Untitled

“Fucker.”

“From the bottom of my heart—and know that I mean this with every bit of my soul—I hope you die.”

“Oh, sh—fuck, sorry guys.”

For just a moment, their dismay harmonized. The sounds of battle ceased and the screen went dark.

Sorry, You Died.

“I mean, maybe if you two didn’t discuss half your plans in French…”

“Woah, woah, hey, come on,” Logan protested over Sirius’ indignance. In the small icon to the far right, Thomas raised his hands with a look that distinctly lacked apology.

“This is aggression against Canada,” Sirius scoffed. “Classic Americans.”

“Aggression against Canada?” Thomas spluttered.

“Yeah,” Logan chimed in, adjusting his headset over one ear as he reached for a handful of chips. “That. Totally.”

“Tremzy, if you eat those into your headset, I will crawl through the screen and suffocate you.”

Logan narrowed his eyes at Sirius’ video square and made sure his microphone was in prime position to capture the deafening CRUNCH that followed.

Twin groans answered; Thomas removed his headset with a fake gag. “That just echoed across my living room, you little weirdo,” Sirius grumbled.

“Get a headset like the rest of us, lame-ass.”

“It’s worse that way,” Thomas chimed in.

“I told you,” Sirius continued with a whine Logan wished the press could hear before lauding him as some solemn superhero. “It was supposed to be here today.”

“Oh, yeah?” Logan said mockingly, just because he could. “Where is it, then?”

Sirius groused a little more under his breath; the sound of aggressive clicking followed as he moved his character over to whale on Logan’s for a few seconds. It didn’t damage his XP too much, but Logan filed that away for later. Somebody wasn’t getting his extra tincture of healing at the next checkpoint.

The Field of Regeneration was further from their goal than he would prefer—it had taken them an hour and a half to get to the mountains the first time, but he had faith that the fourth time would be the charm. There was a saying about that, he thought. Something like it. He rolled his ankles under the coffee table as their characters moved over the hills in a pack, bracing his arches against the table leg for a better stretch. His toes popped and he grimaced; they really hadn’t moved much today. Then again, early summer was made for lazy days in front of the television with his friends.

Sirius swung by the boulder pile and collected the healing kits the same as before. Logan didn’t bother waiting for him—they had been though this section enough that he could catch up on his own. He had promised Leo they’d reach a stopping point by 6:30, anyway, and there was no chance he would pick video games over acting as a sous chef, paid in kisses.

The chirps faded as they made their way past challenges that had once been world-ending. Logan was glad they weren’t dragging this out longer, too focused on reaching the checkpoint to fuck around. It was one of many reasons he would choose Sirius and Thomas for weekend games over anyone else; they had fun, but they knew how to settle down and win.

Logan grimaced. Hockey brain was supposed to be banished until at least July.

“Let us know when your setup gets here, Cap.” Thomas’ voice startled him; he barely avoided stumbling into a ravine.

“Ouais, we’ll give it a test run.”

They were coming up on the edge of the forest, now. Logan swapped his inventory around and carefully sidestepped the spike trap he had (unfortunately and with great embarrassment) fallen for the second time around.

Sirius’ mouth twitched. “Hey, Tremz, watch your—”

“Shut up, god, I hate you so much.” Their digitized snickering filled his ears and he made sure to be on solid ground before freeing a hand to flip them the bird. “I’ll go call Sunny and Kuns to play instead. See if I care.”

“Don’t you have two boyfriends within arm’s reach at all times?”

Logan rolled his eyes. “They are on a date, if you must know. And Leo hates character games.”

“Ew, you know what kind of video games they like?” Sirius teased.

“Aren’t you literally married?”

Thomas skipped past a cursed runestone and reclined back in his seat. “I think we can all agree that I’m winning here.”

“If you were here in person, I would throw something at you for that,” Logan informed him. Did it matter that he was greatly looking forward to having Thomas around for Christmas in a few months? No. Not here, not now, not while he was within chirping range. The very lenient penalty for dating his sister had been clear from the start. Logan couldn’t let him get too comfortable.

The greatest threat to achieving their goal appeared just as they reached the base of the mountains. Logan was feeling so proud of their quick time before that.

“Which game?” Remus asked from the corner of Sirius’ frame, unloading his pockets on the side table.

Sirius tilted his chin up for a kiss to the cheek, like he had no respect for Logan’s poor, innocent eyes. “Legendborn, with T and Tremzy.”

Remus hummed. He tugged at the collar of Sirius’ shirt with one finger, biting at his lower lip. Logan’s stomach dropped through the fucking floor. “Want to come upstairs for a bit?”

“NO!”

Remus flinched hard at the resounding shout from three different voices, then burst out laughing; Sirius reddened faster and more vibrantly than Logan had ever seen. “Dear god, Loops!” Thomas sounded downright scandalized. “The man doesn’t have a headset! Give us some grace! Some warning!”

Logan wrenched his microphone closer to his mouth with a clumsy hand. “You’re paying for my therapy, Lupin.”

Remus managed to pull his face from Sirius’ shoulder long enough to stumble through part of an apology before breaking down into laughter again. “Fuck—my bad, my bad, I didn’t realize.”

“Clearly!”

“Keep your husband under control, Captain!”

Sirius turned a lecherous smile on them, then caught Remus by the front of his shirt and pulled him down to lick a long, wet, horrendous stripe up his cheek. Logan threw his controller aside and flopped backward on the couch, hands over his eyes, as hysterical laughter and Thomas’ spluttered protests filled his ears.

“I thought you two would finally be normal and boring after you got married,” he groaned, sinking deeper into the cushions. Sirius, the menace, was damn near cackling. “Can you stop being freaks about each other for two fucking seconds?”

“Nope!” Remus said cheerfully. “It’s state-sanctioned now, actually.”

“Marital bliss,” Sirius agreed. “You’re just jealous.”

Logan peeked through his fingers and found Thomas shaking his head. “T, if I ever lick one of my boyfriends, I want you to take me out behind the rink like Old Yeller.”

“Jealous,” came Sirius’ singsong answer. Remus made himself comfortable with his chin on Sirius’ head, grinning madly.

“So, we’ll be in Nice in August.”

“Ouais.”

“Did you know Nice was part of Italy once?”

Logan’s eyes widened in alarm. “Look, it’s better if it doesn’t come up while we’re there, or with my mother. People don’t like to…”

“No, Lo, I mean. It’s close. Literally so close.”

“Yeah, I went there once or twice as a kid. You…wanna go?”

“Could we?”

Logan went to sit on the armrest of the couch and left a kiss among soft curls. “We can do whatever we want, Peanut.”

Leo’s smile almost blinded him. “Great. Because I found something our Harzy will love.”

Logan let himself slide next to Leo, circling his shoulders with an arm. “Tell me everything.”

“Did he enjoy studying Romanticism in college?”

Logan laughed. “Butter, I distinctly remember him crying over Romanticism in college. More than twice.”

“Perfect."

•••

They spent two weeks in Nice, rediscovering the bliss of taking their time. They started their slow, quiet days with the sun high in the sky, rolling over in bed to find each other despite the heat. Nice was a constant flow of colors, sounds and touches that Finn never wanted to forget. It was the smiles and kisses shared for the pictures, and Logan showing them little villages on the coast and immense lavender fields. It was Leo’s hand dragging them around colorful markets, and it was Logan ordering meals in a quick and slightly different flow of French.

It was everything.

It was…a car?

Finn blinked. And not just some car. It was an old-style, red Chevy that shined under the sun, convertible roof and elegant lines. Finn swore had come out straight of an old movie. Leo and Logan were there, leaning on the car with two pleased, smug smiles plastered on their pretty faces. At their feet, their bags were packed.

“Hop on, sweetheart,” Leo smiled, rolling the slow vowels in his mouth as honey dripping from a spoon. “We’re goin’ on an adventure.”

Finn blinked again. “Guys, what…” The flight home is in a week. That’s not our car. Why are our bags packed? Did I forget something we had planned? Did something happen?

“We,” Logan interrupted his thoughts, opening the backseat’s door for him , “Are taking you on a trip.”

“We are on a trip,” Finn mumbled absently, but he stepped forward. He peeked inside. A pile of books was neatly displayed on the cream leather backseat. He  gasped and launched himself, making the car creak eerily.

“Harz,” Leo laughed. “The car is as old as it looks, hun.”

But Finn didn’t pay him any attention, as unusual as it sounds. He was busy studying the various books. A quick scan of the titles made him frown. The Greatest Romantic Poems. Romanticism in Italy. The Gulf of the Poets: inspiration for immortal verses.

“You guys,” Finn breathed. He passed a reverent hand on the book covers, as if he’d just found a treasure.

Logan squeezed his shoulder lightly. “Allons, mon rouge. We have a reservation for dinner.”

The road was a wonderful, continuous landscape of coasts and alps. Finn remembered it all like a dream the moment you wake up. Confused flashes and big emotions you can’t quite put a finger on. He remembered Leo’s tanned arms on the steering wheel and Logan’s hair dancing wildly in the wind. Hands reaching blindly for his knee and flipping the books’ pages and photos to understand what was happening. At one point he caught Leo’s smiling eyes in the review mirror. We can surprise you, too, Harzy. He guessed he’d turned pretty insistent at some point, too, because they explained him everything.

“There’s this bay with the cutest little villages,” Leo said as he raised the convertible roof and silence replaced the roaring wind. The sun was high in the sky, and Finn had gotten plenty of sun in the last few weeks. “And that’s where some of your favorite poets lived for some time. Shelley, Byron, others. And it was pretty close, you know?”

“So, Leo thought we’d make a little surprise trip. He looked it all up.”

“Well, Logan found the car and the books.”

“And,” Logan smiled, “A cooking class on how to make authentic focaccia, tomorrow night.”

Leo gasped without looking away from the road. His hand found Logan’s and brought it to his lips for a kiss. “Sweetheart, you didn’t.”

“It’s a cooking class with aperitif. We’ll have spritz with an Italian grandma.”

“I love you so much.”

“Yeah, you do.”

They laughed, but Finn just smiled and leaned back in his seat. He didn’t trust himself with words just yet. He focused on the group of colorful, crumpled houses that were getting bigger and bigger instead, wondering how did the stars align so perfectly that he’d ended up with two boyfriends like that. Two people that knew him so well, and cared so much to make all that fuss just for him. He leaned forward to take Logan’s hand and squeeze Leo’s shoulder, and received a squeeze back and a quick kiss to his hand. They must have understood what was going on with him, because they didn’t say a thing. They always knew what Finn was thinking- even when Finn himself had no idea.

They soon reached their destination, a white villa that looked directly on to the sea and stood regally against the deep blue. Next to the big entrance, a marble plaque. Finn squinted to read it, and his eyes widened. He remembered thinking fuck it as he let the grip in his throat, that had kept him on edge since the beginning of the trip, loose into watery sobs.

“Guys, what the fuck,” he cried. Leo hopped down the car and cooed him into a hug as Logan quickly made his way over and took his place under Finn’s chin. They just held him there, in between them, as he stared at the big house. “The Shelley’s villa. Shelley’s. They lived here.”

“It’s a hotel and museum now,” Leo explained, a smile in his voice and against Finn’s forehead. “Couldn’t let it pass.”

Finn held them tighter. “Of course you couldn’t.”

•••

The next few days passed in an enchanted haze. It was the crashing sound of the waves that woke them up, and later rocked them into gripping bedsheets and each other hard. They explored villages lost in time, enjoying their slow rhythms and careless calm. They kept themselves off the beaten path that the area had traced for tourists, and the villa itself was located out of the nearest town. No one would recognize them. Their days on the Italian coast were full of brighty colored houses that spied the sea, and midnights jump into the dark water to escape the heat.

As it turned out, Leo had kept one last surprise to himself just like Logan. Where the steps of the villa met the sea, a white motorboat was waiting for them. Finn let himself be guided onto the passenger seat as Leo took them far from the rocky shores, and Logan pressed smiles and kisses on him.

But it was on the third day that Finn’s own personal catharsis came to a peak.

He was more or less shoved into the car by a too excited Leo and an amused Logan for a short drive to a village close by. It was beautiful and colorful like the many others they’d seen, but it was at the top of a cliff that the magic was revealed. Old walls stood timeless and climbed up to a little church that faced the sea on its own; and behind the walls, a narrow passage on the side of the rocks went down.

Finn squinted in the sun to read the plaque above the passage. ‘“This grotto was the inspiration of Lord Byron. It records the immortal poet and daring swimmer…’” he trailed off, eyes widening. He turned, looking at the other two with an alarmed frown. “You guys are fucking with me. You… you’re just putting on these plaques in random places. To kill me.”

Logan laughed at that, patting his shoulder. “Ouais, Harzy, that’s exactly how things went. You didn’t notice Knutty slipping out of bed this morning while I was riding the life out of you.”

Finn opened and closed his mouth a few times, even more at loss of word. At least he could pretend the redness on his cheeks was sunburn.

“Stop thinking of this morning, Harz,” Logan called. “Allez, it’s Byon’s cave. You love him. This is the core of your Italian adventure.”

Finn studied the plaque a moment longer, before glancing at the passage with a sudden urgency. “So, this…this is where he composed his most important poems.” His voice trembled a bit.

Leo handed him the tote bag he’d been carrying around with a smile. “Inside there’s a notebook and your favorite pen, some music and a towel.”

Finn frowned. “You’re not coming with me? No, you two are my Italian adventure.”

Long fingers squished his cheeks around a kiss. “We thought we might give you some time, and then come and get you.”

“Come on, Rouge,” Logan came at their side. “We know you’re dying to have your poet moment. We’ll be right here.”

Finn stared at them for a second, disbelievingly, then drew them both into a hug, squeezing as hard as he could. “I love you so much. I love you, love you, love you.”

Carefully, he started to go down the steep passage. Only a slim railing kept him from the risk of falling, but Finn found he couldn’t slow down as he jumped from rock to rock, ignoring Leo and Logan telling him to be careful. After a sharp turn, the cave appeared. Finn kept his breath as he wandered inside, nose up to the dark walls and the landscape the grotto framed.

He felt his eyes burn. He remembered reading again and again poems about that place- so much that it felt a bit like coming home. Hell, he’d done it all; he’d read, recited, written essays and annotated every line of those pages. Of those clouds at the horizon. The fact that he remembered everything so vividly was infinitesimal compared to the realization that Logan remembered, too. Quiet nights in their Harward room, only a small light in between them for Finn to read to him. And Leo…oh, Leo. So careful to everything Finn as much as breathed on. It was easy to picture him putting that trip together in silence, without leaving anything to chance.

