33. Rowan

There was no mistaking what I’d just walked in on. Maeve’s vest was around her shoulders, those gorgeous tits of hers bouncing free. Flynn’s hand pinched her, and Corbin had a face full of tit, which made my blood boil because I knew exactly how great a place that was to be. Corbin’s hand was up her skirt, and from the way she was moaning and quivering, he was touching her just the way she liked.

When Maeve looked up and saw me, her heavy lidded eyes showed only desire.

Corbin and Maeve and Flynn. Seeing them together like that should make me seethe with jealousy, shouldn’t it? That was how people felt when someone they liked was with someone else. Two someone else”s.

But that wasn’t what I felt at all. Not after Maeve had said what she’d said to me last night. You don’t think you’re worthy of me…but I’m telling you…even without this coven magic acting on us, I would shag you in a heartbeat.

I trusted Maeve implicitly and I believed her words, even though they were completely foreign to me. Maeve wasn’t the first girl I slept with – there were girls at the shelters and on the street, high on anything they could get their hands on and desperate for some kind of feeling. That was me, too. But that had been mechanical, a means to an end, a way to numb myself for an hour or two, a way to score the next hit. With Maeve…that was the first time I actually felt something.

Seeing her with her breasts naked, her head thrown back in ecstasy…I was feeling that something again. My own fingers itched to run over Maeve’s soft skin, to be the one lying with her back pressed against my chest, my fingers teasing her nipples.

I wanted Maeve, and I thought that maybe, possibly, I would love her one day, if I was even capable of that emotion. But I loved Corbin, too, or as close to it as I was able. And Flynn and Arthur. They were all my brothers. But Corbin…

Corbin saved me. He got me off the street, even when I didn’t want to come. He brought me to Briarwood. He paid for my first cooking class. He was the first person in my life to believe I was worth something. Seeing him with Maeve like that – knowing that for once he wasn’t thinking about who he had to protect – made me happy.

I just wanted him to be happy.

But where did that leave me?

Maeve said she didn’t want to choose at all. But does that mean what I think it means?

“I’ll get Arthur,” Flynn darted off. Maeve shot me a sad look, then slunk away, smoothing her skirt down.

I slid the silver tray in my hands onto the small coffee table we placed in the center of the circle. On it stood five small shot glasses of foggy brown liquid, each one spaced exactly eight centimeters apart (I measured). In the center I placed a tall glass filled with salt and a red candle tied with sprigs of rosemary and rowan. Beside the candle were four bracelets, which Maeve had woven earlier from locks of our hair. These were how Maeve would pull us into her dream and ensure we stayed locked with her.

Everything we needed for our ritual, all nearly arranged in a perfect circle.

Corbin came up behind me. “Rowan, I?—”

I hated to see that fallen look on his face, that said he thought he’d hurt me, that he’d give up this one for me if he thought it would make a difference. But it was also a look that said he knew I didn’t have a shot.

For once, he had things wrong.

“I wish it had been me,” I said.

“I know,” Corbin looked so forlorn, it almost made me burst out laughing. “It should have been you, Rowan. I wanted that, you know, right? Even though the magic makes me want her, too. This just sort of…happened. I know even know what I was thinking – she slept with me last night, and then she went and slept with Arthur, too. But I’ll stop. I promise that I’ll stay away from her from now on. She’s yours. I just….I just lost it a little, and then Flynn jumped in and I got carried away?—”

“No,” I shook my head. “I wish it had been me, instead of Flynn. Me, and her, and you.”

My heart thudded against my chest.

I’d never seen Corbin look so…lost.

“Um…” he gulped. “Right.”

A hundred unsaid things passed between us in that moment.

“And it wasn’t Arthur who slept with her last night,” I couldn’t resist adding. “It was me.”

Corbin looked stunned, and I had to admit, I liked seeing him look like that. He opened his mouth like he was going to say something. I leaned forward. I wanted every word he spoke, even if it was a rejection. I’d take every piece of him that he was willing to give. But no sound came out. A hundred thoughts whirled around in my head – images of him and me and Maeve – but I couldn’t find the words to articulate them, to make him understand.

