Chapter 49
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
I t was far too little time before Rowan’s unspoken fears—and the ones I had been determined to push from my mind—came to pass.
The sun streamed in through the window, highlighting the shades of ruby in Rowan’s curls. Her porcelain skin contrasted against the darker olive tones in mine, her curves pressing into me as she traced the ridges of my stomach.
An entire night and morning with her skin on mine hadn’t even begun to satiate either of us. Even now, the heat in her eyes as her fingers trailed across the deep V in my abdomen awoke that hunger inside of me that only she could satisfy.
Another wave of the endless energy between us chased away any lingering fatigue from the hours of well-spent exertion. After all, there were still so many ways I hadn’t yet managed to worship her.
I shifted to pull her closer when a familiar knock sounded through the room.
Der’mo.
I tensed, instantly on alert. It was the knock my men used, and not one of them would have dared interrupt me this morning without cause. What could have happened to make them come now?
“Breakfast?” Rowan asked, her brows furrowing in concern.
I didn’t get to answer her before Yuriy called through the door in a tone that confirmed my worst suspicions.
“Lord Evander!”
Rowan looked at me, eyes wide with the same trace of trepidation that was slowly working its way into my veins. We both leapt out of the bed, and I had the ominous feeling we wouldn’t be returning to it. That the universe was already working to wrench away the small bit of bliss we had wrangled against all of our odds.
I tossed her the smaller of the untouched robes before donning my own, waiting until hers was securely belted before I opened the door.
Dread pooled in my stomach as I took in Yuriy’s grim expression. Dread, and a somber sort of…acceptance. Hadn’t I known the other shoe would drop at some point? Was it my father? Ava? Were some of the clans already pulling out of our long-standing alliances?
It was only further damning that my youngest cousin didn’t so much as blush at Rowan’s state of dishevelment. His features didn’t even twitch as he handed over a piece of parchment, the black wax seal already removed.
Two lines were hastily etched across the paper, a rushed imitation of Taras's usual neat script.
Iiro has declared himself King.
We need you home now.
-Taras
What in the storms-damned-hell had happened since I left?
My thoughts raced as Rowan ordered one of the servants in the hall to fetch her family to meet us in the Council Room. Similarly, I sent Yuriy to fetch Pavel and a few of the others to meet us there as well.
Rowan and I dressed quickly, a forbidding silence now filling the space between us as we processed what this could mean. As I considered my only viable options, and how hard it was going to be to leave her behind while I marched back into whatever fray was awaiting me in Socair.
As soon as we entered the room, I handed the letter to Logan. He cursed under his breath, but no matter how bad he was imagining this news to be, I could guarantee it would be worse.
“What does this mean for you?” he asked flatly, getting right to the point.
That was an excellent question, one dependent entirely on how far this farce had gone. If my father had already made his displeasure known, war was a likelihood, if not an inevitability.
Then there was the matter of the other clans, the allies I wondered if I had already lost by coming here. Of course, I had sent birds to them all personally once Rowan agreed to my proposal, letting them know a Socairan wedding was imminent. Most of them had been receptive, given what the alliance meant for our people.
Arès had responded with a surprisingly terse congratulations, and Nils hadn’t responded at all…
“It’s impossible to say without being there,” I answered, after a beat. “On the surface, Iiro’s claim itself is reputable, as the closest living relative to the defunct monarchy. But he would still need the support of the Summit, and I find it hard to believe he’s gotten that…”
I trailed off, considering all the ways he might have wrangled that support in my absence.
“But?” Charlotte prompted.
I didn’t answer right away, still trying to identify the niggling feeling in the back of my mind. Why now? If anything, he would have even less support than he had before.
Lynx was allied to us through marriage, taking away a neutral party that might have stood by while Iiro took the throne.
He might have been making a desperate bid to try to forestall my marriage to Rowan in Socair, but there would still be limited legitimate means for him to interfere with a clan decision. Decisions on marriage had always been left singularly up to the dukes, even when the monarchy reigned.
Not that legitimacy concerned him.
“But Iiro is sharp, calculating,” Rowan answered in my stead. “So if he’s doing this at all, he must have reason to believe he will succeed.”
