36. Chapter 36

36

R ebecca stared the healer down for as long as she could, her mind reeling and her guts twisting in knots over the new glaring realization rearing its ugly head.

Zida was on to her.

But the hairless ridge of Zida’s raised eyebrow made it clear the old woman wouldn’t give anything away. Not unless she felt it was her only option.

Anyone who knew the truth about her only faced that much more danger themselves, not to mention the much higher risk it posed the rest of Shade should any one of its members have valuable information about the missing and long sought after Bloodshadow Heir.

She still wanted to trust the old woman like she’d thought she’d been able to, but that was harder to do when she had no specifics of what Zida thought she knew.

And now Rebecca was strapped to an infirmary bed, panting beneath the pain of her wound and the pressure of all the things that could go so terribly wrong at any moment if she made the wrong call.

She’d rendered herself completely helpless, which was the worst situation in which she could possibly find herself.

The kind of situation she strove to avoid at all costs, and look where she’d ended up. She’d walked—or rather flopped—right down into it out of Maxwell’s arms the moment he’d delivered her to the healer, just as damn clueless as she’d been.

Was Zida somehow connected to Rowan having found her here? Had Rebecca let herself get too close to the wrong damn healer?

She had to know, one way or the other, and she had to go about it very carefully. She had to be smart. She had to play the game on Zida’s level.

Clearly, the healer was no stranger to it herself.

With a bitter laugh that ended in a weak, desperate squawk, Rebecca covertly tested the strength of the leather straps binding her to the bed.

Yup, those were tight as hell.

“What, exactly, do you think I am?” she asked, hoping to goad the old woman into some kind of reveal.

Zida eyed her a moment longer, then tsked and dismissed the question with a wave. “I’m not a fan of conjecture.”

“Bullshit,” Rebecca hissed. “Every time you took out one of those super-powered sniffy vials of yours the last time I needed healing, your knowledge of what it might do to me was nothing but conjecture.”

“And look where it got us!” Zida shouted, spreading her arms. “That nasty mark on your arm is all healed up, isn’t it? And you wouldn’t be dying right now if you didn’t have a fucking wooden stake through your guts, as you so eloquently put it. Interesting that you’d ask me what I think you are instead of who , though. Don’t you think? Of course, that’s probably just the stake talking.”

Zida approached the bed again, rubbing her clawed hands vigorously together before wiggling her fingers in preparation.

Whatever the healer thought she knew, she wasn’t going to reveal any of it now. Rebecca was sure. Right now, that felt more dangerous than if the old woman had just answered her question.

“Bite down on something, elf. This is gonna hurt.”

“Bite down? On what ?”

Even if she hadn’t been forcefully strapped down to the infirmary bed, Rebecca wouldn’t have had the time to grab anything and stick it between her teeth.

The next second, her eyes widened at the immeasurable agony of Zida clamping both hands down around what little of the wooden shard still protruded from Rebecca’s belly.

When the healer hunkered down and ripped the extruding bit of shrapnel free, Rebecca screamed.

She didn’t hold anything back.

She couldn’t.

She wasn’t even strong enough anymore to maintain consciousness another second.

W hen she woke, the first thing racing through Rebecca’s mind was how unequivocally today just hadn’t been her day.

The next thing she realized was that the infirmary was entirely empty, the lights dimmed to a comfortably nocturnal level but not switched off entirely.

She lay perfectly still in the infirmary bed for several minutes, her eyes closed as she listened in the semi-darkness for sounds of movement either in this main recovery ward or in the room behind the infirmary’s rear door, which she was fairly certain led to a combination of Zida’s personal quarters doubling as a backup storage closet.

Nothing.

Not even footsteps or low voices murmuring out in the hallway as they sometimes did in the compound’s residential wing.

She expected to hear the old healer snoring somewhere in the next room, at the very least, but even that was missing.

Rebecca was truly alone.

After another quick look around and an inventory of what she had at her disposal, it seemed the healer had stayed true to her word. There was no sign of anyone else having entered, hinting at Zida having turned away potential visitors.

There was no way Maxwell hadn’t heard her screaming before she’d passed out. Knowing him, he’d probably posted up right there in the hallway.

The thought of him threatening the old healer with death and dismemberment if she’d harmed the Thon-Da’al brought a tired, albeit macabre, smile to Rebecca’s lips.

That was exactly what he would have done. Even then, in true Zida fashion, the healer had protected her patient’s isolation and recovery as fiercely as a mother bear protecting her cubs.

