Chapter 31 #3
Rowan’s mouth tightens, his gaze drifting back toward the rain beyond the glass.
“You’re safe now, mouse. No one is putting you in a cage again. Ever.” The words leave my mouth too fast, sounding far more desperate than I intended while I try to convince both of us.
I look down at the bruises still darkening beneath his skin and remember finding blood drying across his hands.
“You don’t know that.” Rowan shifts, and his face tightens in pain.
“You need to stay still.”
“I’m okay.”
“Okay? You can barely breathe.”
That almost earns me the ghost of a reaction before his expression closes again. And yeah, that hurts too, but I force myself to stay calm while he takes in the room around us.
Something shutters in his expression. “I need to leave.”
“No.”
His eyes finally lift toward mine properly then, tired and bruised and still too full of guilt for somebody who almost died two days ago. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
“Done what?”
“Come to Düren for me.”
I stare at him. “Mouse—”
“Tell me.” His voice roughens. “Tell me what’s happening. Tell me why any of this happened.”
Something twists painfully in my chest. “Not now.”
Rowan blinks, his brow furrowed.
“The woman who took you is dead. The tunnels were cleared. Whatever she thought she was building ended down there.”
“Ciaran—”
“You’ll get answers.” The words come out firmer this time. “All of them. But right now, the only thing you need to know is that it’s over. Nobody will touch you here, baby. I’ll make sure of it.”
He just stares at me, as though he still doesn’t believe I’ll burn the world down before I let anyone touch him again.
All I can think about is him collapsed on the ground with blood all over his hands while I searched the tunnels terrified I was already too late.
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
“Ciaran—”
“I said I do.” The sharpness in my voice startles both of us. Rowan goes still, and I drag a hand through my hair. “Mouse…”
But Rowan’s fingers twitch in mine, as if that’s the answer he needed, and I hold on tighter before he can pull away again.
Rain moves softly against the tower windows while the city glows gold far below us, distant enough that this room almost feels cut off from the rest of the world entirely.
“You shouldn’t have come after me,” he whispers, staring down at our joined hands instead of looking at me. “You should’ve just let me disappear.”
Something sharp twists through my chest. “You think I would’ve left you down there?”
Rowan doesn’t answer, and somehow that hurts even worse. “You looked at me differently in the pavilion.”
There it is again, the real thing sitting underneath everything else.
“You looked at me like you didn’t know who I was anymore.”
The words land, and I can’t answer right away. Because he’s right. I did.
Not because I stopped knowing him, but because everything I thought I understood shifted beneath my feet, and for a moment I was terrified I was losing him before I even understood what was happening.
I move closer, one hand reaching carefully toward his face, but I stop halfway. I still haven’t recovered from the way he pulled away from me earlier.
“I was terrified,” I admit. “Not disgusted. Not angry at you. Terrified.”
Rowan watches me silently for several long seconds, exhaustion hollowing out his expression beneath the bruises. “You were still pulling away from me before all this happened.”
The words land hard, because he’s right.
“I thought if I gave myself too much to you, I wouldn’t survive losing you.”
His breathing catches. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“I know.” A humorless breath leaves me. “None of this does.”
Rain taps softly against the windows as Rowan studies me with that same careful expression he always gets before he plays something difficult on the Noctis.
“Then why come for me?” His voice is almost too quiet to hear.
Because I lied to him, to myself, to everybody around us, and hearing Rowan ask that question out loud makes something inside me hurt badly enough that I can’t even pretend anymore.
“You were never temporary to me, Rowan.”
I take his swollen hand carefully between both of mine, holding it gently enough that he doesn’t tense this time.
Something breaks across his face so quickly he turns toward the windows before I can fully see it. “Ciaran…”
“I mean it.” My thumb strokes slowly across his bruised knuckles, and a shaky breath escapes him.
“I tried putting distance between us because every time you got closer, it stopped feeling like something I could control anymore. You make me feel insane sometimes. You sit beside me at the Noctis or fall asleep against my chest and none of the things I’m supposed to care about matter the same way anymore. ”
He finally looks back at me then, bruised and exhausted beneath the dim light, still hurting badly enough that every breath looks painful, but he watches me like some part of him wants to believe every word anyway.
“You really came for me,” he whispers again.
I shift closer carefully until our foreheads rest together. “Oh, baby, don’t you understand? I’ll always come for you.”