her waist, his thumbs grazing the bottom of her ribcage. It was an effort not to arch into his touch.
“Rowan,” she breathed, his name a plea and a prayer. She slid her fingers down the side of his tattooed cheek, and—
Faster than she could see, he grabbed one wrist and then the other, yanking them away from his face and snarling softly. The world yawned open around her, cold and still.
He dropped her hands as if they were on fire, stepping away, those green eyes flat and dull in a way she hadn’t seen for some time now. Her throat closed up even before he said, “Don’t do that. Don’t—touch me like that.”
There was a roaring in her ears, a burning in her face, and she swallowed hard. “I’m sorry.”
Oh, gods.
He was over three hundred years old. Immortal. And she—she …
“I didn’t mean—” She backed away a step, toward the door on the other side of the roof. “I’m sorry,” she repeated. “It was nothing.”
“Good,” he said, going for the roof door himself. “Fine.”
Rowan didn’t say anything else as he stalked downstairs. Alone, she scrubbed at her wet face, at the oily smear of cosmetics.
Don’t touch me like that.
A clear line in the sand. A line—because he was three hundred years old, and immortal, and had lost his flawless mate, and she was … She was young and inexperienced and his carranam and queen, and he wanted nothing more than that. If she hadn’t been so foolish, so stupidly unaware, maybe she would have realized that, understood that though she’d seen his eyes shine with hunger—hunger for her—it didn’t mean he wanted to act on it. Didn’t mean he might not hate himself for it.
Oh, gods.
What had she done?
The rain sliding down the windows cast slithering shadows on the wooden floor, on the painted walls of Arobynn’s bedroom.
Lysandra had been watching it for some time now, listening to the steady rhythm of the storm and to the breathing of the man sleeping beside her. Utterly unconscious.
If she were to do it, it would have to be now—when his sleep was deepest, when the rain covered up most sounds. A blessing from Temis, Goddess of Wild Things, who had once watched over her as a shape-shifter and who never forgot the caged beasts of the world.
Three words—that was all that had been written on the note Aelin slipped her earlier that night; a note still tucked into the hidden pocket of her discarded underwear.
He’s all yours.
A gift, she knew—a gift from the queen who had nothing else to give a no-name whore with a sad story.
Lysandra turned onto her side, staring now at the naked man sleeping inches away, at the red silk of his hair spilled across his face.
He’d never once suspected who had fed Aelin the details about Cormac. But that had always been her ruse with Arobynn—the skin she’d worn since childhood. He had never thought otherwise of her vapid and vain behavior, never bothered to. If he had, he wouldn’t keep a knife under his pillow and let her sleep in this bed with him.
He hadn’t been gentle tonight, and she knew she would have a bruise on her forearm from where he’d gripped her too tightly. Victorious, smug, a king certain of his crown, he hadn’t even noticed.
At dinner, she’d seen the expression flash across his face when he caught Aelin and Rowan smiling at each other. All of Arobynn’s jabs and stories had failed to find their mark tonight because Aelin had been too lost in Rowan to hear.
She wondered whether the queen knew. Rowan did. Aedion did. And Arobynn did. He had understood that with Rowan, she was no longer afraid of him; with Rowan, Arobynn was now utterly unnecessary. Irrelevant.
He’s all yours.
After Aelin had left, as soon as he’d stopped strutting about the house, convinced of his absolute mastery over the queen, Arobynn had called in his men.
Lysandra hadn’t heard the plans, but she knew the Fae Prince would be his first target. Rowan would die—Rowan had to die. She’d seen it in Arobynn’s eyes as he watched the queen and her prince holding hands, grinning at each other despite the horrors around them.
Lysandra slid her hand beneath the pillow as she sidled up to Arobynn, nestling against him. He didn’t stir; his breathing remained deep and steady.
He’d never had trouble sleeping. The night he’d killed Wesley he slept like the dead, unaware of the moments when even her iron will couldn’t keep the silent tears from falling.
She would find that love again—one day. And it would be deep and unrelenting and unexpected, the beginning and the end and eternity, the kind that could change history, change the world.
The hilt of the stiletto was cool in her hand, and as Lysandra rolled back over, no more than a restless sleeper, she pulled it with her.
Lightning gleamed on the blade, a flicker of quicksilver.
For Wesley. For Sam. For Aelin.
And for herself. For the child she’d been, for the seventeen-year-old on her Bidding night, for the woman she’d become, her heart in shreds, her invisible wound still bleeding.