Empire of Storms (Throne of Glass) (58 page)

He did no such thing. Rolling her eyes, she tugged his hands from her face to lean over and throw the sheets off them. “I am fine,” she said, enunciating each word. “You saw to that. Now, get me some water. I’m thirsty.”

A basic, easy command. To serve, in the way he’d explained that Fae males
liked
to be needed, to fulfill some part of them that wanted to fuss and dote. To drag him back up to that level of civilization and reason.

Rowan’s face was still harsh with feral wrath—and the insidious terror running beneath it.

So Aelin leaned in, nipped his jaw, making sure her canines scratched, and said onto his skin, “If you don’t start acting like a prince, you can sleep on the floor.”

Rowan pulled back, his savage face not wholly of this world, but slowly, as if the words sank in, his features softened. He was still looking pissy, but not so near
killing
that invisible threat against her, as he leaned in, nipping her jaw in return, and said into her ear, “I’m going to make you regret using such threats, Princess.”

Oh, gods. Her toes curled, but she gave him a simpering smile as he rose to his feet, every muscle in his naked body rippling with the movement, and watched him pad with feline grace to the washstand and ewer atop it.

The bastard had the nerve to look her over as he lifted the jug. And then give her a satisfied, male smile as he poured a glass right to the brim, halting with expert precision.

She debated sending a lick of flame to burn his bare ass as he set down the jug with emphasized care and calm. And then stalked back to the bed, eyes on her every step of the way, and set the water on the small table beside it.

Aelin rose on surprisingly steady knees and faced him.

Only the creaking of the ship and hissing of the waves against it filled the room.

“What was that?” she asked quietly.

His eyes shuttered. “It was … me losing control.”

“Why?”

He glanced at the porthole and moon-kissed sea beyond. So rare for him to avoid her stare.

“Why?” she pushed.

Rowan at last met her gaze. “I didn’t know if she’d taken you again.” No matter that the Wyrdkey now lay beside the bed and not around her neck. “Even when I realized you were just in the magic’s thrall, I still … The magic took you away. It’s been a long time since I wasn’t certain … since I didn’t know how to get you back.” He bared his teeth, loosing a jagged breath, the wrath now directed inward. “Before you call me a territorial Fae bastard, allow me to apologize and explain that it is
very
difficult—”

“Rowan.” He stilled. She crossed the small lingering distance between them, every step like the answer to some question she’d asked from the moment her soul had sparked into existence. “You are not human. I do not expect you to be.”

He almost seemed to recoil. But she put a hand on his bare chest, over his heart. It still thundered beneath her palm.

She said softly, feeling that heart beneath her hand, “I do not care if you are Fae, or human, if you are Valg or a gods-damned skinwalker. You are what you are. And what I want … what I
need
, Rowan, is someone who does not apologize for it. For who they are. You have never once done so.” She leaned forward to kiss the bare skin where her hand had been. “Please don’t start doing it now. Yes, sometimes you piss me the hell off with that Fae territorial nonsense, but … I heard your voice. It woke me up. It led me out of that … place.”

He bowed his head until his brow leaned against hers. “I wish I had more to offer you—during this war, and beyond it.”

She slid her arms around his bare waist. “You offer me more than I ever hoped for.” He seemed to object, but she said, “And I figured since both Darrow and Rolfe informed me I needed to sell my hand in marriage for the sake of this war, I should do the opposite.”

A snort. “Typical. But if Terrasen needs—”

“Here is the way I see it,” she said, pulling back to examine his harsh face. “We do not have the luxury of time. And a marriage to a foreign kingdom, with its contracts and distances, plus the months it takes to raise and send an army … we do not
have
that time. We only have
now
. And what I don’t need is a husband who will try to get into a pissing contest with me, or who I’ll have to cloister somewhere for his own safety, or who will hide in a corner when I wake up with flames all around me.” She kissed his tattooed chest again, right over that mighty, thundering heart. “This, Rowan—
this
is all I need. Just this.”

The reverberations of his deep, rattling breath echoed into her cheek, and he stroked a hand over her hair, along her bare back. Lower. “A court that can change the world.”

She kissed the corner of his mouth. “We’ll find a way—together.” The words he’d given her once, the words that had begun the healing of her shattered heart. And his own. “Did I hurt—” Her words were a rasp.

“No.” He brushed a thumb over her cheekbone. “No, you didn’t hurt me. Or anything else.”

Something in her chest caved in, and Rowan gathered her in his arms as she buried her face in his neck. His calloused hands caressed her back, over each and every scar and the tattoos he’d inked on her.

“If we survive this war,” she murmured after a while onto his bare chest, “you and I are going to have to learn how to relax. To sleep through the night.”

“If we survive this war, Princess,” he said, running a finger down the
groove of her spine, “I’ll be happy to do anything you want. Even learn how to relax.”

“And if we never have a moment’s peace, even after we get the Lock, the keys, and send Erawan back to his hellhole realm?”

The amusement faded, replaced by something more intent as his fingers stilled on her back. “Even if we have threats of war every other day, even if we have to host fussy emissaries, even if we have to visit god-awful kingdoms and play nice, I’ll be happy to do it, if you’re at my side.”

Her lips trembled. “Och, you. Since when did you learn to make such pretty speeches?”

“I just needed the right excuse to learn,” he said, kissing her cheek.

Her body went taut and molten in all the right places as his mouth moved lower, pressing gentle, biting kisses to her jaw, her ear, her neck. She dug her fingers into his back, baring her throat as his canines scratched lightly.

“I love you,” Rowan breathed onto her skin, and flicked his tongue over the spot where his canines had scratched. “I’d walk into the burning heart of hell itself to find you.”

