This may not be a completely exhaustive list, as I’m only a human, so if you notice any of yours are in the wrong spot, or are missing, or if you know of one that’s not on there, please let me know!!!
The categories are a bit arbitrary, and I did my best to divide it up and categorize them based on my own knowledge of the fics, so I will completely take recommendations on adjusting things or moving things around!
And note: this is a rowaelin list only, so anything that features another couple as the main couple or doesn’t have rowaelin as the only main couple, I didn’t include it, simply so that I could keep the lines clear and make this just a rowaelin list.
I’m going to be tinkering with it over the next few days, as it’s really late here and I know already that I’ve messed some things up, but I’m tired lol, this took me a really damn long time.
I just know tumblr can be difficult to navigate sometimes and I wanted to create a resource that was easy for people to find new fics and new writers, and just try to expand the fandom a little more!!!
Let me know if you have any questions!
You beautiful human— thank you for your service ♥️
To leave this island forever and not have to worry about being discovered anymore.
I wasn’t always this macabre, but two thousand days of checking over my shoulder and wishing for a man’s murder has dulled the wishful excitement I felt when I first got here.
Five years ago, I was grateful to even be alive.
I couldn’t believe a stranger give up everything for me and the others–couldn’t believe she’d agree to fight this battle because of my decision.
I have to actually remind myself to still be grateful to her, if I’m being honest.
Because sometimes I think about that night all those years ago, when she showed up in the darkest part of the night to kill me. When she’d held the knife with a trembling hand and told me that the price for betraying Arobynn Hamel was my life. When we discovered together that she couldn’t bring herself to kill me.
Sometimes I think it would be better if she would’ve just done it.
At least it would’ve been over.
At least I wouldn’t have to spend years on an island, living the same day over and over again. I think that’s what’s driving me mad, beyond anything else.
The predictability of my time.
Every day, I follow the same routine. The routine she laid out for me in a hushed whisper.
I wake up and go to the small café a mile down the road to watch the news. And every day, I pray to see Arobynn Hamel’s face next to to the words, “Breaking news: billionaire crime boss found dead.”
Because that was her only stipulation.
That the ten of us would stay on the island, hidden from sight, until news of his death was announced. In exchange, we got to live.
She’d warned me it would take a long time.
She’d told me to not get complacent.
And then she’d whispered what she planned to do.
Even now, over five years later, the words she’d whispered while shoving a plane ticket and a new passport into my hands were crystal clear.
“The devil isn’t going to go down easy.”
~Aelin~
The shaft of her recently-fashioned shiv was cold in her hand as she silently grabbed it from under her pillow.
The soft clink of the bars shutting again told her whoever had just snuck in her cell was now locked in with her.
Unfortunate for them.
She wasn’t afforded the luxury of a clock, but she knew it was the middle of the night. Normal visiting hours were far over. There was no one here but the bored night guards, four janitorial staff, and rows and rows of sleeping inmates.
And the idiot trying to sneak up behind her bed.
She kept her eyes closed as she listened to the quiet steps walk closer and closer. Right when she was about to turn around and attack, they stopped.
Then the weirdest thing happened. It sounded like whoever it was slid down the wall directly across from her bed.
A killer wouldn’t do that.
Curiosity piqued, Aelin turned her head to see who and what was going on.
It was dark in the cell, but she’d recognize that shock of silver hair anywhere.
“Rowan?” she whispered, so quietly she almost didn’t even hear herself. “What are you doing here?”
He didn’t respond, but the way his muscles tensed told her he’d heard her.
Slowly, she sat up so she could see him better and maybe figure out what was going on.
For the first time in a long time, he looked less than perfect. Far less than it, actually.
His hair was going every possible direction, like he’d been running hands through it and pulling on it. He was wearing a gray t-shirt, rumpled dress slacks, and tennishoes that weren’t even tied.
But that wasn’t what worried her most. It was the way he was sitting completely still and silent.
He didn’t even look like he was breathing.
“Hey,” she tried again. “What’s going on? Look at me.”
Another few heartbeats passed, and then he slowly shook his head.
“Please, Rowan. Just look at me.”
He winced, like hearing her say his name physically hurt him.
And then his head came up.
Deep green eyes met hers, and even though it was what she’d wanted, what she’d needed, Aelin instantly wished he’d look away.
Because with one look, she knew he’d figured it out.
He knew, and the pain and turmoil in his eyes… she’d put that there.
She’d seen him angry and sad and happy and everything in between, but she’d never seen him, or anyone else, look so broken.
He looked completely and utterly broken as he sat before her.
“Rowan,” she whispered, shaking her head even though she didn’t know why.
He bowed his head again, seemingly unable to even look at her.
“Ro,” she whispered, dropping to her knees in front of him.
Almost like the old nickname broke something inside him, Rowan’s shoulders started to shake.
And then he sobbed.
It was the kind of sob that couldn’t possibly be held in. The kind that made her heart clench and tears brew in her own eyes, the kind that told her how much pain he was in.
Tears ran down her cheeks as she put a hand on his arm. He shook off the touch like it burned him and looked up at her again.
“I ruined your life,” he croaked, the tears on his face reeking of self-hatred. “I ruined your life.”
She shook her head. “No, you didn’t.”
Anger bled into his tone. “I put you in prison for eight years for murdering people who aren’t even fucking dead, Aelin. I didn’t listen to you, didn’t look hard enough. I’ve had the clues you left me for eight years. We were in love, and I didn’t even try hard enough to… I… please explain to me how I didn’t ruin your life.”
“You did not ruin my life, Rowan,” she told him again, meaning every word.
“Eight years of your life, gone because of me. I don’t even understand how you can look at me.” He huffed a laugh, but he was far from amused. “No wonder you hate me.”
His chest was heaving, his hands were in fists, and his stubble-crested jaw was damp with tears.
And she’d thought he hadn’t cared.
Aelin felt like a fool–a horrible, stupid fool–for ever doubting him. For thinking him indignant.
Because this was technically what she’d wanted. What she’d plannedto happen.
She’d wanted it to hurt, had wanted him to feel an ounce of what she’d felt when he’d led the case against her.
But it wasn’t what she wanted anymore.
Moving slowly, Aelin crawled onto his lap, put her hands on the side of his face, and lifted his gaze to hers while she said, “Arobynn Hamel ruined my life, not you.”
He shook his head, breathing heavily. “No-”
She cut him off by wrapping herself around him.
Like she was trying to heal physical wounds, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pulled his head to her chest. She sank into him until there wasn’t an inch of space between them. Her hands wandered over his back as she held him tight to her.
He was stiffer than a board at first, but eventually he sagged against her, wrapping his arms around her in return.
It was like he was drowning in the sea, and she was the only thing preventing him from being swept away. He shook, his entire body trembling, and his arms became a vice around her.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered after a moment.
She shook her head, but it didn’t matter. He said it again, and again, and again, until his voice was hoarse and broken.
Aelin ran her hands over his back slowly, and just held him as pain he’d felt for eight years seemed to reach a crest.
Eventually he stopped crying and just laid against her, warm breath fanning across her collarbone.
“I’m so sorry, Aelin,” he whispered yet again.
“Please stop saying that. None of this is your fault. You aren’t the reason I’m in prison.”
“Yes, I am,” he insisted, shifting beneath her. “But I’m getting you out right now.”
He looked up, eyes bright with new-found purpose, and wiped the tears off his cheeks like they were distracting him.
“What?”
He nodded quickly. “We can bring those people back, and you can get your life back. I know it’s not the same, and I know I can’t get you these years back, but-”
“No.”
He paused. “No?”
She shook her head. “I can’t leave yet.”
“Leave? What the helldoes that mean?”
“It means I still have shit to do here. I’m not leaving before it’s done.”
His eyes narrowed. “You’re acting like this is a hotel, not a high-security prison. And what do you even mean?”
Aelin had the good sense to feel a little guilty as she slowly got to her feet and walked to the wall at the back of the cell. A few well-placed taps later, it swung open.
Rowan’s mouth dropped open, then closed, then repeated the whole routine like he couldn’t decide what to say first.
He apparently figured it out, because it opened again so he accuse, “I knew you were robbing me! Where the fuck is my bed?”
She sighed and rubbed her temples. “That’s what you care about right now? Seriously?”
He grumbled something as he got to his feet and leaned into the makeshift doorway in the wall.
It took him a few moments to examine the ladder leading down to the tunnel, and then he straightened and looked at her again with a mixture of confusion, awe, and understanding on his face.
“You’ve been sneaking out this whole time.”
She nodded.
Most of her escapes had been in the past six months, but she’d occasionally left in the years before to check on something or track down a lead.
“You beat up your roommate so they’d put you back in solitary.”
Aelin nodded again.
“But how did you know they’d bring you to this cell?”
A small smile pulled on her lips. “Look again,” she told him, gesturing towards the open brick door.
He stuck his head in the hole again and couldn’t stifle his surprised intake of breath as he saw the other ladders.
He came back in the cell, and the expression on his face made her bite her lip to hold back a smile. “You… you tunneled intoprison?”
“Into every solitary cell,” she confirmed.
“When? Why?”
“One of my old jobs for Arobynn was to break a client of his out of solitary. I knew which cell he was in, but… getting locked up is kind of a right of passage for my former career, so I figured I’d plan ahead and give myself a way out, should I ever need it.” She smiled. “Hamel never could figure out how I did it, so it’s safe for me to use now.”
Rowan spent a long moment looking at her. “That’s… genius.”
“I tend to be,” she agreed.
They were both silent for a minute, then he said, “You need to tell me everything. Enough of both of us wasting time assuming what the other is thinking. We need to get everything out in the open, and we need to do it now.”
Aelin nodded, knowing it was true.
It was time to either finally trust him or kill him, and just the thought of the latter made something inside of her twist so hard she felt nauseous.
She nodded to the tunnel, not wanting to have the following conversation overheard by any prying ears. He nodded and followed her down, closing the door behind him.
When she knew they were alone, she started to explain.
“Maddison Kliff, my first so-called victim, funded her campaign for senator with money from Arobynn Hamel.”
Rowan’s eyebrows went up in surprise, but he nodded for her continue.
“He gave it to her, with the caveat that when she won, she’d vote against renewable energy for Rifthold. He has millions in oil, so when she did the exact opposite and voted for the green plan that switched the city to 70% electric, he took a pretty hard hit.” She took a deep breath. “The day after the vote, I got my orders to kill her.”
His jaw clenched.
“I went that night, thinking I could do it. Thinking I’d get it over with and never think about it again. I snuck in her townhouse and had everything set up.” She let out a laugh. “But then I realized my deal with Arobynn covered tenof Sam’s jobs. If I killed Maddison, and did a good enough job of it to get away with it, I knew he’d put nine more names on the list.”
“So you didn’t do it,” Rowan said, like he already knew but needed to hear her say it.
“So I didn’t do it.”
Aelin ran a hand through her hair, starting to pace. “I ran. And then I went back the next night with a suitcase, a new ID for her, and a plan.”
“Why Aruba?” he asked.
“I’d done all that research for our trip,” she said, a pang of sadness shooting through her at the memory of planning their first vacation together. “I didn’t have time to research another place. And I never told you, but the house I wanted us to rent? You kind of… own it.”
“I own a house in Aruba,” he repeated slowly, his tone making it clear he didn’t understand.
She rolled her eyes at his tone. “Arobynn might be a bastard I’d love to put in a grave, but he paid me well. I was eighteen and didn’t know what else to do with the money. So I bought a house.”
“In Aruba. In my name.”
She nodded. “No one can trace it back to you. It’s hidden in an off-shore corporation, owed by another off-shore corporation, but technically, yes, you’re the owner. It was going to be your Christmas present.”
“You bought me a house,” his lips twitched. “For a Christmas present.”
“I was in love with you,” she muttered. Then pointed out, “My lack of shopping impulse control really isn’t the point of the story.”
He rolled his eyes, still fighting a grin at her antics. “Please continue.”
“Right. So I sent her to the house in Aruba and told her to stay at the house with anyone else he wanted me to kill. I told her to not say a word to anyone besides those people, and that I’d be forced to actually kill her if she did. If Arobynn finds out they’re alive, he’ll send someone for me.”
She explained the list next. “He requires proof of all completed jobs, so I kept the "murder weapons” and made sure the crime scenes had enough blood to indicate the person couldn’t still be alive. It was mostly fake, but I took just enough blood from each of the victims and mixed it in to make it realistic enough to fool DNA scanners. Then I put the weapons in storage lockers he owns and wrote the numbers down so I wouldn’t forget them.“
Rowan nodded, most certainly remembering that part.
He was doing a good job of hiding his emotions, but she still saw how heavily this all weighed on him.
Everything he’d been feeling for eight years was hitting him at once, and while explanation made sense, it probably didn’t make him feel any better about the role he’d played in all of this.
He confirmed it by asking, "Why didn’t you tell me?”
He asked it almost casually, but she didn’t miss the pain he couldn’t keep from seeping into his voice.
“I wanted to,” she breathed. “Gods, I wanted to. I know now you investigated before giving the list to the cops, but to me, it looked like you found it and just turned me in. You never asked me. And you looked at me… you looked at me like you thought I was guilty. I knew you wouldn’t believe me.”
Rowan went quiet, regret and shame coming off of him in waves so thick she almost choked on it.
“How is all of this going to play out?” he asked, seemingly trying to force himself to think about something else. “And what do you have to do that you need to be in prison for?”
She hesitated, suddenly not wanting to tell him.
Not out of a lack of trust, but because if she told him… he’d realize she’s guilty of the crime she’s in prison for. He might go back to hating her, back to thinking her a horrible person.
And she just got him back.
She’s pulled from her thoughts when he reaches a hand out, slowly gripping her jaw to tilt her face to his.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said, the words final.
Of course he knew what she was thinking just from looking at her face. He always was a little too astute.
A part of Aelin wanted to put on a brave face and act like that wasn’t exactly what she’d been worrying about, but a bigger part wanted him.Wanted him to see that even after all this time, she needed him.
So she forced down the witty jokes and sultry smiles she usually used as ways to hide her vulnerability and looked up at him.
“Promise?”
He closed his eyes and shook his head slowly. “I promise, Aelin.”
His hand was still on her face, and he leaned in until his forehead rested against hers. “I’m never going to leave you again. I’m so… I’m so fucking sorry I did in the first place. I should’ve come to you, or at least listened when you told me you were innocent.”
“I’m sorry I thought you didn’t fight for me,” she said back. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
They’d both done things they regretted, but Aelin knew that now, no matter what, he was telling the truth. He wasn’t going to leave her.
The knowledge felt like a weight lifting off her shoulders, and just to lighten the mood, she whispered, “And I’m sorry I stole your bed.”
He pulled back to glare at her. “You’re going to explain one day how you even pulled that off. But I’d like the answer to my other question first.”
