Evermore

Chapter 13 Rowan

?ROWAN

Rowan could sense the forest around him as he ran with Paeonia clutched against his chest. He could feel the anger that brewed within the foliage, the creatures the Eldritch would be sending after him.

Rowan couldn’t risk fighting any more enemies with her in his grasp.

He had taken quite a few out, wrapping them in the hanging lianas, using his prowess, letting them dangle lifelessly in haunting decor.

But still, these creatures swarmed the woods by the hundreds. He couldn’t possibly stop them all.

He growled as he darted between trees, jumping rocks, skating over treacherous ground.

When he finally made it back to the castle, heading toward the gate, he threw his hand back, the wall of trees closing in behind him.

Roots and branches twisted together to create a barrier, a blockage so the feral beasts couldn’t follow, the deed so much harder to do now that he was weakened by the curse.

Paeonia mumbled admiration against him as he channeled the wall of vines and bramble. He barged into the gardens, passing several Stoneborne who had been waiting for them to return, and as he shoved past, he snapped at them to stay put.

Rowan breezed into the castle, Paeonia sitting upright in his grip now that they were inside, and he slammed open the doors to his large study, the fireplace already ablaze and crackling.

He dropped her to her feet before it, breathing heavy, the last of his magic stealing all his strength.

She made an odd noise, collapsing to her knees, sighing as the fire’s heat began to warm her.

Rowan stumbled back, barely catching himself on the couch, his arms torn and bleeding. The gash in his back stung as he leaned against the settee, sure he was staining the light blue fabric. He groaned, tearing off his coat that stuck to him from the encrusted blood.

Paeonia rose, crossing the short distance to him, and he snarled, baring his teeth, warning her. He did not need her coming closer—didn’t want to exert the effort to restrain himself. Not in this condition.

She froze, stopping where she stood, watching him with those doe, green eyes.

“Are you hurt?” he asked her finally.

She drew in a small breath. “My wrists are sore, but other than that…” She gave him a lopsided grin.

Rowan threw his coat to the side, his shirt loose and hanging off his chest, shredding it all the way so he sat shirtless in the dark room. He groaned as he adjusted his position, the fire’s glow lighting his torso, showcasing the red that now marred so much of his body.

“Rowan,” she whispered faintly.

He ignored her, sitting back in pain, hoping his magic would regenerate soon. While fae could heal faster than normal, it wasn’t an instantaneous fix, and Rowan had been severely hurt.

“Let me help you,” she insisted.

Rowan pushed his hair back, his face drenched in sweat. “I don’t need your help.”

She bit her lip, clearly debating something in her head. She uncomfortably switched between the balls of her feet.

She finally let out a breath and left the room.

Good, he thought to himself as he leaned back, staring at the ceiling. He didn’t need her around to clog his senses. He shouldn’t have brought her in here in the first place, but he had been scorching in pain, and she was shaking from the cold.

The door creaked back open. Rowan tilted his head, expecting Ren or Castor, but a blonde mess of hair greeted him instead. Paeonia held a bucket of water and a cloth in her dirty hands.

She rounded the sofa before him. “Please,” she beckoned softly.

He couldn’t imagine why she’d want to stay here and help him after he had scolded her. He nodded against his better judgement. Selfish, he cursed to himself.

She dropped the bucket and doused the cloth, wringing it out before bringing it to his arm. He extended it for her and looked away as she gently dabbed. Her fingers shook as she worked. She was nervous. Likely scared he might attack her like he threatened so many times already.

She dropped the red cloth back into the basin and shoved away her overcoat, allowing her to move with more ease. She kneeled before him in a white dress, almost silky in texture, dirtied from her exchange with the Eldritch.

“I called for you,” she whispered.

He stiffened.

Her wrists froze in the air, the skin raw from the binds, as he met her eyes.

“I thought I saw you. Thought you were coming for me. I…I called out for you. But it wasn’t you.” She swallowed.

“Why are you telling me this?”

She shrugged. “So that you know I don’t hate you.” Her eyes flickered away as she squeezed the cloth between her fingers, the bloody water cascading into the bucket. He followed her movements as she dabbed the slashes across his skin. “How did you get these?” she asked him timidly.

