#wwwk2

Her first stop upon stepping off the plane and into her rental car had been a ride straight to Rowan Whitethorn’s house. It was small and simple, a white house with green shutters like Aelin had wanted at the time. Looking at it from the outside, it was entirely the same. Even the dog sleeping on the edge of the porch with her nose drooping over the side. 

“Fleetfoot,” she said, but the dog didn’t come. She was frowning at her, hand shielding her face from the part of the sun that was managing to wiggle its way between her sunglasses when the front door opened a man walked out. 

At first, she had half the mind to think she was at the wrong house. That maybe Rowan didn’t still live in their little house anymore. That, maybe, he lived somewhere else. But then she noticed that the silvery hair - piled on top of his head in the messiest bun she’d ever seen - only looked darker than it was because it was smudged in places with some sort of black substance. Grease, maybe, but she couldn’t really tell. Not that it mattered. This was not the Rowan Whitethorn that she had left behind. 

That man was a boy in comparison to the one that stood on the front porch, looking at her like he’d seen a ghost. Because this man was completely packed with muscle. This man was all hard lines and angles and a very feminine part of her pointed out just how hard she was ogling him but gods above had the years been kind to him. Rowan, it seemed, looked better than he’d ever looked when they were together. Rowan had transformed into something else entirely. Handsome before, but gods above her mouth was dry and she needed a drink. 

“What… are you doing here?” His words were slow and careful, as though he were at a complete loss. She could understand why. Aelin hadn’t been back to Orynth since she’d left when she was twenty. Rowan had been twenty-one, and now the man before her was twenty-nine and every inch of him was corded with muscle that she didn’t know where it came from. He’d always had a nice body, but… this was something else entirely. The sleeves of his shirt nearly struggled to keep his biceps contained, Gods above and — 

And she was engaged to be married. 

“I need my papers signed, Rowan. You wouldn’t do it with me in Rifthold so I thought if I came here you’d stop fucking around and sign my damn papers.” His face went completely blank and he turned and walked back inside, the screen door of their house - his house - slamming behind him. It took everything in her to not stomp her foot and scream in rage. Instead, she stormed up the steps and let herself in, guns blazing and ready to fight. “Do you have any idea how expensive my attorney is?”

“Ending our marriage is just about money to you?”

“Getting a divorce is about freeing myself from your stubborn ass!” The wildfire that she’d always felt around him was just that, wild and out of control. Her face was red with fury, her skin crawling in a way that only Rowan could manage.

“Get out of my house.”

“Sign my papers, Rowan Whitethorn, and I’ll do whatever you want me to do.” Rowan snorted, ignoring her statement entirely as he gestured toward the front door with his beer. 

“You’ll do what I want before I even touch those papers, Aelin Whitethorn Galathynius. Get out.” He had started walking toward her and, in a moment of embarrassing intimidation, she nearly tripped over herself as she stumbled backwards and out the door. Gods, he was huge. He’d always been a good head taller than her, but now with all the muscle… with his jaw clenched like that he was downright scary. 

Before she even realized she was outside on the porch, he jerked the door and slammed it in her face.

“Why won’t you just sign my papers!” 

~*~

From inside, her voice was muted but he knew what she had yelled. Why won’t you just sign my papers? A lot of reasons, the first being —

“Because you have turned into some fire-breathing bitch and I’d like nothing more than to piss you off!”

He had been furious enough when he had recognized that, after eight years, his wife was back in Orynth. Not only was so back, she was being an ungrateful brat, yelling at him and throwing tantrums in his driveway like she owned the damn place. The house was in his name, thank you very much. 

The anger only manifested when, as he downed several gulps of his beer, that he heard the lock click and the door swing open. Again, like she owned the damn place. It might have been their house, but she had been gone for so long that there wasn’t a corner that still smelled like her. Even the room that housed what she had left behind didn’t carry a single ounce of her scent anymore. If anything it smelled as musty as their marriage. He tried not to go into that room. 

Rowan turned slowly on his heel to find his bitch of a wife staring at him with a hand on her hip and the spare key she’d hidden nine years ago held between two fingers. 

At the time, it had been a running joke. It had been funny that Rowan didn’t know where the key was because he wasn’t ever the one who needed it. Aelin locked herself out constantly and Rowan used to joke that if she told him where it was, that he’d start getting locked out, too. Now that she was using it to practically break and enter, Rowan didn’t find it so funny. But Aelin did. 

Knowing it would likely backfire, Rowan pulled out his phone and sent off a text, praying to any god that would listen to dispose of his wife. He didn’t care if that disposal happened at the bottom of a lake. Or a ravine. A quarry, even. He just wanted her gone and off his property. Never-mind that the property used to be theirs. It was his, and she had no right to be on it. 

“You can’t call the police on me for walking into my own damn house,” she all but shrieked when the police car, flashing lights and all, rolled into the driveway. 