Aelin took a step back and ran a hand through her hair.
“Arobynn Hamel dying is the endgame, Rowan. I have to stay in prison so I can kill him and have an alibi no one will question.”
He paused, and for a moment, her fears skyrocketed, so she rushed to explain, “As long as he’s alive, those people have to be in hiding and I have to look like I killed them. Once he’s dead, I can bring them back without worrying Arobynn will kill them. Or me.”
He gave her a strange look, but she spoke before he could, explaining, “It’s why I’ve been in prison for so long. I would’ve killed him and ended it years ago, but I only found him a couple months ago. He’s been in hiding ever since I was locked up, because the FBI knew I was one of his and started looking for him.”
“Okay, but Aelin-”
She cut him off. “I know it’s insane and not at all ideal, but I need you to leave me in here. Just until he’s dead, and then it’s over.”
He stepped forward and grabs her shoulders, shaking her slightly.
And then he did the weirdest thing.
Hesmiled.
“What the hell do you look happyabout?” she demanded. “I’m being serious-”
It was his turn to interrupt her. “Aelin, if that’s the stipulation, you’re already free.”
Unease drifted through her stomach. “What do you mean?”
“I mean he’s already dead.”
Shock rushed through her so fast and thoroughly, her vision swam and she swayed in his grip. “What… what did you just say?”
“That’s why I came today, now. I actually figured out you were innocent two days ago, but I wasn’t going to come until I could tell you with certainty I was getting you out, and I knew you couldn’t bring everyone back without risking your life. I’ve spent the past 48 hours planning a jailbreak and a way to sneak you to somewhere the US doesn’t have extradition.”
He grinned again. “But then it was announced on the 11 o'clock news tonight that he died last week of pneumonia complications. His family kept it private because they wanted a small funeral, but he’s dead, Aelin.”
Still feeling the weight of shock, she argued, “He’s not dead.”
“But he is.”
“No,” she insisted, pushing away from him and starting to pace again. “He can’t be dead.”
His face softened at the panic in her voice. “Aelin, I know you wanted it to be you, but-”
“No, Rowan, you don’t understand. I mean he cannot physically be dead, because I haven’t finished killing him!”
It was his turn to be shocked.
“What do you mean you haven’t finished killing him?”
She took a deep breath, trying to keep her emotions in check. “I’ve been poisoning him since the day I figured out where he holes up. Turns out he has kidney problems and goes in once a week for dialysis. I show up and add a little… extra to his medication. The last time I went was less than a week ago, and while he might have been sick, he most definitely was still alive.”
Besides that, what were the odds that Rowan figured out her “victims” were still alive, and just two days later Arobynn croaks?
It would be one hell of a coincidence, and Aelin learned long ago to not believe in those.
His eyes went wide. “What? You mean he faked his death? Why the hell would he do that?”
“Because,” she said slowly, dread forming like a lead ball in her stomach as she realized what this meant for her, for the ten people whose lives she’d traded her freedom for. “I told Maddison and the others to wait for news of his death before coming back. I told them that until he was dead, they weren’t safe.”
She shook her head, whispering, “I told them to watch the news.”
Rowan realized what she was saying and cursed.
“He knows.”
~~~~~~~~~~~
Lemme know in the comments if you want to be tagged!
Part 5 will (realistically) be out in the next three weeks. Sorry for the slow updates; school is consuming all my time and energy.
There was something decidedly pleasant about sneaking out of prison.
It was the thrill, she supposed.
She’d always been a bit of an adrenaline junky, and there was nothing that matched up to the excitement of breaking out of a maximum security prison with no one being the wiser.
Aelin ran through the tunnel, her steps sure and soundless, a smile blooming on her face. What she was doing shouldn’t give her such joy, but along with being a thrill seeker, she’d always been just a little bit vindictive.
Or maybe a lot.
The map of the tunnels was still crystal clear after all this time, and she had it memorized down to the number of steps it took to get to the right turn.
It was a three hour run. Two underground, then one through the city out into the suburbs.
While the first two hours were definitely not fun, it was the last hour that was tricky.
Avoiding cameras, not drawing any unwanted attention, dressing so no one could see her face without looking too much like the criminal she was.
It was also more exhausting.
It was an hour of sprinting across rooftops, sprinting through town, then sprinting some more.
It was a little funny to her that the journey to where she needed to go was more difficult than actually breaking into the building.
She had a set of scrubs stored in a nearby lockbox, along with a wig and a few prosthetics to make her look more like Ansel, one of the nurses working the night shift.
The security guard, Shelly, was prone to reading romance novels during her shift and never questioned why she occasionally thought she saw two of the same person wandering around.
It was no different tonight.
Once she had everything in place, Aelin strode confidently through the halls, grabbing charts and nodding like she knew what the hell she was looking at.
No one stopped her, no one questioned her.
When she got to the room and chart she wanted, she slipped inside soundlessly and crept up to the bed.
Despite the ever-present urge to hurry things along, she stuck to her plan and kept the dose the same.
The person on the bed never woke up, never noticed her slip an extra drug into the IV bag hanging on the wall.
Silent, efficient, traceless.
Just like she’d been taught.
Leaving was even easier than entering.
She waited until real-Ansel had been out of the guard’s sight for a while, then walked out the back door of the facility like she hadn’t just committed a felony.
One of the few crimes she actually deserved to be in prison for, ironically.
Then she ran back, hiding in the traffic camera’s blind spots and ditching the wig along the way.
It was a little stupid and drawn out to do it this way, not to mention unbelievably cruel, but Aelin had always had a flair for the dramatic.
Plus, like she said: exciting.
~Rowan~
Doubt is a strange emotion.
It starts small, so small you hardly even realize it’s there.
And then, over time, it grows and grows like a fungus, eventually becoming something that you think about all the time. Something that kills you.
Rowan didn’t believe in doubt.
His problem had never been with not believing in himself, it’d always been with the opposite affliction: over-conviction.
He believed things so fully, so deeply, it was hard to see it any other way.
It was what made him such a good lawyer. As the top public prosecutor in the city, he had a reputation for being impossible to win against.
He convinced himself of the defendant’s guilt so completely, the jury had almost no option but to believe him.
He hadn’t always been that way, he didn’t think. Argumentative and stubborn, sure. His mother could attest to that. But never so unflinchingly self-assured. So alright with deceiving himself if need be.
If he had to guess, he’d say it’d started two months after the day of Aelin’s trial.
He hadn’t been lying to her four days ago; every word had been the truth. He’d worked his ass off all those years ago, trying to find something that would help him either clear her name or at least fucking sleep at night.
He’d given himself a timeline, deciding that if he couldn’t find a single lead in two months, there probably wasn’t one. Two months, and then he’d let it go.
He didn’t regret stopping his hunt–he’d seen what an obsession could do to someone.
And when that day had come, he’d thought he was ready. He’d exhausted himself working both her case and the ones he was assigned, burning the candle at both ends and sleeping in the office more nights than his own bed.
There’d been nothing to be found. The evidence, the testimonies, the medical examiner’s reports… they’d all pointed to Aelin.
So eventually he’d forced himself to stop looking.
But the sight of her swinging between the two court police officers, fighting for just one more second with him with a desperation he’d never seen from her… he hadn’t known how he could just forget something like that.
The image followed him, haunted him. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw hers. Lined with tears and disbelief and so much hurt he felt like invisible hands were wrapped around his neck.
So he’d hardened himself against it.
He’d repeated the pieces of evidence against her, told himself she was guilty until the words were easy to say, forced himself to visualize the crime scenes of her victims whenever he thought of her.
Piece by piece, he’d swapped out the months of positive memories they had with stone cold facts.
And it had worked.
After a month, he could sleep again. After a year, he hardly thought of her and when he did, it was with disgust.
Yet now, over eight years later, he found himself with just the slightest amount of doubt again.
It was the same nagging, incessant feeling he hadn’t been able to shake eight years ago. Back for round two, apparently.
At first, he’d played it off as nerves from their conversation. She’d worked him up so much he’d admitted how much he’d once loved her and said things he shouldn’t have.
His body was reacting to the sadness in her eyes, the surprise that had bloomed when he’d told her he’d fought for her. It was emotion, nothing based in logic, that made him want to start looking again.
At least that’s what he told himself.
But four days later, he found himself on the couch–he really did need to give up and just buy a new bed–staring at the ceiling, trying to sleep and not being able to.
Because… well because what if she was telling the truth?
Why else would she have told him that story?
What had he missed during all those late nights spent hunched over her folder?
The questions grew and grew, until that once-little shard of doubt started to slowly drive him mad.
The uncertainty, no matter how small it had begun, had grown to be almost irritatingly large and unavoidable.
He couldn’t stop thinking about what she’d said. The breadcrumbs that apparently only hecould find.
What did that mean?
And why couldn’t he just let it go?
“Fuck!” he yelled, throwing his blanket off and storming to the closet.
Like a love-struck idiot, he’d kept a box full of the stuff she’d left at his apartment during their relationship. The stuff that wasn’t evidence, at least.
If it was something only he could find like she’d said, it was probably something only he had access to.
He dropped the box on his kitchen table and opened the lid.
Then cursed when the first thing he saw was a pair of red lace underwear. That was the lastthing he needed to be thinking about and remembering.
Especially when he’d barely been able to resist the temptation to kiss her in that interrogation room.
Something about the way she’d looked at him after he’d told her he’d fought for her all those years ago had rattled the grip he had on his control hard.
She’d seemed so… sad. So hopeless. It had brought out the urge to comfort her in whatever way he could.
Hearing about her childhood and how she’d been raised by Arobynn Hamel hadn’t made it any better. Truthfully, it’d broken something inside of him.
She’d always been so positive around him–a ray of light he’d felt was put on this earth just for him.
And all the while, she’d been forced to live with and work for one of the most notorious crime syndicate members of all time.
He’d always known she hadn’t had a good childhood, but there was a difference between foster care hell and an actual house of horrors. Rowan couldn’t even imagine the things she’d seen. Been forced to see, to do.
She made it out, he reminded himself, taking a deep breath.
But had she?
If what she’d told him was true, she’d killed those people because she’d been forced to.
It hadn’t been her choice.
But there was something else about her, something he couldn’t stop thinking about.
The secret she’d eluded to, the one that apparently only he had the key to solving.
A secret she’d promised would explain everything.
He tossed the underwear on the table, vowing to ignore them.
Then threw them in the trash a minute later when that became impossible.
You’re such an asshole, he told himself, shaking his head. It’s been eight years.
Even if thatpart of their relationship was most definitely memorable.
“Jesus,” he laughed, running a hand over his face. Why was he even thinking about that?
Maybe it was the look in her eyes four days ago, or maybe it was simply that Aelin had been an important part of his life. He’d never forget the connection they’d had. Maybe it would always be a part of him.
But that was ridiculous, because he’d been connectedto plenty of women since. Plenty of gorgeous brunettes and redheads.
For some reason, he hadn’t been able to date a blonde, but that didn’t mean anything.
He was over her.
Obviously.
Forcing his thoughts away from Aelin, he grabbed the next thing in the box.
Her address book. Maybe she’d left a note in there?
He flipped it open, scrolling through blank page after blank page. Her cousin’s address and phone number were there–both of which he confirmed with police records–but other than that, it was blank.
The next thing he found made the ache in his chest expand to a soul-sucking hole.
It was a travel brochure for Aruba.
The edges were frayed from how much she’d flipped through it, and notes in her handwriting were scribbled throughout the pages.
He remembered this, all right.
He’d woken up one morning, a morning that seemed like a lifetime ago, to find her laying on top of him, leafing through the travel pamphlet with a huge grin on her face.
“We’re going to Aruba,” she’d whispered in lieu of a greeting, leaning down to press her lips to his.
“Why?” he’d asked back between kisses.
“Because it’s the perfect place to hide from your real life,” had been her laughed response.
She’d planned a trip for them at Christmas. Their very first trip together.
Every time they saw each other, she’d shown him a new page or told him about a new activity she wanted to do.
In general, she was a happy, excited person, but he’d never seen her so thrilled over anything like she was that trip.
He’d hidden it better, trying to play it cool, but he’dbeen excited, too.
He’d pictured her on the beach, running in the sand and smiling and laughing and drinking from a coconut. He’d imagined sneaking to the beach one night and making love to her in the ocean.
He’d imagined getting down on one knee and asking her to be his travel partner for life.
She’d been arrested two weeks before they were supposed to leave.
He tossed the little magazine back into the box, shaking his head to clear it of the memories and long-lost dreams.
The only thing left in the worn box was books.
Aelin had volunteered at a publishing house, trying to get hired as a fiction editor, and she’d always had a book in her ridiculously heavy pocket book.
She’d given him a few of her favorites, claiming that if he ever wanted to know the “real her,” he had to read them.
A statement that made a lot more sense now than it used to.
He grabbed the one on top and leafed through it, going through the pages and scanning.
When that didn’t yield anything, he flipped to the back of the book and looked at the inscription she’d written him.
March 1
Rowan,
I know you’re not a fan of fiction, let alone romantic, feminist fiction, but I hope you’ll read this and fall in love with Elizabeth’s character like I did.
Aelin
He turned the book over and looked at the front again, then flipped through it again, then went through the whole process again.
Why did he feel like something about this didn’t add up? And why was this,of all things, what she’d left as a breadcrumb?
He didn’t figure it out until he reread the inscription for the fifth time and realized the date she’d written.
March 1st.
It was wrong; she’d given him this book on his birthday in February. He remembered because he’d laughed about her giving a grown man a romance novel for his birthday.
Why had she put March 1st? And why did that date stand out in his mind?
Stomach dropping, he finally figured out why that date was so important. It was the date of the first murder.
Maddison Kliff, a state senator who controversially wanted to fund renewable energy in the upcoming year, had been murdered the morning of March 1st eight years ago.
Breadcrumb.
He grabbed the next book from the stack, Wuthering Heights, and flipped to the end.
Almost the exact same inscription, except the date was April 13th, and the inspiring character was Linton Heathcliff.
April 13th was the day another victim died.
Rowan’s heart started pounding, so hard he thought he was going to either pass out or go into cardiac arrest.
What was the connection between these dates, characters, and victims? Rowan could feel it in his gut that this was what she’d been talking about. It had to be.
He flipped through the books again, looking for something else, but there was nothing there. Nothing was underlined or highlighted, and the books were all in brand-new condition, no pages were bookmarked.
“What are you trying to tell me, Aelin?” he whispered, rubbing at his temples.
He made a list of all the dates and characters, stared at it until he thought he’d go blind, and tried to think like her.
Except her mind was a complex puzzle he’d never quite solved, so that didn’t give him anything besides a headache.
He looked in the box again, hoping to magically find another note or something that explained everything in simple, idiot-proof terms.
But all that was there was that damn Aruba magazine.
It’s the perfect place to hide from your real life.