Rebecca would be hearing all about that later too, she was sure.

But now that she was up and the wooden stake was nowhere to be seen, she didn’t see any reason to stay put.

Especially when the heavy leather straps had since been unfastened and put away while she was out.

She hoped that was the only thing that had changed. Under different circumstances, she would have kicked herself for succumbing to the pain and losing consciousness.

After the alarming surprise of discovery Zida had more sensitive information about her than anyone had the right to possess, Rebecca hadn’t been prepared to handle the agony, and she’d lost that battle.

Plus, the healer hadn’t been lying when she’d said Rebecca was half-dead already coming into the infirmary.

Not anymore.

So there was nothing to keep her here.

The first thing she did was heal the rest of the damage to her belly. It was simple and easy, all things considered, now that she had the freedom to move again.

And the presence of mind to grab one of the unused leather straps first, fold it in half, and shove it between her teeth before she hovered both hands over the more-or-less gaping hole in her belly.

Deep golden-orange light bloomed beneath her palms and flared across that hole, her Bloodshadow magic burning away the wound, searing it all into curling, jagged, charred black flesh before it peeled away from her exposed belly to leave nothing but healthy pink and a fully healed wound in its place.

Complete with the tiniest mark of a darker pink, puckered scar—inevitable after a wound like that.

Once she finished, Rebecca let the leather strap drop from between her teeth as she panted, caught her breath, and thought about what to do next.

It was a hell of a lot easier to think without the pain.

She didn’t want to stay in the infirmary a second longer, and she didn’t need to—whether or not Zida had officially released her.

So the next item on her last-minute to-do list was to get herself the hell out of here.

That was also insanely easy with no one around to stop her.

She slipped off the bed, strong enough once more to land without a sound, before heading for the door.

The silent, empty hallway made her short walk to her private room a massive relief. If her watch still worked, then it was just after midnight. As far as she could tell, the entire compound was asleep.

Zida wouldn’t be happy to wake up and find her patient gone, but Rebecca figured she could ease the old healer’s irritation by lauding Zida’s unmatched skills and leaving it at that.

No more infirmary beds. No more twenty-four-hour observation. No more being stuck anywhere, under anyone’s watch, against her will.

Rebecca had her health back, joined by an increasingly rare moment of complete solitude.

In the middle of the night, no one was looking for her. No one was trying to protect her or standing constant guard duty. No one wanted to inspect her or ask questions or receive permission or approval for anything.

Just for tonight, she could pretend the craziness her life had become didn’t exist.

Rebecca could just be .

With a flash of yellow light bursting from her fingertip, her locking spell opened her bedroom door, then she slipped into her room and heaved the sigh she hadn’t been willing to release in the hallway, just in case.

By the Blood, when had stealing off to be alone in her own personal space become such a valued commodity?

Looking forward to the next few hours on her own, she turned back toward the door and reached for the light switch on the wall.

The second her overhead light clicked on, she realized her mistake.

Her relief had overpowered everything else at first, and she hadn’t registered the extra presence in this room the moment she’d entered. She felt it now.

Someone else was here. She could feel them with her in her room, along the far wall.

Dammit, how could she have let that slip?

She whirled to face the intruder, summoning an enormous orb of red battle magic in one palm.

Her attack flew from her outstretched hand before she’d turned, filling her small room with a blaze of crimson light before it crashed into the far wall instead of the dark form leaping nimbly out of the way.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Rowan shouted, lifting both hands in concession before shooting her a thin smile. It was probably supposed to make him look sheepish but only made him that much more obnoxious.. “I didn’t even do anything.”

Ignoring the crater she’d blown into her wall and the chunks of plaster scattered across the floor around him, Rebecca summoned another crackling red orb and let it hover in her hand as a warning.

“You broke into my room,” she hissed. “My room .”

He looked around, then shrugged. “Eh…it’s not exactly a maximum-security prison.”

“It’s my room, and I didn’t invite you. Get out.”

With another chuckle, Rowan stepped toward her, his boots crunching across the chunks of exploded wall as he eyed her battle magic still sizzling and sparking in her open palm. “All right. Point taken. You can at least put that away.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Um…because it’s me?”

Rebecca’s nostrils flared as she stared him down. “Which is exactly why I’m keeping it.”

His carefree chuckle filled her room, but when she didn’t laugh with him or lower her defenses, his smile disappeared. “Okay, I get it. No one likes a surprise. No one likes this kind of surprise, and it wasn’t my first choice—”

“Great. So get out.”

