Page 142 of Elven Crown

He had changed it.

That inarguable fact reminded her yet again of all the other people—enemies and alleged allies alike—who might have also found her too.

Like Azyyt Ra’al. Like Kordus Harkennr. Like anyone else who might or might not have been affiliated with either or both or neither of them.

Gods, she would have had so much more information about what she faced now in Chicago if Maxwell hadn’t sabotaged her plans the night she’d snuck out to the Old Joliet Prison on her own. Hours before Rowan had shown up at Shade headquarters out of nowhere to further jeopardize everything she’d built here.

Right at the very moment when it all could have finally went her way.

It still wasn’t enough to change her mind.

“I refuse,” she told him again—firmly, solemnly, without the intimidating show of her power or the need to raise her voice or keep him at arm’s length. This time, she said it not as a knee-jerk reaction to her fear and the seemingly impossible but as a product of her certainty.

She’d made her choice, and she would stand by it.

“I willalwaysrefuse,” she added. “No matter what you do. No matter how far you follow me or for how long. No matter what you say to me or how many stale oaths you dig up from the grave to shove in my face. I won’t do it.”

By the time she finished declaring out loud the promises she’d made silently to herself almost a lifetime ago, Rowan had closed the distance between them again. Holding her gaze, not saying a word or offering any visible reaction in his expression.

No condescension. No disbelief. No hurt or pain or surprise. Not even adoration anymore.

Just plain, simple Rowan, open and honest and real. The Rowan Blackmoon most people never knew existed beneath all his other masks.

Rebecca sucked in a sharp breath when he gently took her hand in both of his. His fingers were surprisingly warm, his palms calloused enough to feel but still somehow oddly comforting in their solidity.

What was he doing?

The cold weight of the bone tile pressed into her hand.

She would have let it drop to the floor and pulled away, but Rowan curled her fingers around it, firmly but gently closing his grasp around her clenched fist and the bone tile inside it.

He’d come all this way to return to her both the reminder of the promise and the promise itself—that he would never let her renounce it all.

She knew that now.

He studied her face, his hands closed with gentle warmth and permanence around her fist and the bone tile. There was nothing but pure, unadulterated, authentic Rowan Blackmoon gazing back at her now.

“Our people need you,Kilda’ari.Ineed you. We’re all connected. Every single one of us is a part of this, and we all knew this was going to happen sooner or later.”

His words touched her, plucking a cord of memory from the world to which she had once belonged, filling Rebecca with a long-abandoned yearning devastating in its sudden return.

Then he did them both a favor and kept talking. “No matter how you look at it, duty is a duty.”

Duty…

The magic word to bring her back to herself.

All her senses, her awareness, and her common fucking sense rushed right back in to fill the hollow space from which they’d just fled, and her fury rushed right back in behind it.

Rebecca tore her fist out of his hands and chucked the bone tile across the room. It pinged off the wall and toppled softly onto her bed, from the sound of it, though she didn’t care to look.

She shoved Rowan in the chest with both hands, sending him stumbling backward away from her with wide eyes, cluelessness etched across his features.

“Fuck duty,” she spat. “Fuck what everyone else expected me to be. Fuck destiny and vows and all of it. My life was never evenmine, Rowan, since before I was born. Not once.That’swhy I left the Bloodshadow Court and Xahar’áhsh in the first place. Youknowthat. Everyone trying to tell me who I am and what I’m worth and what I’m meant to do. How I can bestservethem. I have no fucking choice in it at all. I never did, andthat’swhy I’m not going back!”

“ButI’mhere now.” Though he didn’t sound as confident as he had up to this point, Rowan swallowed thickly and looked her up and down, as if he could find the real answers somewhere else. Because he refused to accept her words. “That has to meansomething…”

“It means you found me, Rowan. Good for you. If anyone ever could, I guess it would be you. Congratulations. But it doesn’t change a thing. It doesn’t mean I have to do any of this, and it doesn’t mean they wereright. I don’t owe anyone a goddamn thing.”

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