The words came rushing back to him, so suddenly and violently it was like his subconscious had been shouting it for a while.
Was that it?
Maybe the connection wasn’t only between the dates and characters, but it also had something to do with Aruba.
Maybe that was where this secret, whatever it was, was hiding.
Knowing he was probably grasping at straws, Rowan grabbed his phone and called the one person who’d help him.
“What the hell do you want?”
“I need a favor, Gavriel.”
He heard a heavy sigh. “Like a we’ve been friends for twenty years favor or like an I’m the Chief of Police favor?”
“The latter,” Rowan answered.
“Dammit, Rowan, you’re going to get me fired one day.” That was what he said every time. There was a long pause, then, “What do you need?”
“Flight manifests from Rifthold to Aruba from ten different days eight years ago.”
Gavriel caught on quickly. “This wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with a former flame of yours, would it? One currently serving time for ten murders from eight years ago?”
“Of course not,” he lied, knowing he was busted.
Another sigh. “You need to let this go, kid.”
Rowan ran a hand over his face, knowing that wasn’t possible. Not when, for the first time since he’d been assigned this God forbidden case, he had a lead.
“Can you help me or not?”
“I will, as long as you promise to drop it once whatever you’re chasing ends up to be yet another dead end.”
Knowing he didn’t have another choice, Rowan agreed.
Gavriel told him he’d send them over, then said softly, “I know you loved her, Rowan, but it’s time to move on.”
It’s not that easy, he thought, thinking once again of Aelin sitting in that tiny cell, skin pale and hair too long.
“Thanks for your help,” he said instead, hanging up before the lecture could continue.
A few minutes later, he was printing out the passenger lists from all the Rifthold to Aruba flights on each of the ten dates.
Starting with August 1st, he went through, passenger by passenger, and looked for an Elizabeth.
There’d been three direct flights to Aruba that day, so by the time he found it, his eyes were so tired he almost missed it entirely.
But there was a name that stuck out, one that was straight out of his copy of Pride and Prejudice.
Seat 14C had been occupied by Elizabeth Darcy, and she’d flown directly from Rifthold to Aruba on August 1st.
Rowan’s jaw damn near hit the floor.
His hands shook as he highlighted the name, writing the victim’s name next to it to keep it straight in his head.
His mind whirled with possible explanations, but he didn’t let himself think about anything except the next date.
With a sinking feeling in his gut, he went through the passenger list for April 13th.
And sure enough, Linton Heathcliff was on one of the flights. In the same damn seat.
“Holy fuck,” he whispered, grabbing the next sheet of paper.
He went date by date, flight by flight, and by the time he’d located every character, he was sure of what he’d found. What she’d left for him.
It wasn’t a breadcrumb,it was the whole goddamn loaf.
Rowan barely made it to the kitchen sink before his stomach emptied as an explanation of what had really happened eight years ago started to form in his mind.
He didn’t have all the pieces, but the ones he did have made him literally sick to think about.
Her insistence on being innocent, her begging him to look again, telling him only he could find the clues… it all made sense.
The doubt he’d been struggling with for eight long years suddenly disappeared, replaced by a certainty so swift and thorough and all encompassing, it almost took his breath away.
She hadn’t been lying.
She hadn’t killed those ten people.
She couldn’t have, because…
“They’re still alive.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
dun dun duuuuun
part 4 out next Friday (sorry for the slow updates I’m in summer school)
Rowan didn’t think he’d ever been so pissed off in his life.
The only time that even came close was when he lost his first and only court case, but over the years he’d come to live with that.
Thisthough?
This immature, childish, irritatingly clever woman… he had a feeling he’d carry the rage he felt against her until the day he finally died of it.
Although, if he was honest, his returning move had been a little childish, too.
He’d ordered one of the guards to strip her cell of everything except the chess set. Her mattress, the makeshift knife he shuddered to think she’d had in the same room as him, her pillow.
If she wanted to steal his shit, he’d steal hers, too.
He’d also had the guard move one of his pawns forward on the board.
Not the most creative, but he didn’t have many options.
What did you take from a woman who had nothing? How did you punish someone who was already serving the longest punishment available?
The bank had seized her assets when she’d been locked up, and the lease on her apartment had long since run out. She didn’t have any personal items with her, didn’t seem to even care about anything besides making his life hell.
Case in point, when he got home that night, exhausted from dealing with Aelin and spending a long day at the office, he’d discovered her retaliation.
She’d stolen his bed.
The whole goddamn thing, frame and all.
How she’d managed to get it out of a penthouse condo with security not realizing a thing, he had no idea. He knew from experience it wouldn’t even fit through the door.
It’d seemed if she was going to be uncomfortable, so was he.
Steaming with anger, he’d showered and flopped on the couch like an idiot, not even able to sleep thanks to the rage she’d worked him into.
She was completely kicking his ass. From the inside of a jail cell.
He hadn’t gotten more than a few hours of sleep before giving up on even trying. At six, he’d dressed and driven to Whitehorn and Salvaterre, the law firm he was a partner at.
If he couldn’t sleep, he’d at least figure out how the hell she was pulling this shit off.
Looking through her folder, he went through her daily schedule, seeing nothing out of the ordinary.
Eight am wake-up, breakfast, shower, lunch, yard time, dinner, lights out at nine. Between activities, she worked out in her cell or read a book from the run-down prison library.
In the eight years she’d been in prison, she hadn’t had a single visitor. Her cousin Aedion–a playboy Rowan couldn’t be paid to associate with–delivered a care package on the first of every month.
Strange, considering nothing of the sort had been in her cell.
She’d been in solitary confinement ever since randomly attacking her cellmate a little over a month ago. She was still allowed yard time and meals with the other prisoners, but she was chained at all times.
Also strange, considering Aelin wasn’t the type to do anything randomly.
Rowan watched the security tapes he’d strong armed the guards into giving him, going through the past few days to see how she’d gotten out of her cell to rob him.
He watched as she was escorted to the yard, watched as she ate breakfast and lunch and dinner alone, watched as she put herself through vigorous training in her cell.
Days of footage, and he didn’t find anything.
Feeling like a bit of a creep, he watched the nighttime footage of her sleeping, but there was nothing out of the ordinary.
She didn’t move too much or too little–both of which would indicate it wasn’t really her under that thin blanket. There were no attempts to pick the locks in between her wrists and ankles, no digging into the wall behind her toilet.
Nothing.
Which meant someone was helping her.
He could go through the official channels and ask the police for her known connections, but he hadn’t reported either of the robberies yet.
Partly because he wanted to deal with her himself, partly because he felt a bit stupid getting robbed from a woman in the most secure prison in the city.
Which means he’d have to go about it a different way.
Grabbing his keys from his desk, he debated how else he could make her miserable, unfortunately finding nothing else he could do to her, no revenge he could get from robbing her tiny little cell.
No, he’d have to try something new.
Maybe he could bribe her into confessing. She didn’t have anything right now, but maybe he could give her something to lose.
He’d bring her lunch, force himself to apologize for yelling at her, and just politely ask who her accomplice was.
He thought on it as he rode down the elevator to the garage. It probably wouldn’t work, but he didn’t know what else to do.
And besides, he knew from experience Aelin didn’t respond well to his anger.
Checking his email to make sure he wasn’t missing any important meetings, he pressed the button on his car fob, expecting to hear the resounding beep from his designated parking spot.
Except the beep never came.
Slowly looking up, Rowan had to amend his earlier statement.
Nowhe didn’t think he’d ever been so pissed off in his life.
He stormed over to the security booth, hardly refraining from grabbing the man inside and throwing him to the ground.
“Where’s my car, Rolland?”
“In your spot, boss,” the stout little man replied instantly and surely, snapping his gum and looking at him in confusion. “Haven’t seen you drive out yet.”
“Yes, exactly. Which is why it’s a mystery why it’s no longer in it’s spot.”
Rolland caught up slowly. “You mean… it was stolen? From here? From you?”
Jaw so tight his molars were practically fused together, Rowan growled, “Just let me see the security tapes from this morning.”
The guard nodded quickly, eyes nervous as he typed something into the desktop in front of him.
“That’s weird,” he muttered a moment later, typing faster and sending Rowan a nervous glance.
“What?” he asked, trying to calm himself down with a few of the breathing techniques he’d learned over the years.
“The tapes are gone, but there’s… this.”
Rolland turned the screen so Rowan could see it, and all the breathing in the world couldn’t keep him from slamming a fist into the side of the security shack.
The footage was gone, and on the blank black screen read: Bishop to J7.
He was going to fucking kill her.
~Aelin~
“Enjoy your taxi ride here?” she asked sweetly, leaning back in her chair and crossing her legs.
Rowan scowled at her as he crossed the small room inmates could use to talk to their lawyers. He yanked the chair across from her out, then threw himself into it. “You are such a pain in my ass.”
She just shrugged.
He sat across from her, angry and broody, and for a long time, he just stared at her.
Finally he asked, “Why are you doing this, Aelin?”
“I told you. You locked me up for something I didn’t do. I want you to be as miserable as I am. It’s simple, petty revenge.”
Nothing about it was simple, but that was besides the point.
He was quiet for another moment. “Why now?”
She sighed, but she wasn’t upset. Truthfully, she’d been waiting for him to ask that question.
“I want to tell you a story.”
He stood up suddenly, face exasperated. “I’m not fucking joking around. And I’m not going to let you waste any more of my time.”
He made his way to the door, and his dismissal of her pissed her off enough to say, “Sit down, or your car’s going off Whigsby Bridge.”
He smiled like he’d won their little game. “So you admit you have it.”
“Sure,” she said casually, honestly not giving a shit about the car.
His brow furrowed. “You’re giving up? Just like that?”
“You’re a fucking idiot if you think this is about your car, Rowan. But sure, I admit I know exactly where it, and your bed, and your little dagger are being hidden.”
He narrowed his eyes. “This conversation is being recorded, and you just admitted to being an accessory to robbery, so-”
“You aren’t going to press charges,” she cut him off, pulling a cigarette out of her pocket and lighting it.
Nasty little prison habit she’d developed, smoking.
Or maybe she just did it because she knew he hated the smell.
“Oh, really?” he asked incredulously, eyeing the cigarette with disdain.
She grinned. “Once you sit and hear my story and realize I’m telling the truth, you’re going to feel so guilty you won’t even care about the car. Now sit down. I’d hate to see a classic get totaled because you’re being stubborn again.”
He glared at her, but came back to the table and sat down again.
Then reached over and snatched the cigarette from her lips, putting it out against the steel table top.
She just pulled out another, lighting it with one of her last matches. The irritation on his face made it worth the loss.
He waved a hand as if to say Get on with it.
She’d debated how to tell him this story for a long time. It was long, and messy and not particularly pleasant for her. But she wanted him to know the full thing, so she’d decided to start at the very beginning.
“My parents died when I was four,” she began, ignoring his dramatic sigh. “I went into foster care, and as you can imagine, I was a particularly unruly child.”
She smiled at the few memories she had. “I stole from the nuns, snuck out of my room at night and ran through the house, set all the clocks back an hour so we could sleep in. Small stuff. But it irritated them, because they couldn’t prove it was me.”
“Sounds familiar,” he grouched, making her grin.
“I was adopted by Arobynn Hamel a year later.”
As she’d predicted, his mouth fell open at that.
Arobynn was the known king of the underworld in Rifthold. He had a hand in every aspect of crime, yet no one could do anything about it because he never committed the crime himself.
His name was revered, so much so no one ever dared to cross him.
“But your record says-”
“That I stayed in foster care until I turned eighteen, I know.”
Arobynn hated public records and had a deal with someone in the system that he’d take some of the kids off their hands if they kept quiet about it. Illegal as hell, but he wasn’t someone you refused without suffering serious consequences.
It was the perfect crime. No one would miss unwanted kids, and it gave the system one less mouth to feed.
“I didn’t know it, but he’d been watching me for a while. He… I don’t know, saw something in me. Natural, innocent talent he could work with and turn into something different. He adopted me on my fifth birthday. And then he started training me.”
“To do what?” Rowan asked, shoulders tensing.
“Everything,” she answered with a shaky laugh, taking a long drag from her cigarette. “Stuff I wanted to learn, like how to pick a lock or walk without making sound. But as I got older, he taught me other stuff. Stuff I didn’t want to know.”
“How to kill,” he finished, picking up on her tone.
She nodded, finishing her cigarette and flicking the butt on the floor.
“I was good,” she told him quietly, looking down at the table. “By the time I was fifteen, he said I was the best he’d ever had. None of his other… children could beat me in a fight, not even the older ones who had a hundred pounds on me. And I could steal anything and not leave a trace.”
His eyes didn’t show an ounce of doubt, and she didn’t know how to feel about it. But she kept going anyway.
“I was his favorite. I was his best asset, and I didn’t care about anything that would compromise me. I lost my parents, and despite how much he wanted me to, I never loved him. I had no weaknesses. Except Sam.”
“Another of his students?” Rowan asked, and it wasn’t lost on her he said students instead of children.
She nodded. “We were adopted around the same time, grew up together. He was a year older, and whenever I had a problem, he was the one I’d turn to. He was good to me, and by the time I was seventeen, not a small part of me loved him.”
Aelin broke off and took a deep breath, wishing she had another cigarette and trying to figure out how to put into words how much he’d meant to her.
“Was?” Rowan asked, so softly and quietly and understandingly that she was reminded of the man he’d once been, the one she’d loved.
Shaking her head to clear it, she said, “He made a mistake. He went on a job; he was supposed to break into one of the underground casino’s owned by Arobynn’s competitor and memorize the ledger, but he got caught. It was messy and horrible and stupid, and the owner wanted blood. Arobynn promised he’d kill Sam as retribution.”
Rowan’s eyes widened, almost like he hadn’t realized how brutally she’d been raised until that moment.
“I begged him not to. Sam had saved me and helped me so many times that I couldn’t not do the same for him. I told him I’d do anything.”
She studied her hands, regret and guilt thick on her skin. “Arobynn said if I took ten of the jobs Sam was supposed to do, he wouldn’t kill him. I thought they’d be similar to the one he’d messed up on, small break-ins or robberies. So I accepted.”
A tear rolled down her cheek, and she batted it away as she continued, “The second I shook his hand, Tern–another of Arobynn’s–shot Sam in the head.”
Rowan’s face blanched so quickly, she thought he might pass out.
He started to say something, but she spoke faster. “I… snapped. I killed Tern, tried to kill Arobynn. You called me a murderer, and that’s true. I am, and I don’t regret it. Tern was a sadistic bastard, and I’m glad he’s dead. And one day, I’ll kill Arobynn for what he did.”
Rowan shook his head, confusion and shock and something similar to pity in his eyes. “Why didn’t you leave, run away?”
She leveled a look at him. “I didn’t exactly have a choice, Rowan. My punishment for Tern lasted for over a year.”
