Chapter 17
CIARAN
“Welcome,” I say as Rowan steps over the threshold beside me, still pale from the corridor and pretending very badly not to stare, “to my humble home.”
He stops in the entrance hall, his gaze lifting toward the vaulted ceiling and black stone arches cutting through the amber light.
His lashes flutter before he lowers his eyes again, and something tight twists low in my chest at the sight of him standing there with his soft gold hair and borrowed fear still clinging to him.
“This is not humble,” he says.
“No?” I grin, leaning one shoulder against the doorway as I watch him.
The mansion has stood at the edge of Caervast for generations, every Virel before me living here while they studied at the academy too.
Rowan rolls his eyes before glancing back up at me. “No.”
Is that annoyance? After the nightmare of an evening he had? I’m not including our date, obviously, but whatever the fuck happened after that.
If someone was following Rowan tonight, I’ll deal with it. I always do.
Shrugging at the towering black stone arches disappearing into the amber light overhead, I glance back at him. “Yeah, well. We’ve never really done modest.”
He gives me a look that almost makes me smile, his band still glowing amber while he pretends he’s perfectly fine despite the fact that he was shaking in my hands fifteen minutes ago. Stubborn little mouse. Now he’s in my house and apparently thinks he gets to decide he’s fine again.
Which is cute, but unfortunately for him, this is my territory now, and I decide what counts as fine here.
“I mean,” Rowan says, still hovering near the entrance hall like he’s afraid to touch anything, “I appreciate you bringing me here tonight, but I’m fine now. I can just go back to the dorm, or sleep on the couch or something. A few cushions would honestly be fine.”
From somewhere deeper in the room, Rafe snorts without even looking up from his multi-slate. “Oh, you’re definitely still not getting it.”
Rowan’s confusion is so obvious that I can’t help laughing. “Nope, he really isn’t.”
Next to Rafe, Lucan shifts beneath the blanket tangled around his legs, his shirt still half-unbuttoned as he gives Rowan a slow once-over before looking back at me. “Well. That’s new.”
“Long story,” I mutter.
He wiggles his eyebrows. “I bet.”
Rowan shifts beside me, finally noticing the rest of the house is still awake. “Oh. I didn’t realize you were all awake —”
“Relax.” Lucan pushes himself up against the couch cushions, the blanket slipping lower around his waist. “I’ve seen worse things dragged through that door after midnight.”
Rowan just blinks at him.
Lucan’s grin turns wolfish. “Usually they’re Ciaran’s latest bad decision.”
“Careful.”
Lucan looks back at Rowan. “Always, cousin. Anyway, what about your friend?”
“Damaris.” Rowan lifts his wrist, opening his multi-slate. “Good Light. I need to message him.”
“Don’t bother,” Lucan says. “Your friend already knows where you are. Honestly, I figured he’d come sprinting over here.”
“No, you wanted him to.” Rafe chuckles.
Rowan’s head snaps up. “What?”
Lucan lifts his own multi-slate. “What, what?”
“You texted him?”
Lucan practically preens. “He answered very fast.”
“He was worried,” Rafe deadpans.
“Mm.” Lucan looks insufferably smug. “Another ten minutes and I think he would’ve shown up at the gates personally.”
Rowan’s face shifts through about five emotions at once.
“I was a little disappointed, actually,” Lucan adds. “I already had a whole welcome prepared.”
“Lucan.”
“What?” His grin widens. “If your emotional support roommate was going to charge across the city for you, the least I could do was make him feel welcome.”
“He’s back at the dorm?” Rowan asks.
“Safe and dramatic.” Lucan glances down at his multi-slate. “He also called me a steroid-filled aristocratic parasite, so I assume he’s fine.”
Despite himself, Rowan’s mouth twitches, the reaction small enough most people probably wouldn’t notice, but it eases something tight in my chest.
Lucan leans back against the couch and gives me a look that says he knows exactly what I’m doing.
Ignoring my nosy ass cousins, I pour two glasses of scotch and head for the stairs.
Rowan clears his throat behind me. “I should still—”
“Nah.” I glance back over my shoulder. “Come with me. I want to show you something.”
“But Damaris—”
“You can message him in the morning.”
“That’s not your decision,” he snaps, but his lips still tremble.
“No.” I step closer, just enough to crowd him. “But are you really planning to argue with me about this in front of my entire family?”
From the couch, Rafe grins. “Please do.”
Rowan ignores him completely, but I catch the flick of his gaze toward the medical band still glowing amber against his wrist before he looks back at me.
“Come on, little mouse,” I murmur. “I’m not gonna bite.”
