Rowaelin One Shot:

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Aelin looked at Rowan from where he sat at his desk, in their shared room. It had been a while since they had last spoken, something strange roiling between them. She had just stepped into the room after a long day at court, but she had not failed to notice how Rowan had left midday, a strange expression on his face while he headed to their room. As she looked at him, she could tell that he was trying to ignore her. But she knew he wasn't doing any real work, just looking at papers scattered across his desk, the façade of working hard on something.

She stepped closer to him, arms crossing her chest and an eyebrow rising while she leaned against the wall by his desk. He failed to look up at her after a minute of her standing there, so she leaned forward, hands extending to rest on the oak desk.

"What's going on?" she asked, her voice rough when she said it. She tried to get him to look at her, to say something, but he looked away, looking at a paper at the opposite side of the desk. She let a growl echo through the room before she jumped forward and snatched the paper from his hand, jumping back a few feet, taunting him. She wasn't surprised when a growl escaped his lips, too, fangs extended toward her.

"Aelin..." he started, in warning. But she wasn't about to give up this easily. She walked farther away, toward their shared bed, and started reading through the letter. It was from Gavriel, asking how she was, surprisingly enough. She paused at something she read, stopping where she was. Her heart beat unsteadily at the words she read.

"What is this?" she asked in a whisper, turning on her heel to stare back at Rowan, who had not moved from where he sat at his desk. She could tell just from looking into his evergreen eyes that he knew what had made her pause. What Gavriel had asked him...

"You shouldn't have read that." Was all he offered her. She wanted to shout at him. No shit! Her mind yelled, but all she could do was clutch the paper in her hands and try not to look at those words, to think of actually...She shook those thoughts from her mind. No, Rowan didn't want to do anything like that with her. Even if they were carranam, it didn't mean anything. He already had a mate, even if she was dead now. Aelin knew he still felt something for that dead Fae. What Gavriel spoke of...it was impossible for them.

She didn't see it when he stood from his place at his desk and made his way over to her, gently taking the letter from between her hands, discarding it and letting it fall softly onto the emerald carpet that matched his eyes. She looked away from him when one of his hands reached toward her cheek, a soft growl echoing in the space between them. She didn't have it in her to change forms and expose her fangs, but she still felt the natural instinct leading her there, wanting him to let go of her so that she could defend herself. And yet, another part of her didn't want him to let go, didn't want him to ever let go.

Rowan got the hint and let his hands fall from her face, falling to his sides and staying there. He took a step away from her, taking up the letter and going to put it back on his desk. That was when she found the words.

"What did Gavriel mean? Why would he ask that?" her voice was quiet, but firm as she spoke the words. She couldn't find it in herself to look up, to look at Rowan, but she could still smell his pine and snow scent, burning its way through her nose. She cursed him in her mind, cursed the way her body reacted to him. He didn't just smell like home, he was home.

There was a stretch of silence in their room, neither of them speaking for several minutes before Rowan finally spoke, his voice as firm as hers had been.

"He knows that we're carranam and he believes that means that we would..." Rowan couldn't finish his sentence, a hiss rolling off his tongue at the thought. No, he certainly did not want to do whatever it was that Gavriel had suggested. She could tell that he didn't want to, by the way he stood – rigid and as if he was on the defensive – and by the words that had just escaped him. Her heart sank, but she wasn't exactly sure why. Did she want to...? Her fists clenched at her sides, No. Stop thinking that. It's not going to happen.

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