23. Conor

23

CONOR

R owan leaned back in the plush chair in the sitting room. Her green eyes narrowed in concentration on the chessboard in front of her. Fading sunlight streamed through the window, highlighting the red in her curls. She propped her chin in her hand, brow furrowed as she nudged her bishop to a new square.

Conor frowned at the move. It was a beginner's mistake to go along with the ones she'd been making all game. She was obviously distracted, and it bothered him that she wouldn't share what was on her mind.

She'd asked to stay the night before without bothering to explain why. He was going to deny her—he didn't need the temptation—but she'd looked at him with such desperation in her eyes that he couldn't bear to send her away so soon. He didn't like the weakness she pulled out of him and she'd been so sullen since she asked if she could wear red and he'd turned her down.

Even now, she just stared at the chess pieces as if expecting them to move of their own accord. Rowan typically relished the opportunity to try to beat him at chess. Conor found her determination charming, but now she seemed strangely withdrawn. Even her posture was slouched, as if life had taken the air right out of her.

He replayed everything that happened the last time she was at Wolf's Keep. Perhaps it was just a reaction to his admission about devouring. She'd left in a huff, but he'd noticed that her temper tended to burn hot all at once and then reduce to a simmer.

Conor moved his queen. It was an idiotic move, one that she should have pounced on immediately. Instead, she just stared at the board like she'd never played before. When she moved a pawn instead of taking advantage of the huge mistake he'd made, he finally spoke up.

"What's on your mind? You seem more than a little distracted."

Her eyes scanned the board, and she slapped a hand to her forehead and shook her head. "I'm sorry. I don't know how I missed that."

"If you don't want to play?—"

"I do. I just think that my mind is not all here tonight. Perhaps I should just have some tea and go to bed," she said.

She stood, and Conor grabbed her hand.

"Please stay and play. We can start over."

She hesitated before sinking back into the chair and resetting her pieces. Then she just stared at the board.

"What do you want, little Red?" Conor asked.

Rowan looked dumbfounded by the question. She wrung her hands. "Why are you asking?"

It was an accusation, and it made sense from a woman the whole world only saw as someone from whom they could get something.

He sighed and shook his head. "Has anyone ever asked you that?"

"No," she admitted. She leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes. "I think I'd like some peace. I'd like to live a simple life with a garden and a little cottage." She shook her head. "It sounds so pathetic when I say it."

"I don't think so," Conor said.

She blinked her eyes open and glowered at him. "Says the god who lives in a creepy mansion in the woods. As if you're a paragon of normalcy."

"I suppose you're right," he admitted. "Still, I imagine that for you, the village is noisy and overwhelming. Plus, you've spent most of your life being stared at. I can understand the desire to blend in—to move about without notice. What else?"

She ran her fingers over her collarbone as she considered. She did it every time she thought hard about something. It was the most innocuous movement, but catching her small habits filled him with warmth—when she wrung her hands nervously or brushed a phantom hair behind her ear when she was embarrassed.

It's just magic designed to draw you in , Conor thought. Still, he found every little habit incredibly compelling. He wasn't sure he'd ever been so fixated on someone, and he was certain it was unhealthy.

"I'd want to grow herbs, of course, but also frivolous flowers that are just beautiful. I'd read books, as many as I could." She smiled and her cheeks pinked.

"And would you live there alone?" Conor asked.

The glimpse of light in her eyes winked out, and her face shuttered. "I'd like to go to bed now," she said flatly.

He'd pushed too hard. Stupid, Conor, always trying to peel away her layers when you hate having your own peeled .

Still, he couldn't curb the impulse. He wanted to know and understand Rowan. Beyond that, she deserved to be treated like a person with hopes and dreams. The more he could humanize her in his own mind, the more he might be able to withstand his impulses.

"Rowan, you can tell me if something's wrong," he said softly.

She sighed. "Something more than the fact that I've lived my whole life waiting to die at your hands? You want to know what I want? I want to change the bargain to protect myself and Aeoife."

Conor scrubbed a hand down his face. "I cannot give you that, Rowan. It's so much more complicated than what I want."

