Queen of Shadows (Throne of Glass #4)(125)

But her answering smile told him he would get nowhere with her. He couldn’t decide if it charmed or disappointed him.

Rowan was half-asleep in bed by the time Aelin returned hours later, murmuring good night to Aedion before slipping into her room. She didn’t so much as glance in his direction as she began unbuckling her weapons and piling them on the table before the unlit hearth.

Efficient, quick, quiet. Not a sound from her.

“I went hunting for Lorcan,” he said. “I tracked his scent around the city, but didn’t see him.”

“Is he dead, then?” Another dagger clattered onto the table.

“The scent was fresh. Unless he died an hour ago, he’s still very much alive.”

“Good,” she said simply as she walked into the open closet to change. Or just to avoid looking at him some more.

She emerged moments later in one of those flimsy little nightgowns, and all the thoughts went right out of his damn head. Well, apparently she’d been mortified by their earlier encounter—but not enough to wear something more matronly to bed.

The pink silk clung to her waist and slid over her hips as she approached the bed, revealing the glorious length of her bare legs, still lean and tan from all the time they’d spent outdoors this spring. A strip of pale yellow lace graced the plunging neckline, and he tried—gods damn him, he honestly tried—not to look at the smooth curve of her breasts as she bent to climb into bed.

He supposed any lick of self-consciousness had been flayed from her under the whips of Endovier. Even though he’d tattooed over the bulk of the scars on her back, their ridges remained. The nightmares, too—when she’d still startle awake and light a candle to drive away the blackness they’d shoved her into, the memory of the lightless pits they’d used for punishment. His Fireheart, shut in the dark.

He owed the overseers of Endovier a visit.

Aelin might have an inclination to punish anyone who’d hurt him, but she didn’t seem to realize that he—and Aedion, too—might also have scores to settle on her behalf. And as an immortal, he had infinite patience where those monsters were concerned.

Her scent hit him as she unbound her hair and nestled into the pile of pillows. That scent had always struck him, had always been a call and a challenge. It had shaken him so thoroughly from centuries encased in ice that he’d hated her at first. And now … now that scent drove him out of his mind.

They were both really damn lucky that she currently couldn’t shift into her Fae form and smell what was pounding through his blood. It had been hard enough to conceal it from her until now. Aedion’s knowing looks told him enough about what her cousin had detected.

He’d seen her naked before—a few times. And gods, yes, there had been moments when he’d considered it, but he’d mastered himself. He’d learned to keep those useless thoughts on a short, short leash. Like that time she’d moaned at the breeze he sent her way on Beltane—the arch of her neck, the parting of that mouth of hers, the sound that came out of her—

She was now lying on her side, her back to him.

“About last night,” he said through his teeth.

“It’s fine. It was a mistake.”

Look at me. Turn over and look at me.

But she remained with her back to him, the moonlight caressing the silk bunched over the dip of her waist, the slope of her hip.

His blood heated. “I didn’t mean to—snap at you,” he tried.

“I know you didn’t.” She tugged the blanket up as if she could feel the weight of his gaze lingering on that soft, inviting place between her neck and shoulder—one of the few places on her body that wasn’t marked with scars or ink. “I don’t even know what happened, but it’s been a strange few days, so let’s just chalk it up to that, all right? I need to sleep.”

He debated telling her that it was not all right, but he said, “Fine.”

Moments later, she was indeed asleep.

He rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling, tucking a hand beneath his head.

He needed to sort this out—needed to get her to just look at him again, so he could try to explain that he hadn’t been prepared. Having her touch the tattoo that told the story of what he’d done and how he’d lost Lyria … He hadn’t been ready for what he felt in that moment. The desire hadn’t been what shook him at all. It was just … Aelin had driven him insane these past few weeks, and yet he hadn’t considered what it would be like to have her look at him with interest.

It wasn’t at all the way it had been with the lovers he’d taken in the past: even when he’d cared for them, he hadn’t really cared. Being with them had never made him think of that flower market. Never made him remember that he was alive and touching another woman while Lyria—Lyria was dead. Slaughtered.

And Aelin … If he went down that road, and if something happened to her … His chest seized at the thought.

So he needed to sort it out—needed to sort himself out, too, no matter what he wanted from her.

Even if it was agony.

“This wig is horrible,” Lysandra hissed, patting her head as she and Aelin elbowed their way into the packed bakery alongside a nicer stretch of the docks. “It won’t stop itching.”

“Quiet,” Aelin hissed back. “You only have to wear it for another few minutes, not your whole damn life.”