His eyes narrow like he knows perfectly well that’s a lie.
Still, he follows me upstairs without another word, exhausted and more shaken by tonight than he wants anyone to know.
Because he called me. That part crawls beneath my skin like heat.
He called me. Not his friend. Not campus security. Not Halvern. Not whatever pathetic emergency system Caervast pretends is enough to keep students safe.
Fucking me.
I push my bedroom door open and jerk my chin toward the inside. “In.”
Rowan hesitates, glancing back down the hall where Lucan is openly watching from the couch now, Rafe looking far too entertained beside him. Then he straightens, chin lifting with stubborn pride before brushing past me into the room with a deeply unimpressed, “Woof.”
“Baby,” I murmur with a laugh as I follow him inside, “you have no idea how much that turns me on.”
Rowan rolls his eyes, but the flush climbing his throat gives him away.
He stops just inside the bedroom doorway, gaze drifting over the massive black bed buried beneath dark blankets, the amber lighting built into the stone walls, and the floor-to-ceiling windows exposing Tolian far below us, all gold and white scattered beneath the cliffs.
His fingers flex at his side before he drifts toward the windows, forgetting that he isn’t supposed to be impressed.
“You can admit you like being here too,” I murmur from behind him.
Rowan glances back, defensive already. “Say what?”
I grin. “The view. The room. Me dragging you up here in the middle of the night.”
Rowan bites his lower lip before catching himself, color climbing higher into his face as he looks back out over the lights below us. “You really are unbelievably arrogant.”
I smirk. “Yeah? You’re catching on, mouse.”
While Rowan keeps staring out over the city beyond the glass, I set the glasses down on the bar and walk back over, handing one to him.
He eyes the amber liquid suspiciously. “What is this?”
“Scotch. One of my aunts owns the distillery.”
His eyes narrow. “I told you I don’t drink.”
I lean against the edge of the desk and watch him over the rim of my own glass. He looks fucking gorgeous like this. Flushed and annoyed and so pretty.
“Yeah?” I tilt my glass toward him. “Tonight you drink it.”
Rowan snatches the glass from my hand with an irritated, “Fine.” Then he looks back out over the city again. “So what exactly did you drag me up here to show me?”
I take a drink. “Tolian looks better from this side of the cliffs.”
Rowan glances back at me flatly, clearly not buying a second of that bullshit.
Good.
Because after tonight, I’m done letting him hide behind silence.
I want answers from him and I want them fucking now.
“You were terrified tonight.”
His fingers tighten around the glass. “I told you. I panicked.”
I lean one hip against the window's edge beside him and study his profile. “I dropped you off after our date. I kissed you goodnight long enough that I figured you’d spend the rest of the night hard and thinking about my mouth.”
Rowan’s face flushes, his mouth parting like he’s about to throw an insult at me before he seems to think better of it.
“Instead I get a call from you half out of your mind because somebody’s chasing you through Caervast.” I cock my head. “So what are you not telling me, little mouse?”
Rowan rubs a hand across his mouth. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“No?”
“No. So I went to the practice rooms. I played for a while. Then when I went back, I heard footsteps.”
Rain taps against the glass while thunder rolls through the cliffs beneath Tolian, flashes of lightning turning the windows white and dark again.
Rowan still stares out over the lights below us, but now and then I catch his reflection in the glass looking back at mine instead.
His large eyes. The soft line of his mouth. The way his throat moves when he swallows.
I want to kiss him again, want that stubborn mouth to finally give way beneath mine while the storm breaks outside and the rest of the world disappears behind the sound of his breathing.
“You’ve thought someone was following you before.”
He scoffs. “Why would you say that?”
“Because tonight wasn’t the first time you looked over your shoulder, was it?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah, you do. You were in the library at midnight weeks ago. Alone. And when I messaged you afterward, telling you that you shouldn’t wander at night, you never asked how I knew. Why didn’t you ask me? Scared I’d say it wasn’t me following you?”
Rowan pivots his head toward me, lightning flashing white against the windows behind him while something crosses his face too fast to read. “Weren’t you? Who says it’s not you lurking in the shadows? You sure seem to know everything about my whereabouts.”
“I’m not saying it wasn’t me, mouse. Would you like that? Me following your every step and cornering you when you least expect it?”
I drag my teeth over my bottom lip and grin when his mouth tightens and his eyes widen, then narrow into a glare.
“You know I don’t.”
I reach out and tap my finger against the tip of his nose. “No, baby, I don’t. From where I’m standing, you seem to rather like my company. But don’t worry, I like yours too. A lot.”