Chapter 19
Chapter
Nineteen
ROWAN
Ishould have told her. The words repeated in my head over and over. Dread pooled in my veins as we walked, the insistent pounding of the wards indicative of Caelan’s rising temper.
He couldn’t break them; they were reinforced by Evie’s father, but he could make my life difficult if he continued trying to get in.
Evie walked beside me, her fingers linked with mine.
She made no move to tug her hand away—a hopeful sign, even though I felt the slight tremor in her body and could hear the pounding of her heart.
She was frightened and nervous, but there was a thread of confusion running through her emotions.
The confusion might save us.
It took several minutes to reach the front. Evie let go of my hand and walked ahead, her eyes on Caelan. The other Lord straightened when he spotted her, his hands sliding into his pockets to affect a casual posture.
Caelan felt anything but casual. Wolves and bears were nothing alike, but a predator recognized another predator. His eyes glowed bright gold as he looked at her, but his face was a careful mask. Fool. If he hoped to get her back, he should be wearing his heart on his sleeve.
Evie wasn’t a woman made for blank expressions and cold hearts.
I stopped a good distance away, far enough to give her privacy, but close enough to intercede if anything went wrong. Also close enough to overhear their conversation.
I was a good man, but I was no saint.
Evie stopped a couple of feet away from Caelan, watching him carefully.
Her long dark hair blew in the wind, sweeping away from her neck in a tangle of waves.
She’d changed for dinner, jeans and a green cashmere quarter zip, ankle boots with thick wool socks, and a wool undershirt.
This far away, Evie looked like a beautiful human woman.
“Come out and meet me,” Caelan rumbled, eyes still glowing.
“We’ll speak here,” Evie said with a steady voice.
“Afraid of me now?”
“No. I haven’t been afraid of you for a while now.”
Pride rose in me.
Caelan didn’t like those words. His eyes narrowed. “I’ve come here to bring you home.”
“I’m capable of bringing myself home when I’m ready to go.”
“You don’t want to come back with me?”
Evie snorted. “We are no longer together. You broke up with me over a month ago, or have you forgotten?”
Caelan’s nostrils flared. “I was under the influence of a god, Evie. How can you not see that?”
“I saw perfectly fine,” Evie snapped. “Do you take me for an idiot? Lugh’s magic was not foolproof. We both know how it works. Those doubts existed in you long before Lugh came to town.”
He threw his hands out. “Yes, I had doubts. Everyone has doubts. You and I are about to be married.”
“Were.”
Caelan blew out a breath. “Children have to be part of the equation. I am a Lord. You are a Queen. There has to be a succession plan.”
Wrong thing to say. Evie’s posture stiffened. “A succession plan?” she said softly.
Caelan took a step closer. “Don’t turn your nose up. We have to think about the future. What will happen if we don’t have an heir fit to take our crowns?”
I bit down the smile threatening to bloom.
“You don’t have a crown,” Evie snarled.
Caelan waved his hand. “But I will. And you do. Even if we walked away from each other, you would still need to have a succession plan for whoever comes next.”
“Unlike you, I don’t think the same. If I had a child, I’d want him or her to be healthy first. Then I’d want them to be loved.
I’d want them to grow up in a happy home, and I’d want them to wake up every single day and know that their father and I will be there when they walk out of their room.
I’d take my crown off and melt it in a fire if it ever came between me and my child. ”
My fists clenched at my sides. It took everything I had not to scoop her up in my arms and show her all the ways I agreed with her. But she had to do this. She had to get through this and figure out what she wanted for herself. Evie had to choose me.
We’d never work out otherwise, no matter what sort of possibilities might be shimmering between us.
“That’s an idealist’s response,” Caelan said, his hands stretched toward her.
I winced.
“Power roars through your veins, Evie. All the power in the world. You owe a responsibility to your people to ensure your line runs true.”
Evie tilted her head and studied Caelan, but the bond between us flared with white hot furious power. She was pissed. “What if we had a child who didn’t meet your standards?”
Caelan blinked.
“What if we had a child who was neither Chimera, nor shifter, nor fully fae? What would you do?”
“I—” Caelan fumbled for words. “I think it depends.”
“Depends on what?” Evie’s voice was soft and deadly. “Would you sneak into the nursery and slit our baby’s throat? Or, better yet, would you call someone like Garrett and have him do your dirty work for you?”
Caelan’s jaw tightened. His non-response was response enough.
“Oh, Caelan. You long for perfection, but there is nothing perfect in this world. I am not perfect and yet you still want me because of what I represent, not for what I am.”
“That is not true.”
“You thought Rachel was perfect even after she almost destroyed you.”
He shook his head. “No. That was Lugh’s influence.”
Evie took a step forward. “I know you…touched her.” I heard her throat click in a dry swallow. “You did things with her. Things an engaged man should never—” Her voice thickened with tears, and she cut herself off.
