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.
But even with those thoughts in her mind, her body still ached to touch him, to bring him closer to her and never let go. There was that part of her that wanted him close, and then that other part of her that said she was just being a fool. No one else had stayed with her, all of them had faded away. Sam. She could blame Arobynn for that one, but then there were the others. She had screwed up her relationship with Dorian, even if they still remained friends. And then there was Chaol...Her body singed with the thought of him. What he had done – Stop it! – what he had done had been unforgiveable, yet she had still forgiven him. It was foolish not to forgive him, because it was partly Nehemia's fault, too. They had both lied to her, about everything.
She had thought she was over that part of her life, had thought that those scars had healed and she was better. But she could not help but think about them now, when Rowan was looking at her and trying to dissect the emotion in her turquoise eyes. She wished that he couldn't read her so well, because that only meant he knew that she wanted to...and she knew that he didn't feel that way toward her.
"Are you going to tell him that's an impossibility, then?" she asked Rowan. She didn't want to look up at him to see the surety in his pine green eyes, or the conviction in which he would answer her, telling her what she already knew was true.
Aelin was surprised when he actually answered her though, his voice gruff after he cleared his throat, "It's not an impossibility." Her head snapped up, her eyes locking on his while she tried to process what he had said. Not an impossibility? Gavriel had spoken of mating...he had asked if Rowan had mated with her, yet. Her eyes had caught more on the word yet than the other words his warrior friend had written, but it still made her pause, nonetheless. Her heart beat rapidly in her chest, her blood boiling in her veins, and her eyes sweeping across his face to see if she found any hint of a lie there. But after a few minutes of that, she did not see any evidence that he was lying and somewhere in her, something in her, sparked to life.
She could not find the words to say, but she didn't need to. Rowan took a few steps back in her direction, his eyes like daggers as they looked at her. She could still smell him, his scent burning its way through not only her nose, but through her entire body. She wanted to curse herself, wanted to curse at these human emotions that left her so weak. She could not bring herself to reject him when his arms wrapped around her though, their strong sureness so warm against her. Even with her fire, she felt so cold. His warmth was welcome, even if she hated herself for admitting that she didn't want to live without it.
They stood there for a while, his body warm against hers. She remembered how he had reacted to the scars on her back, how doting and caring he had been in those few days while she had been recovering. He had said that it was any male's instinct to protect a helpless female, but in that instant she wondered if he had done if for other reasons. He protected her when they had been fighting the Valg, when they had banished the Valg once again to their cold, barren wasteland of a dimension, had protected her and fought alongside her when she had finally defeated the King of Adarlan, and then again when she had reclaimed her throne in Terrasen. He had been there for her no matter what, had protected her so fiercely. She wondered if it meant anything more than just protecting his fellow warrior. Even if they weren't carranam, would he want this?
She was feeling ballsy, wanted to see if she had read him right when he had said those words, if he saw her more as more than just a child, a crazy, reckless demifae that did what she wanted, when she wanted. She pulled away from him for a moment before she reached up on her toes and pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. Fearing rejection, she pulled away quickly, afraid that in the next moment he would stalk out of the room and head back to Mistward, or even go so far as to go back to Maeve. The thought had her fire burning inside her. She instantly regretted that kiss. She was a fool to think that he would return her feelings.
"Aelin..." was all he said, a soft whisper on his lips. It wasn't a warning, nor was it a threat. It sounded more like pity, like he pitied her for her fragile human emotions. He knew about all the others, knew how broken she had once been, how broken she still was at times. She felt like a fissure in the earth, fire crackling in her depths while she broke apart on the surface.
She tried to pull away further, tried to escape the warmth of him, tried to get that gods-damned pine and snow scent out of her nose. But it was everywhere, not just on him, but in every corner of their shared room. Why had she thought it was a good idea to share a room with him when she finally returned to Terrasen? It was a horrible idea.
