Chapter 28 #3
“I didn’t bewitch you,” she said. “And I’m not bewitched either. I’m not out of my mind. I don’t regret anything.”
She pulled her shirt over her head while he watched her with a strange, confused expression on his face.
“Why? Why do you want me? After what I did to your mother? To you? You know what I am. You hated me only days ago. If it’s not the witch’s influence, then what is it? Revenge?”
“I don’t think you understand how revenge works.”
She pulled on her breeches and looked around for her boots.
One was half buried under rotting leaves.
She shook it out and then sat down on a log to pull them on.
She combed her fingers through her hair and winced when she hit a tangled knot.
She must look like the feral, dangerous woman he clearly believed her to be.
She decided to braid the wild mess into submission.
“I don’t hate you, Casrian. I did for a long while. I don’t know when it faded. Some time before I found you in the woods, I suspect, though I wasn’t happy to find you there.”
“Then what is this?”
“I don’t know.”
Was there a name for it? It wasn’t love.
But it wasn’t anything as simple and straightforward as lust either.
She was attracted to him. He was clean and healthy and good.
She admired his loyalty to his men, his bravery, and his desire to protect those weaker than himself.
She wasn’t as convinced as he was that all witches were evil.
Obviously. But he believed it and he’d devoted his life to fighting against that evil.
Selflessly. He was fair-minded and thoughtful.
Protective. He was just good clear down to his bones.
At first, she’d thought it was all an act, but it wasn’t.
Casrian was a genuinely good man, maybe the first she’d ever met.
And he wanted her. He wanted her, and he hated that he wanted her.
Look at how hard he was fighting against it.
He’d only fucked her because he was trying to break a spell he thought he was under.
Like the one his mother had placed on his father.
That made her feel dirty and she hated it. She shouldn’t feel dirty.
It had been wonderful. Didn’t he think it had been wonderful, even a little bit?
“Are you going to brand me?”
A shadow crossed his face. “No,” he said quietly. “I’ve seen enough evil in the world to know when I’m looking at it, and when I am not. You’re in no danger from me, Rowan.”
She nodded.
He ran a hand through his hair, mussing the golden strands. “I shouldn’t have accused you of bewitching me. I didn’t mean that. This is my own weakness. I shouldn’t have blamed you for it.”
“You don’t have to apologize.”
“I do,” he said solemnly. “I take complete responsibility for what happened. Your charm…” His jaw tightened. “If there’s a child, I’ll claim it. I’ll wed you if you like.”
He just kept ripping out her heart. And he was so otherwise decent—intelligent and kind and so painfully honest—she was having trouble hating him for it.
She pushed herself to her feet. “I wouldn’t have you if you asked.”
Especially like this with him droning on about weakness and duty and responsibility.
His expression was so very earnest. His jaw set so heroically. His blue eyes so very bright.
“I know what it’s like to be within the sphere of a witch’s influence—the drives it inflames.
” He shook his head. “I never should have brought you out here with your fae blood, knowing that it would make you vulnerable. Something in the rot has affected you differently. Perhaps because you’re a woman. ”
Maybe she did actually hate him.
“You should have had better. No matter where you came from, no matter what you are, I should have given you better. Not taken you against a tree like a common—”
“A common what, Casrian?”
She dared him to finish the thought, but he only looked at her beseechingly.
“At least tell me I wasn’t your first.”
The laugh that scraped up her throat hurt. “I won’t.”
He wasn’t the first man who’d touched her.
There were plenty of wandering hands in the world.
She and Toby had had their moments of fumbling exploration before he’d left the village with his family.
But Casrian was the first man she’d had inside her.
She was lucky she hadn’t bled. Although his come was still wet on her thighs, maybe there was some blood mixed in there.
She didn’t know what he’d do if she told him that.
Probably tear at his hair and rub ashes on his body.
“Thank God for that.” As if realizing he’d said that aloud, his eyes flashed wide and he looked at her. “I mean—”
Whatever monstrous thing he was about to say next was interrupted by a distant shout.
He looked at her as if for confirmation that she’d heard it too. She nodded, and he moved toward the horses.
There was another raised voice. Slightly closer, though she still couldn’t make out the words.
“That’s Daris.”
They ran. Casrian’s long legs got him to the horses first. He was mounted and moving in the direction of the sound before she pulled Copper’s reins free.