I sucked in a shocked gasp. What Evie had alluded to earlier, that painful tug I’d felt in my chest. She’d smiled and laughed her way through it, but I’d known something was wrong and had wrongly assumed it had to do with Caelan’s impending visit.
I would kill him. Infidelity in shifter relationships was not uncommon, but it was normally reserved for casual relationships, not this.
Not what they were to each other. For him to have done that dishonored him, but more importantly, he had dishonored and debased her in the worst of ways.
“You sonofabitch,” I hissed, stepping forward.
Evie held up her hand. “No,” she said softly. “This has nothing to do with you.”
She hadn’t yet realized this had everything to do with me.
Caelan went bone white. “Evie.” He stepped so close to the ward, it shimmered scarlet, a final warning to stay away.
“Simone told me,” Evie said. “She walked in on you accidentally, and you were so…” Her voice breaks, taking my heart with it.
“Distracted, you didn’t even see her. If you wonder why your most loyal person abandoned you, I hope you think of that moment.
But even after that betrayal, Simone hesitated to tell me because she knew it would destroy everything.
Even then, there was still a thin thread of loyalty to you.
” Her voice shook. “I never thought you would do something so heinous, not after everything we went through. Maybe you were under Lugh’s influence, but that—” She shook her head.
“Not even Lugh could have made you do that if you hadn’t wanted to.
And here you stand, hoping to come back to me. You weren’t even going to tell me.”
A harsh laugh escaped her. “I know now I can never meet your needs.”
Her form outlined itself in a crimson shimmer, her features morphing into a woman, smaller and curvier than Evie. Long amber hair tumbled over her shoulders in a shiny waterfall.
I froze. Rachel stood before Caelan fluffing her hair. The Lord stumbled back, swearing viciously.
Evie ran her hands over her new curves and swayed side to side. “Is this what you wish I was?” She turned her head to the side, cat-like green eyes batting her eyelashes at him. “A full shifter. A full blood. Someone who can give you lots of little pure wolf babies?”
“Don’t,” Caelan snarled. “This is beneath you!”
Evie snorted. “Changing into the woman you tore this all apart for is beneath me? And what about you?”
He shoved a hand through his hair, leaving it standing on end. “I—Evie, you and I were fighting, and I felt all this hatred.” Caelan blew out a breath and growled. “I needed—”
The Lord couldn’t form a complete sentence. “She was there, and you weren’t, and I wanted the release. That’s all it was.”
“Oh,” Evie said. “A wham, bam, thank you ma’am, then. No biggie.”
A hopeful light appeared in his eyes, and he reached for that false lifeline not realizing it was a venomous snake ready to ensnare him.
You idiot.
“Yes,” he breathed. “That’s all. Convenience, Evie. It will never happen again. I never would have done such a thing if Lugh hadn’t made me see Rachel in a different light. I hate her. I’ve always hated her.”
“I see,” Evie said. “You didn’t want her. You wanted me.”
“Exactly.”
Rachel’s form shimmered away, leaving Evie standing there. From the way she jerked, she’d forgotten she’d lose her clothes during the shift. I shrugged off my jacket and strode over, draping it over her shoulders.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“You,” Caelan snarled at me. “I bet you’re loving this.”
What I’d love was to punch him repeatedly in his smug face. “If you think I’m loving seeing Evie’s heart break, you don’t know me at all.”
A muscle in his jaw ticked. “This is between Evie and me. You can leave.”
Evie reached out, wrapping her fingers around my forearm.
Caelan’s teeth pulled away from his lips. “Is this how it is?”
“You’ve always seen whatever you wanted to, rather than the truth. Evie and I have always been friends. If she wants me here, I’ll stay with her.”
Caelan crossed his arms over his chest. “Evie. Come back to Joy Springs. Let’s talk.”
“I have nothing to say to you.” But we both heard the tremor in her voice.
His eyes softened. “I know what I did was heinous, unforgivable even. But we can try to work through this. You and I have been through too much to walk away from each other.”
“And our children?”
“We will deal with it when it happens.”
I felt the moment they sundered, the second Evie let go. Underneath our feet, the earth rumbled with her anger. Magic shimmered around her body, watermelon tourmaline with hints of crimson curling through the air.
“Our children are not an it.” Hair the color of night floated around her head, a crimson spark ringing her azure eyes.
“I didn’t mean that.” Caelan swallowed hard and looked to me as if I would help. “Evie, you have to believe I would love whatever children we brought into the world.”
“LEAVE.” Her voice was a dark command.
His jaw took on a stubborn tilt. “No.”
I glanced at Evie, seeing the barely suppressed rage in her slender form, then at Caelan. “I’d do what she asks,” I said softly.
“Oh, you would want me to leave,” Caelan snapped, eyes flashing gold. “This is perfect for you.”
Evie shifted in a heartbeat, into a jet-black thing of teeth and claws, and sailed through my wards.
I barked a laugh. “Told you so.”