Page 222 of Onyx Cage: Volume II
“Rowan?” He didn’t sound surprised, but then, he had probably seen her trek across the battlefield.
And the way she slapped me.
“Could you kindly walk with me to my room, Taras?” Her voice was all dispassionate, cold efficiency, in a way I had never heard it before.
Something uncomfortable churned in my stomach. Not quite dread...but close. Like I was watching the enemy soldiers march on Bear all over again, preparing for the inevitable destruction with no way to prevent it. And this time, it was coming from theinside.
“Of course, My Lady.” My cousin stepped around me with a single wary glance in my direction.
Naturally, I followed. Nothing could have made me leave her now that she was here. Alive and real and breathing after all the times I had pictured her verdant eyes empty and her perfect body unmoving in death.
“I’m sure you noticed the men who came to your aid today were Unclanned,” she began.
Taras nodded. I was fairly certain the enormous brand on their foreheads hadn’t escaped anyone’s notice.
“They are under my protection and my care.” She sounded more commanding than I had ever heard her.
He glanced at me for approval, and Rowan let out an irritable breath.
“Not as a Clan Wife,” she clarified, “since that position obviously does not afford me the luxury of having an actual voice.”
I clenched my jaw. She might not have been acknowledging my presence, but the words were clearly meant for me. Just as she clearly believed that everything that had happened before I left herfor the sake of keeping her aliveno longer mattered in the wake of that single choice.
“Lemmikki,” I interjected to explain that very thing to her, but she barreled over me.
“They are under my protection as the princess and second-in-line to the throne of Lochlann. A man named Andrei is one of their leaders. You can deal with him. They can be fed from my dowry, and Lochlann will replenish the stores from my holdings.” Her tone was matter-of-fact now.
I didn’t bother interrupting again to tell her how unnecessary that was. Obviously, I would feed the men who had come to our aid. Surely, she knew I had that much honor, whatever else she thought of me at present.
“Ifeel as though they have more than earned their reintegration to society,” she continued.
My cousin’s eyes widened in shock, and I didn’t blame him. To my knowledge, no one had ever suggested reintegrating theBesklanovvy. That was why they were branded, so that it was permanent.
I had been so enmired in the imminent starvation of my people and then my father’s wanton need to slaughter, and finally this war, that I had never stopped to consider whether I agreed with that practice. And I sure as storms didn’t have the energy to consider it now.
As it was, the roughly forty hours I had been awake and battling were catching up with me perilously fast.
Rowan held her hand up to forestall my cousin’s response.
“But as it has been made abundantly clear that my opinion is neither desired nor given any consideration, if that cannot be arranged, I will settle for them being taken care of until such time as they can accompany me back to my holdings in Lochlann.”
Rowan stopped so suddenly outside her door that I nearly ran into her, my exhausted mind belatedly processing the last thing she said. Accompany me back to my holdings.
My heartbeat pounded in my chest. She was leaving when I had just gotten her back, against every foreseeable odd?
“You’re going back to Lochlann?” I all but blurted out, parsing through my fuzzy thoughts for an explanation that made sense.
To escort the Unclanned? To visit her family?
To stay?
No. She wouldn’t stay.Would she?
But she didn’t respond, holding Taras’s gaze like I didn’t exist. I might have believed she actually couldn’t hear me, were it not for the pinching around her eyes, the way she swallowed before she spoke.
He returned her stare, his own fatigue bleeding through in the form of his openly troubled features.
“Will you take care of that for me?” she asked when he didn’t respond.