He took a seat on a rock, taking it all in. The rocky cliffs, covered by the lively green of pines, ended abruptly into the sea. The gentle rocking of the waves arrived at his ankles. Finn understood what the poets were so desperately trying to communicate through their bleeding lines. What they’d been lacking before they found that paradise, and why their lives and poetry would forever be tied to those shores.

But the only thing Finn could think of was them.

Logan’s smile that morning. And every morning before. And every morning forever.

Leo jumping into the crystal blue water, and his smile resurfacing before anything else. He looked like a nymph appearing from the waves. His own personal muse. His hero that would not end in tragedy.

Finn closed his eyes and breathed.

When he exhaled, messy ink had filled pages on his lap, and the sun had lowered a bit.

“Wow.”

Finn turned, to see Leo and Logan staring mesmerized at the sea, holding hands. Leo raised his free one to him, mouth still half open. Finn got up, and squeezed it as he joined them, keeping quiet as if not to disturb the waves.

They breathed together. Finn’s eyes were wide and a little red. He licked his lips. “I wrote some poems for you."

•

•

•

Aelin bit her bottom lip to suppress the smile that would surely spiral into a fit of laughter as her hips began wiggling against him like she was trying to get comfortable. Rowan’s breathing changed slightly, a sharper inhale indicating he was at least a little awake now. She paused her movements just long enough to make the whole thing seem innocent before starting up again. The solid length of him grew harder against her. With the nightgown she slept in bunched up around her waist, their underwear was the only thing between them. 

It was the bare skin of her hip that his hand clamped down on to still her, his breath hot against her ear as he growled, “What do you think you’re doing?” 

“Trying to get out from under your arm.” It was an effort to keep her voice level with any amount of sass lacing the letters together. Rowan’s morning voice was truly a work of art, slightly deeper than normal and raspy from sleep. If he listened closely, he could probably hear her heart pounding away in her chest. 

“That isn’t what it felt like,” he murmured, pushing his hips flush against her ass. One shaky inhale later, she was rolling out of bed. Rowan’s hand fisted the sheets where she had just been, eyes sleepy and squinting against the morning sun. 

“We can go back to shouting then.” With a coy flip of her hair over her shoulder, she slipped into the bathroom as he flopped onto his back, hand running down his face. 

The shower was so cold she was shivering by the end, her skin pink from the failed attempt to scrub away the feeling of his body pressed too tightly against hers.

~*~ 

“This is the most depressing thing I have ever had to do,” Aelin mumbled, fingers working black hair color into Fenrys’s roots. The shitty box dye was going to wreck the stunning threads of gold and she hated that she had any part in it. When she went down for breakfast her heart had nearly fallen out of her ass at the sight of Fenrys and Connall with close-cropped cuts. Thankfully there was some length remaining on top where their curls were able to thrive, but it wasn’t enough. It could barely be tucked behind their ears. It felt like a crime. 

Aelin had already dyed, washed, and styled her hair into soft waves. She even took to snipping at the ends until her burgundy strands grazed the tops of her breasts. It had taken up the first two hours of the morning— the last thirty of it spent frowning at her reflection. Ever since she was little, her golden waves had been a source of pride. When she put in the green contacts, all of her remarkable features would vanish down the drain. 

“It’ll wash out,” Fen reminded her. “And it’s just hair.” 

“It’s going to take forever to grow back and probably just as long for the dye to wash out. This shit is hard to come back from.” It would be easier for her, but not for him. Evidently, Fenrys didn’t know that. A frown took over his entire face as he looked at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. While being identical, there were subtle differences between the twin’s faces that those close to them could point out. He was still beautiful, but his naturally golden blonde hair had made him look like the sun to Connall’s moon. Now they were both night-kissed with darkness. 

There was no chance in hell that they could swap places without anyone catching it. As soon as Fenrys opened his mouth anyone would be able to tell that they most definitely were not the same person. Where his brother was calm and subdued, Fen was a raging storm of chaos and Aelin loved that about him. 

“Now we let it cook,” she sighed, plopping a processing cap over the top to keep the hair from slipping over his forehead and staining his skin. 

With a pat on his shoulder, she headed for the kitchen with Fenrys trailing behind her. Aelin grabbed a bag of grapes from the fridge and slid onto one of the barstools while she skimmed the file of her temporary identity. Having read through it several times already, the facts about her fake life were cemented into her mind. 

Her name was Lillian Gordaina, and she was the Duchess of a small territory south of Bellhaven in Fenharrow. They received their titles and territory a year ago as a wedding gift when she married her husband, Asher Gordaina, the Duke. Both of them came from royal bloodlines, and their pairing and the work they did together is what had their Lord and Lady titles. While they didn’t have any children, they loved their dogs and were very involved with animal rights charities and the arts. According to the king and queen, they represented what the future could and should be like. Their attendance at the ball alongside Fenharrow nobles was to properly introduce them to royals from other countries. 

Terrasen had a quite strong allegiance with Fenharrow, partially because her uncle was good friends with their king and queen. It was likely that he spoke with them to loop them in without giving away too much detail of the mission. Aelin wasn’t sure a real Duke and Duchess even existed for that little cluster of villages, or if they were taking an imaginary workload from the ones that oversaw Bellhaven. Not that it mattered, but she still wondered.

“Aelin?” Rowan’s voice carried down the hall from their bedroom and caused her heart to lurch beneath her ribs. Aelin’s eyes slipped shut as she dropped her forehead against Fen’s shoulder harder than she meant to. A dull throb pulsed between her eyebrows and he patted her sympathetically on the shoulder. 

“Say I’ve died,” she whispered with pleading eyes as she lifted her head. 

“Considering how little I want to experience his raw panic at that phrase, I’m going to offer a piping hot fuck no to that little request of yours.” And to think she thought she’d won everyone but Lorcan in the divorce. 

Aelin tsked as she rose to her feet, back arching in a feline stretch. She savored another grape, eyes unfocused and staring out the window and wondering how long it would take for him to come looking for her. Fenrys swiveled in his seat and guided her with a hand on her waist until she was forced to take the first damning steps toward her ex-boyfriend. Fenrys was a traitorous bastard.

Shoulders rolling to loosen her arms, she steeled herself for a fight. Rowan hadn’t sounded angry when he called for her, but it was odd that he was seeking her out for anything to begin with. The uncertainty had her on high alert as her toes crossed the threshold into their room. Rowan was found sitting on a stool in the bathroom, running his hand over the back of his neck. 

No evidence of his silver hair remained on his head, nor in the bits of hair on the floor around him. It was now a dirty blonde that toed the line of being light brown. They both looked equally surprised at the other’s makeovers and neither said anything for a moment. Their eyes remained locked through the mirror as she leaned against the bathroom door.

“Hey,” he said finally, reaching up to scratch his jaw. 

“Hi?” It came out as perplexed as she felt. Even her nose was wrinkled a bit as he turned to look at her directly. 

“I was uh– I was wondering if you’d help me cut the longer bit.” Rowan motioned to the pair of scissors that lay beside the clippers he’d used for the parts he wanted shorter. “I don’t trust any of the guys with scissors near my head, and you always did a good job.” 

There were times when Rowan shaved his head in the early days of their relationship for ease of things while deployed. Once he started letting it grow back in, Aelin had watched a thousand tutorials on how to cut men’s hair. Eventually, she was pretty good at it. Not enough to quit her job and start a new business, but well enough that Rowan asked her for haircuts and trims when he was home. 

“Of course.” She pushed off the door and reached for the scissors, Rowan’s hand darting out to stop her from picking them up. Her raised eyebrows asked the question her lips didn’t have to say.

“Without fucking it up.” The corners of her mouth twitched into a smile, her fingers closing around the cool metal. She grabbed the comb with her other hand and began running it through his hair. Because she had the excuse, her fingers slipped through the silky strands as she debated on how to cut it. Rowan took the moment to shake his arms out, loosening the muscles that seemed to stay too tight when she was around. 

“Relax,” she mused, slipping into the space between his thighs. Using her fingertips, she tilted his head from one side to the other.  “I’m cutting your hair, not getting ready to kick your ass in a sparring match.”

Rowan snorted but seemed to ease up if only a little. His hands were resting flat against his thigh, one leg bouncing to dispel anxious energy. When he bumped into her she shot him a warning glare, snipping the scissors in his face as a reminder of what might happen if he didn’t take a breath and chill out. 

Aelin began cutting, taking her time to ensure it was even. Rowan alternated from sitting with his eyes closed to gazing up at her face. The only other place for him to look was at her chest, and he seemed to be doing an okay job of avoiding that. She was pretty sure she caught him a few times, though. 

“Your hair was so pretty,” she sighed, moving to stand beside him while she cut the sides and around to the back. “Now it’s ruined.”

“You don’t like me like this, Princess?” Aelin’s tongue ran over her teeth as she glanced at him briefly in the mirror. 

“I always liked you however you happened to be.” It felt like too vulnerable a thing to say, especially when he turned his head to look at her. Ignoring his eyes, Aelin turned his head forward. “Be still. I’m almost done.”

A few minutes later she was back between his legs and working a pomade through his freshly dyed locks. Considering how long it had been since she’d readied him for any sort of occasion, it took her longer than it used to. She was probably being a little nit-picky, but they had a photoshoot in two hours where they had to look royal for crying out loud. If there was a time to be precise, it was now. 

“There. Perfect.” Aelin smiled a little and turned,  reaching for the faucet to wash her hands. Halfway his fingers caught hers and tugged. Ever so slowly, she turned back to look at him. The calluses of his free palm scratched against her skin as they slowly wrapped around the back of her thigh just above her knee. 

A suppressed shiver broke free as it dragged up her side and finally reached hesitantly toward her face. The other spread her fingertips until he could weave their fingers together. If he noticed the residue of the pomade on her hands, he didn’t seem to care. She knew she should stop this– that she should pull away from him and haul ass to the kitchen to wash her hands to put distance between them. Instead, she leaned into the first brush of his hand against her cheek. 

Their eyes were locked, his pupils blown wide with what could only be desire. The heat of his body so close had her taking another small step toward him without needing to be guided. Her legs were trapped between his and in this secret moment, she didn’t want to be anywhere else. 

The pad of his thumb brushed over her jaw while his hand slid around, fingers nestling perfectly into the dip at the base of her skull. All of the air in the room must have been sucked out because she was finding it increasingly hard to breathe. Each breath was measured and it seemed like he was doing the same thing as he gently guided her face closer to his. 

Rowan untangled his hand from hers and guided her hand to the side of his neck where her fingers immediately twined into the hair at his nape. Almost involuntarily, she traced over the cupid’s bow of his lips with her free hand. In a moment of aching defeat, she rested her forehead against his and allowed her eyes to close. For a long moment, they just breathed each other in. It was a breathtaking intimacy that only two people that loved each other deeply could share. 

The grief that steeped in her mind like a long-forgotten cup of tea washed over her. It became abundantly clear that she had never worked through it. Their relationship had always been more about their romantic feelings. He was her very best friend as much as her lover, sometimes more so. This moment didn’t poke and prod at the wounds that still felt so fresh most days. It soothed them. 

Never stilling the movements of his hand that ran up and down her side, he pulled back just enough to look at her. The tips of their noses brushed as he whispered her name like it was the most reverent prayer he could offer to any god. Aelin shivered, lips parting on a shallow breath. Rowan’s mouth grazed the corner of her’s and he looked at her one more time like he was asking permission. There was a desperation in his eyes that she hadn’t seen in ages. 

It was a man begging the god he worshiped. For what, she didn’t know. If it was forgiveness he sought it would be a long time coming. Or was it just the taste of her lips that he needed? Was he begging to brand her skin with the touch of his hands, his lips, his tongue? The crumbling self-control she grasped for was slipping like sand through her fingers. At the soft whisper of her name, it blew away with the wind. 

Whatever expression lay on her face must have been good enough because the next moment his lips were on hers and she was unraveling at the taste of him. Nothing mattered but the feeling of his hands on her body, of his lips taking little breaks to press sweet kisses to her cheeks before claiming her mouth again. At the first brush of his tongue her knees nearly gave out, the grip she had on his hair tightening until he groaned low in his throat. It wasn’t the sound of pain, but one of pleasure.

The fingerprints she left on his neck and jaw were sticky from the pomade, but neither of them cared enough to stop. The strokes of his tongue were exploratory like he wanted to relearn every part of her. His lips were starving to memorize every inch, every dip, curve, and angle of her body until it was scorched into his memory. Aelin needed it, she realized. She needed to taste him, feel him beneath her fingertips. Every atom in her body was aching to be touched and felt and explored by only him. Only ever Rowan.

The nip of his teeth against her bottom lip didn’t hold the bite of their words. This kiss felt like that first deep breath on a snowy morning. It awoke all of her senses and sent shivers down her spine and heat blazing across her skin. The warmth of his body grounded her as his hand pressed against the small of her back and pressed her chest flush against his. Rowan’s lips seared trails of fire down her jaw and neck, then back up to capture her mouth again and she wanted to burn right here in this spot forever. Desire and need flooded her body and pooled in her core. The moan that slipped through her lips was caught with his teeth and tongue. Shaking hands contracted against her sides, fingertips digging into her skin roughly as he pulled her toward him and—

And then he pushed her back, ripping his mouth from hers. The heat of his body vanished as he leaned back to put space more between them. A thousand emotions flashed through his eyes before he managed to pull any kind of mask together by clearing his throat. 

“There.” Spare bravado was pulled from his pockets as he smirked, dropping his hands from her waist. She hated how much she missed the contact.  “Now we’re even from this morning.”

It would be a bald-faced lie to say the words didn’t burn worse than flames licking at her skin. But she also knew Rowan Whitethorn better than she knew anyone. As good as he was at hiding his emotions from everyone around him, there was no point in even trying when it came to Aelin. She looked into his eyes and could see that it was about more than just this morning. There was no possible way that those kisses had meant nothing more than settling an imaginary score. Not when his chest was heaving and his cheeks were stained a rosy red. Words said one thing, but the intent way his eyes remained focused on her said something else entirely. He was a predator hunting his prey and she would let him devour her. 

Unless that was all it had been: a game. The thought cut deep and she had no one to blame but herself. A stupid game she accidentally started this morning because being a pain in his ass was easier than being civil. 

