Chapter 4
Rowan
I waited in the training yard for Quinn.
It was so hard to stay still when I could feel her physically moving closer with every step. She wasn’t as hungry today, which was a good thing. I didn’t understand why she barely ate, but I couldn’t call her out without admitting I’d tied her to my soul forever.
The weight of the drizzle soaking my uniform was suddenly unbearably heavy, and I squeezed my lats as if that would fix the sensation.
It didn’t.
If I focused, I could feel the same rain on Quinn’s shoulders. The tether was wonderful and cruel. It kept her close, even when I wanted her far away from my meticulously planned life.
It had taken me years of networking to get Angela’s contract. As her suitor, I’d spent months as her loyal pet, more often punished than rewarded because of her insecurities. I didn’t love Angela, but my family needed her connections and her money.
Didn’t we?
I wasn’t sure anymore. Quinn’s presence in my life forced me to reevaluate the choices I made through a different lens.
I chose to leave my father and brothers. I hadn’t gone far. Our home sat between the Westwaters and the Griersons in Edinburgh. But I was the first one of us to move out of the house in generations.
I planned to use the Architect as a stepping stone to something better. But years later, I was still here. I’d passed up other opportunities to stay at his side. Even now, I could be touring the Scottish countryside with Angela, making connections… which sounded like my personal hell.
Instead, I dedicated myself to the Architect and his goals, which made me feel like a better person. A bit of my hair flopped onto my forehead, and water dripped into my eye.
Penniless and alone, months before I secured Angela’s contract, Ezra made me one of his generals.
Weeks after that, the Architect requested a meeting with my father to forge an alliance between our families.
We had nothing for the Architect. We barely kept our dilapidated home from collapsing on us.
Yet he valued us, and that value felt better than all the pandering I’d done to the Moores for just a piece of their worth.
I ran my fingers across my wet forehead and plastered my hair back into place. White hair in the rain wasn’t a good look. Quinn’s steps got closer and I called on my elemental Majekah to dry myself. I wanted to look good for her. Shit. What did I want?
The drizzle immediately plastered my hair back to my head. I let it.
Quinn stopped in front of me and wrinkled her nose at the bow in my hand.
“Hey, Quinn,” I said, hating how pedestrian the address sounded. “How was your tutoring session?”
Quinn rocked back on her heels, and her stomach flipped.
The surge of crazy emotions I’d been getting from her all morning blurred into a storm in my tether.
The pain in her hamstrings had brought me to my knees.
The following anxiety and fear made me want to rush to her side and protect her from all of it.
But I had no context for her emotions. I didn’t understand how to place them.
Worse, I couldn’t ask. She didn’t know I felt them.
I was a dickhead.
“I ended up having an impromptu lesson with Winston.” Quinn poked the muddy coliseum with her shoe. “He spent most of the morning with me going over the evolution of magic over the last hundred years. He’s very, very into history. Which I guess makes sense, as he was alive for most of it.”
I grunted. I didn’t know the monsters the Architect made deals with well. Was Winston who hurt her hamstrings? No. That pain had happened while she was at The Rooster. Something was very wrong there. I’d reported it, but it usually took weeks for the Architect to catch up after he woke.
I wasn’t sure I had the authority to act independently. Horax ran The Rooster before the Architect took this castle. He was a permanent fixture.
Shit. I needed to ask Quinn what was going on. Authority or not, if Quinn needed me, I would help. But asking would lead to questions.
I tethered her without asking. Took her choice away. And now, after all that, I wanted her anyway. Shit.
“Are we doing bow work today, then?” Quinn prompted after my prolonged silence.
The rain just kept coming.
I held my hand out and watched drops bounce on my palm before pushing wet hair out of my eyes again. “Yeah. Bow work.”
I tossed her the bow. She fumbled before hooking the string with her palm.
“You want to touch the bowstring as little as possible.” I pointed at her hand. “The oil from your skin will weaken it over time.”
“Because the rain isn’t already destroying it,” she mumbled.
I grinned. “I’m glad you listened in our last session.”
Quinn scowled, but set her stance.
The rain changed from a steady drizzle into brief bouts of sun.
I kept Quinn shooting until her muscles burned.
I loved this part of the tether. The distinction between good pain and bad pain during physical activities was sometimes difficult for beginners to understand.