He wanted to argue with her, but the truth was he knew what it was to live with a near-constant dread. Dread was his new companion every time she set foot in the Dark Wood. Still, he wanted to remind her that fear meant she had something to lose.

He met her eyes, and a familiar heat sparked in the air between them. "I don't think you're mad at me right now. You're just picking a fight to deflect. You can tell me anything, little Red, when you're ready."

Her gaze dropped to his lips. She sighed and turned away, leaving him with nothing but silence and the scent of lavender and vanilla on the air.

The next day, Conor followed Rowan around the Dark Garden as she told him where to move sacks of fertilizer, baskets of seeds and bulbs, and buckets of water. She grumbled about how it was far too late in the season to get started before pausing with her eyes closed, as if listening closely to some phantom sound. It was a relief to see her in better spirits.

"What do you hear when you're in there? Why are you so drawn to this garden?" Conor asked.

She worried her lower lip between her teeth. "It's like I can hear the melody of the dormant flowers. It's sad and lovely, like everything else here. Whenever I get close, it tugs on me like it just needs a little help to bounce back. It calls to my magic."

"Will you show me how to plant?" Conor asked.

Rowan stifled a giggle. "You want to plant flowers?"

"I want to plant flowers with you, yes," he said. "I may as well after I got you all these fancy seeds and bulbs."

She grinned, her eyes lighting up. He'd finally stopped trying to resist the way she drew smiles out of him. He was worried that allowing feelings for her to develop would feel like being sucked into an undertow, but surrendering to it felt more like floating along with a gentle current than drowning. As long as he could keep some space between them, he'd be fine.

Rowan brushed her hair back from her face, smearing a bit of dirt from her gloves on her forehead. Conor rubbed it away with his sleeve.

"I'm not sure what exactly is planted in this portion, so I'll need to grow that a bit to find out before we know exactly what to plant," she started. "But over here, there's no music at all, so we can really go wild. I'm thinking of some of these tulip bulbs. It might be a little bit late in the season, but if I help them along, they should survive the winter and be really beautiful in the spring."

Conor followed her lead as she dug small holes for the tulip bulbs, evenly spaced at the front of the flower bed. He considered the impracticality of planting flowers on the precipice of winter, but the determined look on Rowan's face kept him from sharing his concerns.

She laughed at his technique, placing her hands over his. "Slow down. You're not trying to murder the soil. You're just trying to dig down a few inches. I know you're not exactly made for delicate things, but I think you can learn," she whispered.

Her words were laced with innuendo, but he caught no hint of teasing on her face. She pretended as if she'd said nothing as she handed him a few more bulbs and watched him plant them. Once she was satisfied with his technique, she went back to work.

When they finished with the tulips, they interspersed those bulbs with allium bulbs, black dahlia tubers, chocolate cosmos, black pansies, black magic hollyhock, black velvet petunias, and dark purple calla lilies. Rowan was entirely in her element.

"How did you learn so much about flowers?" Conor asked as he pruned back the rosebushes.

"Some of it I learned from Sarai. Some I just know because I can hear things when I listen to them. Here, give me your hands, and I'll show you. It's like every plant has its own melody, and from that, I can tell how much space they need, or how deep they need to be planted, or if they like the spot I put them."

Conor knelt in the dirt as Rowan removed her gloves. She placed her hands over his and guided them over a tulip bulb. She was so close he could hardly focus on anything but her scent and all the places her body pressed against his. Her eyes fluttered shut, and a faint smile tugged her lips up.

"This one will need a little extra coaxing. It doesn't like how cold it is right now."

"What does it sound like?" Conor asked.

Rowan listened and then hummed a fluttery melodic tune softly. Conor felt her magic brush up against his hands as she hummed a little louder. He felt the melody—not just in his hands, but in his whole body. It was pleasant and bright, like the first warm days in springtime, when the frost breaks and things melt and the crocuses shoot up from the thawing earth. He closed his eyes and enjoyed the sensation.

After a moment, Rowan drew his hands back, and he blinked, startled as a tulip shot up through the ground and, a moment later, bloomed.

Conor stared at it in shock. He knew what she was capable of, but it was another thing to see her power in action with so little effort. Very little surprised Conor after centuries of existence.

"Can we do it again?" he asked.

