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“Only a little?” she whispered. “I don’t think I can take any more than that.”
Rowan nodded and stepped closer to her, his face softening.
Show me, Lily.
… The cold and dark go on forever. I shiver so spasmodically that my body aches. I think I must have been sleeping a moment ago, but something woke me. I sit up—panic giving me strength. It was the rope. The rope creaked. He’s coming. I know it’s Carrick. Gideon always announces himself, like I’m looking forward to seeing him or something. But Carrick sneaks down, like he knows what he’s doing is wrong. I call out to him. He doesn’t answer, but I know he’s there. I start to bargain with him. I offer him things. Silly things. Important things. Anything. He ignores me. My words, my body, my promises mean nothing to him. All he wants is to hold my power in his hands. I’m crying, but I’m so dehydrated no tears fall. Just racking sobs that hurt more than proper crying would. Please, not that. Please. Don’t touch my three little hearts. He hears me, I know he hears me because I’m screaming now. He picks up my willstones anyway. I hit the bars of my cell with my fists. I wail and shriek. I beg. God help me, I beg. The searing pain will end eventually, but the violation never will. Never. I hate you. I hate you. I hate me …
“Stop,” Rowan whispered.
“Had enough?” Lily said cruelly, wiping at her streaming eyes. She wanted to punish him for making her go through that again, even though a tiny voice in the back of her head kept saying she deserved it. She felt disgusted, but not with Carrick. With herself. Lily pushed Rowan away from her, shoving hard against his chest.
“It’s okay, Lily,” Rowan said, capturing her wrists in his hands and drawing her against him. “It’s not your fault.”
Lily shook her head. “I don’t believe that. Isn’t that crazy?” She laughed, although it was anything but funny. “That’s the worst part. I feel like it’s my fault it happened to me. Like I should have fought harder. Or I should have killed myself.”
“Don’t say that,” he said harshly. Rowan studied Lily for a long time. “Do you know what it means to be a survivor? It means that not only do you have to live through things, you have to live with them as well. The second part is much harder and sometimes it takes the rest of your life to learn how to do it. But at least you have the rest of your life, Lily. And that’s what’s important to me.”
“Oh, I’m alive,” she said ruefully. “Even if I am damaged.”
“You’ll heal,” Rowan replied confidently.
“What if I don’t?” Lily asked, genuinely afraid that she would never be the same again. “What if I stay a little bit broken forever?”
“You might,” he said, lifting one shoulder like there was nothing anyone could do about it. “But I’d rather have you alive than perfect. If anyone says differently, then they don’t really love you.”
“And you do?” she asked, not sure why he would love her anymore.
Rowan answered by opening up one of his memories to her.
… She’s climbing down from the tree, muttering to herself, taking forever and making so much noise I have no idea how they’re not hearing this all the way in Salem. She kind of looks like an angry squirrel with all the red hair fluffing around her head and shoulders. Feisty little squirrel. She has to be the feistiest person in the world. I wonder what her world is like. I know it’s nothing like this. Last night, when the Woven killed that man beneath this tree, the look on her face was pure shock. She didn’t get hysterical, though. She was in shock all night, but she controlled it and found a way to work through it. This morning she told a joke to make me feel better. She’s tough and funny and caring. Beautiful. And that ass. Don’t look at her ass, you idiot. It’s the same ass you’ve seen a million times, so just forget about it because the last thing you need is to start remembering what it feels like. She really isn’t Lillian, is she? She sort of is Lillian, though, in all the best ways. No, that’s wrong. I’m not looking for Lillian in Lily anymore, and I haven’t since we’ve been on the run. It’s strange, but I’m starting to wonder if it wasn’t Lillian I loved. Maybe what I loved was the Lily in Lillian. Oh, shit. I think I love Lily …
“A feisty squirrel?” Lily asked, incredulous.
“Is that seriously all you got out of that memory?” Rowan threw up his hands and turned away. Lily caught him by the shoulders and pulled him back to her, hiding her blushing face by burying it in his chest.
“No,” she replied.
She felt him relax against her, his arms easing her softer body against the solid angles of his. Very slowly, he pushed her hair back from her neck and brushed his lips across the skin just behind her ear. Barely touching her, Rowan swept his lips across her jaw to her mouth and kissed her so lightly it was like he was breathing her in. Lily leaned against him, trying to press closer, but he pulled away.
“Careful, don’t press too hard against me,” he whispered, a pained expression on his face. “And I really shouldn’t be kissing your skin yet.”
“Then don’t,” she replied. Lily looked up at him and smiled slowly as she slid her hands under the hem of his shirt. She ran the backs of her fingers across his belly. His breath skipped. She tugged at his shirt and raised a questioning eyebrow. “Off?”
Rowan pulled his shirt over his head, leaving his willstone glittering on his bare chest. He stood very still and let her touch him for as long as she wanted, but kept his own hands at his sides. She’d never had the chance to explore a man’s body before. She watched, entranced, as his skin flushed and his muscles jumped under her fingers. Fascinated, she lowered her head to kiss all the places she’d touched and felt him shiver.
Do you want to know what this feels like to me, Lily?
Yes.
Rowan opened himself up to her and she eased her senses inside of his. It was like sinking into an ocean and letting her body float inside a mirror-topped world that spread around her, unfathomably large and unspeakably beautiful once she dipped her face below the surface. She felt her hands on his chest in two-way, both touching and being touched. She traced his skin, following his need as her own. Learning him.
Enough, Lily.
Rowan stilled her hands and stepped back.
Are you serious?
“Yes,” he whispered through a laugh. “I don’t want to rush. I don’t want you to miss anything.”