Instead, I counted the cracks on the wall behind his head.

“Rowan—” Corbin started.

Please…

Footsteps on the staircase broke our bond. A moment later, Arthur appeared at the door to the Great Hall, dressed in his medieval garb – a long tunic and linen breeches tucked into enormous leather boots. A leather belt slung around his waist held his two-handed sword and two shorter blades. Flynn dashed in behind him, dressed like a normal person but wearing an enormous iron medallion around his neck.

“Right, we got rid of Dora,” Flynn announced. “I convinced her there was a special sale on silver polish over at that bargain store in Crooks Crossing. Now, where’s my dram? I want to get under before Arthur’s snoring starts.”

I pointed to the silver tray. Flynn picked up one of the glasses to inspect it, his brow furrowing. Then he set it back down, deliberately off-center. Because he was Flynn.

Corbin picked up the salt and raised it, then hesitated. He glanced at Maeve. “You should be leading this.”

“I don’t know what to do,” she admitted. “Please, I need you to take charge of the ritual. Let me focus on the actual dream walking.”

She knew just how to give Corbin what he needed. He grinned as he raised the salt again and said his blessing over it. He offered the salt to the four corners – the north, south, east, and west. Then – while we chanted the invocation we all knew by heart – Corbin sprinkled the salt in a circle around the sofas and beanbags Maeve had arranged around the center of the room. He left a small gap, not quite two feet across. I would have measured two foot exactly, but that’s why Corbin does this and not me.

Arthur lit the candle and passed it to Corbin. The woody scent of rowan – the tree of protection from which I’d been given my name – filled the room. Corbin walked clockwise around the circle again, holding the flame high as he spoke the invocation once more. He stepped through the gap he left in the ring of salt, closed it off with the last granules in the glass, and set the candle back down on the table.

Maeve gestured to the couches and beanbags. “Shall we make ourselves comfortable?”

After what had just happened on that sofa, I doubted anyone would be getting comfortable there. Corbin looked ready to jump out of his skin. Flynn kept glancing between me and Corbin, and Maeve was biting her bottom lip, her usually-neat pixie hair sticking out all angles. I suspect her nerves were more to do with what she was about to do. Maeve didn’t strike me as the type of girl who bothered with regrets.

That was a good thing. There was plenty enough regret in this castle to go around.

Flynn was the first to sit, grabbing his shot glass from the tray, flopping down on one of the beanbags and crossing his long legs on the table. “I’m ready for the best night’s sleep of my life.”

“Why, is Corbin’s mother out of town?” Arthur said, picking up his own glass.

“Ask me bollix,” Flynn shot back, and downed his glass in one gulp. “That was a terrible joke.”

Corbin sat down on the end of the sofa, picked up his own glass, and tossed it back. He set the glass back down, his mouth twisting into a grimace “I wish it tasted as good as your hot chocolate, Rowan.”

Maeve picked up the last two glasses and handed one to me. Her hand brushed mine, and a cloud of bright thoughts assaulted me, quite out of character. She held up her glass, and it took me a moment to realize she wanted me to toast her.

I clinked my glass to hers and tipped the liquid down my throat. It did not taste like hot chocolate.

Maeve threaded the four bracelets onto her wrist, turning them to admire the different colors – Corbin’s dark, silky hair, Arthur’s blond, Flynn’s vibrant red. Mine was just a single dreadlock, with a bead on the end. She gulped back her drink, and immediately stifled a yawn. “I hope it’s a better sleep than last night. I was so wound up, I barely got a wink.”

On the couch behind her, Corbin choked, his eyes wide. I smiled at Maeve, but the draught already tugged at my facial muscles, making it a little lopsided. I settled back into the sofa beside Corbin, remembering how bright Maeve’s eyes looked as she rode me last night, how much I wanted another night like that with her.

And maybe, with Corbin, too…

That was the last coherent thought I had before I slipped beyond the veil of sleep.