Page 60 of The Witch's Spell
“All right.” Alden heads for the house, and when he passes by me on the stairs, he claps me on the shoulder.
Thorne follows after him, which leaves me and Rowan alone outside.
Rowan. Up until Cathal arrived, he was the one who received the brunt of my irritation on a daily basis. But now, I’m almost... grateful to have him here.
And I don’t like it. Not at all. But slowly, he’s starting to feel like someone I might actually be okay around. We’re not quite friends, but I don’t think we’re enemies either.
“Your brother’s a dick,” he says out of nowhere.
I snort. “You think?”
“I do.” He turns to face me. “But I think there’s more to him than that.”
One of my brows arches as I look up at him. I’m not sure I’m interested in this conversation, especially right now, with the bite marks he left all over me still stinging with pain. But my curiosity gets the better of me. “What do you mean?”
He narrows his eyes and turns his gaze to the far tree line. “I think... hewantsto connect with you. Why else would he have come all this way?”
“To piss me off,” I grumble.
Rowan cracks a smile. “Maybe. But I don’t think so.” The smile on his face slowly disappears. “Do you know about my sister? Lucy?”
“Lucy?” I flick my eyes to the chicken coop, where the hens have been coming and going all day, sunbathing and scratching in the snow and wet dirt.
“I never told you about her?”
I shake my head.
“Move over.”
Rowan waves a hand at me, and I begrudgingly comply, scooting to the far side of one stair so he can sit on the one below it. He’s a bit close for comfort, but I’m too tired to care.
“Lucy,” he says, voice dipping, “was my little sister. But she died when we were children.”
My brows rise. “How’d she die?”
It takes Rowan a moment to reply, like he’s thinking about what he wants to say. “We were out on a frozen pond, and she fell through. She drowned before anyone could save her.”
I’ve never considered myself a very soft-hearted person, but even I’m not stony enough to not feel something at that. Children should never die so young.
“I’m . . . sorry,” I say.
Rowan rubs his palms along his trousers and gets a small smile on his face. “Aurora’s been helping me with it. But my point is that I didn’t get a chance to know my sister. She died so young.” He goes still. Then he sighs. “I wonder all the time what she would’ve been like, what type of person she’d have become. But I’ll never know.” He turns to face me, and his green eyes are a bit glassy. “What I mean to say is thatyouhave a chance to get to know your brother. And maybe hereally is just an asshole and isn’t worth your time. But maybe something else is going on. Maybe you still have an opportunity to make something of your relationship with each other.”
An ember of irritation flickers to life in my chest. I want to tell Rowan he’s wrong, that Cathal has never been anything but a dick to me. But that’s not entirely true.
When we were young, we were close. Inseparable. The way many twins are. We knew what each other were thinking and feeling without having to say a word. It was a bond no one else could understand, almost like we were one person split between two bodies. It was only as we got older that things started to change. Then everything came to a head after he met Orla and became alpha of our pack. And now he’s here, and he still won’t let me in, won’t tell me why he made the trek all the way from the Emberstone Mountains—and in the winter, no less. That’s a brutal journey in the snow.
So, instead of snapping at Rowan and telling him he knows nothing and to mind his own damn business, I give a small nod of my head. “Maybe.”
We sit there for a little while longer, until the air grows cold enough that Rowan breathes hot air onto his fingers and pushes to his feet. “Well, what do you say?” He tips his head while regarding me. “You ready to faceouralpha?”
I’m not going to lie: The idea of talking to Aurora right now kind of terrifies me. She was so upset with me, and she probably still is. But I can’t sit out here all night—not like I did this past fall, when I ran away and Rowan had to come find me.
Even if I could run away again, even if the fog weren’t preventing me from doing just that, I wouldn’t. Because Aurorais my mate, my person. And I fucked up. Now I’ve got to make this right.
In a rare moment of comradery, I raise a hand to Rowan. His brows lift in surprise, but he clasps my hand with his and yanks me up.
Once on my feet, I jostle his shoulder, almost making him stumble. “All right, tiny knight.” I’m pleased to see Rowan’s forehead furrow with annoyance. “Lead the way.”
