Page 136 of Elven Crown

“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.Youneed 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 foryou, 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.

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