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“Aralynn, are you there?” Stone had come to her cottage. “I can see the light on and I’d like to talk things over with you. Would you oblige me? Please?”
Rosamunde was about to answer in the affirmative when she realized she was still in her fae form. She also wasn’t exactly ready to tell him the truth and until she was, she didn’t want to be with him right now. But she could hardly turn him away. They were battle partners and he might need her.
Transforming back into Aralynn, she called out, “Hold on.” She still needed distance, though, and sought about in her mind for it. “I’m just hopping in the shower.” It wasn’t much, but at least for a few minutes, she wouldn’t have to be in the same room with him. “Give me a sec?”
“Sure.”
She quickly gathered up a fresh set of clothes and as she headed into the bathroom, she called out. “Come in. I won’t be long.”
She closed the bathroom door and forced some air into her lungs. How much she wished he wasn’t here, but it couldn’t be helped.
So many emotions whirled around inside her that she made quick work of her leathers, vest and boots and hopped into the shower.
She turned on the water without thinking and yelped at its freezing temperature. She backed into a corner to avoid most of the spray as the water warmed up.
When it finally did, she slid under the steaming flow and sighed with pleasure. Sometimes there was nothing better than a hot shower.
She heard Stone’s voice nearer than she wanted. “Can I come in so we can talk?” He must have opened the door.
Oh, well. So much for distance.
“Of course.” She got her hair wet, then lathered up with her favorite herbal shampoo. Stone’s wound had created a spatter that had gone everywhere when she’d flown him back to Ferrenden Peace, including into her hair.
“I want to complete the blood rose bond with you.”
Her fingers froze and soapy water poured over her face and into her eyes. The burn was instantaneous.
She flipped around to lift her face to the warm stream. “You can’t be serious.” She carefully wiped at her eyes to work the soap out.
“I’d be a fool not to bond with you, which means I’m thinking mostly of myself here.”
She knew him better than that. “You’re thinking about your people. I know you, Stone. And I understand your motivation. You’ll increase in strength and ability if we bond and those qualities alone could really help with the war. I get it.” She turned around once more and started rinsing the soap out of her hair.
She heard him chuckle. “How well you know me.”
“Your drive to see the war come to an end matches my own. So, yeah, I know you. We both want the same thing.” As soon as the soap was out, she worked crème rinse through to the ends. Without it, whether Aralynn or Rosamunde, her hair would be uncontrollable.
“Then why not bond with me? I admire you, Aralynn, and I trust you with my life. And with what happened back there at Joseph’s, it’s clear to me we’re physically compatible.”
She couldn’t argue with the last part and in other circumstances, she might have felt the same way, as in why not bond? But she held three secrets from Stone. How could she bond w
ith him when any one of them would be enough to destroy his willingness to even be near her?
“It’s all so sudden, though.” She thought the argument reasonable enough. “There might be things about me that you would find intolerable once you got to know me better.” She stepped under the flow of the water once more and worked the rinse from her hair.
He didn’t answer for a moment, then finally said, “And I could say the same thing. I’m pretty impatient. Even impulsive.”
She chuckled. This much she knew to be very true. “Yes, you are.”
She heard him laugh as well. “Hey, you didn’t have to agree so readily.”
With the crème rinse out of her hair, she shut the water off then slid the green curtain back a little, just enough to see him. “Toss me a towel?”
He pivoted, grabbed one off the rack and handed it to her. But he remained turned away from her, something she appreciated since they had a serious issue to resolve. She didn’t want the situation to become electrified with sex, which it so easily could.
As she dried off safely behind the shower curtain, she addressed her biggest concern. “I believe the bond is permanent. We’d be tied to each other for life and I’m not sure that’s what I want. Are you really convinced you could live with that? I think we’ve gotten to know each other pretty well over the past seven weeks and you know I admire you tremendously, but a blood rose bond?”
She heard a deep intake of air as though he would need every molecule of oxygen to make his next statement. “I’m willing to take the chance, to make the sacrifice. I feel I owe it to my people.”
