Page 170 of Onyx Cage: Volume II
“But you said you would put up with it,” she said in a singsong voice. Any lingering amusement vanished when she took in my features again. “You’ve been up for hours, Evander. Come lie down before dinner.”
It never ceased to strike me, how well she could read me when so few people could. Iwastired. For that matter, she looked like she could use a nap, too. Her skin was pale enough to make out bluish circles underneath her eyes.
So I obliged her, joining her in our enormous bed. Neither of us spoke for a moment, but she slid closer to me, putting a tentative hand in my hair.
“When I would have a bad day,” she said quietly, running her fingers through the short strands. “My mother would always bring pastries, and then she would comb her hands through my curls, like this.”
Back and forth, she wound her fingernails in different patterns on my head. It was oddly and unexpectedly comforting, a comfort I knew I didn’t deserve today, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell her to stop.
“I know how you feel about pastries, though.” She gave a small smile, but it faded quickly.
Her fingers came down to my shoulders, running along my chest. I wasn’t sure anyone had ever taken care of me like this.
I didn’t remember my mother at all, and my father was hardly the nurturing kind. Ava...didn’t bear thinking about. Taras's and Yuriy’s mother was kind, but distant, even with them.
And today, of all days…
“Why today?” I couldn’t help but ask her.
She leaned over, pressing her lips against one of the scars that crept around my shoulder before she answered.
“Because I know, even though you’ll never say it, how hard that was for you.”
“Not as hard as it was for Vasily,” I muttered.
“Maybe not,” she allowed. “But that doesn’t change the effect it had onyou.”
I shook my head in bewilderment.
“What?” she asked.
“I suppose I should be grateful that you watched me brand a man today and you care in spite of that, but it’s...surprising.” To say the least.
“Is that what you think?” She lifted her head, her questioning gaze boring directly into mine. “That I love you in spite of what you had to do today?”
I stilled, not sure where she was going with this.
“Evander,” she said earnestly. “I don’t love you in spite of who you are or who you’ve had to be. I love youbecauseof those things. I love you for the strength you have to make difficult decisions for the good of your people, even when it kills you. It’s what makes you a good leader…”
She paused, discernment bleeding into her features. “Even if it doesn’t feel that way on days like today.”
I was stunned into silence.
I hadn’t realized how badly I needed to hear her say that until she did.
All this time, some part of me had believed, especially since she got here, that she had fallen in love with the version of me at the cabin, or even in Lochlann, with the person I didn’t have the luxury of being at the estate.
That she was...disappointed at the husband she wound up with, compared to the one she expected.
But once again, I had managed to underestimate her.
She pressed another kiss on my shoulder, against the scars that I rarely let anyone see, let alone touch, before she spoke again.
“I’m not going anywhere, even when things are difficult and complicated.” Rowan moved then, lying next to me, her hand once again going to run through my hair. “We’re in this together now, right?”
I brought my hand up to her face, tracing the outline of her rounded cheekbones to her pointed, stubborn chin. She kept saying we were in this together, but after a lifetime of handling things alone, I hadn’t really let myself believe her.
I was starting to now.