“Wolves.”

She bit her lip. “How many?”

He made a low sound in his throat. “Four. Six. I don’t remember.”

So that you know I don’t hate you.

That was a good thing, what he wanted from her from the start. So he wasn’t sure why his chest panged with a bad, ominous feeling.

She sat so close that he could pick apart all the freckles on her skin.

The sweat along her hairline. She wasn’t striking, not in the way that turned heads or silenced rooms. Her features were soft, unassuming—rounded cheeks, slightly crooked nose, lips that curved more gently than perfectly.

Her green eyes, pale and thoughtful, held a light that made you look twice—not because they dazzled, but because they seemed to see something gentler in the world than everyone else’s.

Her long, blonde hair fell in coils down her back, neither styled nor wild, just there—like a detail you might miss until it moved in the breeze.

There was a stillness to her, a quiet that didn’t demand attention but invited it all the same.

She looked like someone painted in soft brushstrokes, not carved from marble.

Still, she possessed a kind of beauty that lingered.

It made him believe in innocence, even if only for a moment.

A type of beauty Rowan was unfamiliar with, unsure if he wanted to bathe in it or lock it away to fester.

When she stood, she spotted the gash on his back from where it trailed onto his shoulder.

She waited patiently, and Rowan finally turned so she could kneel onto the couch and begin to clean his back.

Perhaps his exhausted state actually helped sedate him, lessening his instincts to grab her and demand she enjoy his company.

He breathed in slowly, focusing his mind, steeling himself as she touched him. He winced knowing she was taking in the extent of his wounds. It hurt, but not as bad as it did when he was running with her in his arms.

She finished, moving to face him again, standing awkwardly before him, silent.

“What?” he growled at her.

Her throat bobbed. “Your…face.”

His hand brushed the corner of his scalp, the rough, sticky texture of dried blood. He grunted, giving her permission to clean this last part of him. She sat beside him on the couch, grabbing the damp cloth and pressing it to the side of his face.

He studied her as she worked, her skin littered with golden freckles, her eyes big and focused, her lips a faint pink. The true essence of lightness. The antithesis to his darkness. He shut his eyes. Once she finished this, he had to send her out.

She didn’t seem to be paying too much attention to what her body was doing, placing a hand on his thigh to give herself more leverage, to continue to clean the cut by his temple.

Her fingers parted his hair to clean the cut before they trekked higher.

She gently brushed his horns, just a quick feel, a tiny exploration.

His jaw went taut, his knuckles whitening.

He let out a low noise, losing his composure, and Paeonia startled.

His hand slid up her back and into her hair, his eyes flashing open, and she went still.

His fingers tightened in her locks, his lip curling.

She looked like she was afraid he was going to eat her. And if he wasn’t careful, he would.

He wanted to loathe her softness, reject her presence—but the longer she tended to him, the harder it became to breathe.

Something ancient twisted low in his chest, a pull he’d denied, ignored, refused to name.

But now it roared awake. Gods. The thought struck like a blade to the ribs—sharp, unwelcome, real.

And for the first time in centuries, he was afraid.

Rowan’s face moved dangerously close to hers, her breathing quickening as she stared wide-eyed at him, completely at his mercy.

“I’m sorry,” she spoke frantically.

She thought he was bothered by her touch.

Perhaps she even thought she had hurt him as she tended to his wounds.

Or maybe she didn’t mean to touch his horns, her fingers moving absentmindedly, unaware of the disturbance she caused.

His other hand gripped her thigh as he leaned in closer to her neck.

She made a strange sound in her throat. She was preparing for him to bite her.

And fuck, he wanted to bite her. To mark her. To claim her.

And why shouldn’t he? What stopped him? She’d never fall for him. Never grow to care for him. And here she sat, her body tense, waiting for the pain she thought he was about to inflict. So why shouldn’t he bite her and sink his sharpened canines into her soft skin?

He hadn’t realized how long he held her in that position until she spoke, her words faint and strained. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because you’re mine,” he growled in rapid response.

He hadn’t truly known what she was asking, if she meant why he was clutching her so possessively, why he snapped at her, why he looked at her the way he did, or why he was holding her hostage in his castle. But the answer tumbled out of him without heeding to her words.

