Chapter 11 Rowan
?ROWAN
The sunlight crackled over the study’s floorboards in radiant hues, split into fourths by the slats on the window pane.
Rowan stared down at the collection of scrolls spread before him.
His grip on his quill tightened as he glared at the taunting papers, holding it so firmly in his palm that it finally snapped in half.
He shook his head as he reread the words again, wanting to find a loophole, a way out of this bargain.
His eyes skimmed over the rules of the event, particularly over the requirements to be granted access inside: Only those who demonstrate a permanent bond to humanity can pass the charmed threshold.
How was he to prove to have a permanent bond to humanity?
Being banished here was not enough; he clearly showed no empathy to the lowly humans he dealt with.
But he had to get into this trading post, one of the last places he thought the relic he searched for could be.
While this was a human trading post, yes, they often dealt with non-human artifacts—trading things the Gleam Fae left behind or gifted them, and worst of all, they bartered off creatures of the night like gargoyles, goblins, and Gloamcaps, all to do their dirty work.
Or to garner their magical blood in the hopes of creating nefarious potions.
While he lacked empathy for these creatures who were so weak they managed to get captured by humans, he still never had any desire to enter such a seedy post.
Fucking hells, he hated sorcerers. Why did they want the most complicated things?
Other creatures were so much more amicable, desiring simple goods and secrets.
Sorcerers, however, always wanted things that Rowan would have to work for, and this case was proving difficult.
He almost strangled Veran’s neck in the Night Market when he told him he wouldn’t accept any other form of payment, incessant on the relic from the Gleam Fae.
And he might have actually killed the sorcerer if he hadn’t smelt a foul creature entering Paeonia’s space, tearing him away from his bargaining.
He shouldn’t have taken the woman to the Night Market with him, his mind too hasty in his decisions regarding her.
But he had been waiting for this moment for over a century, and she was proving to be difficult company.
His brilliant idea: to show Paeonia threats that lingered just beyond the tree line, to make Rowan her sole savior—her reprieve.
Perhaps all he had to do was be kind to her, kind enough that a foolish human like herself would mistake his false gestures for something more.
Yet, the fact that he had hundreds of years of pent-up anger brewing inside him only made his choices rasher. More aggressive. Becoming the beast he was always told he was. Rotted from the inside out.
He had never thought that his savior would turn out to be a meek human woman like Paeonia.
Delicate and fragile. Kind all the way down to her marrow.
He’d thought it’d be someone more like him.
More rotted and broken. And he hated even more how much she had begun to win him over.
How he had started to second guess his choices regarding her.
She didn’t deserve this, and Rowan hated that he cared.
He had wanted to scare her back at the brothel, but he hadn’t foreseen it ending with him pressing her against the wall—her tantalizing smell retribution for his misdeeds.
He rubbed his hand down his face. He had wanted her in that moment, a desire he didn’t think possible—a desire for a human.
It took everything in him to pull away, to not give her what she unknowingly craved—the way she had flexed her hips against him without realizing.
She had been petrified by him, and yet, at that moment, he could see something more brewing behind her eyes.
Now, all he had to do was get her to accept those lustful desires, that is, without succumbing to them himself.
If he had his way with her, there’d be no chance of getting her to fall for him.
Gods knew that such a sweet thing like herself would be traumatized if Rowan was given the opportunity, his feral instincts uncontainable.
He didn’t want to tenderly hold and care for her—he wanted her for his own possession.
To mark a claim on her. To bear witness to her untouched body—which he’d bet coin on that it was—all curves and soft, pliable flesh.
One of his hands wandered to his lap, bordering on being painfully stiff in his trousers.
He shut his eyes, letting out loud puffs as he breathed, palming himself over the fabric of his pants to try and relieve himself of his discomfort.
He shouldn’t let his body betray him, and he certainly shouldn’t reward his behavior by tugging roughly with the thought of her at the forefront of his mind.
But if he didn’t find release, he might do something rash like fuck her without remorse the next time he had her pinned against a wall.
Before he could free himself from his trousers and find some semblance of reprieve, he stood from his desk and stormed out of his study.
