Empire of Storms (Throne of Glass #5)(127)

Oh, gods. Her toes curled, but she gave him a simpering smile as he rose to his feet, every muscle in his naked body rippling with the movement, and watched him pad with feline grace to the washstand and ewer atop it.

The bastard had the nerve to look her over as he lifted the jug. And then give her a satisfied, male smile as he poured a glass right to the brim, halting with expert precision.

She debated sending a lick of flame to burn his bare ass as he set down the jug with emphasized care and calm. And then stalked back to the bed, eyes on her every step of the way, and set the water on the small table beside it.

Aelin rose on surprisingly steady knees and faced him.

Only the creaking of the ship and hissing of the waves against it filled the room.

“What was that?” she asked quietly.

His eyes shuttered. “It was … me losing control.”

“Why?”

He glanced at the porthole and moon-kissed sea beyond. So rare for him to avoid her stare.

“Why?” she pushed.

Rowan at last met her gaze. “I didn’t know if she’d taken you again.” No matter that the Wyrdkey now lay beside the bed and not around her neck. “Even when I realized you were just in the magic’s thrall, I still … The magic took you away. It’s been a long time since I wasn’t certain … since I didn’t know how to get you back.” He bared his teeth, loosing a jagged breath, the wrath now directed inward. “Before you call me a territorial Fae bastard, allow me to apologize and explain that it is very difficult—”

“Rowan.” He stilled. She crossed the small lingering distance between them, every step like the answer to some question she’d asked from the moment her soul had sparked into existence. “You are not human. I do not expect you to be.”

He almost seemed to recoil. But she put a hand on his bare chest, over his heart. It still thundered beneath her palm.

She said softly, feeling that heart beneath her hand, “I do not care if you are Fae, or human, if you are Valg or a gods-damned skinwalker. You are what you are. And what I want … what I need, Rowan, is someone who does not apologize for it. For who they are. You have never once done so.” She leaned forward to kiss the bare skin where her hand had been. “Please don’t start doing it now. Yes, sometimes you piss me the hell off with that Fae territorial nonsense, but … I heard your voice. It woke me up. It led me out of that … place.”

He bowed his head until his brow leaned against hers. “I wish I had more to offer you—during this war, and beyond it.”

She slid her arms around his bare waist. “You offer me more than I ever hoped for.” He seemed to object, but she said, “And I figured since both Darrow and Rolfe informed me I needed to sell my hand in marriage for the sake of this war, I should do the opposite.”

A snort. “Typical. But if Terrasen needs—”

“Here is the way I see it,” she said, pulling back to examine his harsh face. “We do not have the luxury of time. And a marriage to a foreign kingdom, with its contracts and distances, plus the months it takes to raise and send an army … we do not have that time. We only have now. And what I don’t need is a husband who will try to get into a pissing contest with me, or who I’ll have to cloister somewhere for his own safety, or who will hide in a corner when I wake up with flames all around me.” She kissed his tattooed chest again, right over that mighty, thundering heart. “This, Rowan—this is all I need. Just this.”

The reverberations of his deep, rattling breath echoed into her cheek, and he stroked a hand over her hair, along her bare back. Lower. “A court that can change the world.”

She kissed the corner of his mouth. “We’ll find a way—together.” The words he’d given her once, the words that had begun the healing of her shattered heart. And his own. “Did I hurt—” Her words were a rasp.

“No.” He brushed a thumb over her cheekbone. “No, you didn’t hurt me. Or anything else.”

Something in her chest caved in, and Rowan gathered her in his arms as she buried her face in his neck. His calloused hands caressed her back, over each and every scar and the tattoos he’d inked on her.

“If we survive this war,” she murmured after a while onto his bare chest, “you and I are going to have to learn how to relax. To sleep through the night.”

“If we survive this war, Princess,” he said, running a finger down the groove of her spine, “I’ll be happy to do anything you want. Even learn how to relax.”

“And if we never have a moment’s peace, even after we get the Lock, the keys, and send Erawan back to his hellhole realm?”

The amusement faded, replaced by something more intent as his fingers stilled on her back. “Even if we have threats of war every other day, even if we have to host fussy emissaries, even if we have to visit god-awful kingdoms and play nice, I’ll be happy to do it, if you’re at my side.”

Her lips trembled. “Och, you. Since when did you learn to make such pretty speeches?”

“I just needed the right excuse to learn,” he said, kissing her cheek.

Her body went taut and molten in all the right places as his mouth moved lower, pressing gentle, biting kisses to her jaw, her ear, her neck. She dug her fingers into his back, baring her throat as his canines scratched lightly.