She nodded, guiding his hands to another spot. "This one is a dahlia. Let's see, it sounds like—" She closed her eyes and started to hum again.

This time the melody was slower, winding. It reminded him of a violin concerto. Her magic pulsed through his hands and then spread through his body as she sent it down into the ground. This time the magic felt like lying in the sun on a warm day and feeling the warmth spread over his skin and sink into his muscles.

Once again, Rowan shifted his hands to make room, and he blinked his eyes open in time to watch a stunning black dahlia bloom as if it was the height of summer instead of late fall.

He turned to look at Rowan. "What are you, love?"

She shrugged. "I'm just Rowan."

Conor pushed her back into the grass and kissed her. His body still buzzed with the aliveness of her magic. For someone who was always surrounded by death, it felt like a high. It was as good—if not better—than devouring. He told himself that, but it had been so long since he'd done it, he wasn't certain that was true.

Rowan opened for him like the bloom, and he sighed in relief. She'd been so bound up and worried. Seeing her relaxed felt like a reward. Not only did she let him touch her, kiss her, steal all the breath from her lungs—she pulled him closer, like he couldn't take enough from her. Like she couldn't get enough of being had.

Her fingers curled like claws in his hair as he bit her lip. They played a strange game of chicken. He advanced, bunching up her dress, and she helped him hike it higher.

He caught glimpses of her face between kisses. Her eyes were full of questions and anger, like she was frustrated by her lack of control.

Conor blessed the recklessness that let him kiss her fiercely, all while he cursed himself for the restraint it took to not suck the life out of her as he drank up her gasps and sighs.

He wanted to drag Rowan down into the dark with him. He wanted to watch her react to every dark thing he introduced her to. It was wrong, but he couldn't stop thinking about her in all manner of compromising positions—tied to his bed, bent over his desk, on her knees, looking up at him, waiting for instructions.

Would she give him the same petulant pout she did when he sent her away, or would her eyes light with excitement? Where would she draw the line? Would she draw it at all?

He thrilled at the thought of having to draw it for her—having to teach her exactly where it was. She'd enjoy those lessons so much more than the ones she'd been taught by tutors growing up. He wanted it too much.

It was all wrong. Rowan was warm, sweet, ethereal, angelic, and he wanted to dirty her up. Conor never realized how utterly starving he was until the first time he'd kissed her. He'd drawn enough power from people's fear and faith alone that he hadn't needed to devour a Maiden in a long time. Now, he felt like he might lose his mind if he didn't taste every part of her.

It's just magic, Conor . She tastes like everything you've ever desired because of magic. You've seen it before. You'll see it again. Get it together. She's just a pretty girl with a lot of fire.

She sighed against his lips and slid her hands up his shirt, and he flinched away from her.

"Stop! I don't want this, and even if I did, it's just magic. You can't trick me into taking you to bed," Conor bit out.

The defensiveness was a reflex, like ripping a hand back after touching a hot pot.

Rowan looked surprised by his casual cruelty, which made it clear that was the exact thing he needed. The harsh words were a violent flail in the dark, less to remind her that she should resist him than to prompt her to want to. She didn't look wounded, but she took a breath, scooting away from him, her hands fisting in the dry grass like it was the only thing anchoring her to the earth.

The sweetness of her in his mouth turned to sour regret. Still, he knew it was the right move. He needed control more than ever, and Rowan shredded his to bits. Even now, as she looked at him with eyes full of familiar frustration and pouty lips bruised from his kisses, he faltered.

She read the shift in his body, her own coiled for action, though it was unclear if she meant to fight, run, or just let him kiss her senseless.

What he wanted wasn't really relevant. What he needed took precedence, and right now, he needed that beautiful woman and the feral look in her eyes as far from him as possible. Her proximity was dangerous, like sparking a flint near a powder keg purely for the thrill of seeing if it would spark. It was foolish, but he couldn't seem to stop chasing the high of it.

"You have to go home now," Conor said. He rose to his feet, and she stared at him in disbelief.

She stumbled to standing, looking around the garden. "How will I take care of my garden if you just send me away again?" she said after a long time.

The fear on her face was not at all commensurate with fear for her garden. There was something else that she was afraid of. He cursed himself for shoving her away yet again when he wanted to know so badly what weighed on her.