But even though she tried to pull away from him, to get as far away from him as possible, his arms tightened around her and he let out a protective growl, rumbling in the back of his throat and reverberating through their connected chests. She shivered at the sound. It sounded so feral, so much the animal she knew he was, like the lethal, immortal Fae he most certainly was. Aelin spared a look, glancing up to find his pine green eyes on her, their emerald hues staring at her possessively, not something she had been expecting at all.
In the next second their lips were crashing together, fire and ice colliding and setting the world on fire, steam rising from their bodies, pressed up against each other's like it was their dying wish.
She wasn't sure when they had moved to the bed, but suddenly she was on her back, Rowan over her, a growl rumbling in the back of his throat as he kissed down the side of her jaw, and then down her neck until he came to the lip of her shirt. A hiss escaped her lips, but not one that meant for him to stop, one that told him to continue, that she craved his touch, that she would surely die right there if he did not continue down the path they were already travelling down. Rowan tore open her shirt, leaving it in pieces on the floor.
When he resumed his path down her body, his lips kissing her body fiercely, yet also gently at the same time, she moaned, the soft sound escaping her lips without any conscious effort on her part.
In the next moment, there was a knock on the door and then the door was opening, her cousin's voice on the other end. They both paused, eyes locking before they both looked at the door, already fully open. Aedion continued speaking, not looking up from the papers in his hands, saying something about how Ren and his grandfather, Murtagh, had been asking about going out to find more people for their court. But he paused when he finally looked up, saw the precarious position in which Rowan and Aelin were in, and he just stopped dead. His turquoise eyes, the very same Ashryver eyes that she possessed, stared at her, at Rowan, but he did not say a word.
Rowan let out a hiss, his fangs extending in Aedion's direction before Aelin finally found her voice.
"Aedion, leave!" she said, her voice rushed and urgent as she pleaded with her cousin. He didn't take his eyes off of them for another minute before he finally processed her words. He took a deep breath, swallowed, and then was closing the door behind him, wanting to get out of that room before he saw something that he truly did not want to see.
As soon as he was in the hallway, down the corridor and away from their room, Aelin pushed away from Rowan. She sat up, moving toward the other end of the bed, her cheeks still stained scarlet from the embarrassment. It wasn't her fire that warmed her body this time, but the pure shock and embarrassment that had just gone down with Aedion witnessing...well whatever it was he witnessed. She was sure that if he had not just come in right then, she would have done something she regretted later. Or maybe she wouldn't have regretted it, but it wasn't the right time for this sort of thing. Not yet, at least.
Rowan was silent next to her, straightening from the possessive crouch that he had just been in, and staring at her back as she tried to take a few calming breaths.
"Aelin...?" he asked, his voice gentle as it caressed the back of her neck, his breath blowing at a few strands of her blonde hair. She had only recently stopped dying her hair that auburn color, but anyone could still see the slight auburn at the ends of her hair, finally fading away after months of disguise.
She took a few shaky breaths, letting her cheeks return to their normal color before she answered him, "This isn't the right time." Was all she managed to blurt out before her cheeks were red again. Damn this stupid human body. But she couldn't exactly change form right then, her senses would have been too acute. She would see and hear everything and she wasn't sure if she wanted to do that right now, not with him so close to her, her lips still swollen from the intense way in which his had crashed down on hers.
The only thing that Rowan said made her heart stammer in her chest, hope coming alive inside of her, "When?"
Aelin felt her lips spread into a smile at his question. She had been wrong about him, wrong about how he felt about her. That made her happy, probably happier than she had been in a long time. It made her happier than when he had claimed her, or when he had sworn that blood oath to her, or even when she found out that they were carranam. It made her happier than all of those things combined.
"Soon." Was all she said, before she leaned over across the bed and placed a small peck of a kiss on his cheek, "Soon." And then she stood, glancing back at the expression he wore, and smiling triumphantly to herself.