There was a long pause.
“Punishment?” he asked in a breathless voice that made something in her chest hurt.
She looked at the table again, skin pebbling at the memory of that year. “He locked me in a cell in the basement, in the dark. Once a month he’d come in to ask if I knew someone named Sam. It took me ten months to get confused, another three to say no.”
Still not meeting his eyes, she looked at his hands, noticing they were clenched so tightly the knuckles were white. And a part of her, buried under all the rage and resentment and sadness, warmed at the thought that he was… he was angryfor her.
“It took me a long time after to figure out what was real and what wasn’t. But Arobynn never let me forget our deal. And right before I met you, he told me the first job.”
“What were the jobs?”
Aelin looked back up at that, the air thick between them as she said, “You already know.”
“The murders.”
She nodded, somehow managing to keep her spine straight despite the feeling of a hundred pound weight being lifted from her shoulders.
He at least knows why now, she thought to herself.
It was one of the things that had bothered her over the years. That he didn’t know why she’d done what he thought she’d done. That he thought she’d.. wanted to do it.
He was silent for a long time, just watching her with a carefully emotionless face. “Thank you for telling me that,” he said eventually. “I never could understand why.”
Then he stood and walked to the door again, and it was only when his hand was on the handle she spoke again. “You asked why I’m doing this, and why I’m doing it now.”
He opened the door but paused. Waited.
“It’s because I tried to tell you this all those years ago, and you didn’t care. You just assumed I was guilty because the evidence looked like it.”
She spoke around the lump in her throat. “I told you I didn’t kill those people, Rowan, and you didn’t even care.”
He spun around, slamming the door so hard it rattled, and in a split second, he was in front of her. A hand on the table, the other on her chair, he leaned down and got in her face.
He was so angry, so unbelievably enraged she couldn’t believe it. Hewas angry?
“I didn’t care? I didn’t fucking care, that’s what you think? Watching you get dragged away in cuffs was the worst moment of my life, and you think I didn’t fucking care?”
Shock hit her like a bucket of ice water.
That moment was crystal clear in her mind, and she couldn’t put what he was saying with what she knew.
He’d watched her with that same expressionless face, with cold eyes that had haunted her ever since.
She opened her mouth to say something, but he wasn’t done.
“I fucked loved you! I thought you were the love of my life, Aelin. I begged you to tell me something that would help, tell meanything. But you didn’t! You just kept saying you were innocent; you didn’t give me anythingto actually work with.”
“I-”
“I found that stupid fucking list five days before I reported it, did you know that?”
She shook her head, because she hadn’t.
“Exactly. You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” he growled, eyes flashing. “I spent five days investigating it myself, trying to make sense of why you’d know those names. After your arrest, I spent two weeks trying to find anything, a single piece of evidence, that said it wasn’t you. And after the trial, I spent another two months trying to poke holes in my own goddamn case.”
He slammed a hand into the table. “I did everything I fucking could! I was desperatefor it not to be you. I argued my case so your lawyer could plead circumstantial evidence. I put you on the stand so you could say anything you wanted. I went for life sentences instead of the death penalty to give you time to actually tell me what the hell was going on!”
She was breathing heavily, heart breaking and reforming over and over again at what he was saying, what he was implying.
“I didn’t assumeshit,” he said in a low voice, so close they shared air. “You didn’t tell me anything.”
Aelin’s voice trembled as she croaked, “I tried.”
He shook his head, letting out a breath of amusement. “No, you didn’t. If this past week has proven anything, it’s that you don’t tryto do anything, you do it. You didn’t tell me anything, Aelin. You’re stillnot telling me anything.”
“I’m telling you to look again! I’m telling you you didn’t look hard enough, because I left breadcrumbs only you could find, breadcrumbs that explain everything.”
“Stop playing games with me!” he shouted, eyes flashing with a fresh wave of anger. “It’s been eight years! Stop holding onto whatever secret you’re holding onto and just tellme!”
Gods, she wanted to.
He was the one person she couldn’t trust with this secret, this stupid, most important secret, and yet he was the also the one person she wanted to tell it to.
She opened her mouth to tell him, but what came out was, “I didn’t kill them, Rowan. I promise I didn’t kill them. I can’t… I can’t tell you anything else.”
“Jesus, Aelin,” he spat, pushing off the table and turning to leave.
“Just look into it,” she called after him, fingers digging into the table to resist the urge to try and follow him. “I promise you can figure everything out, and you’ll understand everything. Please.”
She knew why, after all this time, it was so important for him to know the truth when that hadn’t been her original plan.
It was because she’d spent eight years believing he hadn’t tried, believing she hadn’t been a good enough person for him to even look into the possibility it wasn’t her.
And maybe it was because he was once again leaving her, or maybe it was because she felt like she was in that courtroom again, begging him to believe her, or maybe it was because of something she didn’t even understand yet.
Regardless of the reason, she found herself saying, “I loved you, too, you know.”
He looked at her with sad eyes that she was sure mirrored her own and shook his head. “Not enough, apparently.”
“You don’t believe that,” she argued, shaking her head and trying to keep the building emotions down.
“If you’d loved me, you would’ve told me. You would’ve given me the proof, whatever breadcrumbs you’re talking about. You wouldn’t have let me watch them take you away.”
“Rowan-”
“You wouldn’t have thought, for a second, that I didn’t try to fight for you. And you sure as hell wouldn’t have waited eight years to do whatever it is you’re trying to do.”
“I had to,” she whispered, even as she knew it wouldn’t be enough.
She shook with the effort to not tell him everything, but even after all he’d told her and how everything had changed, she just couldn’t. Not yet.
He stood at the door, watching her with those eyes she’d once thought looked like the most beautiful emeralds. “Sometimes I think about it, you know. What life would be like if I hadn’t tried to fix your sink in the middle of the night.”
She smiled sadly. “Me too.”
Rowan shook his head, gaze taking in her face like he thought he’d never see her again.
He thought it was over now, she realized. He thought that now she knew he hadn’t given up on her immediately, now that she’d told him the story she’d wanted to tell him, that it was over and she’d give up.
“Look again,” she whispered. “You know I didn’t do it. It’s why you’re here, why you kept looking after the trial ended. You knowI wouldn’t.”
“Goodbye, Aelin,” he said instead, not telling her any of the things she really wanted to hear.
It wasn’t until the door shut behind him she finally let herself cry.
She’d told herself that it didn’t matter; that in a month the truth would come out and everything would be normal again.
She’d told herself she was only messing with Rowan for revenge, not because she wanted to see him again or test that he’d find the clues she’d left for him.
She’d told herself this was just a game.
She’d told herself all sorts of things that turned out to be lies.
Synopsis: Aelin Galathynius never thought of herself as a vengeful woman. Until her boyfriend not only testifies, but leads a case against her that lands her in prison for the rest of her life. Post I-Love-You’s. He didn’t believe her, and she’s about to show him that not only is she innocent, he made the worst mistake of his life betting against her. To a woman with nothing but time, life’s just a game, after all.
The cinderblock wall dug into her back uncomfortably as she reclined against it, the air in the room was stale, and she hadn’t showered in two days. By any measurement, Aelin Galathynius was far from her best.
And yet she somehow managed to look perfectly at ease–happy even–as she lounged in her cell, toying with the ends of her too-long hair.
It was a ruse, of course, just a little trick to piss off the man currently stomping into her space. By the flare of Rowan Whitehorn’s eyes, it worked.
“Hello, Rowan,” she greeted pleasantly, giving him a little smile and acting like it wasn’t taking everything in her not to use the makeshift knife under her pillow to gut him like the spineless coward he was.
She could tell, even across her 8x12 cell, that he was gritting his teeth and fighting a similar action.
The heel of his expensive Italian loafers clicked as he walked across the space to the small table and took a seat at the steel chair in front of it. He tried to push it out further, but stopped when he realized it was bolted to the floor.
“Aelin,” he said back, none of the so-obvious anger he was feeling present in his voice. “Been a long time.”
Eight years, six months, three weeks, two days, and thirteen hours.
Not that she was counting or anything.
She nodded her agreement, reclining further on the bed and crossing her legs as if she was in the finest dress she owned, not a faded orange jumpsuit.
“What brings you to my side of town, Rowan? Here to finally switch sides and represent me?”
Dressed in a two-thousand dollar suit and tie, hair perfectly gelled back, he looked like he was successful a lawyer meeting with a wealthy client, but they both knew the last thing he’d ever do was work for her.
“You know why I’m here.”
She did indeed, but she still said, “I must be exceptionally smart to know why you’ve come all the way here-”
“Cut the shit,” he snapped, finally losing a bit of his cool. He regained it quickly, though, and continued, “I want to know how you did it.”
She frowned at her split ends. “Did what?”
Rowan waited until she looked at him to respond. “You know what.”
Sighing so deeply it should’ve rattled the walls, she said, “I can’t believe I’ve spent the last eight years thinking you underestimated my intelligence. You clearly think I’m some sort of oracle genius.”
Rowan mimicked her sigh, and she bit her lip to stifle a laugh.
Probably trying to stall, he spent a moment looking at her cell, at the completely bare walls and lack of photographs. All she had was the tally marks drawn in pencil on one wall and a dusty chess set sitting on the table.
When he’d taken inventory of those two things, he sat and just looked at her.
It was clear she wouldn’t admit to knowing exactly why he sat in front of her, and he was simply putting off being the one to fold.
Predictable, proud little man.
Eventually, he took his loss and said, “I want to know how you managed to rob me from inside the most secure prison in Rifthold.”
She smiled, a full, undulated smile she hadn’t used in a long time.
She’d been planning this moment since the day the bars had locked behind her, and it felt damn good to finally see it come to fruition.
According to what she’d heard, definitely not what she knew from personal experience, the private vault in Rowan’s apartment had been broken into. Apparently, only one thing was missing: an antique dagger that had been handed down in the family and was now worth over a million bucks.
“Why do you think it was me?” she asked, still smiling.
He gritted his teeth some more, and she internally snickered at the idea he’d have permanent tooth damage because of her. Something else to remember her by.
Green eyes spitting flames at her, he growled, “You left a goddamn business card.”
Aelin forced her eyes up to the empty bed above her head, trying her hardest not to laugh. “Maybe I’m being framed?”
“Your fingerprints were on it.”
She did laugh then, then laughed some more when his eyes narrowed. He looked like he was about to strangle her. “Rowan, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m incarcerated.”
She gestured around them to her cell to prove her point.
The bastard just smiled.
Of course he knows that, she thought bitterly, forcing her hand back to her lap and away from where it’d started to creep toward the pillow.
“So how would I rob you?” she asked, getting her mind back on track.
“That’s what you’re going to tell me,” he demanded angrily. “I want to know how you got out of here, got all the way across Rifthold, broke into my apartment, and stole from me without any surveillance camera picking it up.”
Aelin ran a hand through her hair, fluffing it just right. When she caught sight of the impatience on his face, she fluffed it some more and readjusted the thin jacket on her shoulders.
It was always too damn cold in this place. She hadn’t been warm in almost nine years.
Because of him.
Just for that, she fluffed her hair some more.
Then she said simply, “I didn’t.”
“Stop lying!” he shouted at her, eyes flashing.
She wasn’t, but that was besides the point.
“Fine.” She rolled her eyes like he’d won. “I got my cousin to-”
“Aedion spent the night in Wendlyn. His travel is verified, and there are at least a hundred eye witnesses that witnessed him singing karaoke all night. Stop. Fucking. Lying.”
Once again, she wasn’t lying.
Aedion sure as hell hadn’t been in Wendlyn last night. She’d just wanted to make sure his alibi was air-tight as planned.
Sighing again, she asked, “Rowan, even if I did do it, why the hell would I tell you about it?”
His jaw worked for a moment, and she could tell whatever he was about to say was difficult for him. “I’ll get time off your sentence if you tell me what you’ve done with it.”
She tried not to laugh, but she couldn’t help it.
It burst out of her, full and uncontrollable, and she flopped over on the dirty mattress and howled for a good few minutes.
He glared at her, looking for all the world like he was experiencing a portion of the rage she was made of, but regardless of the threat in his eyes, she took her time composing herself.
“I’m serving ten consecutive life sentences, you idiot.”
One for each and every one of her “victims.”
“I’ll make it nine,” he offered generously.
“Even if I was a cat, that’d still leave me dying in a prison cell. Offer me something else.”
He just glared at her, unwilling to give her anything she could actually use or want. Just like she’d expected.
“That’s what I thought. So no, Rowan Whitehorn, I’m not accepting your little deal. You can think I robbed you all you want; hell, you can even know, in your famous gut, that I did it.” She tilted her head, a cruel smile filling her lips. “But it isn’t about what you believe, it’s about what you can prove. Isn’t that right?”
His eyes shuttered at the words, and just like that, they were sucked into the memory of all those years ago.
~Eight years ago~
~Rowan~
Rowan rolled over, edging away from the woman next to him carefully as to not wake her.
Her hair was spread out on his chest, her soft hand was on his stomach, and her leg was draped over his. By all accounts, she was all over him.
And it felt so fuckinggood.
He’d never met anyone like Aelin before. Anyone so full of life, so hilariously open.
It was like she was constantly on fire, flitting from one place to the next with endless energy and jabs about him being too old and slow.
“What are you going?” she murmured, nails digging in slightly to keep him where he was.
“To get some water. Go back to sleep.”
He leaned down and kissed her brow, and she sighed happily and rolled over. Like a total cliché, he watched her sleep for a moment, trying to get his feelings under control.
They’d been seeing each other for less than a year, but he couldn’t imagine his life without her. He was in love with her, and if the way she acted and smiled around him was any indication, she loved him, too.
He ran a thumb over her cheekbone, smiling when she tilted her face into his touch.
He was whipped, and he didn’t even care.
Rowan shook his head at himself, pulled on a pair of boxers, padded to the kitchen, and held a glass under the faucet.
Then frowned as it sputtered.
He figured he’d at least make himself useful, knowing damn well she would never agree to call the plumber when she could “figure out how to fix it herself on Youtube.”
So he knelt down in her kitchen and opened the cabinet door, trying to see what the problem with the pipe was.
Except he never got that far.
His eyes got stuck on the piece of paper sticking out under a false piece of wood covering the back panel.
Knowing it was wrong to pry but somehow unable to stop himself, he tugged the paper loose.
Then fell backwards to his ass, heart hammering and brain spinning as he read it over and over again.
The list of names wasn’t long, but all ten of the people on it were highly distinguished members of society.
And they were all dead.
He wouldn’t know that, since the death of the last person on the list wasn’t even public record yet, but he was the attorney working with the police to find the killer.
Why did she have this list?
And what did the numbers next to the names mean?
One way or another, he knew he had to find out. He also knew he couldn’t ask her. He was in too deep, too unbiased to know whether or not she was lying.