It didn’t surprise me that she had already reached that conclusion as well. For all her pretenses and distractions, she was plenty perceptive when she wanted to be.
I nodded, still feeling like I was missing something. “And it certainly isn’t a coincidence that he waited until I was here. Not only was I unable to interfere, but we haven’t yet finalized our marriage in Socair.”
Legitimate or not, he would have more power to at least try to interfere with our marriage if he was playing at being king.
The question wasn’t why, but how.
Iiro was a bastard, but he wasn’t an idiot. He wouldn’t have declared himself king without the means to see it through. And if his claim hadn’t been based on some sort of rationale, Taras wouldn’t have been concerned enough to call me home.
There it was, the piece of the puzzle that had been dangling just out of reach, the one I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge.
Because the only thing worse than Iiro taking the throne was if I lost my power to remove him from it. And the only person who could take that from me was the duke of my clan.
Taras had written.
My father wasn’t always lucid, but even he wouldn’t fail to react to the news of Elk on the throne. He would call his second-in-command back, whether he thought that was me or his dead brother.
His guards would have known where to send the letter, yet one had never come.
Tendrils of dread crept along my spine. Hadn’t I promised my lemmikki that I would keep her safe? But if my father had allied with Iiro…
“Theo must have sent word when he left,” Rowan continued to theorize. “That must be why Iiro made his move, knowing he had no chance of allying with us now.”
That was half of the reason. I didn’t comment on the other half, not in a room full of people who were ignorant of my father’s state of mind. Besides, I wasn’t sure yet.
There was still the fragile thread of hope that I was wrong.
The only thing I was certain of was that I wouldn’t be dragging Rowan back to a kingdom where Iiro and my father might be waiting to casually slaughter her before the people were any the wiser.
Would they use it as an excuse to march on Lochlann? To try to take by force the resources I had already secured for us?
Or was her death enough for them both, revenge and power rolled into the elimination of a princess who had only ever been in the wrong place at the wrong time, born to a family they both despised.
I would find a way to eviscerate them both before I let that happen, even if it cost me my life and my clan.
But first, I needed to be sure.
I cleared my throat, returning my attention to the room and steeling myself for Rowan’s response.
“Which still leaves the questions of why and how.” I swept my gaze over my gorgeous, perfect wife, soaking in the final seconds of our time that she wasn’t furious with me. Because she was about to be. “I need to get back to find out and?—”
“No,” she cut me off, putting together where I was going before I even finished my sentence.
Her eyes were wide, her head shaking in a denial of what even she had to know was the truth.
I forced my tone to be even as I explained the rationality of the only reasonable decision we could make.
“If he wants to stop this alliance, the last thing we can do is show up just as he expects us to with a target all but painted on your back.”
Her jade eyes narrowed, her chest rising and falling with her quickened breaths.
“I am not staying here while you go back to Socair, back in danger.” Her jaw was set in a familiar display of obstinance, but this was not a battle I could afford to let her win.
“I’m not in any danger,” I assured her. Not truly. Not yet. “He isn’t going to infuriate the other clans by harming an heir.”
“Or a Clan Wife,” she fired back.
“Which you aren’t yet,” I was forced to remind her.
And might never be if I can’t get home to ensure my father’s continued support, knowingly given or otherwise.
“So, all I need to do is stay safe until then.” The burgeoning panic in her voice sliced at something inside of me, but my resolve didn’t waver, not when the stakes were her life. “We can get married right after I get back. It will be fine.”
Her voice nearly broke on the word fine, and I took her hand in mine, as much to comfort her as because I needed to feel her warmth when my own was being edged out by the cold rationality I was forced to live my life with.
The brief reprieve our time here had offered was officially at an end.
“You might not make it past the border at this rate, Lemmikki.” I hated myself for saying it. Hated Iiro even more for making me. But between the dissension in Lochlann and now the whole of Socair, I wasn’t going to risk her safety by carelessly walking into a trap that Iiro had undoubtedly set.
“Even Iiro isn’t brash enough to risk the wrath of Lochlann,” she replied, answering my unspoken thought. Fire raged in her eyes, a challenge burning through the fear that had been there before.
How I wished that were true.
