Page 49 of Song of the Dark Wood

Conor almost laughed. She either had no fear or no sense of self-preservation, and he wasn’t sure which was worse. “So eager to meet the Wolf everyone cowers for?”

“No.” She bit her lip. “More like I’ve seen pretty faces that hide common monstrosity my whole life. I’m starting to doubt everything I’ve ever believed. I think maybe you’re not as scary as you think.”

That decided it. Rowan had no survival instinct at all. He could not have her being fearless when he’d spent every moment since meeting her thinking about ruining her. Her recklessness stoked his own, like a match to tinder.

It was a risk. Changing form made Conor wilder, and she was already irresistible. Still, she needed to understand who he truly was. She needed to understand the danger in thinking of him as anything other than the deadly menace he was. He could handle it. He’d taken the tincture that morning.

So he let the darkness in. He let it wash through him with its familiar heat. His power helped him take the form of whatever the observer expected and, if he dove deeper, their worst fear.

Her eyes went wide, and he waited for fear that never came. When Conor looked down, his hands were claws, his arms dusted in dark hair. It was what most people expected of him.

Rowan didn’t cower. She reached up and brushed her hand over his cheek with tenderness so startling that he flinched.

No one had ever reacted that way. She welcomed the dark like it was her only friend.

He caught her hand in one of his clawed fists and wrenched it away. It wasn’t safe to be so close when she smelled so good—when her heart kicked up and he heard the way the blood rushed through her veins like a symphony of life.

“I’m not the hero of this story, Rowan,” Conor growled.

“I know,” she said, jerking her hand away, careful not to cut herself on his claws. “I am.”

Conor froze. What did she know? If she knew her true power, he needed to stay far away from her. “Now why would you say that, lass?” he challenged, brushing her cheek with his claw.

She held his gaze with a fierceness that sent a fever through him. “I’m the one who holds it all together. The hero is the one who has courage when they’re scared but does the scary thinganyway. As far as I can tell, everyone else gets to stay safe while I do the brave work. That’s what heroes do.”

Conor studied her, looking for a lie, but her heart gave no false beat. Her breath was even, if a little shallow, and there was no hint of burnt sugar in his mouth. In this form, his sense of smell was even more powerful. She smelled like honesty, freedom, absolution. He leaned closer. If he could just taste her lips, he could?—

He stopped himself and backed away. Years of cultivating self-control, and somehow he couldn’t even think straight when he was this close to Rowan. How quickly he forgot when she stood there looking so small and vulnerable that she could just as easily hurt him as he could her.

“You need to learn how to defend yourself,” Conor said.

“I know how to defend myself. Finn taught me.”

Conor clenched his teeth so hard it hurt. Again, there was that hint of someone else in her life. “Who is Finn?”

Her courage suddenly gone, Rowan blushed, trying to hide behind wisps of hair that fell in front of her pinked cheeks. “My friend.”

“You don’t have any friends.”

She flinched and he knew immediately it was much too harsh. He’d never worried about being too harsh with Orla, but Rowan was something else entirely. Though she had the same hard outer shell as her predecessor, it was clear she hadn’t steeled her heart quite as effectively. Conor didn’t like how easy it was to hurt her. He didn’t like the way she looked when she was trying not to cry, her full bottom lip jutting out, her green eyes glassy with unshed tears.

“I know that, but what else do you want me to call him?” Rowan snapped. “He’s a person who treats me like a human being, and he taught me how to navigate forests and throw a punch.”

“And I suppose he did this out of the kindness of his own heart?” Conor asked. The way the men of Ballybrine gravitated toward the forbidden fruit that was the Red Maidens was one of the most enduring things through time.

“Actually, I think he did it because he’s in love with me.”

Conor almost laughed.

“Or, rather, he’s in love with an idea of me,” she corrected herself.

She really did understand the way the world around her worked, and any bit of humor or disbelief that tugged at Conor evaporated. He’d done exactly what everyone in Ballybrine did; he’d treated her as an object instead of a person.

He’d wanted her to see the truth, but now that she did, he could suddenly sense the potency of that fear in her—that she’d disappear and be nothing to anyone. She was achingly aware of how temporary she was without his reminding her.

Her eccentric behavior suddenly clicked—the way she scrubbed and scrubbed at her dress so she wouldn’t leave a mark. The way she treated every library book as if it were an ancient document. The way she touched the whole world with the delicacy of a spring breeze, afraid to disturb the beauty around her with her very existence.

She’d bought into the belief that she was only worth what she could sacrifice, and so she actively participated in erasing her presence from the world on instinct.

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