He didn’t trust himself with her, so he’d have to go the traditional route.
He took a picture of the paper quickly, tucking it back where he’d found it. He snuck back in the room to get dressed, leaving her a note he had to go to work.
He thought he was going to be sick as he left her apartment, a feeling suspiciously similar to dread coiling in his stomach.
There was only one way she could know that last name, only one explanation that made sense.
But he hadto know for sure. Had to know if he’d been an idiot this past year; an idiot who’d spent almost every night sleeping next to the killer he’d been searching for.
So he started investigating his girlfriend.
Six days later, he found the security deposit boxes and the murder weapons inside, still covered in dried blood that would be matched to the victims. All with Aelin’s prints on them.
Two days after that, the woman he’d thought was the love of his life was arrested on ten counts of murder.
Despite the tears she shed, despite the promises she made to him, despite the love she claimed to have for him, Rowan told the cops everything.
Even though he couldn’t imagine her killing anyone.
“It doesn’t matter what I believe, it matters what I can prove.”
That was the last thing he’d said to her, right as she was being dragged out of the court room and yelling at him to believe her.
The truth of the matter was that when it came down to it, he didn’t trust her enough. The facts were against her, everyone on the jury had been against her, and in the end, Rowan was too.
~Present~
~Aelin~
Rowan shook his head, almost like he needed to clear it from the memory they’d obviously both been immersed in, and she smiled.
She hoped what happened all those years ago still haunted him, hoped he went to sleep at night thinking about her and the betrayal he’d served to her on a silver platter.
The first year of her sentence, she was so lost in emotion–in the rage and confusion and deep, deep hurt–that she couldn’t bring herself to do anything.
He hadn’t even bothered to ask her first. That’s what had hurt the worst.
He’d seen that stupid, stupid list and had jumped to the first conclusion possible.
She knew it had looked bad, had looked like she was guilty, but she’d thought that if the worst happened, he’d at least ask her to explain before slapping the cuffs on her.
But he hadn’t. She’d gone to prison, and his career had exploded into stardom from the success of the case.
“See, Rowan, when you refused to accept any other explanation other than the easy one, you made a mistake. Because I didn’t kill those people.”
He rolled his eyes. “Aelin-”
“And I’m not only going to prove it,” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken, “I’m going to ruin your precious little life while I do it. Just like you did mine.”
She stood, put a hand on the steel table, and leaned over him.
“If you want it to stop, all you have to do is drop these bullshit murder charges and issue a public apology for locking me up in the first place.”
He stood too, so close his loafers brushed the toe of her dusty, prison issued sneakers.
“That’s never going to happen,” he promised, voice uncompromising and angry.
Aelin smiled, having predicted his reaction down to the facial expression.
His pride, she’d decided, would be the first thing to go.
She reached around him to slide the pawn on the chess board forward, leaned in even further, and whispered, “Let the game begin, then.”
Summary: “When Princess Aelin Ashryver Galathynius agrees to an arranged marriage to save her country from economic ruin, she was completely prepared to marry a stranger. However, she wasn’t prepared to learn that her future husband, who was supposed to be the perfect stranger, was actually her one-night stand from the evening before.”
warnings: drinking, drugs, sex. (not applicable to all chapters)
Rowan relied almost entirely on muscle memory to make his way through the halls. He felt like he had been torn from his body and then unceremoniously shoved back in. Everything just felt a little bit wrong.
He still couldn’t believe what he had done. He was sure it was because of what his cousins had said to him. If it hadn’t been for Enda and Sellene, he probably wouldn’t have said anything. And yet they had gotten right into his head.
He had told Aelin he was in love with her. And she had said nothing. Just stood there and gaped at him.
He should have just listened to his gut and kept his emotions to himself, even if it killed him. There was no way she returned his sentiments, not with the way she had reacted. He would never forget that look on her face, the size of her eyes, the parting of her lips. She had been a deer in headlights.
AN:To warn you in advance, I’m going to take next week off so that I can focus on the next chapter (which will be a lot of work to write) and When in Wendlyn. So the next update will be posted June 25th.
And you know how I feel about cliff-hangers …
______
It went against every instinct Aelin had to let Sam pick her up for their date.
Handing over power to men she didn’t quite trust wasn’t exactly one of her favourite things to do, but he’d claimed he had an evening of surprises for her, and hell, Aelin wanted to see what Sam would do if he felt he was in control.
When he showed up at her door with a bouquet of roses and a crooked tie, though, she realized that maybe she was letting her vigilante mentality get the best of her. There was nothing threatening about the way Sam was jittering with boyish nerves, nor the way he grinned at her when she pulled open the door. His arm shot out, pushing the roses into her hands as he stumbled through his, “Hello.”
Aelin couldn’t help but smile—though she did hold in a laugh. “Hey.” She took the roses and gave them a sniff. Not her favourite flower, but lovely nonetheless. “These are beautiful, Sam. Thank you.”
His smile was one of relief. “You’re welcome—and you look great.” He waved a hand at her dress like he was helpless in its presence. “That’s, um … you look amazing.”
At that Aelin allowed herself to chuckle. “Thank you.” She had to admit she looked damn good, though it wasn’t her best dress. That she was saving for … for someone else. Even though the only plan she had in regards to her mate was to figure out a way to shut Fenrys up permanently.
There were exactly eleven days left until the interfering idiot would tell Rowan her identity. And she’d laid awake every night, imagining possible avenues and outcomes to the beat of the ticking clock. Should she just bite the bullet? Come clean now and accept the consequences? Or would it be better for Fenrys to break the news—a third party that wasn’t as emotionally invested?
Deep down, Aelin knew that Rowan wouldn’t appreciate hearing it from anyone but her, and yet … she couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if she called Fenrys’s bluff. It was a stupid hope, but maybe, he wouldn’t spill her secret at all.
Not likely, though.
Aelin lifted up the flowers. “Come inside while I find these a vase.” She stepped aside and held the door open wide. He followed her into the foyer, and she asked, “How was work?” She’d been in the labs with Elide today.
“It was really productive,” he said, all mischief. “Not even one piece of mail got misdelivered.”
“Wow, dinner and a performance review?” Aelin threw a wink over her shoulder. “How did I get so lucky?”
“No—I—that’s not what—”
“Relax,” she laughed but softened her tone. “I’m just messing with you.” Gods, he was so nervous that she sort of wanted to raid her mom’s old medicine cabinet for a solution. But she led him into the house, not toward her parents’ ensuite, but through the first floor. Aelin didn’t know exactly where the vases would be, and she kept as little staff as possible, so they’d have to look around a bit. She aimed for the kitchens.
Sam’s inhale was sharp and instant.
The foyer was predictable in the way that all mansion entrances were. Two spiral staircases, a crystal chandelier with more shine than a disco ball. But the rest of the house was … different.
Amithy, Aelin’s house steward, had tried to have the mansion “readied” for her when she’d heard that a Galathynius would be coming home. Aelin had put a stop to that as quickly as she could, and the result had one foot in the land of the living and the other in limbo. Half of the furniture was covered in dust sheets. The rooms were dark and ghostly. Aelin didn’t want her parents’ mansion to feel like a home, nor did she want visual reminders of them.
But she understood that that decision made it a dreary place for guests to visit.
Her echoing footsteps were more awkward than Sam’s stuttering. He merely walked behind her in silence, perhaps reassessing the type of person he believed her to be. She almost jumped when he murmured, “What about this?”
Aelin turned to find him pointing at a blue vase sitting on a plinth and laughed. “That’s five hundred years old.”
“Oh.” In the darkness, she couldn’t decide if Sam had blanched or blushed.
“It’s from the Eastern Continent,” Aelin explained, running an irreverent finger over the lip of the vessel. There was nobody who could stop her from doing such things now. “Worth about $400,000. It was my mother’s. When I was ten, I almost knocked it over while playing tag with Aedion. I swear my mom nearly lost her mind. She loved this vase. I was on a plane to Wendlyn the very next day…”
Aelin pulled back her hand, the porcelain suddenly stinging the pads of her fingers. She’d forgotten about that memory.
“Aelin?”
“Hmm?” She shook her head, ridding it of the dizzying thoughts. She must have been silent for a lot longer than she’d realized. This is why she’d wanted everything covered in dust cloths.
Sam tapped a finger against his wrist. “We’ve got to get moving if we want to make our dinner reservation.”
Aelin sighed and resumed the walk to the kitchens. “Right.”
______
“He lives,” Lorcan drawled as Rowan took a seat at the table his friend had procured. The wood was sticky beneath his hands, the booth stiff and worn. Skull’s Bay was the seediest bar in Orynth that police officers could visit without getting shivved. It was the kind of place that they could probably shut down if they looked close enough.
But it had the cheapest drinks.
“I was back at work today. You saw me.”
“Yes,” the police chief rolled his eyes, “but you stopped coming for drinks with us months ago.”
“I’ve been busy.” Rowan flagged down a waitress and ordered a beer. It was all he’d allow himself after getting drunk as hell on Sunday night. One night to marinate in his self-pity before getting his shit together and keeping a clear head. He was going to be ready for whatever Celaena threw his way next.
“You make up with Lyria?”
“No,” Rowan sighed. “That’s over.”
Lorcan shrugged as if to say, Whatever. “She was too sweet for you.”
Rowan couldn’t decide which one of them he was insulting with that statement.
“You got someone new?”
“It’s …” Even if he weren’t already lying to Lorcan, Rowan wouldn’t know how to begin to explain the relationship he had with his mate.
“You know what,” Lorcan decided as their drinks arrived, “don’t answer that. I don’t actually care.”
Rowan snorted. He’d never been more grateful for Lorcan’s loose definition of friendship. But his relief was cut short as Fenrys walked through the doors, his expression darker than the shadows on the empty dance floor.
Their friend slumped into a seat beside Rowan, hand going straight to his untouched beer. Nobody stopped Fenrys as he drank the whole thing in one go. Nor did they flinch when he slammed the glass back down onto the table.
“I know you’re both thinking it, so why don’t you just say it?” Fenrys grumbled. He already sounded drunk. Smelled like it too.
Rowan exchanged a tense glance with Lorcan. He asked carefully, as instructed, “Connall couldn’t make it?”
The other Moonbeam twin had been released from hospital last week with only a small scar remaining where excision had taken place. Even Yrene Westfall hadn’t been able to heal it away, and in the end, it was darkly fitting because the visible scar was as real as the mental.
According to Fenrys, Connall was barely talking. Barely even moving from where he’d taken up by the TV. He’d only left the apartment once to visit Elide, and even then, from what Lorcan had recounted, Connall hadn’t bothered to look her in the eye.
“He didn’t want to come.”
Rowan’s heart sank. “Has there been any change?”
“No.” Fenrys crossed his arms on the table and settled his chin upon them. “As the experts keep saying, it’s permanent.”
Lorcan smartly ordered another round of drinks.
“Did Yrene give you any advice on how we can help him …” Rowan struggled for the right word, “… adjust?”
Fenrys nodded bleakly. “She said we should treat it like any other traumatic injury—you know, good support system, talking it out, the usual shit.” He laughed to himself. Not a happy sound. “Yrene recommended a therapist, but Connall flat out refused to consider it.”
“It’ll take time,” Lorcan offered. “It’s only been a few weeks.”
“I know. That’s what Yrene said too. But I feel … helpless. There are all these things I want to do to help him—things that will work—and he just won’t let me.”
“You can’t help someone until they’re ready, Fen,” Rowan said quietly. He knew that better than anybody. “They have to decide they want to get better.”
“Yeah.” Fenrys’s eyes softened, perhaps remembering the very same years that Rowan was. “I’ve been thinking,” he started and then stopped, looking them both over with hesitant eyes. “I’ve been thinking of taking him back to Doranelle.”
Lorcan loosed a long whistle. “That’s extreme.”
“Believe me, I’m aware,” Fenrys said to the beer that had just been placed before him. “But we still have family there, and the change of scenery might do him good.”
“That’s a bit more than just a change of scenery,” Lorcan laughed—and rightly so.
Powerful as it was, the Fae realm stood apart from the rest of the world. While other kingdoms became democracies, and cities of stone became cities of glass, Doranelle remained unchanged, frozen in time. It was the seat of the Fae monarchy and a relic of the Old Ways. Not necessarily because the country wasn’t interested in advancement, but because old-as-hell immortals took a while to catch up.
But ancient practices aside, it was glorious too. Rowan was born there, as were Lorcan and Fenrys. Many of the younger Fae had emigrated over the last few hundred years, wanting a taste of the modern world, though it wasn’t unusual to move back.
Doranelle was wild and unchecked in a way that other countries could never replicate. It called to the more primitive parts of him—the Fae heart that yearned for the woods and mountains, to live amongst nature rather than see it from a window. He’d even chosen Terrasen as his home because of how untamed it was for a developed country.
Rowan had been tempted to move back several times over the centuries—and figured he would eventually. But when that day came, he was pretty sure that nobody from the outside world would ever hear from him again. Doranelle was the type of place where people could easily disappear and he wasn’t quite ready for that.
“I swear to the gods, Fen, if I have to ride a rutting horse to visit you guys, I’m not going to trouble myself,” Lorcan threatened.
Rude as it was, it brought a small smile to Fenrys’s face. “Is that a promise?” he chuckled. “I don’t think I’d stay forever. Just long enough to get Connall settled.”
“You’d be okay with that?” Rowan asked. “With the separation?”
Fenrys just shrugged. “It’s complicated.”
Having become all too familiar with those words himself recently, Rowan didn’t press.
Lorcan didn’t either, sending a grim smile around the table. “Well, I don’t know about you guys, but Elide is working late tonight, and I am going to take this opportunity to get extremely drunk.”
Rowan made his judgement known. “It’s Tuesday.”
“And I have tomorrow off,” the chief said with an unconcerned nod. He raised his glass. “Might as well make the most of it.”
______
Sam brought her to a restaurant that she’d never heard of before, located on the trendy streets of Brannon Hill. It was the kind of place you couldn’t be under or overdressed for, with diners wearing everything from glittering dresses like hers to men in plaid shirts. Aelin had to admit she was intrigued.
The waiter brought them to a table near the back window, offering a clear view up to the mountains, even as thick snow fell. There would be one last winter chill in the coming weeks, and then Spring would take hold to melt it all away.
Sam pushed in her chair and then sat down himself. He smiled at her over the tea lights and ignored his menu.
“You’ve been here before?” Aelin assumed.
“Many times. It was one of my favourites when I was still with the Guild. Arobynn never would have paid for me to go to university, but coming here made me feel like I was part of it—even if just for a little while.” He looked around the restaurant fondly. “It allowed me to meet a lot of interesting people.”
Was it really going to be so easy? Would Sam really just start talking about Arobynn while she perused the menu? Though if he was lying to her still, she wasn’t sure how useful the information would be.
