Chapter 27 Rowan
Rowan
I’d never slept in the same bed as another man before.
Which made lying on two mattresses pushed together on Cayden’s dorm room floor, with Quinn between us, feel so fucking weird.
I rolled onto my back, careful not to disturb Quinn, who was using my arm as a pillow.
The two mattresses had a crack down the middle, which Quinn had promptly fallen into before wiggling out and edging toward Cayden instead of me.
Too tired to overthink her reaction last night, I woke with her curled into my bare chest.
She chose me. My heart thumped.
Unlike Quinn’s tower room across Grady Hall, Cayden’s had one small window showing the barest hints of sunrise. It was square and modest, but had an en suite. Purple and silver accented the off-white walls, though he hadn’t added any personal touches.
It was much nicer than the room I shared with Joe in the mixed dorms. And Cayden had it to himself, which, at first, made me jealous.
But now that I lay here overthinking, I wasn’t so sure anymore.
Yes, my roommate Joe’s farts could gas out an army, and with him and Brit getting hot and heavy, I found myself locked out a few more times than I’d like.
But Joe and I were tight. We had friends outside of each other, which meant more friends by extension.
Cayden had no one but Quinn. The way he stood against his family, keeping her behind him, and lying to them proved it.
I turned my head.
Quinn and Cayden faced each other, still deeply asleep with their fingers linked. I’d never felt the urge to protect another man before. But Cayden’s life suddenly felt… isolated.
If the Architect kicked me out of his family, I’d go back to my dad and brothers. We’d tussle and have a big family dinner in our old, crumbling dining room. My oldest brother would already have some crazy revenge plan against the Architect, no matter what the cost. To me, that’s what family did.
Quinn came from a past where she’d been broken and woke up in the future with no one. Not even a basic understanding of life. I didn’t know what Cayden went through, but it sounded like he lost a child, his faith, and his family. I couldn’t even picture myself in the same situation.
The two were lost souls, and I didn’t want to see either of them hurt again.
The first rays of the sun peeked through the window. Quinn stretched and yawned. We’d wait to get her to the washroom once we were back at the castle, so Cayden’s sobriety rune could do its thing. Like me, she should be hangover-free.
“Did you sleep well?” I asked.
Quinn snuggled further into me, back to my chest, and disappeared under the blanket. “Five more minutes.”
“Sleep as long as you want, love,” Cayden said.
Across from me, Cayden lay on his side, fingers still laced with Quinn’s.
He rested a possessive hand on her hip, and I felt no urge to move it.
Quinn and Cayden were a unit. It had taken me a long time, but I finally understood that.
Their platonic-not-platonic-bickering-old-couple dynamic confused the hell out of me.
But I’d roll with anything to make Quinn happy.
She mumbled something and fidgeted under the blanket.
We’d passed out, exhausted from the day, and slept over ten hours.
I doubted any of us were going back to sleep.
She rolled and brushed against me, and my body immediately responded.
Before I could back away, Quinn wiggled closer, and my new, stiff appendage stabbed into her back.
Surprise spiked our tether, followed by a now familiar bloom of what I could only describe as happy-bitter-mischief. Before she could follow through, I threw the blankets off us, letting the cold sting my skin.
“Noo,” Quinn moaned like I’d killed her puppy. “I said five more minutes.”
Cayden snorted. He kissed Quinn’s cheek before slipping into his private bathroom. The minute the door closed, I cupped Quinn’s face, guiding her far away from my erection, and threw the blankets back over us. Dim light filtered through the white fabric.
“I tethered you, and you know it,” I said softly.
Her gaze dimmed, and the hurt I never wanted to feel filled our tether.
“What I can’t figure out is why,” Quinn said softly.
She pushed away from me so our bodies were no longer flush, but she didn’t move my hand cupping her cheek. Her tether filled with cautious hope. If I’d felt anything else from her, I don’t know what I would have done.
“You must have done it while I was still pretending to be a boy,” Quinn continued when I didn’t speak. “We’d had one conversation, two at most. And then you purposely kept your distance from me. Men use tethers to claim and control, right?”
I caressed her cheek with my thumb. “They do, but I didn’t intend to tether you. From the first moment you sat in my lap, you felt right.”
Quinn blushed, and an embarrassed thrill plucked the tether.
“My Majekah dragged me to you. When you fell, I felt it. Holding you broken in my arms, it happened before I could stop it.”
