Chapter 91
CHAPTER NINETY-ONE
I t took everything I had to pry myself away from Rowan’s perfect, warm body, knowing this was the last time I would ever feel her against me.
My life did not lend itself to easy decisions. Over and over again, I was forced to choose a path of just slightly less bloodshed, slightly less death, slightly less pain. So I took some small comfort in the fact that in this, at least, I had been able to choose life.
For her, at least. And that was enough.
I tucked the blankets in around her, keeping my arm around her shoulders until I could be sure she wouldn’t stir. Leaning in, I gave her one last kiss on her forehead before I silently gathered my clothes and crept into the adjoining room to dress.
She was a sound sleeper when she wasn’t having nightmares, but I knew she would wake soon after I left. That’s why I had waited until close to dawn. I had minutes, at best, until she stirred.
And if she woke up, I wasn’t sure I could find the strength to leave her. Would she talk me into abandoning my clan or risking her life?
Either was unacceptable.
This was the only option.
Still, my lungs seized, my entire body rebelling at leaving her this way, at leaving her at all. But I continued all the way to the hallway to where Korhonan was waiting.
To think that only a year ago I would have rather set him on fire than trusted him with my lemmikki’s life. But he had proven by now what he was willing to do for her safety—including sneaking behind enemy lines with nearly no protection—and he had managed it even among my own soldiers.
That didn’t stop my insides from churning at the idea of leaving her safety to anyone else, especially a man who thought he was in love with her. Nonetheless, I did trust him, at least when it came to her .
He walked toward me with his usual stiff posture, stopping several feet away.
“Thank you for coming.” It might have been the nicest thing I had said to him in years.
It was difficult to feel any ire toward the man who was saving Rowan’s life, at great risk to himself. Besides, I knew what it was to have someone you had looked up to turn out to be a monster.
For all the times I had wanted him to realize who his brother was, I couldn’t quite dredge up the satisfaction I had expected from it.
He nodded, meeting my gaze with eyes that looked older than his twenty-one years. “Of course.”
I checked down the hall to be sure we weren’t overheard, conscious that we had very little time.
“Tell me about the forces,” I said quietly.
He pursed his lips, silent for long enough that I began to wonder if he was debating his loyalties all over again. But there was more than hesitation in his features.
There was something that bordered on remorse—or maybe even…grief.
For the brother he had believed in? For his kingdom being torn apart? For both?
At long last, he took a breath, giving me a brief accounting of the troops and their locations. Each sentence was another serrated blade directly into my gut.
I thought I had come to terms with Wolf’s betrayal, with what it meant for me and for Bear, with leaving Rowan. But somewhere in the back of my mind, I must have held on to a fragile hope that leaving her wouldn’t be necessary.
Hoped that I could walk back into the room and climb into bed next to her and pretend that none of this ever happened, rally our forces and push the enemy back out of our clan.
But we would need a miracle to survive these odds, and I wouldn’t bank my lemmikki’s life on that. I physically couldn’t .
I thanked Korhonan again, handing him both notes.
“The top one is for Rowan when she wakes up.” My tone was casual, but there was only one real conclusion that could be drawn from me leaving her with a letter.
His lips parted, realization dawning on his features. “You didn’t tell her?”
I glanced toward the closed door to where she still lay unawares, not responding. Something in my expression must have given me away, though, because Korhonan heaved a deep sigh.
“Because you couldn’t have left her. You truly do love her.” He didn’t sound surprised as much as he did resigned, almost like the feeling was more on my own behalf than his.
Maybe that was why—for the first time in years—I responded, trusting him with more honesty than I normally would have given him. Or maybe it was just that leaving her was still too raw to say anything else.
“More than my life,” I said quietly, turning to walk away.
More than everything else in this world combined.