Quinn’s shoulder burned like a motherfucker, but a good burn, one of the muscles breaking down to build up stronger.
Her elbow dropped.
“Elbow up!” I barked.
She jerked it back into place.
“The burn’s good.” I grinned. “You’re getting stronger.”
Quinn rolled her eyes. “You and Ezra should spend more time together.”
“Because you know him so well?” I asked.
The bow lowered half an inch.
“Up!” I barked.
Quinn raised it. “You both like to bark at me while we’re training.” She met my gaze. “At least Ezra has the decency to take his shirt off first.”
I jerked back. “What?”
Quinn flashed her straight, pearly white teeth at me.
My brain misfired a few times. I didn’t know my commander and Quinn spoke, much less were close. Were they sleeping together? Hot rage bubbled in my blood at that thought. Ezra’s fury when I admitted I tethered her clicked into place, along with dozens of his actions.
Ezra. My commander. With her. Rage seethed—because I’d been too busy with Angela’s bullshit to claim what I wanted.
“Rowan?” Quinn asked.
The rain increased, coming down in sheets. All I could see was red. I wanted to scream at the world. The ground rumbled under us.
Fear laced our connection, and I forced myself to breathe.
She wasn’t my Quinn. But she could be. I wanted her to make her own choices despite my tether, but I also deserved the same chance as anyone else.
She could have told me to stop in the saddle, but she didn’t.
For that matter, that was the only orgasm I’d felt from her.
If she was sleeping with my commander, he was terrible in bed, and she deserved more.
“Rowan, I don’t know what I said, but you’re scaring me. My shoulder’s going to cramp,” Quinn’s voice was so soft.
I took another deep breath.
Quinn lowered the bow and rubbed the aching appendage. “I’m going to have one nice-looking shoulder at this rate and one flabby one.”
“You’d have to put on weight to have a flabby one.” The words were out of my mouth before I could think.
I stepped into Quinn’s personal space and cupped her cheek. Her big, dull green eyes looked up at me with her hair plastered to her face.
With a thought, I swirled the air around us, redirecting the rain from our bodies and creating a sheer sheet of water isolating us from the world. She didn’t look away, and I rubbed her flushed cheek with my thumb.
Her heart rate increased, and arousal stirred within her. Her body, at least, responded to me. My usual smooth talk vanished. I wanted to demand to know if she loved my commander and how far into her contract negotiation they’d gotten, but the question would just drive a wedge between us.
I wasn’t free to pursue Quinn. But I suddenly knew I wanted to be. Whatever my goals had been, they paled in comparison to the well of emotions this beautiful creature created inside me.
“Get dinner with me tonight.” I placed my free hand on her hip so there would be no misunderstanding of my intention. “I don’t know what you do at The Rooster every morning, but it’s clearly not eating. Let me spend an evening feeding you.”
“Are you watching me?” Her eyes flew wide, and fear spiked through the link.
That was not the response I wanted. “I’m not.
” I released her and put my hands up. “I’ve seen you there a few times.
Brit has mentioned to Joe that she’s seen you there as well, going into the back.
” I cocked my head to the side. “Then there’s the day I found you polishing glass. I won’t judge having a side job.”
But I would judge if it was anything but a side job, which, based on her missing TB, I found highly likely at this point.
Quinn took a deep breath, and her heart rate slowed. “A second, well, a third, really.”
I turned my palms up. “My guard duty pays for my room and board. You won’t get any judgment here.”
Quinn’s tether filled with guilt, and I suddenly wondered what happened to the bag of gold she’d gotten for her clothing. The number of unknowns surrounding this woman was piling up, and it was past time I made sure none of them hurt her.
I stepped forward again and took her hand; it was so small in mine. I brought it to my lips. “Dinner tonight. Let me show you I can be more than the enforcer who let you down.”
The rain ceased, and the sun peeked out, making little rainbows fracture off the remaining drips around us.
For one suspended breath, the whole world held still—rain halos, heartbeat, her.
Quinn’s flushed face looked up at me, and I swear crystal-clear magic sparkled in her eyes.
The power constantly circulating the world pulled us together.
Not my will or hers. Magic hadn’t asked for permission.
It simply tied us together, and I couldn’t ignore the binding any longer.