He almost had mere minutes ago, she wanted to say. But Aelin only arched her back a bit more, a small, needy noise coming out of her. This—
him
… Would it ever stop—the wanting? The need to not only be near him, but to have him so deep in her she felt their souls twining, their magic dancing … The tether that had led her out of that burning core of madness and destruction.

“Please,” she breathed, nails digging into his lower back in emphasis.

Rowan’s low groan was his only answer as he hoisted her up. She wrapped her legs around his waist, letting him carry her not to the bed, but to the wall, and the sensation of the cool wood against her back, compared to the heat and hardness of him pushing into her front—

Aelin panted through her gritted teeth as he again dragged his tongue over that spot on her neck. “
Please.
”

She felt his smile against her skin as Rowan thrust into her in a long, powerful stroke—and bit down on her neck.

A claiming, mighty and true, that she understood he so desperately needed. That
she
needed, and with his teeth in her, his body in her … She was going to combust, she was going to splinter apart from the overwhelming
need
—

Rowan’s hips began to move, setting a lazy, smooth pace as he kept his canines buried in her neck. As his tongue slid along the twin points of pleasure edged with finest pain, and he tasted her very essence as if it were wine.

He laughed, low and wicked, as release had her biting down on his shoulder to keep from screaming loud enough to wake the creatures sleeping on the bottom of the sea.

When Rowan finally drew his mouth away from her neck, his magic healing the small holes he’d left, his hands tightened on her thighs, pinning her to the wall as he moved deeper, harder.

Aelin only dragged her fingers through his hair as she gave him a savage kiss, and tasted her own blood on his tongue.

She whispered onto his mouth, “I’ll always find a way back to you.”

This time, when Aelin went over the edge, Rowan plummeted with her.

Manon Blackbeak awoke.

There had been no sound, no smell, no hint of
why
she’d awoken, but those predatory instincts had sensed something amiss and sent her tumbling from sleep.

She blinked as she sat up, her wound now a dull ache—and found her head clear of whatever that haze had been.

The room was near-black, save for the moonlight that trickled through the porthole to illuminate her cramped cabin. How long had she been lost to sleep and hideous melancholy?

She listened carefully to the creaking of the ship. A faint grumbling sounded from above—Abraxos. Still alive. Still—sleeping, if she knew that drowsy, wheezing grumble.

She tested the manacles on her wrists, lifting them to peer at the lock. A clever sort of contraption, the chains thick and anchored soundly into the wall. Her ankles were no better.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been in chains. How had Elide endured it for a decade?

Maybe she’d find the girl once she got out of here. She doubted the Havilliard king had any news of the Thirteen anyway. She’d sneak onto Abraxos’s back, fly for the coast, and find Elide before tracking down her coven. And then … she didn’t know what she’d do. But it was better than lying here like a worm in the sun, letting whatever despair had seized control these days or weeks wreak havoc on her.

But as if she’d summoned him, the door opened.

Dorian stood there, a candle in his—

Not a candle. Pure flame wreathed his fingers. It set his sapphire eyes glowing bright as he found her lucid. “Was it you—who sent that ripple of power?”

“No.” Though it didn’t take much guessing to suspect who it’d been, then. “Witches don’t have magic like that.”

He angled his head, his blue-black hair stained gold by his flames. “But you’re long-lived.”

She nodded, and he took that as an invitation to slide into his usual chair. “It’s called the Yielding,” she said, a chill brushing down her spine. “The bit of magic we have. We usually cannot summon or wield, but for one moment in a witch’s life, she can summon great power to unleash upon her enemies. The cost is that she is incinerated in the blast, her body yielded to the Darkness. In the witch wars, witches on both sides made Yieldings during every battle and skirmish.”

“It’s suicide—to blow yourself into smithereens … and take enemies with you.”

“It is, and it’s not pretty. As the Ironteeth witch yields life to the Darkness, its power fills her, and unleashes from her in an ebony wave. A manifestation of what lies in our souls.”

“Have you seen it done?”

“Once. By a scared young witch who knew she wouldn’t win glory any other way. Only, she took out half our Ironteeth force as well as the Crochans.”

Her mind snagged on the word.
Crochans.
Her people—

Not
her people. She was a gods-damned Blackbeak—

“Will the Ironteeth use it on us?”

“If you’re facing lower-level covens, yes. Older covens are too arrogant, too skilled to choose the Yielding instead of fighting their way out. But younger, weaker covens get spooked, or wish to win valor through sacrifice.”

“It’s murder.”

“It’s war. War is sanctioned murder, no matter what side you’re on.” Ire flickered on his face, and she asked, “Have you ever killed a man?”

He opened his mouth to say no, but the light in his hand died.

He had. When he’d been collared, she guessed. The Valg inside him had done it. Multiple times. And not cleanly.

“Remember what they made you do,” Manon said, “when you face them again.”

“I doubt I’ll ever forget it, witchling.” He stood, heading for the door.

Manon said, “These chains are rubbing my skin raw. Surely you’ve some sympathy for chained things.” Dorian paused. She lifted her hands, displaying the chains. “I’ll give my word not to do any harm.”

“It’s not my call. Now that you’re talking again, maybe telling Aelin what she’s been pushing you about will get you on her good side.”

Manon had no idea what the queen had been demanding of her. None.
“The longer I stay in here,
princeling
, the more likely I am to do something stupid when you release me. Let me at least feel the wind on my face.”

“You’ve got a window. Go stand in front of it.”

Part of her sat up straight at the harshness, the
maleness
in that tone, in the set of those broad shoulders. She purred, “If I had been asleep, would you have lingered to stare at me for a while?”

Icy amusement gleamed there. “Would you have objected?”

And perhaps she was reckless and wild and still a bit stupid from blood loss, but she said, “If you plan to sneak in here in the darkest hours of the night, you should at least have the decency to ensure I get something out of it.”