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Silence passed. It was an intimate quiet, tingling with unspoken tension. Blanchette glanced away from his stare and felt a tiny shiver crawl up her spine.
No one had ever looked at her with such… feeling and vulnerability.
Who is this man, this Black Wolf?
She recalled his sparring with Edrick and how Rowan had backhanded his captain after he’d nearly spilled his entrails.
There is a story there. There’s more to this man than meets the eye.
So much more…
Her thoughts fell apart as his large hand came to her shoulder. Gently, he turned her body from the door, leaving a trail of desire everywhere he touched. Then he glanced down at her and flashed a full-on smile. She noticed the subtle details in that smile for the first time. How little wrinkles formed next to his eyes. A small dimple appeared on his left cheek. A crooked tooth that added a touch of wolfish charm.
Lifting the crossbar, he opened the iron-and-studded door to her privy chamber. She swallowed hard against the tension and felt tears prick her eyes. Rowan backed into the room, moving gracefully, then held his hand to her.Sunlight poured into her privy and dappled his pitch-black hair with its glow.
“This is your home. Reclaim it.”
Blanchette exhaled a long breath. Taking his hand, she watched as his large fingers swallowed hers up. Then she finally stepped into the room and felt an internal landslide of joy and sorrow at the sight of her chamber.
She let go of his hand.Her palms fell to her sides, and she nervously ran them up and down the material of her cloak.
My red riding cloak.
She’d seen her chamber thousands of times, of course. Yet experiencing it now, in this light, with the man who’d brought the sky down on her family, was almost too much to bear. The urge to scream, to cry, and to panic hit her all at once. She wordlessly walked the room’s perimeter, her hand tracking over her belongings, her heart filled with nostalgia and a dull twinge. She recognized that ache as bone-deep grief. She stood before her bureau and examined the various trinkets on top of its surface. Jewels and brooches. Perfumes. A leather book splitting at the seams. Letters from Isadora, tied together with a red ribbon.
She swallowed hard, refusing to show defeat or weakness in the face of her enemy.
But is he truly my enemy?
His men hadn’t touched any of these belongings. Not even the jewels.
She glanced out the window at the outer bailey. There, she saw it happen all over again—the charge of soldiers, the Black Wolf of Norland front and center. She also saw Elise’s battered body splayed across the stone floor. Her heart burned, and she blinked the image away.
Her mind was a haunted dungeon, swarming with ghosts and the skeletons of a past life. When she met Rowan’s gaze again, her sorrow mutated into that familiar anger, that rage, a resentment whose force tore her apart. She stepped past him and crossed her chamber to stand before her four-poster bed. She reached out tentatively—her hand frozen in midair—then stroked the furs with a dull ache churning in her heart.
Wolf pelts.
Rowan stepped beside her, his vast body filling the space between her and the oak poster. When he spoke, the lull of his voice occupied the rest of that emptiness. “I know how it feels to lose someone you loved. Someone you believed yourself inseparable from.”
“And what great loss have you suffered?”
Rowan stood so close that she felt the heat of his breaths on her cheeks. She became astutely aware of her own body: her rapid heartbeat, the hotness in her cheeks, a tingling yet not altogether unpleasant sensation running across her skin.
The corner of Rowan’s mouth lifted into a smile, but only sadness was in his eyes. “Someone who I once loved.”
His gaze met her eyes, and Blanchette’s heart jerked at the longing there.
Longing… for what?
He released a long-suffering sigh. A heartbeat later, she felt his strong fingers cupping her cheek. They tracked over the scar in a barely-there touch, then carefully followed the curve of her chin. Finally, she released a breath. She shuddered—though not from displeasure or fear—and stepped back and out of his reach.
Blanchette traced the taut ridge of her scar. It’d healed well but would always be a grim reminder of that night.
“You should be proud of that scar,” he whispered. “It makes you even more beautiful. It echoes your strength.”
She stared up at him, at the warmth in his eyes, for what might have been a full minute.
Then he stepped back and ran an unsteady hand through the waves of his hair.