His nostrils flared, the stuffy castle air oppressive.
The girl had no choice, he was going to force her to fall for him.
He couldn’t stand this any longer. She was a traditional woman with traditional values—all he had to do was manipulate that very system she prayed upon.
If he could get her to feel she had to love him, to treat it like her duty, he knew she would.
The idea struck him so hard he almost fell over.
He knew how he could get into the human trading post—to bind himself to humanity—and also get the girl to fall for him. It was so obvious; how had he not thought of this sooner?
As Rowan stormed toward the gardens, Castor came bustling into the castle, thwarting his path. Rowan held up a hand before the Stoneborne could open his mouth.
“I’m not in the mood,” Rowan growled. He stomped around Castor, opening the garden doors, when Castor’s words reached him.
“It’s Paeonia, Rowan.”
He spun on his heels, his eyes narrowed.
Castor caught his breath. “She left… Swept off into the woods. I tried to call out to her, but it was like she couldn’t hear me.”
Rowan’s jaw tightened. He took a dangerous step toward Castor who stumbled back in response. They both knew what this meant. “You had one fucking job,” Rowan spat.
Castor let out a mirthless laugh through his nose. “Oh, you can shove it, Rowan. I’ve been doing my job. For fucking decades now. The girl got out, and I think we both know it had nothing to do with me.”
Rowan tried to simmer his anger. “Fine. Let her leave. Let her turn to stone. I do not need her.”
Castor scoffed. “You don’t need her?” he shouted. “You’re going to damn us all because you’re too high and mighty to possibly treat her with a little kindness? And you know she won’t turn to stone. I know what you did.”
Rowan stopped moving, his back to Castor. “Careful.”
“Maybe you’re right. You’ll never win her favor with the way you’ve been exploding at her. She’s just a silly human, quite malleable for one too—she’s easy. It’s miraculous that your chance has finally been handed to you with such simple prey, and you’re tearing it to shreds.”
Rowan turned, his teeth exposed in a snarl.
“Don’t get pissed at me! You’re the one acting like a godforsaken beast.”
“Been holding all this in, have you?” Rowan grunted.
“Perhaps it’s time one of us told you how it is. You’re being foolish. More foolish than even her.”
Rowan shook his head.
“She didn’t leave on her own.”
Yes, Rowan thought as much, but for Castor to validate his worries, he clenched his fists.
When Rowan didn’t respond, Castor let out an agitated sigh. “You’re going to just let her be stolen by the Eldritch, then?”
Rowan looked out the window, his feet begging to move.
“Let him take what’s yours?”
Rowan let out a low laugh, sickly and cynical. Castor always knew exactly how to get under his skin. “You’ll regret talking to me like this.”
Castor grinned. “Will I?”
Rowan rolled his eyes. “Which way did she go?”
The Stoneborne’s smile faded. “Out the southern gate.”
Rowan raised a brow. “The one warded with the wolves?”
Castor nodded.
“Fuck.”
“Not good,” Castor mumbled as he trailed Rowan.
“She’s gonna be the death of me.” Rowan swung the door open and swept into the garden in rapid movements.
“Let’s hope,” Castor called out.
An irritating nerve slid along Rowan’s back, slithering like a snake over each of his vertebrae, as he stood before the southern gate.
Red flared in his vision until he spotted a small pink ribbon fluttering in the breeze, tumbling over the dried ground as the wind billowed.
Paeonia’s ribbon. The ribbon she had tied her hair back with.
Rowan shoved open the gate and caught the blush-toned ribbon as it floated by, rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger. She had gone this way.
He crushed the silk into his fist; no, she had been taken this way. Forced to enter the woods.
The fact that the Eldritch came so close to his castle, beckoning Paeonia out into the woods, even after his warning post of corpses, meant the woods were getting restless. Growing faster than could be contained and entering terrain they were forbidden from.
Rowan knew his strengths, but he still feared for what the forest was becoming.
He lurched into the thicket, shoving the ribbon into his pocket, no other signs of the foolish woman.