Her lips pressed together in a thin line and she had to ball her hands into fists to hide their tremors. Fresh heat crept over her cheeks and down her neck as she nodded once and stepped out of his reach lest he try and touch her again. It wasn’t a luxury she could afford to indulge in. That one would wreck her and everything she was entirely. 

“Next time I’m fucking up your hair,” she quipped, pockets empty of her usual swagger. Aelin didn’t look at him again as she walked out and grabbed what she needed to finish getting ready for the afternoon. 

The bathroom she chose to get ready in wasn’t nearly far enough from Rowan. Close was too close but far was too far. Every cell in her body needed to be touched by him, to feel his muscles flex and relax beneath her fingertips. It was a slow descent into madness that she wasn’t sure would ever be able to crawl out of if she kept going down that forgotten, overgrown path. 

Even though he was currently winning the game with no rules between them, one thing was for certain: Aelin would be the one to secure victory over the whole damn thing. 

~*~

“The gods are playing a cosmic joke on me,” Aelin said to Fenrys, staring at the gown she was expected to wear for the photoshoot in half an hour. Even her friend was gobsmacked over the miles and miles of tulle and lace that seemed to take up half the room. 

Simply put, it was the dress for a royal that couldn’t show too much but gave just enough. The monstrosity of a dress would turn her into a walking cupcake and she was already imagining how itchy the lace sleeves would be that ran down to her wrists. It was a far cry from what she would have worn for her wedding, but she supposed that didn’t matter. Not anymore, not ever. 

“At least it couldn’t be further from what you would actually wear,” Fen offered, carefully pulling it off the hanger. The comfort was lost as she sighed heavily and undressed to her undergarments. allowed him to zip her into the dress. Fen zipped her into it, careful to avoid getting the excess fabric caught in the teeth. The skirts were so long that she would have to carry them to avoid getting tripped up on the short walk to the living area. 

“If Rowan says a single smarmy thing, I will throttle him while wearing this dress.” 

“I’ll take videos and send them to everyone I know. It’ll travel quickly through the entire military and he’ll never live it down.” Aelin chuckled darkly, heaving the skirts up as the funeral procession to her twisted fate began. 

Over the last hour, the sitting room was carefully staged for the photos. They were only doing a handful of poses and she was thankful for it. With that kiss still haunting every corner and crevice of her mind, she was uncertain how long she could be near him without combusting. 

Rowan may have made it about a game, yet she wasn’t entirely sure it was. Games were far more reckless, but maybe he was aiming to destroy her like she thought she was trying to do to him. At the thought of those slow, exploratory kisses she stumbled. The combination of her sock and the tulle made the floor much more slippery than it should have been. Fenrys caught her elbow to keep her from falling outright and she murmured a quiet thank you. 

If it wasn’t for the swishing of the gown, she would have been able to sneak up on the rest of the Cadre. Rowan and Lorcan were discussing something with their backs to her, while Vaughan and Connall shared a bowl of popcorn. When Rowan turned around she pointed a finger at him and then every other man in the room. 

“I don’t want to hear a single word.” Her voice was hard, eyes slightly narrowed. Rowan’s mouth opened but she swung her finger back around to him. “Not. One. Word.” 

In a shocking display of self-control, his jaws clamped shut. For once, his expression was unreadable as he scanned her from head to toe. The feeling of not being able to read his thoughts on his face was foreign. Aelin did not like it. 

Rowan didn’t look like a dessert the way she did. Well, he did, but she shoved those thoughts far out of her mind as she looked at him. Aelin had always loved him in a tux and this was no exception. It was a simple black with a bow tie hugging his neck. A few medals and pins signified he was of some military ranking for Fenharrow like most of the royal men were. Aelin didn’t bother looking too closely, it would just wind her even tighter than she already was. 

“Are we ready?” The photographer asked. It was a young man she had met a few times over the years named Luca. While she had the strongest desire to say that no, she wasn’t and would likely never be, she nodded. As she came to a stop at Rowan’s side, a woman she hadn’t noticed and was unfamiliar with adjusted her skirts around them. “Where is Aelin’s ring?” 

“I have it,” Rowan said, lifting her hand and sliding it into place. His lips were pressed so tightly together that they had disappeared entirely. This was going to be harder than she thought, much like the rest of her current job requirements. 

“Relax. It’s a fake ring, not your death sentence,” she hissed, yanking her hand away and adjusting the fake diamond ring on her finger. Like the dress, she supposed it was pretty but wasn’t her style at all. It was a large stone surrounded by a dozen or so smaller ones. Where she preferred true yellow gold, it was silver. Not that her thoughts on the fake wedding ring she wore mattered. 

The pair of soldiers were painfully stiff during the shoot. Halfway through Fenrys marched over and grabbed Aelin by the hands, shaking her arms around until she was loose and laughing. Though Rowan didn’t dissolve into a fit of laughter as she did, Fen did the same thing to him. It took some time but they were eventually able to lean into each other without looking like they were trying to escape their own skin. 

“Can you look at each other and like, I don’t know, pretend you’re looking at someone you love?” Luca asked halfway through. The poor kid was completely unaware of their volatile history. Their peanut gallery groaned, anticipating violence to be brewing in their eyes. 

“That would take an entire bottle of whiskey each,” Connall murmured, popcorn crunching between syllables. It took Aelin longer than she would have liked to get the courage to look up into Rowan’s face.

Neither of them were up to par because Luca sighed so hard with epic frustration. Aelin looked at the ground and closed her eyes for a moment to collect herself. Large hands flexed at her sides like he was doing the same. Years of unresolved feelings and pain settled heavily between them. 

Look at each other and pretend you’re looking at someone you love. 

The worst part was that for her, it wasn’t a stretch. She hated it, grinding that irritation to dust between her teeth until they squeaked. It was like nails on a chalkboard and she shivered violently in Rowan’s arms. 

“Much better, Rowan. Aelin, this isn’t a battle. Can you like? I don’t know? Relax?” Each staccato phrase flipped up at the ends like a question. With a dry look at Luca, she took a moment to open her mouth as wide as she could to stretch out her jaw. She practiced smiling at Fenrys who gave her an encouraging thumbs up. It took a few extra wiggles to loosen her limbs, but she looked back up at Rowan. 

Just like this morning, his features had softened around the edges. He brought one hand up to rest along her jaw and gazed down at her with a familiarity that made her stomach flip. With her heart taking off in her chest, she found it harder to breathe when he was looking at her like that. Aelin lightly held onto his wrist, the other on his waist, and let out a long breath. 

“If it’ll help,” Rowan murmured, his thumb idly stroking along her jaw, “We can go outside and you can kick my ass after this.”

As much as she didn’t want to, she laughed. At the sound that came barrelling out of her, Rowan grinned widely. Click click click. Luca fired away, a few of the shots while they were in light motion. Aelin shaking her head at Rowan, him leaning his face a little closer to hers. 

“We can do the garden shots and be done. I’m sure they can work with what we have.” Their young photographer announced. Relief flooded her body in cooling waves. The gown was unzipped before she made it to their room, heaps of fabric falling into a pile on the floor just inside the room. 

It helped that she didn’t feel like herself at all. The hair, the contacts, and the clothing style were so at odds with her own. None of it was her. It was a character she was playing. Not being able to recognize herself had her wondering if it made things easier for Rowan, too. 

~*~

Seeing Aelin in a wedding gown, however ridiculous it may have been, was nearly enough to send him to his knees. 

Trying to reign in his emotions and school his features into a bored mask had been difficult. While he knew it was nothing like her, Aelin in a white gown implying that she was wholly his for the rest of his life was soul-crushing. It took everything in him to pretend he was as irritated about the whole thing as she was. Sure, he hated the whole thing. It was a constant struggle to keep his emotions in check through all of it. He just didn’t hate it because he hated her the way she did him. 

Rowan’s violent dislike of the situation was because it was a window into their past. It was a glimpse at how things were meant to be years ago when he had dropped the ball time and time again. The distaste that overcame his features while putting the ring on her finger had nothing to do with the act itself, and everything to do with it being the wrong ring. The cheap silver with a CZ stone was not the one that he should have been sliding into place. The dress that made her look like a pastry was not the one she was supposed to be wearing. 

It was all just fucking wrong, and every single piece of him was vividly aware of it.

Voicing that wasn’t an option. What good would it do anyway? She was better off without him, always had been, and he wasn’t going to start dragging her down that road now. Rowan could deal with her anger. They could fight it out and have once-in-a-blue-moon moments together when they were alone and it would sustain him. It had to be enough because it was all he could give her. 

The only future for them would be a working relationship full of barbed comments and wicked words slung like gunfire. Aelin would keep being mad at him and he would let her because it was easier than the alternative. Even asking, begging for forgiveness as he should, was too much to put her through. She bore enough wounds on her heart and soul to him. There was no reason to add any more. 

And he damn sure wouldn’t be kissing her like that again. Not when the feeling of her soft lips and the taste of her tongue had undone him so thoroughly his hands still shook. All of the walls he had erected over the last several years where she was concerned were crumbling at an alarming rate. Calling it a game had been a shitty attempt at self-preservation in the moment, one he hoped she didn’t see through like glass. 

“You good?” She asked him as they walked through the garden. Aelin had changed into a long-sleeved, brown turtleneck. Her pants were a few shades darker and wide-legged with cream-colored shoes peeking out as they walked. Rowan was wearing a simple navy blue suit with the collar of his shirt undone. 

“Yep,” he replied, adjusting his hand until their fingers laced together. These photos were just meant to look candid like they had been caught on a stroll. In a few, Aelin had the smart idea to smile and wave toward the camera like she had spotted paparazzi. Though he knew she would be good at this, it was still a little surprising that she had thought of something to make it that much more tangibly believable.

“We’re almost done. Then you can go back to hating my guts.” She looked up at him and smiled, though it didn’t quite reach her eyes. Rowan hated those contacts. It was like a wall between them and he felt like he couldn’t see her anymore. 

“I don’t hate you, Aelin.” Rowan sighed at the truth and immediately wanted to shove it back down his throat. Waterboarding was less painful than giving her pieces of him that were real these days. “I do, however, hate the contacts.”

“Do you know how weird it is that your eyes are brown right now?” 

“Probably as weird it is for me that yours are green,” he murmured just as Luca announced the ending of their session. 

Aelin groaned a thank you to the gods and dropped his hand so abruptly it was like he’d been burning her the entire time. The heels came off and were carried back to the house, both of them quiet. The heartbeats of silence were heavy and he couldn’t decide if it was better or worse than the chaos of their arguments. At least with the arguments, he knew what she was thinking. 

“I might take you up on training later,” she finally said as they walked through the back door. 

“Oh?”

“I’m going to do some shopping for civilian attire, but maybe when I get back?” Aelin paused and turned to look at him, her eyebrows slightly raised. It felt stupid, but Rowan thought he might be able to read her better if she just took out those stupid lenses.

“You don’t want to train with Fenrys instead?” 

Aelin’s eyes rolled and then crossed as she stuck her tongue out at him and replied, “Are you still making me promises you don’t intend to keep?”

It was a cheap shot meant to get under his skin, and Mala fucking flay him, it did. For the first time all day, something almost playful flashed in her eyes while waiting for an answer. This woman was going to be the death of him.

“I’m not— No. Find me when you get back.” 

“I won’t be pulling my punches,” she said as she turned to walk away. A warning or a promise, he wasn’t sure. He didn’t know which option he preferred, either. 

“I wouldn’t expect you to.” His words were said to nothing and no one because, by the time he finally found something to say, she was already gone. 

He walked down the street to the two small houses they used as a base. If anything, they were more akin to rundown shacks in a shanty town, but it worked. One was used for communications, and all their tech was set up throughout various rooms. They took turns on night watch, monitoring the cameras and comms for anything that looked amiss. 

The other house was where they ate, bathed, and slept. Nobody had a semblance of privacy here, save for the shitty little bathroom. All the men but Lorcan doubled up in the rooms and slept on glorified cots every night, often mumbling to their roommates to stop tossing and turning. Their beds tended to creak and groan with every subtle movement. On bad days, tension soared until they inevitably went outside to beat each other senseless in the form of hand-to-hand combat practice.

The houses were on the outskirts of an impoverished chunk of land that couldn't even be considered a village at this point, though once upon a time, it had been a well-populated township. Now there were just rundown buildings and dilapidated houses that people crammed into for shelter. Less than two thousand people remained living in the desolate stretch of desert. All of them were skin and bones, the malnourished ghosts of who they used to be. 

Over their last few months of being abandoned in the Red Desert, they learned that the breadwinners of the family, usually men, pedaled bicycles to the surrounding towns for work. A few of them were forced to walk, which was a feat in itself– the closest town was ten miles away and would take them well over two hours to arrive. Rowan had also learned, mainly from the children, that the ones that walked stayed in cheap inns during the week if they could afford it. Everything else was funneled into food and any other necessities they required, including running water that they really only used to cook and bathe.

Most of the women homeschooled their children to the best of their ability. Generally, they could read, write, and perform basic math. Much else was lost due to the lack of accessible tools for anything beyond that. Rowan had an intense respect for the people that dwelled here and did their best with what they had. 

On the other hand, he could kill every government official who continued to leave these people behind. There was no excuse for such an extreme display of poverty in this day and age. It was made worse by how kind the people were. They lived in the worst conditions they had ever seen, yet still found joy in the little things.

Case in point: a few of the kids that Rowan gave the candy from his MREs to were chasing a soccer ball around the makeshift pitch Fenrys had built for them. He and his twin brother, Connall, were playing with the gaggle of teenage boys and girls, their bright laughter chipping away at his frozen heart. It had been long since anything had threatened to thaw his frozen core, but those children whooping and hollering got to him.

Rowan lifted a hand in greeting, shaking his head but offering a tight smile when they shouted for him to join them. If Lorcan hadn't summoned him, he probably would have. They had done a fat lot of nothing today besides trying to stay out of the sun. Rowan had only left the communications house less than an hour ago to stretch his legs. 

Once inside, he found Lorcan sitting at the desk in the room they considered their office. It wasn't much more than a couple of chairs and a folding table, but it got the job done. Rowan rapped his knuckles against the door frame as he entered and leaned against it, folding his arms across his chest. 

"You wanted to see me?" There was no point in bothering with formalities unless people outside the Cadre were around. They rarely pulled rank amongst themselves. Rowan was second in command, but they usually viewed it as a partnership more than anything else.