Quinn bit her lips together. “You didn’t heal me or use magic on me, right?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t want the tether. I left you, thinking you knew what to do, and hid in the Alun to stop the inevitable. But the tether held. Ezra knew. He pushed us together. And I realized how unhappy I was trying to carve something from a world I wasn’t sure I even wanted.”
Quinn ran her hand down my arm and scooted closer so she could rest her palm on my bare chest. Understanding bloomed between us, but she was still wary.
“Why didn’t you tell me once we got closer?” she asked.
My heartbeat raced under her hand. “I didn’t want you to think I was trying to own you. Then I saw you with the Architect, laughing. He ordered me to keep quiet, and I obeyed, because I’m his man. You seemed happy. And it wasn’t my place to question.”
“I get that,” Quinn said. “And I’m not upset.”
She was. I could feel a twinge of unhappiness under her words. But she didn’t want me to know, so I dropped it.
“I didn’t tell you because I wanted you to choose me, not magic.
” I reached out and pulled her close. She rested her head on my chest, and my heart thumped.
“I’m scared, Q-tip. I’ve not heard of a natural tether in fifty years, maybe more.
” Every insecurity I’d spent my life working to overcome hit me at once.
I clenched my fist. “Yeah, I’ve got power.
But our land shrinks every year. All I’ve got to offer is bloodlines and muscle.
Angela wasn’t just getting our child because she wanted it; her financing and connections were going to fix the Tates. ”
Quinn pressed herself harder into me.
I took a deep breath and plowed on. “The Architect’s everything I’m not. You’ve been with him and Ezra more times than I can count. You chose them. What if I’m the mistake?”
A wave of guilt smashed into our tether. Quinn pressed her lips to mine and rolled, taking the blankets with us until we were in a little cocoon with her on top. She was so short that her hips straddled my rib cage to keep our faces even.
Probably for the better. My dick didn’t seem to share my insecurities.
She bit my lip and sat up, still trapped in the blankets. “You are not a mistake. I’m from the past and you’re ‘old blood,’” she put the word in quotes as if she’d heard it a million times but didn’t believe it.
I chuckled. “I am a Tate.”
Quinn kissed my cheek. “Clearly, your old blood reacted to my old magic.” She wrinkled her nose. “You didn’t choose this either. Unless... you still don’t want the tether?”
I rolled us so I caged her against the mattress before filling her mouth with my tongue in slow, languid sweeps that promised so much more. I pushed up on my arms so I could see her face. “I want the tether, Q-tip. But it kills me you didn’t get to choose.”
She pressed her lips together and traced my chest like she was memorizing it. “I get that, better than you know.”
I braced myself for whatever was about to come out of her mouth.
“Xan tethered me when he healed me. I am tethered to the Architect.”
I grunted as if she’d punched me.
She put a finger over my lips. “Xan wanted me to get to know him before telling me. That’s why he didn’t want you to say anything.
I’ve only found out recently, and what he taught me about tethers is how I pieced together yours.
” She let out an annoyed breath. “What’s done is done. Don’t turn this into a thing.”
It already was a thing.
I growled. “He knows how unsatisfied he leaves you?”
Quinn blushed. “He’s not—”
I reached down and captured her lips to cut off her excuses.
Heat smoldered between us. It didn’t matter who I was because she wanted me.
Her emotions sang under my attention. She had to understand the Architect wasn’t her only option.
My girl had the world at her fingertips, and I would do everything in my power to give it to her.
The door to the bathroom opened, and Cayden cursed. A moment later, the blankets around us shredded, and Cayden’s fist slammed into my face. Thankfully, he’d used his Majekah to shred the blankets, not strengthen his punch. He cursed and shook his hand like it hurt him more than me.
I smirked. He glowered as if I were the one out of line.
I wasn’t. My world had been upside down for weeks, but not anymore.
Quinn had accepted my tether. We were moving forward, together. Fuck anyone else.
“Cayden—” Quinn started, but I put a finger over her lips.
Slowly, without breaking eye contact with the enraged Lawson, I slid off Quinn and sat beside her. With a bit of elemental help, Quinn tumbled into my lap, her apex pressing my thigh, just like the first time we met.
Back in the library, Cayden hadn’t looked away when I pleasured Quinn, just stood there, frozen, watching.