Page 40 of Onyx Cage: Volume II

I just declined to say what those negotiations were regarding.

Already I could see his response, the way his lips would purse and his posture would be more uptight than usual while he muttered something about chaos. He wasn’t wrong, of course. Just as he hadn’t been the first time around.

Everything about this place was chaos.

The clock chimed midnight while I was undressing for bed. The panel in the wall remained resolutely closed, but no part of me was convinced it would stay that way. I poured a generous glass of whiskey and climbed into bed, leaning back against the headboard and mentally replaying the events of the day while I waited for her inevitable arrival.

I refused to think about what might be keeping her in the meantime. Or who.

Or the amount of violence I felt when I considered Korhonan taking my words in the hall as a challenge instead of accepting them as fact.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to sit with my murderous thoughts for long, as it was only another few minutes before a scraping sound heralded her arrival. The passageway door eased open with slightly less force than the day before, but I still prepared myself for the weight of her ire. She walked in on steady footsteps this time, her navy dressing gown tied neatly.

Not as much to drink tonight, then, and she didn’t look as disheveled as she might have if she were coming fromhisbed. I forced the thought from my head before it festered.

Rowan closed the panel behind her with all the gentleness of a grizzly bear, her lips twisting in annoyance when she took in my general lack of surprise at her arrival.

So I added a smirk. “You’re late, Lemmikki. I was expecting you hours ago.”

“Funny, I was expecting you weeks ago,” she shot back.

I considered her words, trying to read the emotions she was trying to keep at bay.

Weeks ago, when the pass had opened. Had she thought I would come to claim her then? To drag her back to Socair?

To offer the…alliance I was offering now, despite the many risks therein?

“Tell me something,” she said in a steadier tone. “If this alliance was an option to benefit your people, why take the chance of waiting until I was...allied with someone else?”

There were a thousand answers to that question. That I hadn’t expected her to rush into marriage with anyone under the circumstances, hadn’t considered that she would be entering into a political alliance when she didn’t have to.

I settled on the easiest one. “Believe it or not, Princess, there was fallout to deal with after you absconded into the night.”

The blood drained from her face, her lips parting like she hadn’t once considered that there might be consequences to her departure. Of course she hadn’t.

Her wide eyes traveled to my chest, and I belatedly realized what it was that had her so horrified.

“Did she—” she started.

“No,” I cut her off, not wanting her to finish that sentence. I didn’t want to think about Ava right now, let alone talk about her. “I told you, she can’t touch me now.”

Rowan stared at me for a long moment, like she couldn’t decide how honest I was being. I wasn’t sure what to make of her blatant concern, the way it was so at odds with our every interaction since I had been here.

The way it brought back memories that I needed to keep at bay, her hand on my arm in an undertaker’s foyer, gentle fingers spreading ointment over a fresh battle wound.

And fury, as cold and unrelenting as I had ever witnessed, when she realized what Ava had done.

She crossed the floor to me, twirling her finger in a clear demand for me to show her my back. I wanted to protest, but there was something frantic in her movements, like she couldn’t rest until she saw the evidence for herself.

So I leaned to the side, allowing her a clear view of the old scars that crisscrossed my flesh. My heart beat faster in spite of myself.

I had prepared for her anger, her righteous indignation, even her questions, hurled thoughtlessly like daggers thrown in the dark without regard for where they would land.

But I hadn’t prepared for this, her hands on my skin, tracing the ropey pattern under her fingertips.

A surprised breath escaped me, and the warmth of her fingers abruptly disappeared.

I settled back to examine her tumultuous features, trying to make sense of the incongruity of the woman clinging to Korhonan in the Council Room and the one standing in my room right now.