"Yep," Lorcan exhaled, putting his pen down and bracing his arms on the edge of the table. Every muscle in his face was tense, down to the feathering of his jaw as he eyed Rowan. This didn't bode well. Whatever he was about to say wasn't good. There was no light hiding in the shadows of his dark eyes. Lorcan had a shit poker face when it came to bad news. With a jerk of his chin, he added, "Sit down." 

"What happened?" Rowan slid into one of the folding chairs across from him and braced his hands on his knees. 

 "We're going to be a team of six again, starting tomorrow morning." That was all? That didn't seem like the tragedy he looked ready to drop on Rowan's head. 

They used to be a group of six until Gavriel retired last year, and they still weren't used to being down to five men. While each of them brought forth their strengths and balanced out their weaknesses, an even number of people made things easier on missions because everyone could be paired off into two teams. During their last few, they had all wished for that extra body. Having another person would be great, especially if he was skilled enough to keep up with the rest of them. 

Though several special ops units existed in the Terrasen Navy, Rowan's was the most elite and the smallest. Every other team had at least a dozen men assigned to it, but it wasn't necessary with the Cadre, the name Rowan's ex bestowed upon them. All of them were over six feet tall and corded with muscle. What they lacked in numbers, they made up for in skill. There was a reason they didn't push to replace Gavriel when he retired. Nobody else was a match for them in any capacity and would have been in the way more than anything else. 

"Why don't you look happy about it?" Rowan asked, relaxing a bit and leaning back in his chair. Lorcan looked like he was grinding his teeth to dust and savoring the pain that came with it.

 "Because I'm not."

"You had to approve it. He must be good enough to hold his own with the rest of us." His commander wouldn't accept anyone unless he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he could do his job with expert precision. 

Lorcan scratched his jaw, nails scraping against the stubble he hadn't bothered to shave away that morning as he said, "It’s not a he.”

Rowan’s blood turned to ice in his veins so quickly that he shivered for the first time in several months. Every hair on his body stood at attention, skin pebbling down his arms, shaking his head in a single sharp movement as he ground out, “You have got to be fucking kidding me.”

It wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to know who she was. Her name had been whispered up and down the grapevine over the last few years as she quickly climbed the ranks. At this point, she was almost as decorated as he was, and he had been at it for three years longer. Thousands of women served in the various military branches, but only one had ever been good enough to break the glass ceiling and become a Ghost Leopard. 

The Ghost Leopards were Terrasen’s most elite special operations unit. No other military group came close to the skill and drive they had. Most people didn’t even try to join— the physical, mental, and emotional strength demanded was too much for many to handle. Rowan’s unit was the best the Ghost Leopards had to offer. 

Rowan knew she had been part of two different ops teams, but never in a million years did he think she would join his own. Not because she wasn’t good enough. There was no question in his mind that she didn’t belong. Lorcan disliked the woman on a good day, yet he had approved her joining the Cadre after putting personal bias aside. 

No, she had definitely earned it; he could admit that much. Rowan had just doubted that she would ever want to share any amount of oxygen with him ever again. Her assignment to the Cadre likely hadn’t been her own idea. Whoever initiated it must well and truly detest Rowan, though. The gods were playing a cruel, sick joke on him. 

Lorcan’s features were frozen with tension, lips curling at the corners in distaste as he said, “Aelin Galathynius arrives tomorrow.” 

~*~

All five men stood in a straight line, feet shoulder-width apart and hands clasped behind their backs. They had decided on the dressed-down version of their uniform, foregoing the over shirts with patches, ranks, and names on them. They each wore the same tan t-shirt tucked into pants in a multi camouflage pattern in shades of brown. It perfectly matched the sandy ocean they were trapped in. 

Heavy black boots anchored Rowan to the ground while they watched the helicopter land a few hundred yards away, kicking up enough dust that they were all happy about the sunglasses and camouflage balaclavas they wore. Without them, the sand would be in every fucking orifice for days on end. 

The newest member of their team finally hopped out, landing with feline grace. To anyone else, she would have been unrecognizable with her face and eyes covered. Not even her hair peeked out as she walked toward them, heaving her bags higher on her shoulder. Rowan would know her anywhere, though.

It wasn’t until the helicopter returned to the skies and the dust settled that she finally pulled her balaclava down around her neck to expose her face. The aviator-style sunglasses stayed perched on her nose, and though her hair was slicked back into a bun at the nape of her neck, the golden strands still shimmered in the sun. The only difference in her uniform was that she wore her blouse with the sleeves rolled up and over her elbows.  Seeing her like this made his vision cloudy at the edges, the memory of their first meeting creeping to the forefront of his mind. He forcefully shoved it away.

The sixty seconds it took her to be within ten feet of them seemed to happen too quickly and in slow motion all at the same time. No emotion flickered over her face, not even her mouth, which usually wore a smirk. Aelin Galathynius was all business.

Hearing her name multiple times in the last twenty-four hours had his mind twisted around itself in a tight knot he couldn’t unwind. Typically, everyone avoided bringing her up when they could, yet now he was seeing her in the flesh for the first time in years. With his heart trying to break his ribs, he was surprised that he heard Lorcan call her by her last name when she stopped before him. 

It probably killed her to do it, but she saluted him the way she would any other commander. Lorcan gave her a nod in return, and her body relaxed. Aelin’s bags slid from her shoulders and landed with a thud on the ground at her feet. Rowan heard her sigh for the first time in ages as her hands dropped to her hips, and she gave them all a once-over.

Light and mischief danced in her fiery blue gaze until she looked at him. Any semblance of emotion flickered out like he’d extinguished the fire that burned within. It wasn’t the first time he had seen her eyes look so damn empty when turned on him. Her dead gaze yanked him two and half years in the past, holding him at gunpoint as he remembered the first time she had ever looked at him that way. 

“I promise. Okay?” Rowan’s hands held Aelin’s cheeks like she was the most precious thing in the world to him because she was. It didn’t matter what he said or did, though. That heavy sadness wouldn’t dissipate, and she wouldn’t look at him. 

“Rowan, I told you–” 

“Baby, it’s the last one, and then I’ll take a job in the city, and it won’t be like this anymore. It’s going to get better, and we’re going to be okay.” He only had minutes left with her, and he hated wasting it like this. It would have been better spent sharing kisses or with him exploring her body to prove how much he loved her. Instead, when they woke up, Aelin had retreated so deeply within herself that he didn’t feel like he could reach her.

“You’ve said twice now that it was going to be the last time. When is it actually going to be the last time, Rowan?” Gods, he really didn’t want to fight with her before he left.

“This is the last deployment I’m going to make,” he swore, and he meant it. He’d already told his commander, and as much as he had hated it, at the end of the day, Lorcan understood. “I don’t want to fight with you right now.”

“I wanted you to stay and pick me for once, so I guess neither of us is getting what we want, are we?” The look in her eyes wasn’t one he’d ever received from her. There was no warmth of love, just a distant chill that felt so tangible goosebumps crawled along his skin. 

 “Aelin,” he sighed, tugging her until he could wrap his arms around her even though she tried to resist. At complete odds with her expressions and words, her arms tightened around his waist, and she fisted his jacket in her hands. Like this was their hardest goodbye yet, she refused to let him go. 

They stood like that for several minutes, Rowan’s lips pressed to the top of her head while he breathed in her scent one more time. Nothing ever came close to how much he missed her when he was gone. Every deployment, he took something of hers with him, falling asleep to the faint scent of jasmine until time washed away any sign of its owner. 

“You’re going to be late,” she finally said, pulling back and wiping her face with the back of her wrist. 

“This is the last time,” he swore for a final time, taking her face between his palms and wiping at her cheeks. Aelin nodded, eyes fixed somewhere over his shoulder. 

“Yeah. Okay.” The goodbyes were always hard, but this time was different. A warning bell was chiming in the back of his head, but he pushed it aside. They made it through everything else over the last five years, and they would pull through this, too. 

“I love you.” Rowan kissed her, his heart shattering at the feel of her quivering mouth against his. A sob slipped out of her lips, her shoulders caving in. Aelin shook her head, letting it fall to read against his chest. “Hey. We’re okay.”

They were. It was an argument they’d had over and over for the last few years. While Aelin loved active duty, she had taken a desk job a few months ago when they had agreed that when Rowan got back from his last deployment, it was his last. Lorcan had begged him for one more tour because Gavriel was talking about retiring, and he didn’t want to lose them both at the same time. The day Rowan returned and told his girlfriend he was doing one last twelve month deployment, it immediately became a fight that wouldn’t end.

Aelin was twenty-six and genuinely loved her job, but she had wanted to start planning their future. Rowan was twenty-nine, and while he did want those things, he still wanted to keep building his legacy and rake in every ounce of glory while he still could. He wanted nothing more than Aelin, and he knew they could stick it out for one more year. They were strong enough to handle anything thrown at them. Of that, he was absolutely certain. 

While the fighting had led to a lot of high tension in their house, they still loved each other at the end of the day. Even when it was hard, and they went months without hearing each other’s voices or seeing one another, they shared such a rare, blinding love that nothing could fracture it.  

“I love you,” he said once more, kissing her trembling lips and wiping her tears away. 

“I love you, too.” But her eyes didn’t meet his, and it was the image of her crying in the foyer that chased him into fitful sleep every night after.

 ~*~

“Aelin Galathynius,” Fenrys drawled, shaking his head as he took her in. Over the formalities of the situation, Aelin pulled off her sunglasses and dropped into a low bow with her arms spread wide. As soon as she pulled her eyes from Rowan and looked at their mutual best friend, she grinned. 

“At your service,” she crooned with a wink. Down the line, Rowan snorted and turned on his heel,  just about stomping the entire way back to the house. Aelin’s eyes rolled, and Fenrys held his arms open for a hug. With a squeal and a joyous giggle, she ran for him and leaped into his waiting arms. 

 “As soon as Salvaterre said we were getting a sixth again, I fucking knew it was you.” His voice was low in her ear as he spun them in a circle, finally putting her feet back on land so she could hug Connall and Vaughan. Aelin made no effort to further engage in conversation with Lorcan. They tolerated each other on a good day, and he was still watching Rowan as he disappeared into what she assumed was their living quarters.

 “I missed you the most out of everyone,” she told Fen as he hefted her bags over one shoulder and threw his other arm around her to lead her toward the house.

 “Even more than you missed Whitethorn?” It was a joke, one that wasn’t rewarded with laughter but by a swift jab to his ribs. He winced, lips pulling into a harsh frown. Aelin couldn’t help it. She smiled.

 “Is he still being a bitter asshole?”

 “Worse, if you can believe it,” Connall chimed in. A sigh was desperate to creep out of her lips, but she swallowed it down. She knew when she got the assignment that it wouldn’t be easy for her, Rowan, or anyone that had to be in close proximity to them. Aelin also knew that she could check the baggage at the door when it came down to doing their jobs. In their downtime, however… She was making no promises. 

“We cleared out a room for you. Fenrys can show you which one,” Lorcan shot over his shoulder as he walked past them, headed toward the house next to the one Rowan had entered. 

“I don’t need special treatment just because I’m a woman!” Lorcan merely waved dismissively over his shoulder and slammed the front door behind him.

“I promise there is no special treatment here in Hela’s fucking armpit,” Vaughan mumbled, nudging her with his shoulder as he brushed past. Indeed, it seemed their living quarters were a far cry from her house in Orynth. Not that the barracks or living situations on special missions were ever anything to write home about, but this was particularly shoddy. 

Fenrys led her inside, gesturing to each fixture in the common areas and trying to sell them for far more than their worth. It wasn’t the worst place Aelin had ever lived in her decade-long career in the military, but his jokes had her in stitches by the time he led her to her ‘bedroom.’

Really, it was more of an oversized closet with a cot, a chair for a nightstand, and a single light operated by a cord that dangled from the ceiling. Someone had put a small fan on top of the chair that she turned on to test the airflow. Beneath the cot was just enough space for her to slide her bags, and the door shut almost all the way. It refused to latch, but you win some and lose some. It wasn’t the worst and definitely beat sleeping outside or sharing a room with any of the boys. Aelin had spent enough time with military men to know they smelled horrible. 

Not that she smelled like jasmine at all hours of the day, but the women tended to try a little harder than the men did. It didn’t matter that she knew all of them personally. Maybe it was a little sexist, but she stood firm in the idea that women cared a little more about body odor than men.

After the grand tour was finished and she’d peeked into the guys' rooms, they walked back toward the kitchen. Aelin had arrived much later than planned, and Rowan was already preparing his MRE for dinner. The others quickly followed suit, and Fenrys knelt on the ground to dig through the box.

“Alright, we’ve got spaghetti with meat sauce, chili mac, a chicken stew, regular mac and cheese, and lemon pepper tuna.” 

“Chili mac,” she said, firm in her decision. It was one of the best ones, and with their supplies looking a little low, she didn’t know how it was even an option. 

Fenrys handed her the dinner, and she quickly removed all the contents. Along with the main entree, it held a few other snack items ranging from a beef jerky stick to a packet of Sour Patch Kids and a few things in between. She hummed contentedly at the fruit punch powder packet that she would most definitely add to her water. 

Aelin was forced to sidle up next to Rowan to fill her pouch with water to activate the one-time-use heater that came with the meals. He said nothing as their shoulders brushed until she was finished, folding her pouch over to avoid spillage. Aelin handed her food off to Fenrys while she relocated everything else to the small table that would barely hold them all. By the time she retrieved it and took her seat, Rowan was already in his chair. 

Because she simply couldn’t pass up on the opportunity, she sat next to him, not bothering to avoid their knees knocking or shoulders bumping as she settled. Again, he said nothing. Just stabbed at his own pouch of beef and barbecue and pretended she wasn’t there. 

“Are you going to give me the silent treatment?” Aelin nudged his elbow with hers, tilting her head to look at him. Rowan finally relented and gave her a sidelong glance. 

The others, including Lorcan, were claiming their seats. To their credit, it seemed that they were trying not to eavesdrop, but that was impossible in this house. Lorcan, however, looked ready to jump between them and dispel a fight that would leave two of his incredible assets licking their wounds.  

“I was thinking about it,” Rowan replied tersely, not looking up as he shoved a bite into his mouth. “Isn’t that what you’ve been doing for the last few years?”

“Ah, so Connall was right then.” Bitter asshole to his very core, apparently. Fenrys snickered at her remark beside her while Rowan tensed. Aelin could have been sitting up against a concrete wall and wouldn’t have known the difference. 