“But it was the only way to get to you,” Rowan continued. “Because I’ve been trying for nearly a week, and you still won’t give me the time of day. We need to talk.”

“No, Rowan. You need to talk, and I have no interest in it. I also have no problem blasting a hole through my own door just to kick you out with it. You can leave on your own, or you can leave with a few extra scars and a massive headache.”

He studied her, unblinking, for several long-stretching seconds, then folded his arms and planted his feet. “I’m not going anywhere until you stop blowing me off and we have the conversation you promised me. I’ve already wasted too much time playing along with your little game here. This has to happen now.”

Shit.

This was what she’d been trying to avoid by filling her schedule and keeping Rowan so busy with random Shade tasks that he never had the time or the opportunity to corner her like this.

But he’d done it anyway, and he wasn’t backing down.

Deep down, she’d known this would happen sooner or later. That didn’t make it any easier to swallow.

While she eyed him up and down, fresh out of excuses and new ideas for keeping the Blackmoon Elf at bay, Rebecca finally had to come to terms that this was apparently the night they’d be having this little talk.

It felt like defeat. She couldn’t stand the sensation.

“What would you have done if I’d never walked in here tonight?” she asked. “I could have stayed in the infirmary for days.”

“For a splinter like that?” Rowan scoffed. “Please. I knew you’d be out. I don’t even know why you let your guard dog haul you in there in the first place, but look at you. You’re fine.”

Dammit.

After all this time she’d spent on her own, disconnected and hidden, within any one of the numerous identities she’d assumed over the last several hundred years in this world, she’d forgotten what it was like to be around someone who truly knew her.

She hated it just as much now as the last time she’d seen Rowan, back on Xahar’áhsh.

The sooner they got this stupid conversation over with, the sooner he would leave.

Hissing out a long sigh through her teeth, Rebecca snuffed out her battle magic and folded her arms. “Fine. You wanted to talk so badly? Talk.”

Rowan raised an eyebrow, as if that single look could cripple her conviction. “Everything’s changing now, Rebecca.”

“Everything, huh? Like what?”

“Don’t play that with me. You already know exactly what I’m going to say.”

“You know what? You’re right. Which makes this whole you-and-me-talking thing a moot point. There’s the door.”

“It’s time.”

Those two words, so simple and yet so unbelievably powerful…

Powerful enough to make her breath seize in her lungs and the tightness in her belly harden into a cold knot of dread and fury and denial.

Rebecca fought off the sensation and cleared her throat. “Yeah, well… Time for you , maybe. But I left all that behind a long time ago. Good talk, though.”

“You know the harder you push this away, the harder it’s going to come swinging right back in your face, right?”

“Trust me, Rowan, I’ve had plenty of experience not letting doors hit me on the way out. You should try it sometime.”

That was as far as Rebecca’s patience extended.

She hurried across the room toward him, no longer wanting to blast him out with her magic but definitely needing to get him out of her room. To get him away from her. To stop this whole train wreck in its tracks before she did or said something she definitely shouldn’t do or say.

She didn’t have time for this. Not here with Shade. Not now. Not ever.

That was the whole point. That was the reason she’d left the Bloodshadow Court in the first place and Xahar’áhsh altogether, so long ago.

This issue no longer concerned her.

That should have been perfectly clear, but Rowan was still as stubborn as ever.

“Get moving,” she told him. “Time to go. Out the door.”

“You call this a conversation?”

Rolling her eyes, she grabbed his arm and jerked him toward the door, then switched to pushing and shoving him step by step when he wouldn’t leave on his own.

“I don’t have these conversations anymore,” she snarled. “I don’t have to listen to them. I’m not accepting an audience, and I don’t take requests. Whatever you thought you were going to get out of cornering me like this and rubbing my face in it, you’ll just have to live with disappointment.”

As he stumbled forward beneath her every shove, Rowan chuckled. “You’re serious.”

“It only took you nearly a week of constant rejections to figure that one out? Good work. We’re done.”

“Rebecca, this isn’t a game—”

“You are so right. So start taking me seriously. Thanks for stopping by anyway. Don’t do it again.”

They reached the door, and she grabbed the doorknob to open it for him on the way out.

She only got the door open three inches before Rowan slammed a hand against the wood. The door banged shut again with an echo of finality.

Rebecca spun around and stared at him, equal parts impressed and exasperated by his steadfastness.

When her glare didn’t cow him, she hissed and drew back her hand.