His claws sprouted from his fingers on instinct, the shadows making the forest dark as nightfall, but Rowan’s fae vision allowed him to see with ease.
He couldn’t feel her. Couldn’t feel Paeonia to know where she was.
He laid a hand flat against one of the alder trees, his skin pressed against the rusty-red bark.
He closed his eyes momentarily, absorbing the heartbeat of the tree, letting his eyes see through the interconnected web of evergreens.
He searched for her, his claws digging into the bark as he foraged through gloomy copses and thickets.
Then, in the distance, he got a wave of softness, a sensation foreign to him. A splash of light. It was Paeonia. He knew it just from her glimmering aura. She was deep in the forest, too far to ever find her way back.
He growled, his eyes wide, his hand slumping off the alder.
The branches above shivered as Rowan prowled through the copses like they knew the kind of benighted anger that had brewed for centuries inside the Grim Fae.
He needed to get her before the sun went down completely, before his wyld glamour would take effect.
He didn’t know how well he’d be able to protect her if he let that happen.
He once thought he’d be able to control himself in his wyld glamour, but after the night he chased her in the gardens, he realized he was more at the hands of his instincts than he wanted to admit.
Castor stayed behind, knowing things might get too dangerous. Perhaps if he was in his fae form he could help, but not now. Not as he lived as a Stoneborne, absent of all fae magic.
Rowan picked up speed when he got the scent of Paeonia and smelt the soft floral aroma she cast, the milky sugar of her pheromones.
He trudged onward, the forest growing inky. He didn’t know how long he had been prowling when he heard movement ahead. He slowed his pace, large wolves moving out from amongst the thicket, slowly shifting into Rowan’s path.
Rowan shook his head and laughed. The wolves thought they could frighten him. He rolled his neck before readying his stance, coaxing the beasts to approach, to dare block his way.
The foolish beasts circled him, a deep rumble a threat from their chest, until one bolted, leaping at Rowan.
In one swift movement, his arm shot out, flinging the giant wolf to the side, immediately grabbing the ears of another that pounced, whipping that one into the distance too.
It landed on its feet, sliding back on the frozen leaves.
The wolves growled, and Rowan snarled at them. All six of them were upright again, prowling closer, not intimidated by a fae. When the one on his flank darted at him, Rowan sank his claws deep into its throat, letting the blood spew out, the wolf whimpering into the silent evening.
Two more came at him, and Rowan was quick to shake one off, grabbing the neck of
another, twisting it with great effort in between his hands until it cracked.
The wolf fell limp on the forest floor. One dug its claws into Rowan’s back, and the fae howled, reaching behind and yanking the oversized beast forward, slamming it against the ground.
His hand swung and grabbed hold of the largest wolf that charged for him, holding it down, its claws tearing at Rowan’s skin, before sinking his teeth into the beast’s neck, ripping out its throat.
Rowan’s eyes blazed wildly, his legs ready to charge like a predator, his claws slicked in crimson, panting and grinning like a feral animal.
By the time each of the six wolves lay lifeless, Rowan struggled to catch his breath, blood pouring from several slashes across his body. But he didn’t retreat. If he didn’t rescue Paeonia, he’d be trapped in Lyth forever, stuck in that godforsaken castle, driving him to the point of insanity.
His veins tingled, little sparks igniting along his spine. He couldn’t see it, but he knew he was shifting, the sun setting completely over the horizon. Horns grew in his shadow, his outstretched arm a more violet hue.
The woods opened to an archway, a place deep in the thicket, covered in brush and difficult to see.
He trekked cautiously, breathing loudly.
A soft glimmer of light caught his eye, and he saw Paeonia, her blonde hair flickering in the last rays of the setting sun that filtered in through the crowns of the trees.
She sagged in her restraints, unmoving, like she was no longer alive, attached to the branch of a tree, a makeshift mushroom laurel crown atop her head, leaves stuck in her hair.
She seemed frozen, and Rowan couldn’t tell if her chest was rising and falling.
A powerful rush of irritation fueled him.
He stormed into the Eldritch’s nest, ready to claim the human.
His human.