“What are you missing most about civilian life?” Fen asked, likely an attempt to prevent a verbal sparring match. He popped a skittle into his mouth and settled back in his rickety chair.  

“I barely remember what it’s like at this point, to be honest.” It was the truth. Aelin had thrown herself so thoroughly into work that she was only home for a few days at a time. The longest she’d been home was for a month last summer. There were days when she didn’t know what to do with herself and days when her mattress felt too soft, or the food too indulgent. Aelin pondered, mouth twisting to the side. “Usually, I would say long, hot showers. But I don’t think I’ll be craving any sort of heat while we’re here. Probably my nightgowns. I can handle everything else, but sleeping in silk is wildly underrated.”

“Can you not share intimate details while we’re eating?” Rowan grumbled. Aelin whipped her head around to look at him, her brow furrowed.

“Intimate details, my ass. You’ve literally been inside me. I don’t think it gets more intimate than that.” Had she chosen nightgowns specifically to wiggle her way under Rowan’s skin? Maybe. But it didn’t make his reaction any less stupid. “How the hell is sleepwear an intimate detail?” 

Rowan opened his mouth to respond, but Lorcan beat him to the punch, looking for all the world like he should have told them to put Aelin in someone else’s company as he said, “On the topic of civilian life–”

 “Please tell me we’re leaving this godsforsaken place,” Fenrys cut in, eyes wide and pleading. 

 “I just flew halfway around the world, and we’re leaving?” Aelin felt as exasperated as she sounded. It was a long way to travel to just turn around and head right back. She wasn’t eager to be cooped back up on any sort of aircraft so soon. 

“In three days,” Lorcan confirmed, shifting in his seat to pull a roll of paper from his back pocket that he dropped into the middle of the table. Six pairs of eyes peered down, scanning the words even though it was upside down for Fenrys, Aelin, and Rowan. “I didn’t find out until this morning, or we would have waited for you to join us then.”

 “What’s going on?”

 “Since we’ve been monitoring the border here for months and nothing is happening, we’re more useful elsewhere. Another unit will be stationed here while we go to Rifthold.”

“What’s happening in Rifthold?” Rowan asked, leaning back in his chair. Aelin did the same while taking a swig of fruit punch, eyeing the unused drink packet from Rowan’s meal kit. It was grape, and she knew he wouldn’t drink it because it was too sweet. Maybe she could steal it when he wasn’t paying attention.

 “A threat on the Crown Prince of Adarlan’s  life.” Lorcan’s tone lacked inflection. He could have been talking about the weather.

“I’m all for preventing an assassination, but we’re the Terrasen military. Why are we getting sent in for this?” Vaughan had a point. A good one, too. Not that any of them were really complaining. Going back to civilization would be a damn vacation for them, the boys more than Aelin. She hadn’t been hiding in a shack in the desert for the last four months.

“Because all signs point to it happening at the summer ball, and our President, along with a dozen high-ranking officials from our government, will be in attendance. Preventing the Prince’s assassination will save their lives, too.” Everyone murmured their agreement. “We don’t know where it came from, though. Our source is unclear on that, which will be the trickier part. All signs point to it being an inside job right now because things have been intense between the king and his oldest son.”

 “Dorian has been speaking out against a lot of his father’s policies. The king can’t do damage control fast enough. It was all over the papers when I was in Orynth last month. As quickly as the king puts out one fire, Dorian starts another. ‘Inside sources,’” Aelin added air quotes with her fingers for emphasis, “Claim that the king is getting really fed up. It’s causing a lot of unrest and protests among the people. More of them seem to agree with the prince than the king. It would make sense for it to be his doing.” 

“That,” Fenrys drawled, holding one finger, “Is fucked up.”

“It is,” Aelin agreed. “But things have always appeared to be rocky between them.”

“We’ll be going undercover for a while. Adarlan’s government isn’t asking for assistance on the issue, probably because they’re starting it to begin with. But we aren’t willing to risk their version of ‘taking care of things.’ And if it comes down to it, President Galathynius–” Lorcan’s eyes shot to Aelin when mentioning her uncle, “–would rather save the prince’s life and risk tension with Adarlan over it.” 

“Considering the King of Adarlan is a sexist, racist piece of shit, I don’t blame him,” Connall mused, letting his hair out of the bun it had been in since Aelin arrived. She agreed with her uncle. Dorian did as much as he could as a prince, but as king… He would pave the way to a better world. 

“Do we have covers yet?” Rowan leaned forward, reaching for the stack of papers Lorcan had presented to them. As he sifted through them, Aelin noticed the commander’s face getting tighter with every page Rowan skimmed. Her brow furrowed as she looked over her ex-boyfriend’s broad shoulder. 

“You two…” Lorcan hesitated. Almost like he was dreading the news he was about to bestow upon them. “The four of us will be blending in with the commoners. Our base will be a large manor set far enough out that nobody will notice we all congregate together.”

Beside her, Rowan went utterly rigid. If she thought he was tense before, it was nothing compared to now. The tendons in his neck were ready to snap. She swore she could see his pulse pounding in his neck as a vein protruded in the center of his forehead. 

“No,” Rowan said, shaking his head and throwing the papers on the table. Confused, Aelin snatched them up to read them herself. Fenrys leaned in to read along with her, one of his fingers tracing down the edge of the page.

“It wasn’t my call,” Lorcan said defensively, right as her eyes landed on the incriminating words that had Rowan’s body taut as a bowstring.

“This better be a fucking joke,” she spat, pushing out of her chair and rising to her feet. It had to be a joke, a prank, a hazing for joining their stupid little boyband. The harsh lines on her commander’s face said it was anything but. “Married? Out of all five of you to make me pretend to be married to, it’s Rowan that gets picked?”

“We don’t know how dangerous of a situation we’re walking into.” Lorcan tried to sound calm, but his eyes darted between the former couple like they might burn down the world out of spite. Aelin was considering it. “Rowan is the best of us at hand-to-hand combat should you ever need the defense–”

“I can fight for myself. I can protect myself. Fenrys could protect me just as well as Rowan if that were truly a concern.” It was risky to shout at her commander so much, especially on her first day, but Aelin was just past the point of caring. Every fuck she might be able to give was caught in a tornado of sand, plowing through the desert in the complete opposite direction.

“You know better than anyone that Rowan has skill sets that would work well while masquerading as a Duke, just like you do for being a Duchess. Fenrys is too loud-mouthed, and the other two lack the general composure to pretend to be royal. Rowan always has the quiet, dignified mask in his back pocket. He can talk his way out of–”

 “I don’t care,” she hissed, taking several steps from the table.

 “Ace…” Fenrys said quietly, leaning back in his chair to grab her hand. “Lorcan has a point.”

 “I know he does.” Aelin’s voice was muffled while she rubbed at her face. Nobody objected or disagreed with Lorcan’s mild insults because it was the truth. Sometimes, Fen didn’t know when to shut up, and while Vaughan and Connall could easily look the part, they were missing something that Rowan just had naturally. 

 When he walked into a room, he carried himself like he was important. Unlike typical royals, it wasn’t because he was looking down his nose at anyone but because he almost commanded respect from everyone. Rowan, as a royal, wouldn’t raise any eyebrows. Aelin knew that. She just wished she had more of a heads-up before getting thrown into something that hit a little too close to home where their former relationship was concerned.

 “I’m sorry for yelling.” Her eyes met Lorcan’s, and he shrugged. Now was not the time for him to assume she couldn’t do her job because she was an emotional woman. It was sexist bullshit, to begin with, but her time in the military told her it’s what they all thought of the women. No matter how hard they trained or how many times they proved themselves, women were silly, emotional creatures that couldn’t handle anything.

“I expected it. I know it won’t be easy for either of you.” Aelin couldn’t hide the surprise on her face. Not the raised brows or the way her mouth parted at his words. Maybe she undersold him. Just a little. “Rowan?”

 “Yeah.” The word was flat. Seeing his face wasn’t necessary to know his eyes were probably as vacant as he sounded.

 “Can you handle it?”

 “Don’t really have a choice, do I?” 

No, they didn’t have a choice, but if it would save multiple lives, they would manage. Their tumultuous past would stay where it belonged when they were in public and doing their jobs. Maybe they would even find a way to be civil by the end of it. There was also the possibility of everything going up in flames, one violent explosion at a time until everything was burned and nobody was marked safe from the fallout.

Aelin really wasn’t sure which one it would be.

The best part about Rowan not being in bed with her was the smell of bacon, eggs, and something sweet creeping up the stairs and beneath the door. For what felt like the first time in her pregnancy, her mind and body were in agreement: she was hungry. Though she was hesitant to believe her head wouldn’t be in the toilet immediately following breakfast, she slipped out of bed and padded her way downstairs. 

“How did you sleep?” He asked her, eyes roving over her head to toe before he turned back to the pan on the stove. Aelin wondered if it was because she was still in the clothes he’d given her to sleep in, or if it was some instinct of his to make sure she was in one piece. She slid onto one of the chairs at the bar, folding her arms atop it, and laid her head down.

“Like the dead.” A sleepy yawn escaped her before she could finish her response. One of these days, she really needed to take to the internet to see when, exactly, she would stop feeling so wholly exhausted all the time. “Did you sleep okay?”

“I did,” he confessed, the muscles in his back rippling beneath the simple gray t-shirt he wore. “Better than I have all week, actually.” 

Rowan was careful as he deposited an egg onto a plate next to a few pieces of bacon and a cinnamon roll. Aelin thanked him when he handed her the plate and a glass of orange juice. It was freshly squeezed if the notes of orange zest throughout the kitchen were any indicator, but when she lifted it to take a sip, her stomach turned violently in protest. 

“It’s freshly squeezed. No additives or anything.” Two strings pulled the corners of her lips toward the floor. The confirmation that he spent gods knew how long juicing oranges until she had a full glass worth made her feel guilty for the way her body was reacting.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she said as she put it back down on the bar, far enough away that her nose couldn’t smell it anymore. 

“It was nothing.” 

“No I mean…” She paused and took a deep breath, eyes closing at the nausea rising in the back of her throat. “Can you put that anywhere else please.”

“Shit. Fuck, Aelin, I’m so sorry.” Rowan was quick to swoop in and pour it directly down the kitchen sink, letting the water chase it down the drain. 

“You didn’t know. I didn’t either until I smelled it,” she admitted, finally opening her eyes and lifting her fork. 

The first bite of the cinnamon roll was heavenly. It was baked to perfection, the gooey texture nearly melting away on her tongue. It was exactly how she loved her cinnamon rolls, but couldn’t remember ever telling him that. Perhaps once in passing. The eggs were scrambled and in a neat pile of soft, pillowy clouds. None of it touched.

“Did your mom teach you to cook?”

“She did. I was hungry just about constantly growing up, especially after practice and games. It’s come in handy now that I follow such a strict meal plan.” Indeed, his plate didn’t have a cinnamon roll. Instead he had two pieces of toast, some bacon and sausage, and three eggs. When he slid into the seat beside her she noticed two bowls, one with oatmeal and the other full of fruit. 

“I was underfeeding you at my house,” she murmured, sitting back and resting her hands on her stomach. The baby, apparently, didn’t want her to enjoy breakfast. She took deep, steadying breaths to keep the food down even as a sheen of sweat started to coat her skin. 

“Are you sick a lot?” Concern swam in his gaze as looked her over head to toe, but she nodded her head.

“Lysandra made me go to the emergency room a few days after I found out, and—” Rowan’s head whipped around, eyes wide and full of concern. Aelin held up a hand for him to wait a moment and continued, “There are days I couldn’t keep water down. That’s what the blood test was from. They gave me some medication to help with the nausea.” 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Something like devastation flashed across his features, squeezing her heart like he’d squeezed those oranges. 

“Because I was still freaking out about being pregnant and how I was going to tell you, and I didn’t want you to find out because I was in the hospital over it. Imagine your reaction in an ER,  with nothing between us and strangers but—” Aelin was cut off by the all too familiar tell of her mouth watering, head becoming unclear and dizzy as she launched off the chair and sprinted to the bathroom. She barely made it to the toilet before dropping onto her knees and emptying the little contents of her stomach into the bowl. 

Rowan was there, like he’d seen the color of her face drain to stark white. His hand was a steady weight on her back, moving slowly up and down her spine while he gathered up her hair in his other hand. 

By the time she was through, her throat burned from the pure bile that clawed its way out of her body. Aelin’s ribs and stomach ached from the force of it all and Rowan had to help her back onto her feet, gripping her shaky hands and grounded her to earth. 

“Do you want to lay back down?” he asked her, using his fingers to comb her hair up onto the top of her head. Goosebumps erupted over her body when he tugged the hair tie off her wrist and secured the bun into place. 

Aelin shook her head and gestured toward the kitchen where their breakfast grew colder by the second and said, “I’m going to shower while you finish eating. And don’t object to it. I know you’re hungry. So eat.” 

His eyes were wary as he appraised her. They scanned every feature from head to toe like he was cataloging every single thing about her. Deeming her well enough to manage on her own, he led her out of the bathroom and toward the stairs. Even when she protested, he followed her up and gathered towels and the small bucket of necessities that had everything she would need: body wash, shampoo, conditioner, razors, shaving gel. The little box of tampons almost made her laugh. She wouldn’t  be needing those for a while. 

When he finally left her alone, she stared at the bin full of everything she might need for her stay. Aelin didn’t question if it was meant for any female visitors he might have. She didn’t have to. Everything in it was smaller sizes of everything she had in her shower at home. Like he had made a list so he knew what to get. 

It almost made her angry, how thoughtful it was. Simply because it made it virtually impossible to be upset with him. All of her anger toward him was gradually slipping through her fingers, just like the water she gathered in her cupped hands. 

~*~ 

By the time she was done showering and walked back downstairs, Rowan had finished eating and cleaned up the kitchen. It was near pristine. The dirty dishes had vanished from the stove top and sink and an empty trash bag was in the garbage bin. One of his tattooed fingers was just about to mist the room with air freshener to cover the lingering scent of cinnamon and bacon when she stopped him. 

“That’s overkill. I’m fine.” Her polished fingers toyed with the ends of her damp hair as he looked up at her. 

Rowan’s eyes swept over her, lingering on her still flat stomach. There was nothing to see, not yet, not for several weeks, but he looked and looked like he could see the baby through her t-shirt, her skin. When he finally looked at her face again he simply nodded and put the can back under the sink. 