If she had to bring it to a physical fight and throw the Blackmoon Elf out with her own bare hands, so be it.

No one else could have caught her next swinging blow the way he did.

Rowan’s hand clamped down around her wrist, quick as lightning, and now he stood between her and the door, intent on either physically fighting her or just standing there without a word until she got so annoyed with him that she finally broke the silence.

Not that she was trying to hurt him, anyway. She’d made it easy for him to catch her like this. Maybe on purpose. Maybe unconsciously.

Or maybe because his presence here in Chicago, in Shade’s headquarters compound, in her room , had caught her so off guard, she couldn’t help it.

She would never let herself willingly hurt Rowan, anyway.

And they both knew it.

As soon as he caught her wrist, though, the tenderness in his grip and behind his luminous hazel eyes was nothing like the carefree jokester who’d been driving her toward madness over the last several days.

This was the Rowan Blackmoon behind the elf he chose to let others see. The man Rebecca had almost given everything for—in a different lifetime, in a different world, with different secrets and different promises and different rules.

Before she’d come to understand that the only person for whom she could ever make true, meaningful sacrifices was herself.

The twinge of regret and bitter nostalgia for what might once have been between them filled her in the next space between breaths.

But she had to release that feeling. The grief and what sometimes felt like longing, if she ever gave herself enough time to dwell on it.

She didn’t anymore.

Rebecca had made her choice a long time ago. She had chosen her own destiny, and whatever might have been between her and Rowan—whatever there once was—was over now. It had been over since the moment she’d turned toward Earth.

As soon as she remembered that, who she was now and what she was now—the responsibilities and the pressures and the dangers—came flooding back in again all at once.

She jerked her wrist out of Rowan’s grasp, not hard but just enough to show him it was intentional.

“What do you want?” she hissed, unblinking as she held his gaze.

“To help you remember. You made a vow.”

It wasn’t his words but the way he said them, his voice so gentle, filled with so much tenderness and authenticity and just enough pleading to hit her right where it hurt the most.

Just like he’d known it would.

A burst of silver light bloomed in and around Rowan’s closed fist as he lifted it between them, refusing to break their gaze.

Rebecca wouldn’t be the first to pull away. Absolutely not.

Under no circumstances would she look down at the thing Rowan had conjured in his fist. The thing he wanted her to see. The thing he had carried with him all this way, if not physically, then in spirit and intention.

He lifted his hand a little higher and opened his fingers a little wider.

Rebecca shook her head, clenching her jaw, widening her eyes, breathing deeply through her nose, because those were the alternatives to losing control of herself.

“No. I’m not that person anymore, Rowan,” she said, hating the barely audible tremble in her voice. “I left all that behind. I left you behind.”

“ Kilda’ari ...”

The sound of that secret name on his lips and in his voice as every fiber of the Blackmoon Elf’s being pleaded with her now made her want to cry out. To give in. To turn to him. To reach for him the way she had so long ago, when they were both still so young and everything had been possible in their eyes.

Now, all she could do was press her lips together even more tightly and shake her head again, as if staring at him long enough would make him understand how lost his cause was.

Deep down, she knew it would never be that easy.

“You need to look at this,” he whispered.

By the Blood. Of all the things she’d been trained and honed to do, all the plans she’d laid and all the precautions she’d taken, she hadn’t prepared herself for this .

For anyone to find her in this world, least of all Rowan Blackmoon. His current weapons of patience and compassion were the kind against which she had no idea how to defend herself.

The pull was too strong to ignore—the bond between them, the promises, the unrealized future that would have already become her present if she’d made different choices.

This, right here…this ghost of a thing she felt with Rowan was just one more thread of the larger tapestry she’d been running from for so long now.

Back then, she’d convinced herself that physical distance was all she needed. That she would be in control again as long as she put enough space between her and the Bloodshadow Court. Between her and her destiny. Between her and the whole world, even.

But it had found her all the same. It had followed her, crept up on her, dropped in when she’d least expected it, and the very fact that Rowan now stood here in front of her, mere inches away, brought that bond between them pouring back down onto her in a rush.

Everything it stood for. Everything it meant. Everything it endangered. All its inherent consequences.

All of it.

Neither pleasant nor unpleasant, just irresistible.

As if she could no longer physically resist, like some larger invisible force moved her head and directed her gaze, Rebecca had no choice but to look down at this thing in Rowan’s open hand.

Perhaps even the only thing from her past that could have ever evoked such a strong physiological reaction in her like the one overwhelming her in this moment.