In some ways, he'd been right about Rowan when they first met. She was delicate, but not in the way that she would break under cruelty. It was more like alchemy. She took a delicate touch because the wrong move could be explosive, and that volatility was incredibly compelling to Conor. He wanted to cultivate it, wind her up, and watch her melt down—not to drive her mad, but just to watch the ease with which she accessed passion—like she had an endless supply of it.

Living for centuries had a way of taking the fire and urgency out of everything. Rowan was a reminder of what it was like to be so blessedly, vibrantly alive. He was mesmerized by it.

"Okay." She said it as if she was trying to convince herself.

Conor studied her, searching for what was different.

She wouldn't meet his eyes. "Are you sure I can't stay, just for a few more days?"

Conor hated the desperation on her face, the racing of her heart, the high, tight pitch of her voice.

"What aren't you telling me, little Red?" he asked. He tilted her chin up, but she stepped back out of reach.

"Please—please just do this for me, Conor," she murmured. "Please just let me stay." She took his hands in hers.

"I've already told you what will happen. Why are you so intent on welcoming oblivion?" he asked.

She shook her head and turned away from him. She looked toward the garden gate, and he caught the scent of fear.

"What are you afraid of?" He grabbed her arm.

He knew it wasn't just him. She'd already shown him over and over that she had far too little fear when it came to him, even after he'd admitted exactly what would happen if he took her to bed.

She yanked her arm away, but as soon as he tuned into his power, his mind came alive with her new fear. No longer was it disappearing. Instead, he saw her tied to an altar, held down by elders in some sort of gruesome ceremony.

"What the fuck is this?" he gritted out, lost in the illusion.

"It's what will happen if I go back a virgin," she said. "So, if you don't mind, I'd prefer to make the only choice available to me."

Conor wanted to strangle the life out of every man who'd taken what little joy she held on to. There was no end to her courage, but he wouldn't abide her making the best bad choice. He had never taken a woman to bed who didn't want to go, and he had no intention of starting now.

It put Conor face to face with the thing he feared—that she'd never want him for real or that he wouldn't know if she did. It was one thing for her to think she wanted it, or to want the way he made her body feel, or to want it because the alternative was worse, but it was another thing entirely that he couldn't strip her indoctrination from her. She would never be neutral when it came to him.

"How dare they!" he growled.

"They're scared, Conor," Rowan huffed. "I'm not excusing it, but they're worried about the blight. It's healed here, but it's still along the fringes of the Dark Wood. It's still in the Ashand Orchards. They think that this will stop it and satisfy you. You don't know what it's like in the village right now. People yell at me every time I walk through town. I'm afraid of what they say to Aeoife. The elders and the people of Ballybrine think something is wrong with me and that you don't want me."

Conor swallowed hard. Charlie had informed him of the tension, but Conor had no idea things had spun so out of control.

"You know that's not true."

Rowan laughed bitterly. "It doesn't matter what I say, Conor. They don't listen when I speak. Such is the nature of the men who make the rules. It doesn't occur to them that anyone else could know more than they do, even if they've never met you or set foot in the Dark Wood. Elder Garrett has taken issue with me from the beginning."

He knew he should take a breath, but Conor raged like a wildfire with no thought of the ash.

"I'll be happy to straighten that out for them right now."

Rowan grabbed his arm, trying to hold him back. "Conor, no—stop! This won't affect you, and it won't make it better. It will only make things worse for me," she pleaded.

He wasn't hearing her anymore. He shrugged her off, taking one last glance at her over his shoulder as he tore out of the garden.

He ran blindly down the trail toward Ballybrine, Rowan's terrified face frozen in his mind. He hated the men who'd made her feel powerless, objectified, fragile.

It was archaic and ridiculous for him to feel so possessive of her. She didn't belong to him—and yet also she did. Their fates were tied together, wrapped in each other like roots. He felt a responsibility to her.

He didn't care what Rowan said. He couldn't let an elder threaten to take what was his. The moment common men thought they could take from the gods was the moment he lost his power entirely. He didn't care what kind of bloody mess he left or who would clean it up, as long as they remembered who their fear belonged to.