Chapter 20
Chapter
Twenty
My muscles elongated, sleek and powerful. Sharp, serrated teeth formed in my mouth, sharp against my thick tongue. Claws stretched from jet-black paws, gleaming white under the moonlight. Fury drove me forward, the urge to hurt, to harm, to tear something or someone apart roaring through my blood.
A crimson sheen rolled over my eyes. Wind ruffled my sleek fur as I sailed through the air. Caelan’s eyes widened. He jerked back, arms pinwheeling as he struggled to right himself.
His usual grace went under the onslaught of my speed. We collided, Caelan slamming to the ground, face up. My paws rested on either side of his head. A low snarl rumbled in my throat, but now that I had him, my anger began to slowly dissolve.
“Rowan,” Caelan pleaded, lowering his eyes from mine.
He knew who the dominant one was today.
“She told you to leave,” Rowan said mildly. He stepped up beside us, gliding a gentle hand over the back of my head. My fury melted away, leaving only a horrific, bone-deep sadness.
“Evie has to come back to Joy Springs. Her life is there.”
He spoke about me like I wasn’t standing over him. Had he ever really seen me?
Rowan stroked my fur again. “Are you able to speak, Evie?”
Garbled speech was something I was still working on, but I didn’t feel like talking right now. When I did nothing, Rowan spoke once more. “She’s aware of her responsibilities and will return in her own time.”
Caelan lay perfectly still underneath me. I leaned in, lifting my lips to show him all my new and pretty teeth and let a slow snarl rumble through my throat.
Rowan chuckled.
Saliva dripped from my fangs, plopping onto Caelan’s exposed throat.
“Will you tear my throat out, Evie?” Caelan asked quietly, his words steady despite the fear saturating his scent. “Are you that vindictive?”
“You’re a fucking idiot, man,” Rowan said in disbelief.
“You have a predator right at your throat, close enough to your jugular to end you before you even have the chance to shift, and you’re still antagonizing her.
” He shook his head. “Gotta say. If Evie did tear through your neck, I wouldn’t feel sorry for you. ”
“You think you’ve won her?” Caelan asked.
I had to force myself not to bite him just for being an idiot.
“Evie is not a prize. Thinking that way is what led to your downfall.” Rowan sounded bored, but I knew him well enough to know how furious he was.
Confusion entered his eyes. “Downfall? I do not need a Lady to cement my position as Lord.”
“If that is true, why have you pursued her so relentlessly?”
“Wouldn’t you?” Caelan snapped. “She has—” His eyes widened as he realized what he’d almost revealed.
“She has what?” Rowan coaxed. “Beauty? Power? All the things that might secure your shaky Lordship?”
Caelan’s eyes flashed with rage.
I stilled, unsure what Rowan was talking about.
His hand came to rest on the back of my neck. “After the disaster in Joy Springs, the Lords called an emergency meeting. Caelan here is barely hanging onto power by a thread.”
“That is not why I came here.” There’s a desperate note in his voice. For the first time, I’m positive he’s lying to me.
Stars burst behind my eyes. Holding this new form burned more magic than expected.
Maybe it’s because I was exhausted, both mentally and physically.
Maybe it’s because I was not quite a normal jaguar—the serrated teeth and overly long claws were more for shock value than practical purposes, though I’d thought long and hard about using them on Caelan—but a fine tremor began in my limbs, so subtle I know only me and possibly Rowan could sense the weakness.
Disgust filled me. With Caelan, with everything I’d been through, with everything coming up that I’d have to deal with once more. I was so tired and heartbroken, and once this was over, I wondered if I’d have to once again pick up the pieces of my life and start all over.
Rowan’s fingers tightened in my ruff as I took a step back.
“Leave,” Rowan commanded. “Do not return to my territory again. You know the laws as well as I do. If you come back here, you do so at your own peril.”
Caelan, defiant to the end, snorted with disgust.
“Do not mistake my youth for weakness,” Rowan said, his face stoic even in the face of Caelan’s derision. “I knew the moment you stepped onto my territory, and you are here at my own sufferance. You mean something to Evie, and Evie is important to me.”
We made our way back through Rowan’s wards, and when the wards reformed, we turned to face Caelan once more.
I was having trouble walking. Shifting like this so soon after the siphoning had gone so wrong was a mistake. But I would not collapse with Caelan watching.
“Go home,” Rowan said. “Evie will return in her own time.”
Caelan rose, dusting the dirt and grass from his clothing. He speared me with a golden-eyed look. “She returns in three days, or I’ll have her shop shut down.”
