Chapter 90
CHAPTER NINETY
R owan was up to her elbows in blood when I found her.
It was a familiar sight these days, but too close to all the images my mind had conjured since I read Korhonan’s note. I must not have schooled my features as well as I meant to, because my wife went still when she caught sight of me. She finished with her ministrations and hastily wiped her hands before crossing the tent to me.
“What is it?”
Iiro wants to torture you. My estate is going to fall. All I’ve done for my clan as their Duke is get them slaughtered in far greater numbers than my father managed on his most unhinged day.
And I’m about to lose the only person who could make that bearable.
Not that it would matter for long. I might die fighting for my people, but I would die all the same.
“Nils has betrayed us.” I gave her as much of the truth as I could. “He’s marching on the estate.”
The blood drained from her face, her lips parting in a surprised O. But it didn’t take long for her to square her shoulders, just as I knew she would.
“So we go to head him off,” she reasoned. “Join the soldiers you already have stationed there.”
I nodded. That was the only option, though it wasn’t without its risks. She put that together quickly, as well.
“But...taking too many will leave this part of Bear open for the taking,” she surmised with a grimace.
I gave her another dip of my chin, filling in the rest of the strategy for her. “We’ll move the soldiers around in a cascading pattern from the Ram border and just hope they don’t decide to join the fight.”
There was almost no way they weren’t planning to join the fight now that we were poised to lose. Mikhail wouldn’t miss the chance to be on the victorious side; to win favor before Iiro solidified his reign.
Rowan’s dubious expression told me she, too, knew damned good and well we wouldn’t get that lucky.
Rather than respond to her doubt, I moved on. “We’ll leave within the hour, in advance of the soldiers.”
Though the Elk soldier had been leery of giving me his duke’s location outright, he had reluctantly admitted that he was nearby. He wouldn’t have a chance to respond until we were well on our way, but it was a chance I was willing to take. I understood him well enough to know what his answer would be.
He wouldn’t have warned us if he wasn’t willing to help in some way. For that matter, he wouldn’t have been so close to begin with if some part of him hadn’t been expecting me to ask.
“Of course,” Rowan agreed without hesitation. “I’ll give some last-minute instructions to Johanna, then pack my things.”
Her easy acquiescence was another knife to my soul. Time after time, she had given me the trust I had asked for. Would she see this as a breach of that trust? Or would she understand that this was me honoring that faith?
Storms . Was this really the last day we would ever spend together?
I closed my eyes against the emotion threatening to escape, tugging my lemmikki into my arms. She folded herself into me, wrapping her slim body around mine. Even through the metallic scent of blood, I could still smell her .
“We’ll get through this,” she said with all the unwavering confidence that had forced me into this plan. “The estate is a veritable fortress, and you said yourself, Bear soldiers are the best.”
Yes, they are. And it still won’t be enough. We won’t get through this.
But at least you will.
I pressed my lips against her forehead. She was warm and soft and so alive that I couldn’t regret my decision to keep her that way. But neither could I force myself to lie to her outright.
“We should get moving.”
If I only had one night left to spend with her, I would damned well make that time count.
I had chosen our inn carefully.
We couldn’t very well chance Korhonan being surrounded by Bear soldiers who thought he was kidnapping their Clan Wife, nor did I particularly want to run into any of my men. As it was, it had been difficult to convince Kirill that I needed him to lead the regiment back to the estate rather than continue to guard his charge.
Suspicion had shone from his dark blue eyes, but he had only clenched his jaw and nodded.
Rowan hadn’t questioned it, at least.
The other important reason for this particular inn was the privacy its top suites allowed. I wanted that for us tonight.
And needed it for what was to come in the morning.
A note had come with dinner, worded subtly enough that it could have been an affirmative from any of my soldiers, but I knew who it was from and I knew what it referred to. Korhonan had agreed, just as I had known he would.
Rowan enjoyed her several desserts while I quickly washed off the grime from the past few weeks. When it was her turn, she took her time lingering in her first real bath in weeks, but I didn’t mind. I soaked in the sight of her deep red hair dripping wet and plastered to her ample curves, her dainty feet balanced on the rim of the tub, the casual enjoyment she took, even in the middle of all that was going wrong.
I penned two letters while she bathed, one to Korhonan explaining the finer points of what I needed from him, and one to Rowan. Hers was shorter. There was too much between us to put on a piece of parchment, but I couldn’t leave her without at least telling her why.
I told you there was nothing I wouldn’t do to keep you safe, Lemmikki. I love you with every last broken piece of my soul.
Though there were unlikely to be many fragments left by the time this night was over.
I had just finished folding them when she stepped out of the basin, flinging water all over the floor like she always did as she wrung out her hair. It drove me insane most of the time, walking into the lavatory to touch up my shave only to step in one of the many puddles left from her carelessly slinging her sopping wet curls around.
Always when I was in a hurry. Always when I had socks on.
“You don’t have to glare at the floor, Evander,” she interrupted my thoughts, wrapping a towel around herself. “I’m going to dry it up.”
“History would suggest otherwise,” I reminded her, trying not to think about how many times we had argued about this very thing.
How I had expected to argue about it for years to come, not just on this single night we had left.
She didn’t deign to respond to that, shaking her head as she walked toward the small bag with her clothes. I intercepted her, tugging her toward the bed instead.
There was no sense in her putting on what I was going to take off anyway. No sense in wasting what limited time we had on trivialities like getting dressed.
Sitting on the bed, I pulled her gently toward me until she was standing between my knees, her face level with mine for a change. I drank in the sight of her perfect features, from her stubborn, pointed chin to the softest lips I had ever tasted, and up to the sparkling jade eyes that bore directly into my soul.
It seemed impossible that everything we had done and been had come to this. A handful of hours for a goodbye she didn’t know we were saying.
I had never thought much about an afterlife, but I hoped there was one now, and I hoped that Iiro would suffer when he found it, the way I would suffer when I left her.
Pressing my lips against hers, I explored her mouth slowly, letting her warmth seep into the ice that had settled into my veins, letting it wash over me and into me, infusing me with all the comfort I wasn’t sure I deserved.
But I had always been selfish where she was concerned.
I greedily soaked it in. Time ceased to exist while I mapped her skin with my fingertips and committed every inch of her to memory, savoring the taste of her on my lips and the feel of her body under mine.
I tried to tell her without words that she had been everything to me from the moment her verdant eyes met mine. That I would make every impossible decision over again, would endure a thousand lifetimes with Ava, for the chance of knowing her in every one and having this time together.
Belonging to her, as she had belonged to me.