My Mate Can't be a Bird! (I swear I'm not into that kind of stuff)

20: Temple

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Mistward

Rowan

He woke with a start. Moonlight drifted through the windows, silvery and cold.

Beautiful turquoise eyes looking into his...

Aelin.

Flickering firelight on her barely-covered shoulders and her collarbones.

And fire—

—Blood still pounding in his ears, Rowan tried to control his ragged breaths. A sheen of sweat gleamed on his forehead.

A nightmare.

It was him and Aelin, and she had been terrified. Of what, he did not know, but he had felt the same. An enemy of some sort; a powerful one. The threads of the dream began to slip away into nothingness, until he barely even remembered what it was about. 

But that fear remained. An anxiety eating away at his bones. 

Was this dream Maeve's doing? Or was it his own mind trying to tell him something? For what felt like hours, he tossed and turned, but it was no good. 

It was near dawn.

The moon was setting and in a hour or so, the sun would shine, filling the room with gold light, gold like Aelin's hair--Gritting his teeth, Rowan growled lowly. She might not be a perverted female as he had first thought, but Aelin was still the most irritating royal brat he had the pleasure to meet. Every moment he didn't have to spend with her was a relief, but now she was prancing around in his dreams. 

He got up and made way to his table.

There was correspondence which had come in yesterday night. He'd been so tired after dinner that he'd forgotten about these letters altogether.

The first letter was Maeve's. She wished for him to investigate a suspicious disappearance near her lands. Investigating such a case would help Maeve's reputation.

He would send Malakai and his scouts to see to it first.

In the kitchen, where Aelin and the boy were busy at work, he found Emrys and Malakai at the door, softly conversing, and Malakai's his blond deputy, staring off into the distance. Rowan waited.

Malakai looked up, meeting his eyes, and nodded to his mate before leaving to join Rowan. The deputy followed silently.

"We have a meeting room here, upstairs," Malakai gestured to them, "But the dining hall is empty this time of the day." There was a strange look in Malakai's eyes; simmering anger, he hid it well—directed at Rowan. Oh great, another one of those rumors about his tattoo must have spread. What now? Did he kill in the middle of the night?

The dining hall was indeed empty, and cold. It was  not yet sunrise, and the place felt like a crypt. Upon entering, Malakai closed the door softly, the creaking door protesting.

The deputy looked so excited that he kept bouncing on the balls of his feet, an eager smile plastered on his face. 

Rowan cleared his throat and began. "I have called you here due to your skills. For a short time, My Queen requires your service for a task of much importance—"

"—She wants to f*ck me?!" The deputy squealed, grinning stupidly.

Rowan blinked, the only indication of his surprise—and hostility.