I froze, resisting the urge to leap forward and bite his face off.
“Do you really think in the face of everything, that will endear you to her?”
“She exists and thrives due to my influence. Imagine what will happen if I withdraw that support.” Caelan stuck his hands in his pockets. “Three days, Evie. Then we will talk without Rowan’s influence.”
I showed him my teeth.
Caelan smiled at me, rage glittering in his golden eyes. “There is much unsaid between us. Come home, Evangeline.”
He turned and walked away, eventually fading into the heavy layer of fog that lay over Rowan’s land.
Rowan exhaled. “I’m sorry, Evie.” He stroked an absent-minded hand over my fur. “Come. We have things to discuss as well.”
I took a step toward the house and swayed, bumping against Rowan’s thigh.
He bent and scooped me into his arms, chuckling as I swatted him with a massive paw. “Pretty little deadly kitty,” he cooed.
Rowan fetched a robe and walked out of the kitchen to give me time to shift and dress. I’d just finished tying the sash in a knot when he knocked on the door frame, his face turned away.
“I’m decent.” Not that he hadn’t already seen me in all my glory more than once.
He strode in, a wary look on his face. Instead of asking me if I was alright, he went straight to one of the cabinets and pulled two rocks glasses down. “Want a drink?”
I sank into a kitchen chair. “Gods yes.”
He flashed a smile and poured us both a large glug of something strong and brown. I took the glass from his outstretched fingers and tossed the entire drink down in one swallow. Rowan poured me another and brought the bottle with him to the table.
“Funny how fast a buzz can wear off when trouble arrives.” He took the seat opposite and watched me, long fingers swirling the rim of his glass.
I didn’t want to talk about that. Not yet. “You shared something with me earlier.”
Our eyes met. “I did.”
“Is your mother still alive?”
He smiled. “She is. Mom is full fae.”
A bad feeling churned in my gut. “Where is she?”
“She lives in one of the other realms.”
“Rowan,” I breathed. “The bridge is gone.”
He nodded. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen her.”
My heart hurt for him. All those people I’d trapped over there. I might not have meant to do it, but once I’d absorbed the tree’s magic, no one but the most powerful of gods and goddesses could cross over now. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
He sipped his whiskey. “You have more problems to deal with than worrying whether I get to visit my mother.”
“No. You are my friend and you must know I would escort her here or you there if you ever wanted to go. Dad says I’ll be able to travel instantaneously soon, even without the benefit of being the bridge. I can go wherever I want, so even if I’m back in Joy Springs, I can be here almost instantly.”
His face fell. “You’re returning.”
“We both know I have to go. Caelan will destroy my shop if I don’t.”
A heavy sigh escaped him. “You can rebuild here.”
I smiled at him. “I know. We both knew it would come to this. I can’t abandon everything forever, even if I wanted to. There are people in Joy Springs relying on me. I have land I need to tend to.”
He swallowed and scratched at a nick in the table. “I understand.”
Rowan was uncharacteristically silent. I took a sip and smiled at him. “I will not leave until your land is cleansed of the rot infesting it.”
He glanced up in surprise. “If it takes longer than three days?”
“Have you forgotten who I am and who my daddy is? What good is all this power if I can’t make a shop magically disappear?”
His laugh this time was genuine. “I hope you never use those powers for evil.”
I tapped my fingers together like a criminal mastermind. “Let’s see what kind of trouble I can get into in three days.”
“I believe in you.”
We grinned at each other until his smile slipped. “Caelan is a fool,” he said softly. “You are a prize beyond gold, and he tosses you aside like yesterday’s trash.”
My amusement turns to ash. “I don’t know what I did wrong.”
Confusion glimmers in his hazel eyes. “Nothing.” He shook his head with vehemence. “You did nothing wrong.”
I tipped the rest of my whiskey back and tugged the bottle over, pouring us both another round. “It’s not all Caelan’s fault, though I appreciate how you defend me.”
“Give me an example.” His eyes burned with anger.
“The automaton,” I said.
He waved a hand. “That was before you were an item.”
“Keeping my Chimera identity secret. Claiming a piece of his land. Antagonizing the Lords. Taking and keeping Donovan’s land instead of turning it over.”
Rowan seems unimpressed by my list of supposed sins.
He held up a finger. “Chimera are hunted with little mercy. You kept the secret to save your life and those of your friends.” Another finger.
“Your power does not covet more power, Evie. It covets to heal. Return the land to him when you go back to Joy Springs. An easy enough fix.” A third finger and a slow smile. “They started it.”
A bark of laughter escaped me.