“Or what?” she couldn’t help but ask.
The flash of his smile took her breath away. “I still have the irons.”
She scowled. “You will not?—”
“I would never put you in irons,” he murmured. “Unless you wanted to be in them.”
Who would ever want to be in irons?
Before she could ask, he lowered his head to kiss her. Gently. Sweetly.
A kiss full of moonlight and promises.
Then he slid his body behind her and took her into his arms. He tucked her head beneath his chin and wrapped himself around her.
“Go to sleep. We’ll discuss the rest when you’re feeling better.”
“But…”
His arms tightened. “Sleep.”
She wasn’t working for him anymore. She didn’t have to do what he said.
But he was safe and warm and strong. In the end, she couldn’t resist the command.
Maybe he was the one who’d bewitched her.
40
The next several weeks passed in a happy blur. Rowan slept often, ate her fill of delicious foods—meats and fruits and pastries she’d never tried before. She took a shower, and even with a maid in the room in case she grew dizzy, it was as magical as she’d always imagined it would be. The smell of smoke no longer clung to her hair. The color came back to her skin and the hollows beneath her cheeks began to fill. Her hand still pained her. It almost pained her more as the skin began to heal than when she’d first woken up. The exercises Asher insisted she perform were awful, but she was getting better, stronger, with every passing day.
Her mother was happy. The staff was curious but accommodating. Casrian’s men were beginning to grow restless. Asher spoke of returning to the capital often, of wanting to return to his wife and daughter. She’d only begun to take meals in the dining room two days ago and had been surprised at the welcome she received from Lew, Zac, and Ty. Daris, Casrian’s best friend, treated her with polite reserve. Kenet still regarded her with open suspicion. Emrys and his men had returned immediately to the capital to make their report.
Casrian’s men waited on him.
They would have to go soon. He didn’t speak of that when he visited her every day. She’d woken up alone in her bed that first morning, and he’d returned hours later with trimmed hair, a freshly shaven face and a clean uniform. He’d developed an intense interest in the fae and had found an old travelogue in the library, written by a servant in the entourage of a young prince who’d visited Caetris decades before its fall.
The young man had been a rogue and an adventurer and many of the stories would have scandalized even Tilly. Rowan had been shocked the first time they’d gotten to one of those—when Prince Morgan seduced the young wife of a Caetrisian lord. He’d gotten caught in the act, “rod sunk and stones wet,” and nearly lost his eye in the duel that followed. But that paled in comparison to what he’d gotten up to with the three sisters at the Black Bear Inn during a snowstorm that closed the Ishtan Pass for ten days.
There were sketches of cities carved into the stone of the mountains, endless forests, and castles that no longer existed. Of people long dead. A whole world now fallen into ruin. All of it was fascinating, but what she loved most was listening to Casrian’s voice, the low, steady roll of it as he read to her, with the fire burning behind him and the curtains closed against the darkness. If anyone knew that he slept in her bed each night, no one commented on it.
She bled only a few days into their courtship, so there was no child. Asher made her a tea to prevent pregnancy. But even now that her menses had ended, Casrian still would do no more than touch her—slow strokes down her back, fingers threading through her hair, petting her until she purred like a cat. He would kiss her, tease her, but he always retreated before it turned into anything more serious. It was frustrating as hell.
“The next time I take you, I’m taking you for good. In all ways.”
And she hadn’t agreed to that yet. She was still waiting for him to change his mind. He knew she was uncertain of him. Uncomfortable with his position as minor nobility. She didn’t know if she actually wanted to marry the witch hunter. She just liked being near him.
He was careful not to speak of the witch or the future or her uncanny skills. He seemed like he was trying not to scare her off.
She still dreamt of the witch. Casrian would hold her when she woke up screaming from the worst of the nightmares, the ones where she didn’t make it out of that cell. She wasn’t the only one still haunted by the witch. She knew that Casrian had four round sores on his thigh that wouldn’t heal. He tried to hide them from her, but she knew they were still there.
“The priest said they would disappear with time,” he told her. “The demons try to make connection points in this world. Fae blood is only one thing they use. This curse is another way.”
She’d been horrified. “You’ve been cursed?”
He shrugged it off. “It formed a physical connection when it touched me. It can only reach me if I let it.”
“How?”