“Iiro doesn’t care about anyone but his own family,” I corrected her. “All he needs to do is close the tunnel and Lochlann would have to go through Bear and Wolf just to get to him. Even if I could work around my father’s orders, Wolf is never going to stand by and allow Lochlann to march through their territory, and Iiro has plenty of allies to further bar the way.”
“So, what?” She yanked her hand back and spun in her chair to glare at me. “You just want me to sit here in a bubble while my husband goes back to a war? What happened to fighting at your side?”
Not this kind of fight, not until you have even a fraction of the protections my position affords me. I debated explaining the difference to her, that this was more akin to sending her into battle without armor, but I settled on the part of the question that might actually bring her around.
“There is no war yet,” I reminded her. “And no, I don’t expect you to sit here indefinitely.”
The idea was not without its appeal, but she would eventually be in more danger if our half marriage continued. Finalizing her status as a Clan Wife was the only way forward. I just needed time to gauge the situation at Bear first.
Rowan didn’t look terribly appeased by that, but her mother interjected before she could argue.
“What do you propose?” she asked. “It sounds like you have a plan.”
Though the question was for me, she didn’t take her eyes off Rowan, willing her to be silent long enough for me to answer. She wasn’t the only one curious.
The Lochlannians and my men alike had their attention fixated on me.
I took a breath, choosing my words carefully. I needed my wife’s family on my side if she refused to take her own safety into consideration.
An idea had been brewing in the back of my mind since we first got the news.
“We finalized the trade agreement,” I reminded the table. “If I have a two-week head start, I can make sure everything is put in motion to assure safe passage for the caravans. No one is going to decline trade with Lochlann again when their people need food, not to mention, the agreed-upon dowry will be coming through.”
So far, the king and queen were both nodding. A small bit of the tension between my shoulders eased. This plan would work, and they could help her agree to it.
Never mind what it would feel like to walk away from her now that I knew what it was like to have all of her. To give her all of myself in return. But better this than losing her.
“In the meantime,” I went on, “I can ensure our wedding comes together. Our marriage is hardly a secret, but as long as no one knows where Rowan is—” I paused to look at the woman in question, willing her to understand how crucial that part was. “—they won’t be able to interfere. She can come in with one of several caravans, so she won’t be the only Lochlannian in the area, and she can arrive just in time for the wedding.”
“No.”
I had hardly gotten the final word out when my lemmikki voiced her disagreement, having taken exactly no time to consider the merits of my plan.
Storms, but she was impulsive.
“Rowan.” Her father’s voice was soft, but a disagreement nonetheless.
She turned to face him, repeating herself with more vehemence. “No.”
He met her glare with all the stoicism of a man who had spent a lifetime surrounded by his temperamental daughters.
“It’s a good plan, mo bhobain ,” he said evenly, nodding his approval at me.
It was the only real plan.
But she shook her head mutely back and forth.
“Rowan.” I called back from wherever her mind was taking her. “There is no other way. I told you before that I trusted you. I need you to trust me now.”
I met her gaze solidly, letting her see the honesty in my own. It was the only way I could try to make her understand. Every ounce of rationality in me was screaming that Iiro was arranging a way to take her out of the equation. I knew it with the same certainty that she had known that storm was blowing in.
She closed her eyes, taking in a slow, shaky breath. Several tense seconds ticked by. Her parents exchanged a worried look, and Avani shifted in her seat, poised to speak for the first time since we had entered the room.
Just then, Rowan sucked in a breath. All eyes turned to her for what I was sure was going to be another refusal.
But when she opened her eyes, they were shadowed with resignation.
“Two weeks,” she bit out. “And not a single day longer. Promise me.”
I calculated how much time that would give me. If I was on horseback, I could get back to Bear in half the time it would take her by wagon. I would have close to a month to figure things out.
“I promise.” I claimed her hand once more, squeezing it gently to solidify my words.
“When do you need to leave?” Charlotte asked, her tone neutral enough that I suspected she already knew the answer.
Rowan’s expression went cold, forming into a rare guarded mask, but not before I saw a wave of bitterness wash over her.
She knew also.
Still, it was harder than it should have been to say the words that would hurt us both. “Within the hour.”
So little time, but it would have to be enough.
All of it would.