Chapter 5
Chapter
Five
ROWAN
Six months was the first thing I could think of, and I blurted it out like a desperate teenager begging a girl to go to the prom. I should have asked her for a year. Or five. Or forever.
Half a year was not a long time to convince a woman she should choose you. Our bond was still there, still strong, still incomplete, but something between us had changed.
In my favor, if the change in her scent when I touched her was any indication.
I had to do this slowly but thoroughly. Caelan tap danced all over her boundaries and pushed her when he should have let her choose to come to him. I would not make the same mistake. We were two different men. Two different creatures swam in our veins. I’d woo her thoroughly.
I’d already started. Taking care of her was easy, though I had to be careful how I went about things.
Evie dealt in trades, services, or money.
She wouldn’t accept anything for free or if she thought someone was going too far out of their way, so I couldn’t give her anything, even if I really wanted to.
As far as building a house on my land, I would sign hundreds of acres over if she wanted them.
But she wasn’t wrong about the bond. If she owned property within my territory and rejected the bond, things would be extremely difficult.
We wouldn’t be able to see each other anymore, and her touch on my land would slowly fade.
Six months would make or break us.
I had to ensure we didn’t break.
At twelve forty-five, I was sitting on Evie’s front porch, holding a small bag of clothing. Hope had put together an enormous charcuterie board and a plate of sea salt and caramel brownies.
My heart pounded in my chest, and I chuckled at my nerves. This was Evie. I knew her inside and out, but I was still nervous as a kid talking to a pretty girl.
Evie was far more than a pretty girl, and when Hope pulled around and dropped her off, and Evie slid out of the car, my mouth went dry.
She smiled, her entire face lighting up when she spotted me, and I couldn’t stand up for a few seconds. The way she looked at me sometimes knocked the wind out of me.
Evie turned and waved to Hope. My Omega sent me a telling wink before pulling away.
Then it was just me and Evie.
Her smile widened when she saw the food. “I’m starving!” She handed me her keys and picked the board and brownies up, peeking inside to see what goodies I’d brought.
With shaking fingers, I unlocked the door and held it open. Evie’s scent hit me in the face. Her place smelled like flowers and growing things, and when she breezed past me, she left the scent of peonies and roses in her wake.
Every muscle in my body went taut.
Maybe this was a bad idea.
“Brownies!” Evie squawked. “Who made these?”
I shut the door behind us, her scent enveloping me. “Hope.” To my relief, my voice wasn’t strangled.
She went straight to the kitchen and brought down two plates. “I’m assuming you want some.”
“A bear never turns down food.”
She sent me an impish grin and turned away to fix our plates.
I poured us both a glass of the blueberry green tea she kept in her fridge and brought them to the living room. Evie came in with plates piled high. “Give me a minute?” she asked. “I want to get out of my work clothes.”
“Of course.”
She hurried to the back. I let out a heavy exhale and tried to get my head on straight. We were friends. That was all she was ready for now, no matter what I smelled when she looked at me.
Evie would have to come to me.
She came back out wearing loose joggers and a blue off-shoulder sweater that looked like cashmere.
I was still crap at identifying fabrics, but it looked soft, and my fingers itched to touch it to find out if I was right.
Her hair was tied up in a high ponytail, and she’d removed her makeup, leaving her face soft and bare.
Holy. Mortal. Hell.
I’d never seen her look this peaceful or innocent, and it was doing terrible things to my emotional state of mind, not to mention my physical state.
Evie set down her e-reader and spotted my still full plate. “You didn’t have to wait!”
“My mother would have smacked my hand if I started eating without you.”
She smiled and curled up next to me on the couch.
Her feet were bare, and her toenails were unpolished.
No jewelry that I could see, except the pendant she rarely took off.
The sweater’s style showed off the damaged tattoo she had yet to fix.
The sight of it roused anger within me for how she’d sustained that wound.
If she hadn’t put Lugh away in a place he couldn’t escape from, I would have put him in the ground. The urge to hunt him down anyway made my eyes glow.
Evie’s brows snapped together. “Rowan? Everything alright?”
I offered what I hoped was a reassuring smile. “Yes. Sorry. I was distracted by something else.”
Evie nudged me with her bare foot. “Get distracted by all the yummy prosciutto on your plate before I steal it.”
I yanked my plate from the table before she could reach over and steal a piece of meat. “Ha. Get your own, you monster.”
“You’ll let your guard down soon enough,” she teased, stuffing a piece of cheese in her mouth. “Mmm. Tell Hope thank you. This is wonderful.”
“Her brownies are even better. She has a cult following within the Pack. If anyone smells those, we might have some visitors.”
“I shall defend my land from all brownie threats, foreign and domestic,” she vowed, her eyes glimmering with amusement.
Her foot still rested against my thigh as she happily munched.
Her plants shivered and shifted, the soft rustling sounds inevitably Evie.
No plant life could be within her vicinity without being profoundly alive.
As her power grew, so did the natural world’s reaction to her, and I didn’t think she even noticed.
Evie was one of the few people completely unaffected by her staggering depth of power.
While her training was sporadic, every time she flexed her magical muscles, her power grew substantially.
I, like most of my shifters, could smell it on her.
Pretty soon, she would rival her father in power, if she didn’t already.
But right now, she was merely a hungry woman with a book and a mission to not do a single thing but enjoy herself for the rest of the evening.
And I was a man blessed to spend time with her.
Half an hour later, I was in bear form, lying on my side in front of a crackling fire on a surprisingly soft wool rug.
Evie lay curled against my side, her head resting on my front leg.
She held her e-reader above her face, concentrating on some novel about a handsome prince and a wicked woman.
Her scent tangled in my nose, and the bond between us pulsed with light.
I had a million things to do, none of them more important than this moment. Satisfied and happy, I shut my eyes and drifted into sleep.
The soft thump of something landing against my side awoke me. I had a moment’s disorientation before the scent of flowers alerted me to where I was. Evie’s home had plunged into night, but the soft glow of incandescent light cast the room in gold. Her soft, even breath told me she was asleep.
With a quick flash of light, I shifted and pulled Evie into my chest. She was out like a light and made no protest. With my other hand, I reached for my bag and slowly eased my joggers on, doing my best not to wake her up.
Her silky hair lay scattered over my chest, and her face was peaceful in repose.
Her breath had barely interrupted its rhythm, even with my awkward attempt at dressing, giving me insight into how exhausted she must be.
I eyed the couch, large enough for both of us, but I’d have to jostle her quite a bit to move her.
A quick glance at the clock over the fireplace told me we’d been asleep for hours.
After ten now, it was too late for dinner, and really too late for much of anything other than going back to sleep.
I might be a shifter, but sleeping on the floor all night was not appealing.
Extricating myself from Evie took a bit, but soon I was able to stand and scoop her into my arms. She mumbled something, but I held her to my chest and carried her over to the couch, sitting with her in my lap until I could situate us once more.
Her eyes fluttered open once, shining a clear, azure blue. “Rowan?”
“Shhh,” I reassured her. “I got you.”
“Mmm.” Her eyes fluttered shut.
I lay behind her and pulled her closer to my chest, tucking her body against me. My arm wrapped around her waist, and her head rested just under my chin. It didn’t take long for me to fall back asleep, nestled against the woman I loved.