Queen of Shadows
Page 61

Not a monster—not for what she’d done, not for her power, not when Rowan was there. She’d thank the gods every damn day for the small mercy of giving her a friend who was her match, her equal, and who would never look at her with horror in his eyes. No matter what happened, she’d always be grateful for that.
But … Improper.
Improper indeed.
He didn’t know how improper she could be.
She opened the top drawer of the oak dresser. And slowly smiled.
Rowan was in bed by the time she strutted toward the bathroom. She heard, rather than saw, him jolt upright, the mattress groaning as he barked, “What in hell is that?”
She kept going toward the bathroom, refusing to apologize or look down at the pink, delicate, very short lace nightgown. When she emerged, face washed and clean, Rowan was sitting up, arms crossed over his bare chest. “You forgot the bottom part.”
She merely blew out the candles in the room one by one. His eyes tracked her the entire time. “There is no bottom part,” she said, flinging back the covers on her side. “It’s starting to get so hot, and I hate sweating when I sleep. Plus, you’re practically a furnace. So it’s either this or I sleep naked. You can sleep in the bathtub if you have a problem with it.”
His growl rattled the room. “You’ve made your point.”
“Hmm.” She slid into bed beside him, a healthy, proper distance away.
For a few heartbeats, there was only the sound of rustling blankets as she nestled down.
“I need to fill in the ink a bit more in a few places,” he said flatly.
She could barely see his face in the dark. “What?”
“Your tattoo,” he said, staring at the ceiling. “There are a few spots I need to fill in at some point.”
Of course. He wasn’t like other men—not even close. There was so little she could do to jar him, taunt him. A naked body was a naked body. Especially hers.
“Fine,” she said, turning so that her back was to him.
They were silent again. Then Rowan said, “I’ve never seen—clothing like that.”
She rolled over. “You mean to tell me the females in Doranelle don’t have scandalous nightclothes? Or anywhere else in the world?”
His eyes gleamed like an animal’s in the dark. She’d forgotten what it was like to be Fae, to have one foot always in the forest. “My encounters with other females usually didn’t involve parading around in nightclothes.”
“And what clothes did they involve?”
“Usually, none at all.”
She clicked her tongue, shoving away the image. “Having had the utter delight of meeting Remelle this spring, I have a hard time believing she didn’t subject you to clothing parades.”
He turned his face toward the ceiling again. “We’re not talking about this.”
She chuckled. Aelin: one, Rowan: zero.
She was still smiling when he asked, “Are all your nightclothes like that?”
“So curious about my negligees, Prince. Whatever would the others say? Maybe you should issue a decree to clarify.” He growled, and she grinned into her pillow. “Yes, I have more, don’t worry. If Lorcan is going to murder me in my sleep, I might as well look good.”
“Vain until the bitter end.”
She pushed back against the thought of Lorcan, of what Maeve might want, and said, “Is there a specific color you’d like me to wear? If I’m going to scandalize you, I should at least do it in something you like.”
“You’re a menace.”
She laughed again, feeling lighter than she had in weeks, despite the news Rowan had given her. She was fairly certain they were done talking for the night when his voice rumbled across the bed. “Gold. Not yellow—real, metallic gold.”
“You’re out of luck,” she said into her pillow. “I would never own anything so ostentatious.”
She could almost feel him smiling at her as she fell asleep.
 
 
Thirty minutes later, Rowan was still staring up at the ceiling, teeth gritted as he calmed the roaring in his veins that was steadily shredding through his self-control.
That gods-damned nightgown.
Shit.
He was in such deep, unending shit.
 
 
Rowan was asleep, his massive body half covered with blankets, as dawn streamed in through the lace curtains. Silently rising, Aelin stuck out her tongue at him as she shrugged on her pale-blue silk robe, tied her already-fading red hair into a knot atop her head, and padded into the kitchen.
Until the Shadow Market had burned to cinders, that miserable merchant there had been making a small fortune off all the bricks of dye she’d kept buying. Aelin winced at the thought of having to track down the vendor again—the woman had seemed the sort who would have escaped the flames. And would now charge double, triple, on her already overpriced dyes to make up for her lost goods. And since Lorcan could track her by scent alone, changing the color of her hair would have no impact on him. Though she supposed that with the king’s guard on the lookout for her … Oh, it was too damn early to consider the giant pile of horseshit that had become her life.
Groggy, she made tea mostly by muscle memory. She started on toast, and prayed they had eggs left in the cooling box—they did. And bacon, to her delight. In this house, food tended to vanish as soon as it came in.
One of the biggest pigs of all approached the kitchen on immortal-silent feet. She braced herself as, arms full of food, she nudged the small cooling box shut with a hip.
Aedion eyed her warily while she went to the small counter beside the stove and began pulling down bowls and utensils. “There are mushrooms somewhere,” he said.
“Good. Then you can clean and cut them. And you get to chop the onion.”
“Is that punishment for last night?”
She cracked the eggs one by one into a bowl. “If that’s what you think is an acceptable punishment, sure.”
“And is making breakfast at this ungodly hour your self-imposed punishment?”
“I’m making breakfast because I’m sick of you burning it and making the whole house smell.”
Aedion laughed quietly and came up beside her to begin slicing the onion.
“You stayed on the roof the whole time you were out, didn’t you?” She yanked an iron skillet from the rack over the stove, set it on a burner, and chucked a thick pat of butter onto its dark surface.
“You kicked me out of the apartment, but not the warehouse, so I figured I might as well make myself useful and take watch.” The twisty, bendy Old Ways manner of warping orders. She wondered what the Old Ways had to say about queenly propriety.
She grabbed a wooden spoon and pushed the melting butter around a bit. “We both have atrocious tempers. You know I didn’t mean what I said, about the loyalty thing. Or about the half-human thing. You know none of that matters to me.” Gavriel’s son—holy gods. But she would keep her mouth shut about it until Aedion felt like broaching the subject.
“Aelin, I’m ashamed of what I said to you.”
“Well, that makes two of us, so let’s leave it at that.” She whisked the eggs, keeping an eye on the butter. “I—I understand, Aedion, I really do, about the blood oath. I knew what it meant to you. I made a mistake not telling you. I don’t normally admit to that kind of thing, but … I should have told you. And I’m sorry.”