But Aelin, noticing the emphasis of his last sentence, asked, “What kind of interesting people?”
“Just the usual university stereotypes.” Sam smiled mildly. “You should try the taco salad.”
“Good enough for me,” Aelin agreed, shutting her menu. Her parents wouldn’t believe she was about to eat something that was both taco and salad, but she wasn’t about to waste valuable time trying to understand strange foods. “What would you have studied if you’d had the choice?”
Sam shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t know. After my mother died, I’m not sure I would have taken an academic opportunity even if it had been offered to me. I was dedicated to the Guild.”
“But you came to Brannon Hill anyway?” Aelin asked.
“I think I came here to see if I could find people like me. People who wanted to fight for change.”
And once again, some instinct pulled taut in her chest. “Change that the Guild couldn’t give you?”
A nod. “Arobynn is … Let’s just say he doesn’t get involved. He isn’t emotionally invested in anything, which means he doesn’t care about injustice or suffering. All the shit that’s going on right now? With the Reformists and Maeve? None of that bothers him as long as he comes out richer.”
Aelin sorted through the words quietly. When the waiter returned, Sam gave their orders, and just as she was debating how far she could prod before it got suspicious, her date asked, “What about you? Did you study anything?”
Her insides immediately tensed with an indignant clench.
Aelin had a creative writing degree that she’d completed online at an international school. Her parents hadn’t wanted her in the public eye of a university, but Emrys, her caretaker had helped her enroll discreetly during her time in Wendlyn. Her parents shoved so much money at them that they didn’t notice any of it going toward tuition.
She’d loved studying. It had been one of the better parts of her time across the sea. But when it came to her education, the official answer was, “No.”
Aelin swore she heard a patronizing, pitying edge to his voice when he said, “I suppose you had other things on your mind.”
Like drugs. He was referring to her supposed drug addiction.
“Yes.” Aelin forced a tight smile. “Rehab keeps you busy.”
If her aggravation was noticeable, Sam didn’t acknowledge it. He pushed past the painful awkwardness with ease. “Have you thought any more about what you’d like to do with Gala?”
She raised an inquisitive brow. “Do with Gala?”
“When you take over, I mean.”
Aelin had no intention of taking over Gala. Not now and not ever. She’d deliberately run it into the ground if anyone dared to give her the reins.
“You’ll have a very powerful, multi-million dollar company at your fingertips,” Sam continued. “There’s a lot you could do with that.”
“Sounds like you have some ideas.”
“Maybe a few.” His expression fell into one of solemn focus. “Gala could influence the governing council a lot if it bothered to try.”
“You think lobbyists will be able to interrupt Councillor Maeve’s agenda?”
A muscle twitched in his jaw at the sound of Maeve’s name. “No … but I think you could.”
Aelin didn’t hide her skepticism.
“You could be a symbol if you wanted to.”
She looked down at the bare tablecloth, wishing she could stuff her face with food to delay her answer. Sam had said these things to her before, and it gave her the exact same feeling of unease now as it had the last time.
“I’m sorry,” he said with a brightening laugh, “I’m talking politics when we’re supposed to be on a date.” He waved away the conversation with a limp hand. “Let’s talk about something lighter. Tell me about your childhood.”
Light indeed.
______
“Wait,” Fenrys slurred, resting his drunken head on Rowan’s sober shoulder. “Why aren’t you working tomorrow?” He pointed a finger in Lorcan’s face and spun it in whimsical circles.
Lorcan, who did not get sillier when drunk, only more succinct, replied, “Protests.”
“No—Lor—nobody is protesting your”—a hiccup—“absence.” Fenrys shook his head. Confused with himself and the conversation. “Butwhy will you be absent?”
“Protesters. Tomorrow,” Lorcan snipped. “At the station.”
Rowan’s eyebrows popped up. It was the first he’d heard of this. “People are protesting the police?” he confirmed.
Lorcan nodded. “Connall.”
With a roll of his eyes, Rowan groaned, “I realize that you get monosyllabic when you drink, but could you please try to string together a coherent explanation?”
The chief rolled his eyes back at Rowan with exaggerated childishness. “People are mad that Connall got fired. So they’re going to yell at us.” Not too drunk for derision, he added, “If you hadn’t taken so many sick days, you would know all this.”
“I’m not sick,” Fenrys whined unhelpfully.
Rowan ignored his stupid friend. “But why do you specifically need to stay home?”
“Because,” Lorcan guffawed, leaning back into his seat and spreading his arms in a flailing gesture of frustration, “they blame me.”
At that, Rowan shoved Fenrys off his shoulder. This conversation was too serious for cuddling. “But Maeve made the call. You had nothing to do with it.”
“Doesn’t matter. I’m the chief and they want me gone.”
“They’re demanding you step down?”
“Rowan. Why are you just repeating everything we say?” Lorcan scrubbed at his face, massaging it into a glare. “Yes, they want me to step down.”
“That’s insane.” Lorcan was the person fighting hardest against Maeve’s tyranny in the police force. It was ludicrous that people would blame him for Connall’s dismissal.
Sure, Rowan understood being frustrated with the system at large, perhaps wanting a clean slate, but removing Lorcan from his position wouldn’t accomplish that. In fact … if Lorcan did step down …
“You’re not going to, right?” he asked with a hint of panic now.
“Gods, no,” Lorcan snorted. “You know who Maeve would replace me with.”
Rowan did. All too well. If those protesters thought Lorcan was bad for Orynth, they had no idea what Cairn could do to their city.
Cairn had attached himself to Maeve after unfortunately surviving the Great War. Nobody knew exactly what he did for her and his responsibilities seemed to change over the decades, but Rowan was certain he at least managed her private security.
And that “security” included a lot of things Rowan would rather not imagine.
Thinking the same thing, Lorcan said, “I’m keeping this job until either I’m dead or he is.”
“Cheers to that,” Fenrys garbled through a sip of beer.
______
To Aelin’s delight, the taco salad made a lot of sense. It was weird and totally delicious. Which was good because the conversation with Sam was onlyweird.
She’d stumbled through an overview of her childhood, fielding excited questions about her “cool” parents.
Sam worshipped them for having built Gala. He believed it must have been positively inspiring to grow up under their influence. How he came to that conclusion while also believing she’d become a pre-teen drug addict under their watch, she wasn’t sure.
“We’ve talked so much about me,” she said when Sam finally took a breath. “What was your mom like?”
She wasn’t really sure if the question was polite, but Aelin figured he’d spent enough time poking his fingers into her dead-parent-wounds. Why couldn’t she do the same?
While she shovelled chocolate cake into her mouth, Sam smiled sadly. “She was gentle. But sassy too. I think that’s how she put up with my dad for so long—and then Arobynn after he left. She was so warm, but she never failed to put men like them in their place.”
Aelin cocked a brow. “Sounds like my kind of woman.”
“She was amazing,” he said, still smiling that melancholic smile. “We didn’t have a lot, but she was the best parent I could have asked for.”
Jealousy panged in her chest, but Aelin quashed it, knowing she’d finally found her segue back into useful conversation. “A tough act to follow, I’m guessing?” she prodded.
Sam caught her meaning, and his eyes fell darkly onto her cake. “A very tough act to follow.”
“What was he like?” Aelin said, taking the plunge. “When you were growing up?”
“I don’t think you want to know.”
There was a genuine shake to his voice, a truth to his eyes—and damn, if she wasn’t familiar with that feeling.
“It must be a relief,” Aelin said softly after a long silence, “that’s he’s not in your life anymore.” She took Sam’s hand, hoping physical touch would keep him talking. He interlaced their fingers.
“Arobynn is never really out of your life,” he admitted with a cynical sigh. “He’s always planning things. Pulling strings. Working on some bigger picture that nobody else can see but him.”
Like the Reformists’ master plan, perhaps?
“Should I be worried?” she asked, encouraging him on.
“About yourself?”
“About Gala,” she corrected—though she was honestly starting to wonder about herself too. “He’s my head of security. If you think he’s planning something nefarious for my company, I’d like to know so I can fire him now.”
A shake of the head. “No, I don’t think he’s got anything like that planned. Arobynn values that contract too much to mess it up. In the end, he’s always about the money.” Sam laughed to himself. “If he knew that his client was on a date with me right now, he’d probably get upset that I was putting an important business relationship at risk rather than just being happy for me.”
“Because if we broke up, I’d what? Fire him in retaliation?”
“Who knows.”
“Why would it matter to him? You guys don’t even talk anymore, right?” She wanted to see every flicker of Sam’s reaction.
But he just said, “Nope. I haven’t seen him in years.” He didn’t even blink.
And to stop herself from calling him out on the lie, Aelin had to take a very big bite of cake.
______
“What about that one?” Lorcan said with a clumsy jerk of his beer bottle. He was pointing at a group of females.
“No.”
“What about the waitress with all the colours?”
Rowan snorted. “You mean the rainbow hair?”
“Colourful,” his friend agreed happily.
“Still a no.”
Lorcan and Fenrys were officially drunk enough that they wouldn’t be able to crawl in a straight line if their lives depended on it. And for some reason, after declaring that he didn’t care about Rowna’s love life earlier, the police chief had taken up matchmaking.
“Why?” Lorcan whined. “Why don’t you like any of them?” He gestured to the whole room.
Fenrys snickered like he might say something, so Rowan punched him in the ribs.
“I’m not in the mood for a random hook-up,” he explained.
Lorcan looked personally offended by that. “But you’re so stressed. El says you’re too stressed. And she knows everything in the world.”
Rowan just pushed a glass of water into his friend’s hands. “Drink.”
“Always stressed,” Lorcan chided, but did accept the glass. “That’s why your hair is sad. And why you need the rainbow lady.”
Rowan frowned and lifted a hand to his head. “My hair isn’t sad—”
“Rooooooooooo,” Fenrys chimed in. “Ro. Ro. This is important.” He pointed at Lorcan. “He can’t—he can’t say it because he’s our boss and that would be HR, but I can tell you.” A loving hand fell over his heart. “You need to get laid.”
“Okay, Fen—”
“No, no. Ro. I wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t not true.”
Lorcan nodded solemnly.
“We are your friends of yours, so you have to listen.”
Rowan just sighed.
“It’s—Rowan—it’s true love,” Fenrys whispered. “Go and get her.”
“Fen,” he warned. If he mentioned Celaena, Rowan was going to order them shots until their brains melted.
“Rainbow is still here!” Lorcan agreed, completely unaware of Fenrys’s real meaning. “I just saw her! Go!”
Fenrys shook his head angrily. “No. Not Rainbow. True love—”
“Alright. I get it, you guys. My love life needs some work.” And was absolutely not up for discussion. “Now can you both please drink some water so I can stuff you into taxis and pretend this night never happened?”
Lorcan cut him a scathing glare. “You’re mean when you’re drunk.”
“I’msober—”
“Moonbeam, you had a date with the princess.” It was more of a declaration than a question, and to Rowan’s surprise, it seemed to sober Fenrys up.
“It was just … drinks.” He said it like he was admitting to a crime.
“Wait, you actually went on a date with Aelin Galathynius?” Rowan laughed, piecing it together. “That weird confrontational pickup strategy worked for you?”
Fenrys shrugged. Sank down into his seat actually. “It wasn’t a good date.”
“Were you mean to her?” Lorcan growled, leaning across the table with surprising feist.
“No, she just doesn’t like me.”
That soothed the police chief, who settled back into his chair. “Good.”
“Good?” Fenrys repeated.
“I don’t know Aelin well, but Elide likes her a lot,” Lorcan explained. “Which means she’s too good for you.”
Rowan laughed, even though he was extremely confused by this whole conversation. Lorcan was being defensive—and for Aelin Galathynius of all people. Lorcan didn’t like anyone. And Elide wasn’t exactly handing out stamps of approval either.
Fenrys’s eyes slid to the side, giving Rowan a weird look. “I think she’s interested in someone else.”
Rowan patted him on the back. “Tough luck, man.”
Fenrys just frowned, and they fell into a strange silence.
“Okay, I think I’ve had enough of you two, and some of us actually have to work tomorrow,” Rowan said eventually, getting to his feet. To his relief, his friends took the hint and stood as well. He smiled fondly at each of them. “Let’s get you guys home.”
______
“This was really fun, Aelin,” Sam said from the driver’s seat. He had finally taken her home, and they were parked outside her front door. Which was good because she was really looking forward to sleeping off the awkwardness of this date.
“Yeah, it was great.” Could he hear how unenthusiastic she sounded?
He gave her a conspirator’s smile. “I’m sad that it has to be over.”
Okay. “Look, Sam. It was nice having dinner with you, but I’m not comfortable inviting you in—“
“Oh gods! No!” he gasped. “I wasn’t trying to—no, Aelin.” Sam’s cheeks had turned to flame. “I was just thinking if you’re not too tired, there’s one more place we could check out. But we don’t—it’s up to you.” His throat audibly bobbed at the end of his ramble.
“Oh.” Aelin turned in her seat, regarding him with curiosity and a healthy dose of suspicion. “What sort of place?”
He perked up. “Place might not have been the right word. It’s more like a party with those people I met in Brannon Hill—like I told you.”
“The university stereotypes?”
“Yeah. I think you’d like them.” Sam looked her up and down. “I think you’d have a lot in common if you’re interested.”
It was those words that finally flipped a switch on the very thing she’d been considering for a while. In the back of her mind, she’d wondered. Of course, she’d wondered. Sam himself had been leaving clues for her to pick up for weeks.
“Okay … sure.” Her voice was light but her blood was pounding. She wondered if she’d just agreed to be abducted.
Sam grinned wide and restarted the car. “Aelin, do you remember what I said about how you could be a symbol? I think these people can show you how.”
______
It was well into the night by the time Aelin saw anything close to a party on the horizon. They’d driven South through the city and onto the plains—about twenty minutes away from Orynth.
And she’d been spiralling into her magic the whole time.
“Don’t be nervous,” Sam encouraged, reading the tension in her shoulders. “We’ll just slip in, and if you feel like talking to anyone we can, but there’s no pressure.”
“Right.” He’d given her a hoodie to wear. A hoodie. “How well do you know these people again?”
“Some of them I know very well, and many of them are … new acquaintances, I guess you could say.”
“Okay.” Oh, gods. Why had she agreed to this?
She wanted to text Rowan, but there was no way she’d be able to do it without Sam noticing. Why hadn’t she called him to begin with? He could have shadowed the entire date in his hawk form, ready to jump in if anything happened to her.
Now she was probably about to be vanished into a basement, and her mate wouldn’t even know where to start looking for her. The thought made her flames so hot that she was sweating through her hoodie and her wool winter coat.
It didn’t matter that she was a sun goddess given form. It didn’t matter that she was confident she could dispatch Sam without a second thought. Something instinctive was rearing its head. Female intuition that a male was leading her into something bad. All the training in the world couldn’t still the trembling in her hands.