“You don’t live here,” he hissed at her, reaching for the key in her hand that she managed to keep out of his grip. Nobody had ever got quite so deep under his skin like Aelin had. It was like having a thousand splinters shoved under your fingernails. She herself was a splinter in the nail bed that was his life. 

Rowan let out a heavy sigh and walked over to the front door when he heard the police car door slam shut, silently hoping it be anyone but —

“Aelin Ashryver Galathynius, as I live and fucking breathe,” the low voice grumbled, followed by quick footsteps that resulted in two strong arms snatching up her lithe body. Aelin went from squealing to sobbing in seconds, and Rowan could make out the way her shoulders shook with something between excitement and remorse at what she left behind. If she even felt that sort of thing. 

If only Lorcan had answered the plea for help himself and not sent Aedion fucking Ashryver instead. 

~*~ 

Seeing Aedion again after eight years was a combination of the best and worst thing to happen to her today. Arguing with Rowan had definitely been worse, but… leaving Aedion behind again wasn’t going to be easy. Some small part of her had hoped to slip into Orynth and back out again without having to see her family at all, but she knew how awful that was. 

It wasn’t because she didn’t love her family. Aelin adored her parents. Aedion had been her best friend besides Rowan growing up. She missed Aedion and her mom and dad every single day. Some days so much she felt like she couldn’t breathe. On those days, she tended to roll closer to Chaol and hold him tighter because it felt like he was all she had in the world. 

But her parents didn’t want to visit her in Rifthold, and Aedion had come once and never gone back after that. In the pending divorce, it was like Rowan had won the dog and her family. Not to mention his own. Fleetfoot hadn’t even come to her when she’d called her. 

But now, with her arms tight around Aedion’s neck for the first time in six years, some part of her felt whole again. She wasn’t a fire-breathing bitch to Aedion, she was only ever Aelin. 

Maybe she hadn’t lost everyone in the divorce after all. 

~*~

The entire drive to her parents house, they talked about everything they’d missed like they’d not spoken in years. It wasn’t true, they talked almost every day, but there was something different about seeing someone in person when it had been such a long time that you looked like different people. 

Even as they drove by different landmarks around the city, Aedion brought up different memories or shenanigans they had all gotten into when they were younger. And gods did it feel good to laugh so freely with her hand in his. 

But the closer they got to her parents house, the closer she got to revealing the news of her engagement to her mom and dad, the heavier the weight seemed to be. She was asking a man for a divorce so she could spin right into another marriage. A divorce from a man that they loved and had spent more time with in his life than they had her own. Divorcing a man that was literally a son to them to wed someone they only knew through photos. It was a sinking feeling, but not because she wasn’t thrilled about marrying Chaol. But because she was thrilled about divorcing Rowan. 

“Aelin?” Her mother’s voice was laced with surprise as she took in her only daughter sliding out of Aedion’s police cruiser. The weak smile that she gave her mom didn’t say everything she wished it did, but the tears that started to fall very well may. When her mom wrapped her arms around her Aelin couldn’t help the sobs that broke out for a second time that evening. She had missed her mother’s cool touch, her loving embrace, her scent so fiercely that she hadn’t even realized how much. “Rhoe! Our baby is home!” Her father didn’t hesitate to pull her from her mother’s arms, only for her mom to worm her way back into the embrace. It was the happiest she had felt in a long time. 

“I can’t believe you saw Aedion first -”

“I picked her up from Rowan,” Aedion interjected, hands sliding into his pockets as he leaned against the front porch. Aelin gaped at him, wanting to throw a vulgar gesture over her shoulder while her parents led her inside, but his laughter followed her in as he shouted he’d be back tomorrow. Good. She wanted her parents to herself. 

“So we’re last priority, is it?” Rhoe asked, sitting on the couch and tugging Aelin to sit beside him. She offered him a half smile, wiping at her nose with her other hand. 

“That’s not how it is, Daddy, I just need Rowan to sign my divorce papers is all.” Her father leaned back a bit at that, brows raised in what she could only assume was surprise. But why? Aelin had been trying to divorce Rowan for years. 

“Maybe he’s changed, Fireheart,” he said softly, and Aelin snorted in surprise. Behind her, she could hear her mother clicking her tongue at her father as if telling him to knock it off. 

“Nobody can change that much. He showed up half-drunk to our wedding and threw up on my shoes. We didn’t dance at our reception, he forgot his vows, he —”

“Was a boy then. He has grown into a fine man, and -”

“You know who is a fine man, Dad?” Aelin, nostrils flared began to dig through her purse until she found the engagement ring Chaol had slid on her finger days before. She shoved it onto her finger so hard that she almost broke her nail in the process.  “My fiance. My fiance is a fine man that doesn’t tell me I’m a fire-breathing bitch for going after what I want. He isn’t going to ruin my wedding day, he’s going to show up to the reception and dance with me, and dammit, Dad, he loves me more than Rowan ever did. So please, save your breath on selling Rowan on me again. This is unreal.” Aelin pushed herself to her feet, grabbed her bags, and began walking herself back to her old room. “I’m going to bed.”