“Come on,” Aelin said after several heartbeats of silence, her head nodding toward the living room while he pulled a glass from the cabinet and filled it with water from the fridge. Once it was in her hands she glanced at the living room again. “We should talk.” 

When she turned her back she heard him sigh deeply. It was strained, like he wasn’t at all looking forward to what was coming, like he dreaded it. Almost like he was scared. She wondered if his heart was racing and pounding like hers as she walked across the room and tucked herself in the corner of the sofa. A blanket is pulled over her legs with hands that have a small tremor. Aelin tucked them between her thighs to make it stop. 

“At the time,” she said slowly, turning the words over in her mind before speaking them out loud, “I didn’t understand why you asked me if it was for money. But now, knowing what you actually do for a living, I understand why you felt the need to ask.”

“That isn’t what it was.” The words were clipped, his jaw clenching as he paced in front of her. Aelin watched him until he finally sat down on the edge of the couch, fingers drumming against his knees to quell his nervous energy. Confusion rose to the surface in her mind.

“Okay. Explain it to me then.” 

“I— fuck. I don’t like talking about this.” The second part seemed to be said more toward himself than to her, so she waited patiently while he sifted through letters and syllables to make words. 

Rowan looked over at her and chewed on his cheek. More than once, his lips parted to try to sew together his words, but closed again. Like he didn’t know how, when, or where to begin. Aelin wasn’t sure either. They both had a lot to say, had apologies to make. There was so much, though, that it was hard for her to find the words, too. 

“I don’t like talking about it because I don’t… I don’t want you to think I’m making excuses about how I treated you. I’m not. But it’s the truth. Any single one of my friends, my family, they can back it up.” 

“Rowan. It’s okay. Just talk to me.” The fingers in her lap ached to reach for him, twitching against her bare legs beneath the blanket. She wove them together to stay put. 

“I had been sleeping with a woman for a while. Nothing serious, just casual when I had the time. She ended up getting pregnant about six months or so into it. I didn’t want the relationship to get serious. She… Lyria and I weren’t really well matched. We didn’t know each other. I found it hard to open up to her. More than that, I didn’t want to open up to her. But I was more than willing to step up where the baby was concerned.” He paused, tongue swiping over his teeth. Aelin’s heart was trying to escape her ribcage. She took a steadying breath, telling herself to listen and not draw conclusions before he finished. Still, she wondered. Did he have a kid already?

“Lyria was pushing for a relationship, to marry eventually. I was 23, still pretty early in my career, nowhere near ready for marriage.  Especially not with a woman I barely knew . Every time it was brought up I shut it down. Not to break her heart,” he added with a swift glance at Aelin. “I don’t think she was ever in love with me. But because it wouldn’t have been a fruitful marriage, we would have been miserable, and I truly didn’t see the point.” 

Aelin nodded in understanding, “You didn’t want to settle.”

“I didn’t want her to settle either. It wouldn’t have been fair for anyone, especially not the baby in a few years time. I didn’t want to raise a child in a loveless home. But all of that isn’t why I reacted so… fucking horribly.” 

“Okay.” Her voice was barely above a whisper, but loud enough to encourage him to keep going. After another steadying breath, he did. 

“One night I very firmly shut it down again. I told her it wasn’t on the table. I want to make it clear that she had a good job, she had really good health insurance. But she started asking me for money. Of course I wanted to give the support she needed, so I gave. And gave. And gave. I couldn’t not give her the money. We weren’t close enough for me to know the extent of her income, and I had money I could afford to lose. Maybe she did, maybe she didn’t, but whenever I asked about it she would get cagey. Accuse me of accusing her. It was such a complicated web to unravel and the fighting was so tiring.”

Aelin was nothing more than a concrete statue, her limbs heavy at her sides. She was unable to move while he spoke, eyes focused on the frayed corner of the blanket in her lap. Every sentence was turned over in her mind carefully, knowing that the grief and frustration that marred his face and sharpened his words was absolutely true.

“One day she called me several times in a row. I didn’t answer because our flight got in really late and I was exhausted. There was no energy in my soul to argue with her about money, so I sent it to voicemail. Later she sent me a text that she miscarried and… I didn’t want the relationship with her but I was just getting used to the idea of being a dad. I have always wanted to have kids. The timing was off at the time, but I was excited about it. And then it was just… gone.”

“Rowan,” she started gently, desperate to offer him comfort of some sort. No words would be a balm to that wound, but she couldn’t bring herself to reach out and touch him. Instead of looking at her he held up a hand, silently asking her to wait. Gods, he wasn’t finished. How could it get worse?

“I found out a few weeks later through a mutual friend that she had miscarried nearly an entire month earlier. All through that month I was still sending her money for appointments, for nursery furniture, car seats…” Rowan shook his head, silver hair falling into his eyes. “We stopped talking after I told her I knew the truth. That she was using all the money I was giving her to fund her lifestyle, hardly any of it was going toward anything for the baby, and that she weaponized the miscarriage to hurt me. It was a massive fucking blow out, and we haven’t spoken since.” 

All the letters and words had evacuated her brain. The weight of his eyes trailing over her face made her finally meet his gaze. All the empathy she had in her heart was swimming in the ocean blue of her eyes that gleamed with unshed tears. In his, she saw that he knew the words she couldn’t find to speak out loud. 

“It makes me feel like a massive piece of shite, but sometimes I wonder if she was even pregnant at all or if the whole thing was just a way to get money from me.” His fingers pinched the bridge of his nose, green eyes fluttering shut as he took a moment to just breathe. Aelin wondered if he had ever voiced that confession out loud before. 

“I can understand why you reacted the way that you did.” The words swept out of her mouth on a heavy exhale, hands flexing in her lap.

“But?” 

“I don’t fault you for the reasons behind your actions, Rowan. But I also can’t just freely let go with what you said and how you said it. I wish that I could, but I felt like we…” Aelin trailed off, eyes shifting around the room on a scavenger hunt for words she had lost. 

“Like we had something more than what I reflected in my reaction,” he finished. A hand dragged through his hair and down the back of his neck before settling over the mouth that had put him in so much trouble in the last eight days. 

“I thought you trusted and respected me more.”

“I do, Aelin. I– fuck. I do. I am so sorry for what I said, how I said it, what I accused you of, that I hurt you. For all of it, I’m so fucking sorry.” Rowan’s hands flexed against his thighs like he was dying to touch her almost as much as she was dying to be touched by him. They curled into fists so tight she could see his thumb nails turning white from the pressure. 

“I know,” she assured him. “I know that, I just–” 

Her hands moved restlessly in front of her, trying to pull her thoughts into coherent sentences. Trying to fully express how deeply it had cut her for him to react that way was difficult. The empty space in his arms where she had fit so perfectly had started to feel like home. It was the safest she had ever felt and following this path of life had felt so entirely right. But then he opened his stupid, perfect mouth. Those words had been dripping with such a sharp edge there wasn’t a way it wouldn’t have hurt. 

“I think I just need some time. I think we need to slow down. This wasn’t supposed to become anything. You know? It was just meant to be fun, but–” She cut herself off with a shrug, her fingers falling onto her flat stomach. Somewhere in there, a baby that was equal parts of her and Rowan was swimming around.  Those feelings threatened to undo her if she allowed herself to feel them. Instead of letting them bubble over, she shoved a cork deep down into that bottle to avoid it just a little while longer.

Rowan’s inhale was sharp, a blade against its scabbard. A chilly silence filled the room, faint buzzing in her ears like she was on the snowboarding slopes in the Staghorns after a heavy snowfall. His fingers drummed against his thighs, eyes staring straight ahead when he finally nodded in understanding. 

A relationship hadn’t been on her radar. It was why the long-distance nature of it worked out so well. With time between each visit, she wasn’t able to throw herself into his heart no matter how much she may have wanted to. Nevermind that the last time she had dived head first into something it had ended with her broken and bleeding. That relationship left scars that were still tender, still itching as they healed. 

It didn’t matter how badly she was desperate to be curled up against him, feel his skin warm where they touched. How much she craved to taste his lips, to kiss the hollow of his throat and down his chest, to just feel his body splayed beneath her fingers. To know that things would be okay. There was so much more at play here than what she wanted. A little baby was caught in the crossfires, and she has to be sure that going forward their relationship was built on more than a whirlwind romance. 

Instead of reaching for his hand and continuing to let herself fall for him, she carefully constructed a wall around her heart and nodded in return. 

“About me lying to you about… everything,” she began, but was quickly cut off by Rowan shaking his head so rapidly it made her dizzy.

“There’s no need for you to explain that. I do not fault you for wanting to protect yourself, Aelin. I wish we had both been more honest with each other, but, no. You don’t need to explain or apologize. I understand. I did the same thing.” The tightness in her chest eased. For the first time since everything had come out, her ribs weren’t so tightly constricted when she took a steadying breath. They had both lied for similar reasons, and her secrets didn’t seem to change anything for him, at least. 

Rowan’s eyes seemed dark and distant, not at all what she was used to. But the conversation at hand was one of pain and hurt. It couldn’t be easy for him to lay this all at her feet, yet he had, and now they could move forward. He would give her the space she required and after that, they would figure things out. 

A kernel of hope nestled itself into her heart. Aelin just hoped she wouldn’t get hurt this time. 

~*~ 

White noise skittered along his skin, his nerves. The stifling sound of silence filled his ears like cotton as she finally stood and began to gather her things. The minutes ticked by like hours and Rowan hated every single drawn out second of it. He just wanted her to stay despite Aelin admitting that what they had between them wasn’t supposed to be anything. Those words were sure to echo between his ears during every hour he existed for the rest of his life.

Deep down in the trenches of his mind he was aware it was the best option for now. For them to pump the brakes, for him to make it up to her. Rowan understood why she needed time to process. He had assumed the worst of her when in reality, the truth of those pregnancy tests had shaken her to her core, just like they had him. 

Still, he couldn’t deny his excitement. While he had been wholly unprepared when Lyria was pregnant, he was ready this time. Ready in a way that only resulted in happiness buzzing through his bones when he imagined what the child would look like, what they would be like. And if he and Aelin could figure this out and work through the missteps…

Gods. He was going to be a dad. After she took the time she needed and he proved himself, they could be a family. A real family. It wasn’t going to be like last time because he was already tripping and stumbling over the edge of a cliff, his feelings rising as rapidly as the water. He was falling in love with her, and it terrified him. 

Rowan could wait. He would give her all the time she wanted, that she needed, and on the other side of it he would make sure that she was the happiest woman in the world. That their baby had the universe at their feet. Anything either of them wanted, he would ensure they had it. Nothing else mattered like this, not even football. 

A new determination had melded into his bones by the time Aelin came downstairs with her bag over one shoulder. He stood as she slipped on her shoes, then walked her out to her car. Apprehension was all over her face, evident in the way her fingers twisted together when she faced him after opening her door. 

“I’ll give back your clothes soon, I just felt gross putting the ones from yesterday back on.” Aelin gestured to the pair of boxers and t-shirt she wore. Rowan shook his head. 

“I’m not worried about that. Keep them if you wish.” A lock of hair blew into her face with the wind. Without thinking he caught it with his fingertips, grazing her cheekbone as he pushed it behind her ear. 

Aelin stiffened and took a single step back. The emotional distance was wider than the ocean when her head shook, brows meeting between her eyes that didn’t quite meet his. 

“Please don’t touch me like that,” she said quietly, but not weakly. Ice water had been dumped over his head despite the warmth in the air. His fingers clenched into a tight fist as they dropped to his side and he promptly shoved them into his pockets. Rowan took several steps back, jaw wired shut. Uncomfortable. Aelin looked uncomfortable at his touch, and he wanted to slam his fist into the concrete because of it. 

“I’ll text you soon,” she said, and he suddenly remembered  the question that had been floating around in the back of his mind for the last two days. Just as she was about to shut the door, he grabbed the top of it to keep it from closing. Aelin jolted a bit, her  eyebrows rising high as the clouds.

“How did you find out?” She looked at him for a second while she processed the question, and then laughed. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever heard.

“My best friend, Lysandra. I hadn’t sent her very many good pictures of your face yet, so she just googled ‘Rowan’ along with soccer and Doranelle hoping for a team photo or something.” Rowan laughed, too. Some of the tension eased from his shoulders as she smiled at him in their truce. 

He nodded after a moment, a small smile still on his face. He stepped back to let her drive away, standing in the mid-afternoon silence while her tires kicked up clouds of dust. It would be a long road to win her trust back, but he wouldn’t stop until he had earned it. 

~*~

The car ride back to Varese was spent choking back tears and forcing air into her lungs to ground her. As soon as she was back in her apartment, however, the dam broke. A tidal wave of emotion crashed down upon her head, and the front door was barely closed before her thumbs were punching buttons on her phone. By the time Lysandra picked up there were sobs violently shaking her entire body. 

Before pregnancy, this wouldn’t have been anything to cry over. She still would have called Lysandra, of course, but it wasn’t something that would wreck her like this. Truthfully, Aelin didn’t even know why she was crying, other than the fact that she just felt alone. No universe existed where Aelin Ashryver Galathynius was alone in anything, much less a pregnancy. But she had nowhere to go to seek comfort in Varese. Two weeks ago it would have been to Rowan, but that was off the table. Now she just had an empty apartment and her thoughts. 

Lysandra listened while she cried and tried to get a deep breath down. Aelin hadn’t been so upset in years and was positive that if she wasn’t pregnant, everything wouldn’t feel quite so out of control. As it was, there were no handholds to grab onto, no footholds to keep her from sliding down the cliff. While her emotions waxed and waned, Lysandra was there to listen to it all, to soothe her anxiety when she started to spiral out of control. 

Part of her wished Aedion knew about the pregnancy because she needed him right now. But Lysandra filled his shoes almost well enough for everything to dwindle to a simmering calm. 

Though she was set to fly out next week, Lys managed to find a lone ticket that would put her in Varese early the next morning. They talked while she packed, the blonde managing to calm down enough to go over everything that had been said between her and Rowan earlier that morning. 

“I want to forgive him,” she said quietly a few hours later, curled up in her kleenex-covered bed. 

“Why can’t you?” 

“I–” Her lips twisted into a knot as she frowned at the floor. “I just need to be sure. You know? I need to… I don’t know.”

“You need to know that if this is going to be an actual relationship and not a co-parenting situation, that he isn’t going to hurt you again,” Lysandra offered, somehow seeing directly into Aelin’s mind and knowing the inner workings better than she did herself. 

