Briar let out a breath. “Yeah.”
Rowan fell quiet. His brow scrunched. He took a drink from his cup in a measured sip. Briar felt a little guilty, but Rowan’s reaction seemed muted. If the way people treated him hurt, it was a hurt he’d grown used to.
“I’ve no idea, only clues,” said Rowan. “The more interesting question is: Why do they avoid me but you don’t?”
Briar replied earnestly. “Because you’re lovely.”
Rowan ducked his head, looking away so Briar couldn’t see his expression. Briar wished to turn him with a hand on his jaw, feel the prickle of beard against his fingertips. Had no one ever told him so? How long had Rowan spent isolated from the people of his home?
“You said you have clues?”
“Mm. It started after I got this.” Rowan touched the scar on his cheek. Briar traced its path with his eyes. A branching thing, it traveled from his temple to his jaw, then disappeared into his cloak. Briar wondered how much farther it went.
“How did you get it?”
“A long story.” He winced. “Another time, maybe.”
Briar finished his drink and tossed the plastic cup into a bin they passed. Rubbing his hands together did little to bring feeling back to his numbing fingers.
Gruffly, Rowan said, “C’mere to me.” He stopped them at the darkened window of a store and set his drink on the sill. Cupping Briar’s hands between his, he raised them to his lips and breathed warm air over them. A different sort of shiver raised the hair on Briar’s arms and set his blood to boiling. Rowan rubbed feeling back into his fingers. He avoided eye contact, keeping his gaze low. Briar had only two drinks down and knew the fuzzy feeling steeping in him had less to do with alcohol than the way Rowan’s aura wound around him. Like the sensuous curve of a body warm against his back, it made his toes curl in his boots.
This close, though, an undercurrent of something else polluted his aura. Just a creeping sense of unease and a smell like wilted plants. It got stronger when Briar leaned closer to Rowan’s left side. It gave him an idea.
“I can read auras, you know.”
Rowan’s hands stilled but didn’t drop Briar’s.
“It’s not a common skill, but I’ve had it as long as I can remember. It’s the first thing I notice when I meet someone. If someone has an aura that tastes or feels bad, it’s hard to be around them.” As Briar spoke, Rowan’s thumbs rubbed warm lines into his palms. “I’ve met people whose auras taste and feel like I just bit my tongue. Someone whose aura smelled like a field of wildflowers. It’s hard not to make an immediate judgment. Yours…”
Rowan waited. Briar didn’t know how to say it. Briar, who could scream all the pet names Celyn used to call him in a crowd of their peers, who was usually immune to embarrassment, felt shy to describe this part of himself. It wasn’t something he often shared.
“Mine?” Rowan asked.
“Yours is warm. The first sensation I got was the taste of hot stew on a cold, rainy day. It’s…” He was toeing a line. Vatii’s reproach echoed in his mind.I thought Linden was your destiny.This seemed misleadingly romantic. Too intimate for the idle flirting Briar had intended this night to be. “It’s wonderful. But you have more than one aura. There’s your aura. And there’s your scar. It’s different. Most people don’t get a sense for auras the way I do, but everyone has some intuition when it comes to magic. Especially when it comes to something dangerous. And I think… I don’t know, but maybe the energy of your scar makes them uneasy.”
Rowan absorbed that, his thumbs still tracing lazy patterns in Briar’s hands. Much as Briar enjoyed the touch, he pulled his hands free. He’d never talked about his abilities to anyone in this depth, and now that he had, he felt vulnerable.
“It makes sense,” Briar finished. “Since you said they only reacted like that after you got it.”
Rowan retrieved his drink from the windowsill and finished it. “Could be. Thank you, Briar.”
“For what?”
“For telling me.” He searched Briar’s face. He opened his mouth as if to say something else, then shut it again.
Whatever it was, he instead opted to walk Briar home. Though he offered Briar his arm, he was even quieter than usual. So much so thatBriar wondered if he’d made a mistake in telling him. By the time they reached his doorstep, Briar’s stomach had tied itself in knots.
He’d spent a good portion of the evening in Rowan’s company. Admiring the strong planes of his face, his dark eyes. The way his bicep felt as they strolled arm in arm. How his rich baritone filled Briar’s chest. He’d thought idly about how the night would end, and in his imaginings, it had always ended one way. He’d skirted over the thought, never looking at it directly.
Now they stood under his eave, he confronted the fact that he hoped Rowan would kiss him goodnight.
It was a treacherous thought. Perhaps Vatii was right. He shouldn’t risk even a casual affair with destiny on his doorstep. Rowan stood close enough that Briar could smell bonfire and ash on his clothes. Close enough to hear the slight shiver in his breath. It would take only a half step, tilting his head, Rowan leaning down—
Rowan took a small step toward him. Briar swayed on the balls of his feet, looking up and into Rowan’s face. The breath that had warmed Briar’s hands became shallow, puffing in clouds on the cold air between them. Rowan’s hand rose, knuckles just brushing Briar’s chin, a tremor in that barest touch. The way Rowan looked at him, dark-eyed and wanting, made Briar’s heart beat mightily, made him rise on tiptoe.
But Rowan didn’t lean in the rest of the way. His voice tripped over his words as he said too quickly, “Have a good night, Briar.”
He left.