His hand tightened, and she whined, his breath fanning over the spot where her dress hung off her shoulder. The sweet scent of honey filled his nostrils, and he licked his lips. He had never smelt something so enticing before.

“R-Rowan,” she stuttered.

If he didn’t control himself, he might have mistook her whines as an invitation. His lips moved higher, in line with her ear, when he whispered, “Do not do anything like that again.”

She nodded as much as she could with his grip so tight in her hair.

“You are my pet, not the Eldritch’s.”

She choked, and he had the urge to tear her dress off, to see what lay beneath—to humiliate her.

To see her cheeks flush red, her arms rushing to cover her exposed chest. To warn her he was no gentle creature.

He might insist on her safety and well-being, but he had nothing but salacious intentions.

He wanted to properly convey that, the need to watch her sob from humiliation. To break her. Not bend, break.

Or perhaps he needed to convince himself. To remind himself that he was sadistic and fearsome.

With that thought, he pushed her away, getting to his feet, the rapid emotions hurting him more than any wolf could. He wasn’t himself. Not like this.

She fell back, catching herself on her hands, and stared helplessly at him, both of them silent and breathing impossibly heavy.

He flexed his claws as he stormed out of the room, ducking under the doorframe, his horns extending too high to fit otherwise, leaving Paeonia to wonder what just happened on her own.

He went to storm to the west wing, to his room, shoving past Castor who had been waiting outside the study for him.

“She’s all right, then?”

Rowan grunted. “What do you care?”

Castor kept in step behind him. “You know exactly why I care.”

Rowan spun, halting Castor who appeared unphased, used to Rowan’s outbursts by now. “She’s safe. It’s fine. She’ll be fine.”

Castor shook his head. “And will you?” Castor gestured to his absent shirt. He knew what Rowan had suffered back in the study, knew it far better than Rowan did. Knew it even if Rowan didn’t.

“It won’t happen again. I can control it.”

Castor scoffed. “You can’t. You know you can’t.”

Rowan roared with anger. “What else would you have me do?”

Castor leaned back against the wall, always appearing so nonchalant, like he wasn’t trapped in this castle the same as Rowan.

“Just,” he began, “no more outbursts. You’re going to frighten her. And it’s rather hard to fall in love when frightened.”

Rowan crossed his arms, ignoring the pain when his muscles strained. “Do you not think that is the best time? Trapping her. Leaving her no other option.” Rowan felt his eyes darken. “She’s weak. All I have to do is break her, and she’ll be mine.”

Castor tsked. “And how is that going for you?”

Rowan couldn’t see, but he knew his friend was giving him a look of disapproval.

“She hates being touched, you know?” Castor added as if he knew Rowan had touched her in the study.

Rowan seethed with annoyance.

“Before you accuse me of anything,” Castor started, “I’d never interfere when it’s my life at stake as well. She had told me on her own volition.”

“Why?”

“Why is my life at stake? Oh, you know, the whole curse—”

Rowan cut him off with a hiss. “Why do you know she doesn’t like to be touched?”

Castor grinned, clearly satisfied in his mission to agitate Rowan. The Stoneborne had a death wish. “Ask her yourself.”

“I should smash you to pieces,” Rowan threatened as Castor turned to walk away.

“You wouldn’t dream of it.”

Rowan retreated to his room, thinking of the few times he had touched her.

She had almost always cowed away. But those few rare times, she leaned into his embrace.

She had edged closer to him in the brothel, had even called out his name when that decrepit creature touched her.

And now she told him she had cried out for him in the woods too.

He pictured her tied up, the tears streaming down her face, and imagined how she’d sound calling his name through the cloth bound around her mouth.

How the disappointment and fear must have been blatant on her features, in her eyes, when it wasn’t him who stepped out of the woods and into the clearing.

She only seemed to crave his hold when there were other, far scarier things than him around.

He shook his head trying to drown his feral thoughts of Paeonia, trying to drown that noise she made as he grabbed her, trying to drown her scent from his body, trying to drown the way she clung onto him as he walked her back from the Night Market.

He was better than this. He didn’t have to succumb to this like all the fae before him.