“Yeah,” she sniffed, those emotions threatening to spill over once again despite how much she had already cried. Even though a relationship was the last thing she wanted. “I just need to be sure.”

An hour later, Lysandra was ready for her 6:30 AM flight, and Aelin was more than ready to not feel quite so alone. 

When she pulled up to the airport to pick up her best friend in the early hours of the morning, the sun just beginning to crest over the mountaintops to the east, it wasn’t the dark-haired beauty she was expecting. In fact, she almost drove right past the man that shared her eyes and golden hair. The man that could be her twin. 

It was Aedion. 

Rejection started to string at Aelin’s cheeks. Her eyes fell to her keyboard.

Lorcan added a sigh to the mix. “Agent Whitehawk, if you aren’t able to do this now, we can’t trust you to do it when you’re on mission.”

“The mission will be fine.” 

“Really?” Fenrys snorted. “Because you look like you’re about to bolt.”

Aelin dared to slide her eyes back up. Rowan’s jaw was working, his fingers anxiously tapping against his thigh. He looked like he was about to be subjected to a “meeting” with Agent Ironteeth and her knives. 

Actually, considering how well B.A.N.E. agents were trained for torture, Aelin was pretty sure Rowan was handling this worse.

She had to scoff to get through the roll of emotions. It felt like a piano had just flattened her head to toe. The sardonic sound made Rowan finally look at her, his jaw easing a little. Holding his stupid gaze, Aelin said, “Have any other agents been cleared?”

Rowan’s expression stumbled. His fingers stilled. “What?”

“Agent Knight—sorry, Agent Salad,” Elide said with a knowing smile, “was just cleared yesterday.”

“But his identity was leaked,” Rowan cut in fast. “The V.A.L.G. know his face—”

“Agent Knight’s strength has always been how generic he looks,” Lorcan supplied. “We’ve set him up with a new identity, and are confident that the V.A.L.G. won’t be able to tell him apart from any other brown-haired white man.”

Aelin leaned back in her seat, scowling. “Great. Send him over.”

She could kiss Chaol. And more importantly, she had no doubt that he’d be willing to kiss her.

“We’ll be cutting it close,” Elide said, looking around her screen like she’d already started pulling up potential plane tickets, “but I think we can have him at the safe house by 9 AM. Agent Whitehawk, you can take a flight out tomorrow at—”

“No.”

Everybody froze.

Rowan had both hands planted flat on the table. He’d said this No with even more conviction than the first two. He shook his head. “No, we don’t need Agent Knight.”

To the sound of crickets, he slowly stood, green eyes fixed on Aelin with that intensity she still wasn’t used to. Rowan walked around the table, dragging his hand over the top of the seats, splitting her attention between the muscles in his forearm, and the look of determination on his face. 

He stopped in front of her, towering above as she stayed absolutely still in her seat.  The world blurred around her, their audience dropping away as Rowan leaned down. He caught her chin with his thumb and forefinger, pulling all the air from her lungs as he tipped back her head. Aelin’s heart started hammering as Rowan’s heat pressed in. Her pulse played a steady beat in her ears, the beginning of a glorious song she’d waited her entire life to hear. He moved closer so that their legs brushed. And his gaze fell to her parted lips.

His other hand went to the arm of her chair, all of him folding over her. Aelin loosed an audible exhale as the hand on her chin moved to cup her jaw, not even caring that her microphone was picking it all up. Rowan’s face got closer, his pine scent swirled around her. She closed her eyes and waited for the best kiss of her life to hit her.

Finally, she would know. All the questions and dreams and fantasies would be answered. Every traitorous thought she’d had about Rowan’s mouth, his body, hidden behind walls of hatred. She’d finally know what it was to touch him.

She needed to touch him.

Rowan’s nose brushed against hers and her heart somersaulted. His lips were seconds away. The music in her head built up to a crescendo, and Aelin waited for it to break into an explosion of colour and touch and perfect sound—

Instead, she got an out-of-tune trumpet squelching out a miserable cry of death.

The kiss was weird.

Somehow way too dry, which was bizarre because men usually had the opposite problem. His lips were stiff and awkward, not quite open enough. Aelin had to stop her hands from going to his jaw and prying it open. Their tongues moved like they were strangers trying to shimmy past each other on a bus. Awkwardly knocking elbows, accidentally catching a sleeve on a backpack’s zipper. 

Bad. 

This was a bad kiss.

Aelin actually put her hands on his shoulders to push him away. She’d had quite enough. 

Rowan followed the silent instruction immediately, taking two generous steps back. She could feel his worried eyes on her, but Aelin couldn’t bear to look at him. 

She was in shock.

All these years of his presence turning her blood to lava, and now she felt drier than a desert that hadn’t seen a drop of rain in 500 years. 

“Agent Wolf,” she said, staring intensely at a knot in the wooden tabletop, “do you remember where I keep that eulogy I wrote for myself?”

A chuckle. “Of course.”

“Great. Because you’re going to need it when Agent Whitehawk’s terrible kissing gets us killed.”

A sound of despair scraped out of Rowan’s throat. But again, Aelin couldn’t look at him. Maybe she’d never be able to look at him again. It was like meeting someone you really respected, only to find they had a giant piece of lettuce in their teeth. As you sit there, watching them talk, wishing you could appreciate all the brilliant things they were saying, all you can think is Lettuce.

Agent Whitehawk was dead. Rowan was lettuce now.

“I’ll make sure to add that to the mission notes,” Lorcan chortled.

Rowan made another sound, but the team quickly wrapped up the meeting without him producing any real words. Aelin said her goodbyes, feeling him standing at her side. Lettuce. Lettuce. Lettuce.

But it was another thought that made her want to run. A tiny little voice suggesting the thing she feared most.

Maybe Rowan wasn’t a bad kisser. Maybe he just hated kissing her so much that he couldn’t even pretend it didn’t make him want to burn off his tongue.

As soon as the call was over, Aelin launched from her seat, aiming for the bedroom. Rowan remained in the dining room, seemingly frozen until she made it to the hall.

All at once, she heard quick footsteps following her at a run. “Aelin!”

Nope. She didn’t turn.

“Aelin, wait!”

A large hand caught her by the wrist, gently pulling her to stop. “Aelin …” Rowan again said to her back. No more words followed it up, no apologies or explanations, just his fingers wrapped delicately around her skin, like she was breakable but he still couldn’t risk letting her go. 

Aelin worked up the courage to face him. 

Rowan looked ragged, eyes brimming with worry—and determination. His chest noticeably rose and fell, his chiselled jaw was working again. The dim hallway light shadowed the hollows of his cheekbones, and the dips of the muscles of his arms, making her throat constrict. 

Okay, maybe he wasn’t all lettuce.

“What?” she whispered, the word rough on her tongue. 

Rowan’s eyes glinted. Slowly, he moved the hand he had around her wrist to the dip of her waist. Aelin couldn’t breathe.

He stepped into her, herding her back until she hit the wall. Their chests pressed close, and their hips slotted gently together. Rowan’s fingers skimmed down to the top of her thigh, then back up. Even through clothes, sparks trailed everywhere he touched.  

His gaze was heavy on her, his eyes dark and hypnotic. Like he could see through her clothes, her skin, right into that place she’d never shared with anyone. Again, Rowan’s hand came up to her jaw, a thumb brushing over her bottom lip. She sighed as he encouraged it open. Heat bloomed in her core with the temptation to catch his thumb with her teeth.

This time when Rowan’s nose brushed against her own, it made her dizzy. Aelin had to grip his shoulders to keep the room from spinning her away. His nose stroked again, lips almost catching, breath fanning over her mouth. She slid her arms all the way around his neck, and closed her eyes just as he finally lowered his head.

For no more than a few seconds, Rowan pressed his lips to hers in a gentle kiss. It was warm, soft, perfect—and then it was gone. He drew back to rest his forehead against hers. Aelin whimpered in protest, fluttering her eyes open to complain, and found him looking at her with a question.

Her answer was yes.

Aelin slid her fingers into his hair, pulling him back down until their lips crashed together again, softness gone. Rowan’s tongue brushed against the seam of her mouth just right. She opened for him, letting in an intensity that had her knees turning to jelly. He alternated between deep strokes and biting kisses. Every time she almost formed a thought, he’d break them apart, change the angle, and they’d clash together again.

She could have died when he groaned, pushing his hips forward. Aelin answered with a lift of her own that turned into a rhythm she never wanted to stop. His heart was pounding against her chest, hers was pounding against his. She could feel him getting hard. And she moaned as his hands found the bare skin of her legs. 

Rowan hoisted her up against the wall without breaking the kiss. Aelin’s legs wrapped around his waist, giving her the freedom to move on him at the perfect angle. His fingers slid under the hem of her shorts. She raked her fingers against his scalp, moaned as his mouth dropped to her jaw, then her ear, then her neck. 

The sound he made as she pulled his mouth back to hers melted Aelin completely. Music exploded. This was the crescendo she’d been waiting for.

It could have been hours before Rowan finally drew back, breathing heavily between a patter of soft kisses that Aelin wanted to swallow whole. Their foreheads came together again, and he whispered her name.

It brought her back to reality just enough to feel her heart swooping and fluttering like a flock of frenzied birds. Emotion trampled through her chest, want and need meeting it in a confusing harmony that had her holding Rowan tighter.

She opened her eyes and found him already looking at her, green eyes warm. He smiled and set her back on her feet. Softly, Rowan asked, “Better?”

A puff of a laugh rushed from Aelin’s lungs, even as something twisted in her chest. “It was a minor improvement.”

“I expect to read a full retraction of your earlier assessment in the mission notes.”

Her chest twisted another ninety degrees. He’d only kissed her to prove something, which—of course. Why else would he have done it? “We’ll see,” she managed.

But Rowan surprised her then. He cupped her cheek and kissed her again, lingering. His chest pressed against hers once more, his hands slid up and down her body like he was trying to memorize the feel of it. When he finally pulled away, he looked at her like doing so caused him physical pain.

And Aelin was all the more confused.

“You can take the bed tonight,” he said, stepping back.

She almost slid down the wall without him holding her up. “Where will you sleep?”

His brows pushed together. “On the couch?”

“That modernist atrocity is made of bricks.”

Rowan was silent. Maybe because he was waiting for her to elaborate. And Aelin almost did. She almost broke all her rules, almost threw caution to the wind and did the most reckless thing she could think of. Visions of them together in that king-sized bed, naked and coiled together while he moved in her, nearly blinded Aelin. She doubted Rowan would say no given the enthusiasm she’d felt from him. 

She wanted it. And she nearly asked for it.

But her sense of reason won out, or maybe it was something deeper and less rational. Either way, Aelin gave him an amused smile, and said, “The couch will be perfect for you.”

Rowan laughed, returning the smile, even if there was a hint of sadness behind it that she couldn’t read. But neither of their faces held the usual bite, and maybe for tonight, that was enough.

She turned to leave, but Rowan said her name one last time.

Aelin paused, arching a brow as she watched the smile on his face morph to a quieter expression. He devoured the two steps of space between them and fished something out of his pocket.

When he opened his palm between them, there was a sparkle of vibrant green. It was the rings. 

Aelin’s breath sighed out of her lungs, or maybe she’d stopped breathing completely. She’d discarded the rings as soon as they’d lost Emrys and hadn’t known where they’d ended up. 

She supposed now she had her answer.

“Since Ansel and Illias are married …” Rowan explained, trailing off. He cleared his throat, and Aelin got the feeling she needed to do the same. He opened his mouth like he might start providing supplemental arguments, but Aelin steeled herself.

“Okay,” she whispered.

Rowan froze, then his eyes went wide as her word translated into meaning. Aelin lifted out her left hand—not palm up to take the rings. Palm down. Her pulse spiked again as he caught it with his own. Gingerly, Rowan slipped the wedding band on, then the engagement ring, his calloused fingertips scraping along her skin. When the rings were in place, he didn’t immediately let her go.

And what surprised Aelin the most was that she hoped he never would.

______

In the far-distant realm of the real world, Aelin got the sense that someone was knocking on the door. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to move. Even as the buzzing sound of a keycard unlocking it pierced through the silence, she just sat there. In her fluffy robe. In her puffy slippers. 

Aelin didn’t even care that her hair was currently done in the style of bird's nest meets hurricane. 

She thought she might have heard her name. Once, then twice, and not a second later, Rowan was before her, dressed for the day and brows pulled together with concern. With no small amount of worry, he asked, “What’s wrong?”

Aelin sucked in a breath. She got the sense she might slip from the bed and form a puddle of despair on the floor soon. “I just …” she started, the sounds catching in her throat, “got off the phone with Agent Storm.”

“Oh. Yeah, he called me an hour ago.” Rowan’s face relaxed into a timid smile. He rubbed at the back of his neck, and summarized, “He was pretty mad.”

That was the mildest possible way someone could describe how Lorcan had screamed bloody murder through the phone. Aelin felt like she’d been pushed into a wood chipper.

She had failed her first mission. Emrys was gone. The V.A.L.G. had won this round. Lorcan had yelled at her.

And Aelin’s perfect record—years of hard work and diligence—was destroyed.

“He’ll get over it,” Rowan said, waving a casual hand. “He always does … why is your lip trembling?”

Aelin’s entire chin was quivering actually. She looked at the floor and rasped, “It’s not.”

Rowan drew back, stunned. “Are you crying?”

“No.” The sound was ragged, but the answer was no. She was not going to cry in front of him. Not Rowan. Anyone but him. 

Aelin threw her phone backwards, a soft blanketed thud answering. She shut her eyes and pulled in a brave breath, using it to ease the tension out of her shoulders. Her mouth stilled, the threat of tears receding enough that she was able to look at Rowan again. Steadily, and without an ounce of emotion sneaking into her expression, she assured him, “I’m fine.”

He looked freaked out. Maybe because she’d spoken like a robot. Both brows were scrunched in suspicion as he scanned her from head to toe. Aelin dared him to say something, to accuse her of something so weak as crying again.

It would be the last thing he ever said. 

But instead, Rowan murmured what sounded like I’ll be right back. He hurried away, and Aelin followed his fleeing back until he was out the door. 

She felt triumphant—and she felt embarrassed.

She had never gotten so close to crying in front of a colleague, and certainly not one that she hated so much. Something about seeing Rowan had made all the tears nearly spill over, like the dam she usually kept perfectly in place had vanished. All her vulnerabilities threatening to leak out of her like a punctured water balloon.

Aelin could only assume that his aggravating presence pushed her past some emotional threshold. He was too awful to tolerate as well as everything else.

