Page 44 of Rogue's Possession (Covenant of Thorns 2)

“Isabel!”I shouted it into our combined minds.

But he didn’t listen, just clamped tight and plunged us into blackness.

I mourned all over again. My heart broke a little more for this one foolish connection. Something Rogue could never understand when he dismissed even most fae as worthless and expendable. What would one nonsentient cat matter? Not at all.

Except to me. And to her.

Back in my body, I opened my eyes to the welcome blaze of crystalline light and yanked my hands out of Rogue’s grip.

He’d reached mad ahead of me, though, glaring at me from under lowered brows, the snaking black lines on the left side of his face sharp and full of thorns.

“Do you haveanyidea what would have happened to you if you’d managed to break away from me?” His voice hissed back in sibilant echoes, building uncomfortably though he’d kept it low.

“Of course I don’t!” My clenched tones wound with his, reverberating. “Do you have any idea what it is to love someone who’s dependent on you? A creature totally vulnerable to the world, who implicitly trusts the promise you gave her that you’d care for her? And then to know that you abandoned that trust, however unwillingly? This is not an idle whim for me, Rogue. If there is any chance at all that I can rescue her, I want it.”

He raked a hand through his hair, beyond aggravated with me. “I can’t replace everything you’ve lost.”

“I’m not asking you to. I’ll do it myself.” I folded my arms. “I want to go back. Show me how to get back there.”

“Absolutely not.” Louder now.

“Then I’ll do it on my own.”

“I showed you a fraction of what you need to know to cross the Veil. You may or may not have noticed, foolish Gwynn, that not even I was physically present. How in the name of Titania’s cursed womb do you imagine you’d bring somethingphysicalback through—especially a living being?”

I cringed at the decibel level, but he just glowered at me in righteous fury.

“The Dog could! Isn’t that what you wanted to show me?”

He reached out to touch me. Dropped his hand and sighed.

“I thought to answer some of your questions, in a gesture of good faith, so that you’ll understand both my part and yours in you being here. If I could give you this companion you so long for, don’t you think I would? You think that because more things are possible than you knew before, that everything is possible. But it’s not, my Gwynn. I promise you, it’s not.”

He sounded world-weary, an edge of defeat in his voice. What had he wanted that was simply not possible for the omnipotent Rogue? I leaned my elbows on my knees and studied the scuffed toes of my shoes, the knotted cords I’d faithfully reproduced from my last memory.

“I can’t give up wanting this.”

Now he did touch me, cupping my face in his hands so I had to look at him. “You are a passionate woman. Your wanting, the strength of it, makes you who you are. I would never change that. Just…have a care with how you go about satisfying it.”

“You’re not usually on the side of urging me to hold back.”

The left side of his mouth quirked into a smile, the lines around it coiling. “The irony has not escaped me.”

The little horseshoe winked golden next to me and I picked it up, stood, then offered Rogue a hand up, as he so often did for me.

He quirked an eyebrow, took my hand and uncoiled to his feet, watching me study the horseshoe.

“Where I come from, this is meant to be good luck.”

“Is it?” A wealth of meaning in that simple question.

I shrugged, the earrings swinging from my earlobes, a not-so-gentle reminder of our connection. “So now I know how you make these stay on me—a kind of persistence spell.”

“Yes.”

“You always say you’re mine as much as I am yours.”

“Very well then,” he replied, understanding the train of my thoughts. “I’m honored to be marked as yours.”

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