And yet, she couldn’t turn back now.
A cluster of industrial buildings came into view, and then the car was rolling to a stop on a snowy curb.
“Sorry, we’ll have to walk a bit.” Sam winced. “We’re late, so all the good parking spots are taken—”
“It’s fine.” Her eyes strained to map out her surroundings. Escape routes, avenues for attack.
A too-warm hand closed around her own—wrong, wrong, wrong—and she found Sam peering into her face with a glimmer in his eyes that threatened to slice the skin off her bones. “I think you’re really going to like this, Aelin.”
They shuffled out of the car, and then her hand was in Sam’s again as he towed her toward a large warehouse—the only building around with lights in the windows.
“It’s a pretty big event tonight,” he explained. The door got closer and closer. “Something everybody’s been working on for a long time. I’m really glad you’ll get to see it. Oh—remember, hood up.”
She did as instructed with a mute nod, forcing her breaths to be steady. Cheering filled her ears, and the creak of metal scratched at her nerves as Sam finally pulled open the door.
Aelin was stumbling into the crowd before she could make sense of what was happening. There were so many males, so many angry voices. Everyone was hooded like she was—even the man at the front of the room yelling into a microphone on a stage.
It wasn’t a party.
It was a rally.
Aelin pulled her hoodie closer, trying to hide in the shadows of Sam’s body. If anybody recognized her, she’d be fucked, magic or not.
Her date gripped her elbow, leading her away from the door—the only exit she could see—but kept them toward the back of the room.
He whispered into her ear, a snake slithering down her spine, “Just wait. They’re about to get to the best part.”
Effectively captive, Aelin turned her attention to the speaker.
“—it has gone on too long!” the man shouted, rage woven into every heinous word. “We have suffered under their thumb for decades, and I am here, standing in front of each of you today to say, enough!
Enough! the crowd repeated.
“No more unjust rule! No more corruption! No more executions in place of due process!The day of reckoning has arrived!” The man prowled across the stage, working the crowd up into a frenzy. “And how shall we punish those that have kept us down?”
Kill them! the audience screamed.
“Holy shit, Sam,” Aelin gasped.
He pulled her closer. “Just wait.”
“In thirty minutes, all of our planning comes to fruition. In thirty minutes, the people who have ruined our city—our beautiful country will finally get what’s coming to them.”
Aelin couldn’t breathe.
“Eleven targets! Eleven teams loaded with Gala tech! That is all it will take to wipe out the worst of the corrupt magic users in Orynth. Tonight, we take away their power. Tonight, we take our city back! Are you with me?”
The crowd of Reformists exploded, and Aelin was nearly knocked back by the force of it. People jostled her back and forth. The speaker howled through a sadistic smile, “They all die tonight!”
The gleeful scream that Sam loosed nearly made her throw up her chocolate cake. But even that was nothing compared to how she felt when they started chanting the names of the targets.
Aelin wasn’t in a particularly good mood that Friday morning when Sam ushered her into the elevator with the mail cart. Nor did it improve throughout the day when the best piece of gossip she heard was that Clarisse from marketing thought her boyfriend was cheating on her. And Aelin was positively fuming by the time she was finally allowed to leave. Working with mail had proved absolutely useless, and the worst part was that her suffering for the day had only just begun.
She’d been working amongst Gala’s employees long enough to know that the job wasn’t bringing her any closer to the Reformists. Even as people got used to her presence, started to disregard her and open up again, it was only ever to share tidbits about their personal lives. It seemed ridiculous now, looking back and thinking an employee might just announce themselves as a terrorist by the water cooler. To think she’d receive an envelope labelled Reformist Manifesto, DO NOT OPEN. Whoever had assisted the terrorists with their heist was too careful—or not here at all. And whoever her parents had trusted with knowledge of the mystery weapon wasn’t exactly waving a flag around either.
The only person Aelin had a specific interest in was Arobynn Hamel, her leader of security, but despite having been back in Orynth for three months now, the two of them hadn’t crossed paths. She was still holding out hope that he would make an appearance in Elide’s labs, perhaps to check in on his men or walk around arrogantly in a suit, but so far, nothing. She had a feeling that if she wanted to observe the Guild of Steel’s leader, she’d have to go to him.
But not tonight. She was busy tonight.
“You look really nice, Aelin,” Sam said quietly as she packed up her stuff.
She looked down at the sparkly red dress Lysandra had insisted upon, having just changed into it in the bathroom a moment ago. “Thanks,” she said to her colleague as she threw her bag over her shoulder. Hard metal jabbed into her side—stolen shield prototypes. Aelin had swiped a few more yesterday, satisfied that Elide still hadn’t noticed. The engineer would have raked her over the coals if she had.
“Big night?”
Aelin tried to sound pleased. “I have a date.”
That’s what Fenrys insisted they call it, but really it was a business meeting. The kind where a list of demands was whispered into the romantic glow of tea lights. According to him, having this conversation in public would be safer. For him.
He was probably right.
“Oh.”
Aelin glanced up at Sam, adjusting her bag on her shoulder. His cheeks were stained a gentle shade of pink.
“I didn’t realize you were seeing anybody,” he said.
“I’m …” Being black-mailed. In love with the guy’s best friend. An emotional bomb about to go off—and yes, I’m taking everyone with me. “Keeping things casual.”
Sam’s face hardened. He didn’t like that answer. “Is it someone I’ve met?”
“I doubt it.” Aelin decided to ignore the possessive edge to his voice. “His name is Fenrys Moonbeam.”
“The cop?” Sam asked, surprise washing away whatever the heck he thought he was doing. “Connall Moonbeam’s brother?”
She raised an eyebrow. “That’s the one. How do you know them?”
“I don’t. But I read an article that Connall was “retired” from the force because he doesn’t have magic anymore.” Sam shook his head angrily. “It’s unbelievable how blatant they were about it. The second you lose your magic, you’re worthless to them, no matter how many years of loyalty you give. It’s such bullshit.”
“Hey, I’m the last person you have to convince that Councillor Maeve is an evil demon.” Aelin looked down at her phone. “I’m sorry, Sam, but I really need to go.”
“It’s not just Maeve,” he mumbled.
“I know,” she agreed, thoughts already on other things. Fenrys had warned her not to be late. “I’ll see you on Monday, okay?”
Aelin barely caught his somber whisper of, “Have fun.” And Sam likely didn’t hear her reply, “I won’t.”
______
Rowan took a step back from his whiteboard, not sure whether to be proud or disturbed by its progress. What had once barely hosted a few photos of supermodels (courtesy of Fenrys) and a single front-page newspaper clipping was now sprawling with evidence and inference.
He’d nearly retired the evidence board while working with Celaena, had forgotten it in hopes that she would find the courage to share her identity by now. But after last week, after they’d kissed and left things as complicated as they’d found them, Rowan knew what he had to do.
She expected him to wait.
She should have known better.
He was tired. He was done being patient. At a dead end with the Reformists for now, Rowan had called in sick and spent the entirety of the last two days sorting through everything he’d learned. Celaena had let a great deal of information slip over the last few weeks, and he had hopes that if he put the pieces in the right places, he might finally get a lead. Because when he actually stepped back and stopped missing the forest for the trees, he knew a lot.
Rowan knew she had a day job because she’d admitted to thinking of him while she was at work. He knew she had water magic because she’d used it to save Fenrys’s life. He knew that she somehow had access to Gala’s technology, whether sourced through theft, the Reformists, or employment there—something to ask Elide about. Rowan even knew how she tasted, though that wasn’t as useful for narrowing things down.
Details upon details were there. He just needed to listen to them. And when he did, when he figured out what the evidence was trying to tell him then he’d …
Rowan didn’t know.
Maybe he’d confront her. Or maybe he’d feign ignorance until she trusted him enough to come clean. He supposed he’d decide once he knew who she was and after he had an idea of how complicated her identity would make things. No matter what, it wouldn’t change how he felt or what he wanted from her.
And he wouldn’t sleep or stop or rest until he found what he was looking for.
Another hour disappeared. His laptop was starting to blur, or maybe that headache was finally putting its foot down. Rowan scrolled and researched and puzzled until the moon was high. Photos and sticky notes joined the board, sketches and podcast quotes and newspaper clippings. He was a male possessed. Time ticked into oblivion. He almost didn’t bother answering when the pizza guy knocked on the door.
But even just pausing to consider it gave his stomach enough time to loudly rumble its protest, and so Rowan dragged himself to the front door, his muscles screaming as he finally moved from his perch.
“Lyria,” he squeaked, finding his ex-girlfriend instead of the pizza guy.
She was holding a cardboard box—not shaped like a pizza, and she frowned as she looked him over. “What the hell are you wearing?”
Rowan glanced down, confused by the question. “A t-shirt? Sweatpants?”
“Okay, let me rephrase.” Her voice teased, but her face was all concern. “When did you get dunked in a deep fryer?”
“Funny.” He cut her a sardonic smile. Though he probably should take a shower. “What are you doing here?”
Lyria shouldered past him, kicking off her shoes and walking into the apartment before he could object. “I found some of your stuff at my place. Thought you might want it back.”
“Oh. Um, thanks.”
She took the box into the living room, Rowan nervously following on her heels. The whiteboard was out in the open but not visible when you first walked in. There was no way he could move it without her noticing. Even his magic would make the board creak and whine. So his only chance was to make sure she didn’t look in that direction at all …
“It smells different.”
Rowan stood as far from the whiteboard as he could, keeping her focused on him. “Huh?”
Lyria looked around, wandering into the living space near the couch. “Your apartment. It smells different.” She stroked a hand over the throw blanket he’d wrapped around Celaena’s shoulders, idly trying to figure out the source of the change. “It smells like a campfire,” she decided.
Rowan gulped.
Embers. The smell was embers.
“Fenrys brought a scented candle over the other day.” It was the stupidest lie he’d ever told. “You know what he’s like.”
“Hmm.” Lyria put the box down on the coffee table and turned around. “I went by your work on my lunch break. To bring the stuff.” A nod at the box. “They told me you were ill. You don’t look ill. I mean, aside from the outfit—woah.”
And Rowan knew then that he’d been caught.
“Woah,” Lyria repeated as he ran to the whiteboard, trying to shield it with his body. But she got there first, holding up a hand and staring at it with eyes wide as saucers. “Oh my gods.”
“It’s for the Flame Girl case,” he tried to explain.
“Rowan …” She looked back at him with renewed concern, assessing the state of his clothes and probably his hair, which he kept running his fingers through. “This is … Does Lorcan know you’ve been doing this?”
“Lorcan,” he said carefully, “assigned me to this case.” At that, Rowan finally spun the whiteboard around, hiding it from Lyria’s prying gaze, and rushed away. Fleeing the scene of the crime.
She followed him into the kitchen and pointed back at the board. “You know that’s not what I mean.” Her stare landed on the pile of newspapers on the kitchen counter, his laptop glowing with blurry police photos of Celaena’s car. “This is so beyond anything you did with your other cases.”
Rowan shrugged, dismissing the thought. “I’ve never had to solve a case this complicated before.”
“Yes, but—” Lyria shook her head, words failing her. “Is this necessary?” She gestured to his clothes, his face, likely the dark circles beneath his eyes. “Is running yourself ragged necessary?”
“I’m fine,” Rowan said, failing to keep the flash of anger from his tone. “This is what detective work looks like, Lyria.”
“It is not. This is—Ro, this is unhinged—”
“It’s my job. I don’t know what you want me to say. This is the most important case of my career.” Of his life.
Her face hardened. “So this is what? Your way of getting a promotion? Seriously?”
“Just leave it alone,” he warned.
“No, not until you tell me what’s going on! Gods, you wrote the words Galaclone on that board like eight times, and you’re expecting me to believe that this is normal? You’re expecting me to see all of this”—she waved her hands at him—“and not worry about you?”
Rowan crossed his arms, forcing unwavering resolve to his face. “Look, I know that you don’t understand what you saw—”
“Then explain it to me! Are you in some kind of trouble? Please, just tell me what’s going on. Maybe I can help—”
“I told you,” Rowan said, sharp and firm. Level and cruel. “I’m working on theories about her identity. This is part of the investigation.”
“This is obsession,” she said quietly.
Of course, it was. It was his mate. He was looking for the female that had strung him along for months, that had his heart in her hand and was squeezing it to the point of agony. Rowan needed to find her. If that made him unhinged in Lyria’s eyes, then he didn’t give a shit. It was nobody else’s business. This only concerned him and Celaena.
“Let it go.”
“I can’t.”
“Lyria.” Rowan couldn’t take one more word of this.
“I’m worried about you—”
“That’s not your job anymore!” he shouted. “We broke up, remember?”
Her expression fractured as those words echoed between them, battering at old wounds and new. When her eyes started to shimmer, he felt like an even bigger asshole than he’d thought possible.
“You’re such a dick, Rowan,” she whispered before hurrying back to the front door.
“Shit, Lyria, I’m sorry.” He followed after her, coming to stand at her side as she struggled with her shoelaces. “I didn’t mean to—look, I appreciate your concern, but I have everything under control.”
She didn’t answer, just stood and opened the door.
“Please look at me. I’m sorry that I yelled at you—”
“It doesn’t matter.” Finally, Lyria met his stare with eyes harbouring more hurt than could be accounted for by this fight. “We broke up, remember?”
He was sort of glad that she slammed the door in his face.
______
Aelin made sure that Hellas Lounge shuddered with every high-heeled step she took.
Nobody stopped her as she bypassed the hostess, knowing exactly where to go and that she had the authority to move as she pleased. She strutted past the tables, turning heads, forcing staff to jump out of her way. Tonight she was power, unyielding and unbreakable.
Elegant velvet curtains parted, allowing her entry into the more exclusive section of the restaurant. It was partly why she’d chosen this location. Because even though she’d been photographed walking into the establishment, nobody would dare raise a camera at her inside. The other reason she’d chosen it? Because Fenrys didn’t have the social status to get in by himself. And she wanted him to know it.
She ascended the staircase to the upper floor where private booths lined the wall, each fenced in with sheer drapery that obscured its occupants. She counted them all the way down to the end, to the one she had booked. Fenrys had already been escorted there as per her instructions—a staggered entrance made even more effective by the fact that the staff were being paid to keep his presence a secret. Aelin got to walk through the front door, but he’d been smuggled in through the back. Fenrys may have believed meeting in public was safer, but he had no idea how much influence she could exert over their world.
Aelin didn’t consider it a burden to remind him.
His shadowed body shifted as he felt her approach, and with a push of the curtains, Aelin slipped into the booth.
“Already drunk?” she smirked, noting the half-empty bottle on Fenrys’s side of the table. “How professional of you, Detective.”