That had to be it.

It took Aelin a full five minutes to get her breathing back to a smooth, calm rhythm. And she was quiet enough that she startled when the door opened again.

Rowan emerged from the short entry hall, holding a plate and a mug followed by a billow of steam. He was breathing hard like he’d run all the way here.

“I don’t usually recommend chocolate for breakfast, but this felt like a good time for an exception,” Rowan said softly, sitting down beside her. He set the mug down on the nightstand and held the plate out toward her.

Her breath caught. It was a slab of cake, so big it made the fork look like it belonged in a dollhouse. “Did you steal this from the buffet?” Aelin asked, voice small.

Rowan grinned. “I don’t know if steal is quite the word, but yes, some of the staff did look annoyed.”

Wow. 

Wow. 

Without a word, Aelin accepted the plate, immediately digging in. Sure, she hated him, but that was no fault of cake.

He pointed at the mug. “Considering how much cream and sugar I put in that thing, I’m not sure it counts as coffee anymore, but it definitely has caffeine.”

Aelin stopped mid chocolate-y chew. Cake and sugary coffee? “How did you know?” She’d written off the other day's latte as a fluke. 

Rowan smiled shyly and looked down at his hands. “Your dietary preferences aren’t exactly a well-kept secret,” he said. “Anyone who sits within a fifty-foot radius of your desk knows all about your love of sugar.”

Aelin wasn’t sure that was true. She barely ate in the office. But after staring at him a moment too long, she said, “Thank you.”

It was the weirdest her tongue had ever felt saying those words. This was Rowan. Nemesis. Work rival. Bane of her existence. And yet, here she was, about to soothe the chaotic knot of feelings in her chest with cake that he’d given her.

“It’s nothing.” Rowan shrugged and looked at her through a sheepish sidelong glance. “Do you …”

He trailed off, and Aelin watched conflict play out on his face. His expression was almost frightened, and yet, Rowan tried again. “Do you want to talk about it?”

So easily, a book’s worth of rude retorts came to her mind. Rowan wasn’t her friend. He didn’t deserve insight into her inner world, regardless of how sad she was. He’d probably only use it against her later. But Aelin’s eyes fell down to her cake, the sweet scent of her coffee floated to her nose. And Rowan must have been a master of advanced interrogation techniques, because she said, “He’s never yelled at me like that before.”

“Really? Agent Storm yells at me all the time,” he chuckled.

It was Aelin’s turn to say, “Really?” 

She couldn’t believe it. Rowan was first in line for Lorcan’s job. She blurted, “But you’re the best agent at the B.A.N.E—”

Aelin clapped a hand over her mouth, shocked at her own candor. She wished she could disappear into the quilt. What the hell was wrong with her?

Rowan’s eyebrows were high, he was genuinely surprised. He seemed to weigh the possible responses before shifting on the bed and turning to face more directly. Expression serious, brow furrowed, and green eyes shining, he said, “Aelin, I’m not the best agent at the B.A.N.E…. You are.”

Aelin was sure she’d slept off yesterday’s minor head injury, and yet she swore the room was spinning. “I’m sorry?” she whispered, trying to hear sense over the thrumming of her pulse.

“You’re a little bit better than I am,” Rowan said, pinching his fingers together. “Just look at what you did with the tiramisu the other day. That was …” He shook his head. “That was like magic, Aelin.”

Weakly, she protested, “But you have the most successful missions …”

“Only because I’ve been doing this longer than you have. I might have more successful missions under my belt than you, but I have more failures too.”

Aelin didn’t know what to say. She was barely keeping the plate of cake in her hands. She could have floated away on a cloud of Rowan’s making. She was going to need a lot more chocolate cake to process this. And the coffee would need to be swapped for a mimosa.

Her eyes narrowed. “You’re always teasing me about being second best.”

“I thought we …” Rowan frowned to himself, staring at nothing as a muscle in his jaw ticked. “I guess I thought you weren’t taking it personally.”

Aelin was definitely about to crash onto the floor, like a puppet cut from its strings. Personally? He thought she hadn’t been taking his constant barbs personally? What a dismissive and oblivious thing to say. Her reputation at the B.A.N.E. meant everything to her. He had to know that.

But her rage fizzled as she remembered said reputation … that was broken now. Aelin admitted sadly, “Losing Emrys was the first mission I’ve failed.”

It felt even worse to say it out loud. She dared to look at Rowan. He smiled sympathetically. 

“I know, but …” His expression turned wary, but undeniably still warm as he cleared his throat. “Well, considering that if you’d succeeded I probably would have died, I’m pretty grateful you failed this one.”

Aelin’s stomach turned. Her hands lowered the plate of cake helplessly to her lap. She’d been trying so hard not to think about it.

Another second and Rowan would have been smashed against the side of a mountain, nothing left but shards of bone and blood. It had been so close. Close enough to fill her with nausea now, and an old panic that rattled her right through. An old wound that she was so good at ignoring. This was exactly why she worked alone—

“You were closer,” she said coldly, thick defensive walls wrapping up her heart. “I wouldn’t have been able to get to Emrys in time, and there was no sense in you dying. The B.A.N.E. has lost enough agents recently.”

Rowan’s expression faltered. 

“It wasn’t personal,” Aelin said. Then she drove in the last nail with a deep, cruel swing. “If it were, I definitely would have let you die.”

Never had her mouth tasted more like lies.

Disappointment and genuine hurt slashed across Rowan’s face before he could hide it behind an indifferent mask. But Aelin saw it. The way his eyes dulled. Her chest strained, screaming to take the horrible words back, but he was on his feet before Aelin could blink.

Rowan glanced at the nightstand’s clock, and said a little too evenly, “We should leave for the airport in half an hour.”

“What?” Aelin was trying to parse the change in topic. “I thought we were staying in Doranelle for a few days.”

“We’re heading to Skull’s Bay for our next mission. Didn’t Agent Storm tell you when you talked to him on the phone?”

Heat flared in her cheeks. “I think I kind of blacked out for the last half of the call.”

Rowan didn’t laugh. “I’ll meet you in the lobby.” He turned to leave—

“Rowan?”

He paused, looking at her expectantly. Aelin knew that if she wanted to apologize, to tell him she’d just been lashing out, this was the time. And from the openness of his face, she knew Rowan would accept the apology and come back to sit with her. 

She swallowed hard, struggling to figure out what to say, how to make him smile at her again. She’d liked that.

But in the end, her walls were too high to climb. Aelin said pathetically, “Thanks again for the cake.” 

Rowan’s shoulders dropped, and as he walked out the door, he simply said, “Yeah.”

***

Rowan didn’t speak to her once during the eight-hour plane ride to Skull’s Bay. Headphones safely guarded his ears from anything Aelin might want to say, and when he was done watching movies, he’d produced a sleep mask, popped earplugs into his ears and successfully blocked the world out. 

Neither of them used the armrest between their seats. Aelin felt stiff, trying to squeeze herself into as little space as possible, trying not to accidentally brush Rowan’s arm with her own. Or knock his thigh with her knee. 

By the time the plane hit the tarmac, Aelin was pretty sure he wasn’t going to speak to her ever again. And she was confused. 

Tangled with the shame of what she’d said to him was a simple question of why he cared so much. It wasn’t as if Aelin didn’t say stuff like that to him all the time. For years, he’d given as good as he’d gotten. She was pretty sure the first time she’d threatened to kill Rowan was days after meeting him—and according to a tally Rowan kept on his desk, Aelin had made 342 threats against him since. 

She didn’t understand why this time was different.

So Aelin followed after him at a safe distance, carrying her bag through the chaos of the airport. She caught up to him outside, a taxi already flagged down and ready. She almost shivered when Rowan gave the driver an address, the first time she’d heard his voice since he’d left her hotel room. 

The taxi dropped them off as close to the safehouse as possible without revealing its location. They walked the rest of the way. 

Night had long fallen over Skull’s Bay, but the hot humid air still pressed in, making Aelin’s skin unpleasantly sticky. They used their phones to light their way through the jungle that lined the dirt road. Twenty minutes and five mosquito bites later, the greenery parted around a dimly lit structure, a small but modern house. There were no windows in the front. A perfect choice for a safe house.

Rowan punched in the door code, while Aelin watched the light play off the back of his hand. They walked inside and then down the hall, flicking on light switches as they went. Still not talking.

But when the hallway opened up into a great room lined with a wall of windows, Aelin’s silence came to an end.

“Wow,” she breathed, feet slowing to a stop. The property sat on its own private beach, leading down to ocean waves that swirled with moonlight. It was totally secluded thanks to the forest, and there was even a small boat pulled up on the pristine sand ready to float them out to the reef.

It was romantic as hell. Exactly what Aelin imagined honeymoons looked like. “This is amazing.”

Automatically, she looked at Rowan, wanting to see his reaction. He was already looking at her.

He seemed to war with himself before saying softly, “This is one of my favourite safe houses.”

Aelin took a second to understand that he was starting a conversation. Dropping her bag onto a firm white couch, she asked, “You’ve been here before?”

“Once.” Rowan’s green eyes darted to the floor, and to Aelin’s surprise, he smiled to himself. Like he was reliving a happy memory. When he met her stare again, he said with a flicker of mischief, “For the Sea Dragon assignment.”

All the shame and guilt and worry drained out of Aelin like Rowan had shot a missile through the side of an Olympic size pool. “That was supposed to be my mission!” she hissed.

Rowan chuckled, clearly feeling better. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You poached it from me!” Aelin grabbed her bag again like she might strike him across the face with it. “Agent Storm promised it to me, and then you convinced him to give it to you instead!”

It was the most dangerous mission the B.A.N.E. had ever undertaken. Probability of success had been less than 5 percent. A suicide mission. 

And it was so cool.

Aelin had prepared for months to take on Operation Sea Dragon, she had dreamed of the glory that would come from crushing it. It was her mission. Her gods given right.

But then at the last minute, Agent Whitehawk swooped in and stole it from her. And he hadn’t even had the decency to die in the process.

They’d been fighting about it since.

Rowan shrugged. “Agent Storm had his reasons for not sending you.”

“Reasons you gave him!”

Another shrug. He checked his watch. “Briefing’s in twenty minutes, Aelin.” His smile turned into a smirk as he walked away. Over his shoulder, he added, “Just enough time for you to take a shower.”

Aelin’s fury could have boiled the sweat right off her skin. 

Agent Whitehawk was back.

***

“Arobynn Hamel,” Lorcan said, pulling up a photo of a handsome man with red hair. 

They were on a video conference call with the usual paired back team—Lorcan, Elide and Fenrys. Aelin and Rowan were the safehouse’s sleek mid-century modern dining room, surrounded by teak panelling and floor-to-ceiling windows.

But though they were calling in from the same room, they were not in the same video. No, they sat at opposite ends of the table on their own laptops, the microphones annoyingly doubling up their voices every time either of them spoke. 

It was the perfect position for Aelin to glare at Rowan over the top of her laptop. And apparently, the perfect position for him to send amused smiles back.

“I’m aware of Hamel,” Rowan said. “He’s the biggest illegal arms dealer in the world.”

What a know it all. “I’m aware of him, too,” Aelin quickly interjected, earning another one of Rowan’s obnoxious smirks.

Lorcan paused to frown, eyes flicking back and forth across his screen. Possibly looking between Aelin’s video and Rowan’s. “Right,” he said slowly, still frowning. He shook his head. “Starting tomorrow, Arobynn Hamel is hosting an auction. Everything from stolen artifacts to deadly weapons will be available for purchase, and his guests get the luxury of a two-night stay on his mega yacht.”

The photo on screen changed to said yacht and—wow it was closer to a cruise ship.

“You think Maeve has her eye on something lethal?” Aelin asked, skeptical. She hadn’t been lying when she’d said she was familiar with Hamel. He and Maeve weren’t particularly friendly. 

Fenrys nodded. “Yes, but it won’t be available to the general public,” he said. “The chatter suggests that Arobynn and Maeve are brokering a deal behind the scenes. I believe that he is going to sell her the schematics for a new type of bomb and that this deal will be finalized on the last night of the auction.”

Well, that was not good. And though it hardly raised a red flag, it sounded unnecessarily complicated?

“We need to interrupt the deal and make sure the schematics never get into Maeve’s hands,” Lorcan concluded. His expression hardened. “Now that she has Emrys again, the V.A.L.G. will be able to build the bomb with ease.”

Aelin felt ill all over again. When Rowan had been brooding, she’d put Emrys and her failure out of her mind …

“So you want us to pose as criminals looking for some stolen art?” Rowan said quickly.

“Exactly,” Elide confirmed, once again surprising Aelin by taking charge of the conversation. “Last week we apprehended a pair of up-and-coming assassins, Ansel and Illias Briarcliff.”

Rowan’s eyes locked on hers. They’d both heard the shared last name.

“This is their first time being invited into Hamel’s circle, and they have a talent for flying under the radar. Thanks to Illias’s digital skills, their exact appearances are not widely known.”

Mug shots came up on screen. Ansel with brilliant wine-red hair and brown eyes. Illias with dark hair and green eyes that weren’t so different from Rowan’s. With a little hair dye and some contact lenses, Aelin and Rowan could easily step into their shoes.

“Tell them the other part,” Fenrys cut in, an edge to his voice. He was scowling, arms crossed tight across his chest.

It filled Aelin to the brim with dread. 

Elide hesitated, gazing off-screen like she was sharing a look with someone. She bit her lip. 

“Tell us what?” Rowan pushed.

Lorcan looked away, frowned and then turned back to the camera. Grimacing, he said, “Ansel and Illias specialize in vicious kills, and according to Agent Ironteeth’s interrogation notes, they’re both high in psychopathy. The only things they care about are money, murder … and each other.”

Aelin’s lungs started to constrict. 

“They were married three months ago, and their reputation is, well … passionate.”

“How passionate?” Aelin choked out. Rowan looked pale as death.

Fenrys gave them a bitter smile. “Let’s just say, we made the mistake of leaving them together in an incredibly public holding cell for two minutes, watched by every type of surveillance the B.A.N.E. has to offer—cameras, security teams, microphones. And they still managed to get all their clothes off before a guard unlocked the door.”

Heat flamed through Aelin’s cheeks. She couldn’t even look at Rowan as she stuttered, “You mean—”

“You and Agent Whitehawk are going to have to get really close,” Elide said. “Or all the deadly criminals on Hamel’s yacht are going to know you’re imposters.”

_______