Chapter 34
R owan opened the door wearing soft, fitted nightclothes in the exact fabric and pattern as my own, and it was enough to make me wish I had brought more vodka.
“We should talk about tomorrow,” I said shortly, making a straight line for the chair by the fire.
“By all means,” she said sarcastically, stepping back to give me space. Her hair was still damp, and it smelled like the winter air outside, like pine needles and freshly falling snow.
The same snow we’ll be battling in if tomorrow goes badly.
Though I didn’t think it would come to that. Iiro wouldn’t allow anyone at Elk to resort to something so pedestrian as bloodshed over something he knew belonged to me, not when it would lose him the support of the other clans.
She sat down across from me, studying my face more closely than I would have liked. Finally, she held out an imperious hand.
“If you’re going to bring a drink for yourself, the least you can do is share.”
Fair enough . I handed it over, ignoring the strange energy that always seemed to course from her skin to mine. She took a long dreg, which I supposed was unsurprising when I considered this drink was the entire reason she was trapped in Socair. Allegedly.
Instead of handing the glass back, she set it on the table, ceding ground she would normally have chased.
“Tomorrow?” she prompted, her tone infuriatingly casual.
There were moments I could have sworn I glimpsed something more behind her eyes, then times when she genuinely seemed to have no concept of the stakes of the games we were playing.
Had she forgotten how close she came to death only weeks ago? That we were still teetering at the brink of a war?
“Yes,” I bit out. “Tomorrow. While you’ve been busy playing drinking games and judging arse contests, I’ve been trying to plan logistics?—”
She cut me off with a choked sound of offense, a muscle twitching in her jaw. “While I’ve been making the best of being your prisoner, you’ve been racking your brain to ensure there was no way for me to go free, you mean.”
Right, because it was my deepest wish to keep her as the pet I had to obsessively keep safe every day for the rest of our lives, which were likely to be relatively short when we each had half a kingdom calling for our deaths and Lochlann would soon be primed to burn my clan to the ground. Even I couldn’t strategize a way out of those odds.
“Try to remember that you have the capacity to start a war tomorrow.” I worked to keep my tone even. “It might sound appealing to have Korhonan fighting to take you back, but I assure you, that will not end well for any of us.”
She actually scoffed that time. “I’m sorry, are you actually telling me not to start a war right now? Maybe you should have thought of that before you claimed me, Evander.”
At the unfamiliar sound of my name on her lips, I froze for a fraction of a moment. It was a hesitation that would have gotten me killed in battle. More evidence of why she was dangerous to have around, let alone with her complete ignorance of Socairan politics—or politics in general, I suspected.
“I did think about it, Princess,” I assured her. “In fact, it’s all I have the luxury of thinking about most days.”
The deal I struck and the price I’d paid for it, having her insane mass of ridiculous hair tormenting me from down the hallway at every turn.
“And yet?—”
“And yet,” I explained with all the patience I had left, which was, to be frank, not much. “I saw one of my enemies about to ally with another of my much more powerful enemies, conveniently located on either side of my clan’s territory, and I did what I had to do to stop that from happening.”
Her mouth popped open in offense. “So all of this was to stop me from marrying Theo?”
Der’mo . Now that she understood that, tomorrow was sure to be even more difficult. I nodded irritably, and she reacted much as I expected her to, going ramrod straight in her chair while her features fell flat.
“You manipulative bastard! I knew you didn’t give a single stars-damned hell about that blood debt.”
I reared back at the hypocrisy of that, considering the family she was so very desperate to marry into. I had done what I had to, but I didn’t just pluck people out of their lives to use to my own ends like Iiro did.
“I’m the manipulative one?” I challenged. “You’re so busy concerning yourself with what I had to lose from that alliance, have you stopped to think about who stood to gain from it? And how very conveniently that worked out for them?”
She went still, tilting her head in suspicion, so I spelled it out for her.
“Here’s a tip, Princess. When you want to figure out who’s manipulating a situation, take a step back and figure out who benefits from it most.” I put a finger to my lips, pretending to think. “I wonder who stands to benefit if Lochlann allies with Clan Elk just as they’re preparing to make a bid for the throne.”
She blinked several times, shaking her head in denial.
“That doesn’t even make sense.” Though the words were a challenge, the tone was a lie, a last ditch effort to convince herself that she hadn’t been deceived long before I came onto the scene.
“If that’s what they wanted, Iiro could have broached that subject before dragging me to the Summit. Stars, he could have just reached out to my father and asked. Theo didn’t even mention marriage until the last possible opportunity.”
She sat forward, gaining momentum and ire in tandem. “Has it occurred to you that you’re just seeing what you want to see because you hate Theo and you hate Clan Elk and you hate Lochlann, and honestly, is there anything you don’t hate or anyone you don’t instantly disdain, or is that illustrious honor reserved solely for me and the people I love?”
Bile rose in my throat at her reference to Korhonan as someone she loved. Honestly .
“Yes,” I bit back. ”I’m sure the time you spent with Theodore gave you ample opportunity to explore his character.”
A frustrated sound escaped her lips as she threw her hands to her side. “Is everything you’ve done about getting back at him for whatever the hell is between you two? Or is this because you want the throne instead?”
I let out an empty laugh. “No one with any sense wants the storms-blasted Obsidian Throne.”
I might not believe in curses, but I knew that whoever sat on that throne would have a permanent target pinned to their back, not to mention the immense unpleasant task of wrangling the clans at every turn.
Rowan peered at me like she was trying to read a book in a language she didn’t speak a word of.
“So, everything you’ve done is just about keeping Elk from getting something you don’t even want?”
There was a discordant tone to her words that gave me pause, a meaning lurking just below the surface that I couldn’t quite discern. Or maybe it was just the stress and the several ales and the general frustration of being anywhere near her.
Either way, I didn’t respond. My silence seemed to upset her more than any of my words had.
She got to her feet, causing her endless layers of curls to spring free from where she had attempted to tuck them behind her ears.
“I should have known. This is just like the day you used me against him in the sparring ring. You treat people like toys, like pawns…like pets .” She spat the last word like a curse. “I guess you were up front about that, at least.”
Without giving me a chance to respond, she crossed to the door and opened it in a clear gesture for me to leave.
“You can go now. Rest assured I won’t be starting any wars tomorrow. You’ve done that enough for the both of us.”
That was certainly debatable, but I suddenly found myself in no mood to debate anything with her. I didn’t like the feeling that I was missing something.
I didn’t like that I cared about what that might be. So I left without another word. One way or another, she would be gone soon anyway, if not today, then in a few months.
Then I could get back to my life as usual, without her particular chaos upending all of my priorities. Which would be…a relief, all things considered.