Fenrys returned the threatening smile and spun the bottle around with a large hand. “It’s just the human stuff,” he informed her, pointing at the label. Too weak for Fae. “I wanted to make sure I was myself tonight.” He cocked his head. “Can you say the same thing?”
“I can set that fancy suit of yours on fire if you need proof of who I am,” Aelin offered. But she let her eyes fill with flames, rose the candle on their table to a towering height.
A chuckle. “I believe you.” Then he added, “So hostile.”
Aelin spread out her limbs, hooking an arm over the back of the seat. She wouldn’t be small for a male tonight. “I’m not exactly partial to people who threaten me.”
“Threaten?” He lifted a mocking hand to his heart. “I’m hurt that you took it that way. I see myself as more of a counsellor in this situation.”
Bullshit. “A counsellor that wants something from me.”
Fenrys waved off the comment and poured her a drink. “Will this get you drunk?” He gave the bottle a little shake. “Or are you Fae too? I’m not totally clear on how it works yet.”
It was worded plainly, delivered so casually that someone might have missed the question for what it was.
Fenrys’s first demand.
He grinned wide and wicked as her nostrils flared. With a smooth motion, his phone was retrieved from his jacket pocket and laid on the table like a gun. “Shall we ask Rowan what he thinks?”
“I’m demi-Fae,” she confessed with tight, controlled anger. “I have a human form and a Fae form.”
Genuine intrigue lit up his dark eyes. “That’s unusual.”
“We are not here to discuss your opinions of the facts.”
“Right,” he laughed. “Of course. Forgive me.” Fenrys took a long sip, studying her with a look that burned. “And your scent?”
“To spare you the science, which you surely wouldn’t understand, I have a … perfume of sorts. It makes me smell human.”
“And it makes your shifter smell like you too.”
Fuck. He knew everything.
Her silence had him tapping his phone’s screen and pulling up his contacts. A finger hovered over Rowan’s number.
“Yes,” she said through her teeth. “It can change anyone’s scent. If you were to put it on right now, you’d smell exactly like me.”
Fenrys gave her a triumphant grin. “Who did Rowan interview at the police station the other day?”
“I’m sure you know the answer.”
“The shifter then,” he mused. “Because if it was you, Rowan would sense the bond?”
Aelin nodded. “There is nothing I could change about my appearance that would stop him from knowing I’m his mate. Switching Aelin Galathynius out entirely was the only way to keep the secret.”
His brow creased. Perhaps from the way she’d spoken about herself in the third person. “And why does it need to stay secret?”
“Why does the cop tasked with hunting me down need to stay in the dark about my identity?” she condescended. “Surely, you’re not so stupid as to need an answer to that, Moonbeam.”
“Rowan isn’t going to arrest you.” He looked honestly surprised.
“Perhaps I’ll believe that when he’s no longer being paid to look for me.”
“And here I thought you two were getting closer,” Fenrys said, throwing back the remainder of his drink and pouring another.
Aelin arched a brow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You kissed him didn’t you?”
So they had caught up. “He kissed me—is petty gossip really what you’re trying to get out of this?”
A shrug. “I’m just finding it difficult to understand why you won’t tell him who you are when you’re also trying to climb into his bed. Seems like opposing goals to me.”
“You are ascribing far more manipulative intention to my actions than is actually there.” Aelin swirled her glass. She wouldn’t drink a sip of it. “Rowan is my mate, and he is also my enemy. Anyone would find that a tricky dynamic to navigate.”
“Yourenemy?” Fenrys repeated, mouth hanging open with disbelief. “He would die for you.”
Her chest squeezed. “Is that something he told you, or is that something you’re just pulling out of your ass?”
“Perhaps I’m embellishing an observation,” he admitted with a mild smile, “but he certainly isn’t your enemy.”
Not yet, Aelin thought to herself. Whether that would still be true after he learned her name, though …
“You’re rather well-spoken for a woman who has apparently been struggling with addiction since she was thirteen years old.”
“You act like people who drink can’t be well-read.”
Fenrys rolled his eyes, unimpressed by the deflection. “You act like that was my real question.”
Translation: Why were you in Wendlyn? Why does the world not know you’re demi-Fae? Why have you been hiding?
She suddenly had the urge to reach for the entire bottle of whatever the hell Fenrys was drinking. “You might be enjoying the counsellor title you’ve appointed yourself with,” she said sternly, “but I don’t have any interest in getting into my background with you. It doesn’t change the here and now.”
“Fine.” He pressed his lips into a tight line. “Shall we discuss why we’re really here then?”
Aelin’s neck stiffened with dread. But she wouldn’t let him know he was rattling her. She just reached into her purse and pulled out her chequebook. “How much do you want?”
Fenrys’s eyebrows lifted. “You think I want money?”
“Everybody wants money,” she informed him, clicking her pen. “It’s merely a matter of finding the number that will break you.”
Fenrys was gaping at her. “Aelin, that’s not what I’m here for.”
The name slid over her skin, leaving goosebumps in its wake. Too much. He knew too much.
“I was thinking twenty million,” she continued, writing his name onto the cheque. She would leave the number blank until they settled on an answer. “I would offer you more, but having saved your life, I think I’m owed a discount.”
“You can’t buy my silence.”
“I can buy anything.”
He laughed openly at that. Then he snatched the pen from her fingers and ripped the cheque in half. “I do not want your money.”
Frustrated, Aelin slammed the cover of her chequebook closed. “Are you serious?”
“Areyou?” he laughed. “Do you think Rowan won’t kill me if he finds out I protected your identity for money? We’ve been friends for over a hundred years.”
But Aelin only heard the first part of his objection. The crux of it all. “Then exactly what are you protecting my identity for, Detective Moonbeam?”
Her mate’s best friend settled back into his seat like they’d finally reached the moment he’d been waiting for. He said with renewed calm, “I’m not.”
The bench, the floor, the restaurant—everything—fell away from beneath her, hurtling Aelin into a deadly calm. “You told him?”
Fenrys shook his head. “Not yet.”
“But you’re going to.”
“Yes.” He leaned in, matching the vengeance in her eyes with a dominance of his own. “Unless you do it first.”
Aelin felt the wood of the table start to burn away beneath her fingers.
“You have two weeks to tell Rowan who you are, or I will put an end to this sham myself.”
The ultimatum bounced around in her head, echoing off the walls and flooring her again and again.
Two weeks.
Her voice was nearly a growl. “I saved your life. Connall’s too.”
“And I am grateful for that.” Fenrys’s eyes were sincere. “But in doing so, you bought yourself time, not loyalty.”
“Fifty million,” she blurted, desperation reducing her negotiation tactics to nothing. Money always worked. Money always worked. “You’ll never have to work another day in your life. The interest alone will make you a billionaire before your 500th birthday—”
“No.”
“One hundred—“
“Aelin. No.” He gave her a pitying look. “You’ll thank me one day.”
She doubted that very much. “You know what Rowan thinks of me,” she spat. “You are going to ruin everything.”
“Is that what you’re worried about? That he isn’t going to like you anymore?” Fenrys chuckled and tipped his head back. Like he needed a break from looking at her. “Rowan has lots of negative opinions on public figures—and people in general,” he said. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
“The way he feels about me means everything.”
He just sighed. Then Fenrys tilted his gaze back down to her, uncompromising and final. “Two weeks, Miss Galathynius.”
It was the lid of a coffin slamming closed.
He made to leave. She stopped him with an invisible wall of flame.
“I could kill you,” Aelin whispered, wrapping that heat around him. Promise and intimidation.
“You could.”
There was no fear in his tone, nothing but patience in his gaze. Like he wasn’t waiting for her to do it, just to admit to herself that she wouldn’t.
Aelin had never killed anyone before. She wasn’t about to start now.
“Whatever you decide,” Fenrys said, standing as her magic faltered, “there’s no need to contact me again. I’m sure Rowan will pass on the news if you make the right decision.”
He lifted a hand to the curtain, and Aelin almost gave in to the urge to kick him out of the booth like a child, but she froze when she heard footsteps approaching. A familiar voice too.
She grabbed a fistful of Fenrys’s suit and pulled him back into his seat. Then she peeked through the curtains just in time to see Arobynn Hamel reaching the top of the stairs followed by—
Sam.
“What the hell?” she whispered.
She knew, of course, that Arobynn had acted as an adoptive parent to Sam after his mother had died. But Sam had told her they’d lost touch. He said they didn’t talk anymore.
So what the fuck were they doing sneaking through the shadows at Hellas Lounge together?
Fenrys stood again, trying to look. “Who is it?”
“Sit down. They’ll see you.”
He did as he was told, flipping from black-mailer to ally in the blink of an eye.
“Aelin,” he said, matching her volume this time, “what are we looking at?”
She strained her ears, even took the risk of shifting into her Fae form to overhear them. But only a fading murmur remained as the two men went to the opposite end of the floor.
“I … I don’t know,” she admitted. “Maybe nothing. But maybe …”
“Maybesomething?”
She nodded. “I can’t hear what they’re saying.”
Fenrys peaked through the curtains for a second before coming back into the darkness. “Which booth did they go to?”
“The last one.”
“Then let’s go.”
“What—“ But Aelin didn’t get a chance to finish the thought before Fenrys grabbed her hand and the world around them disappeared. Her body was pinched and squeezed through darkness, stretching through a place unlike anything she’d ever seen, and then they were back in an identical booth. Almost exactly the same except the glasses on the table were missing, and now she was nauseous.
Fenrys raised a finger to his lips, not that Aelin needed the helpful hint. They were now one booth away from their target.
“I thought we’d moved past the days where you tried to dictate my actions,” Sam was saying with quiet bitterness.
A warm laugh answered, as liquid as the alcohol being poured into a glass. “I’m always watching out for you, boy.”
“We have very different opinions on what that entails.”
“Of course,” Arobynn replied, “mine comes from experience, yours is the delusion of a lovesick fool.”
“I’m not lovesick.”
“Oh really? Is that why you’ve been spending so much time with Miss Galathynius?”
“I understand your fixation with her,” Arobynn sympathized. “She’s been stunning since she came of age, but she is not for you.”
Aelin’s nausea multiplied exponentially.
“I don’t value her for her beauty,” Sam argued, sounding equally repulsed. “She is intelligent and funny. And stronger than people give her credit for.”
“She is Rhoe and Evalin’s daughter.”
“That’s part of what makes her perfect.” A glass slammed down onto the table. “She understands. Not just what I’ve been through, but that the world needs change. She is fiery and down to earth—and fuck. Yes, she’s beautiful too. Who wouldn’t be interested in that?”
“You misunderstand me again, Sam. I am not faulting you for your interest, I am telling you that she’s off-limits.”
Sam said nothing, and Arobynn’s pleasantries ended.
“Sam,” he snapped like an adder. “Do you understand what I am saying to you? Stay away from Miss Galathynius, or you will answer to me. I’m sure you remember how the Guild handles defiance.”
It was a very long time before Sam mumbled, “Yes, sir.”
“Good.” The smile in Arobynn’s voice had returned. “I’ll see you soon.” There were no more words spoken between the two men.
______
Monday came too quickly on a normal week, but now that every day was a countdown, Aelin hated her weekly schedule even more.
She and Fenrys had parted on strange and silent terms, neither of them knowing what to make of the conversation they’d overheard. Despite their brief truce, they hadn’t discussed it. They’d just fled as quickly as they could without being noticed.
But Aelin had mulled it over all weekend.
She’d suspected Sam’s interest on more than one occasion, but for it to be serious enough that Arobynn was monitoring it, and for Arobynn to have an opinion on who she dated at all was … strange. No less strange, though, than the fact that Sam had lied about his relationship with his adoptive father.
And though she was worried about what that meant, she couldn’t help but see Sam in a new light. No longer her passionately human coworker in the mailroom, but as an in with Arobynn Hamel. It was just a matter of whether she wanted to use it or not.
But it seemed that Sam had made the decision for her. He ignored her all day, keeping conversation to short instructions, and eliminating eye contact entirely. She could feel him simmering every time they passed each other by, but still, he remained silent, all the way from the morning through to the moment she packed up her bag.
Aelin wasn’t going to even bother saying goodbye after the day they’d had until she heard her name just as she reached the office door.
Sam was standing at his desk, finally looking at her, desperation finally breaking through his cold features. “Aelin, wait.”
“Oh, now you’re speaking with me?” she said darkly. Maybe she was angrier with him than she’d thought. “You know you had all day to acknowledge my existence—“
“Don’t go out with Fenrys Moonbeam.”
That … was not what she expected him to say.
“Excuse me?”
“Don’t go out with him,” Sam repeated, voice slipping into a plea. He walked around his desk, approaching her like she might spook and run.
She crossed her arms tightly. “Why not?”
“He’s not right for you.”
Tell me about it. But Aelin laughed. “Oh, and you’re the one in charge of these decisions, are you?” She shook her head. “Why is every male I know a prehistoric meathead—”
“Go out with me.”
“What?” She knew her eyes had widened to cartoon proportions, but she couldn’t help it. “What did you say?”
“Go on a date with me,” he said again, softer this time. “I know I don’t have money or power … but I see you. I see everything you are, and I’m never going to stop seeing it. I know you said you’re keeping things casual with Fenrys, but he’ll always be immortal—different from us. They always leave people like us behind in the end. You’ll never be more than a fleeting interest to him … and you deserve more than that, Aelin.”
Unease settled in the back of her throat. He had no idea how wrong he was about her. “And what is it you think I deserve, Sam?”
“You deserve someone who can grow old with you.” He took her hand, squeezing gently. “You deserve someone who wants you so much, he’ll stop at nothing to be with you.”
I have that, she thought. I have both of those things with Rowan.
“Just one date, Aelin,” Sam begged. “Give me a chance to show you what it could be like.”
There was no question of what she wanted. She wanted Rowan. Always and forever. No exceptions.
But this was a way to Arobynn Hamel—and she hadn’t even had to summon the man or pull strings with Aedion to get there. She’d never get a more natural or inconspicuous chance than this.
So though nothing about Sam appealed to her, not his speech or his promises or his offer, Aelin said, “Okay.”
Hi hello, I finally came back with a part 2 to this. I had a bit of it written for I don’t know how long, but sudden inspiration hit and I finished. The new inspiration decided to make it spicy so there is NSFW content ahead.
Rowan watched as Aelin slipped gracefully into the chair beside him. He could tell there were questions she wanted to ask, he could see it in the way she clenched her jaw, the tightness in her shoulders. But with both their parents here she couldn’t. He knew what she wanted to know.
No, he didn’t know about this.
No, he had no idea her parents would be in the godsdamned restaurant when he walked in.
Yes, he was just as mortified as he was.
But the only thing he wanted to ask her was if she was free after this, and given the current company that was definitely not where his mind should be. The waiter offering him wine was distraction enough to break his line of thought. He nodded, probably too eagerly, he was going to need it tonight. Especially with Aelin looking the way she did.
