Queen of Shadows (Throne of Glass #4)(117)

She twisted slightly to take in the strong lines of his face, his cheekbones gilded with the rain and the light from the street. Across the city, in a room she knew too well, Arobynn was hopefully bleeding out. Hopefully dead.

A hollow thought—but also the clicking of a lock finally opened.

Rowan turned his head to look at her, rain dripping off his silver hair. His features softened a bit, the harsh lines becoming more inviting—vulnerable, even. “Tell me what you’re thinking,” he murmured.

“I’m thinking that the next time I want to unsettle you, all I need to do is tell you how rarely I wear undergarments.”

His pupils flared. “Is there a reason you do that, Princess?”

“Is there any reason not to?”

He flattened his hand against her waist, his fingers contracting once as if debating letting her go. “I pity the foreign ambassadors who will have to deal with you.”

She grinned, breathless and more than a little reckless. Seeing that dungeon room tonight, she’d realized she was tired. Tired of death, and of waiting, and of saying good-bye.

She lifted a hand to cup Rowan’s face.

So smooth, his skin, the bones beneath strong and elegant.

She waited for him to pull back, but he just stared at her—stared into her in that way he always did. Friends, but more. So much more, and she’d known it longer than she wanted to admit. Carefully, she stroked her thumb across his cheekbone, his face slick with the rain.

It hit her like a stone—the wanting. She was a fool to have dodged it, denied it, even when a part of her had screamed it every morning that she’d blindly reached for the empty half of the bed.

She lifted her other hand to his face and his eyes locked onto hers, his breathing ragged as she traced the lines of the tattoo along his temple.

His hands tightened slightly on her waist, his thumbs grazing the bottom of her ribcage. It was an effort not to arch into his touch.

“Rowan,” she breathed, his name a plea and a prayer. She slid her fingers down the side of his tattooed cheek, and—

Faster than she could see, he grabbed one wrist and then the other, yanking them away from his face and snarling softly. The world yawned open around her, cold and still.

He dropped her hands as if they were on fire, stepping away, those green eyes flat and dull in a way she hadn’t seen for some time now. Her throat closed up even before he said, “Don’t do that. Don’t—touch me like that.”

There was a roaring in her ears, a burning in her face, and she swallowed hard. “I’m sorry.”

Oh, gods.

He was over three hundred years old. Immortal. And she—she …

“I didn’t mean—” She backed away a step, toward the door on the other side of the roof. “I’m sorry,” she repeated. “It was nothing.”

“Good,” he said, going for the roof door himself. “Fine.”

Rowan didn’t say anything else as he stalked downstairs. Alone, she scrubbed at her wet face, at the oily smear of cosmetics.

Don’t touch me like that.

A clear line in the sand. A line—because he was three hundred years old, and immortal, and had lost his flawless mate, and she was … She was young and inexperienced and his carranam and queen, and he wanted nothing more than that. If she hadn’t been so foolish, so stupidly unaware, maybe she would have realized that, understood that though she’d seen his eyes shine with hunger—hunger for her—it didn’t mean he wanted to act on it. Didn’t mean he might not hate himself for it.

Oh, gods.

What had she done?

The rain sliding down the windows cast slithering shadows on the wooden floor, on the painted walls of Arobynn’s bedroom.

Lysandra had been watching it for some time now, listening to the steady rhythm of the storm and to the breathing of the man sleeping beside her. Utterly unconscious.

If she were to do it, it would have to be now—when his sleep was deepest, when the rain covered up most sounds. A blessing from Temis, Goddess of Wild Things, who had once watched over her as a shape-shifter and who never forgot the caged beasts of the world.

Three words—that was all that had been written on the note Aelin slipped her earlier that night; a note still tucked into the hidden pocket of her discarded underwear.

He’s all yours.

A gift, she knew—a gift from the queen who had nothing else to give a no-name whore with a sad story.

Lysandra turned onto her side, staring now at the naked man sleeping inches away, at the red silk of his hair spilled across his face.

He’d never once suspected who had fed Aelin the details about Cormac. But that had always been her ruse with Arobynn—the skin she’d worn since childhood. He had never thought otherwise of her vapid and vain behavior, never bothered to. If he had, he wouldn’t keep a knife under his pillow and let her sleep in this bed with him.

He hadn’t been gentle tonight, and she knew she would have a bruise on her forearm from where he’d gripped her too tightly. Victorious, smug, a king certain of his crown, he hadn’t even noticed.

At dinner, she’d seen the expression flash across his face when he caught Aelin and Rowan smiling at each other. All of Arobynn’s jabs and stories had failed to find their mark tonight because Aelin had been too lost in Rowan to hear.

She wondered whether the queen knew. Rowan did. Aedion did. And Arobynn did. He had understood that with Rowan, she was no longer afraid of him; with Rowan, Arobynn was now utterly unnecessary. Irrelevant.