There were soft gasps in the crowd at such an open insult. Elara was viewed by the various people of the Carith Noor as little different than a goddess who walked amongst them. Her benevolence was legendary, true enough, but so was her wrath.
Elara, however, simply arched a golden brow and smirked. "Why Mordred, I had no idea you were still nursing a grudge after all this time, when our encounter was so brief." Her laugh was taunting. "Very brief, from what I can recall. How flattering. And how typical. But you will not have your way in this. It would be an abomination, and well you know it."
Rowan fought back a cringe. She didn't want to think of Mordred Andrakkar laying so much as a finger on her mother, but it appeared that at sometime in the distant past he had. It was not a history that she cared to repeat. Nor, it seemed, did her mother desire it for her, if her use of the word "abomination" was any indication.
"You know the Dyadd do not marry, Lord Andrakkar," she said, sensing from Elara's look that it was acceptable for her to speak.
"I know the Dyadd choose not to marry," Mordred replied with a malicious glint in his eyes. "There is quite a difference between the two."
"Not for me," she said firmly, catching Elara's approving nod with a flood of relief. Immediately she felt lighter, straightening to throw her shoulders back. Her mother understood and approved. All would be well. "Not for us. Leading my people is the most important thing. I can't give that up. Please understand." After a moment's thought, she grudgingly added, "I thank you again for the compliment of your attention."
Mordred's lips peeled back in a snarl, and all suggestion of handsomeness vanished in an instant. Now there was just a veneer stretched too thin over an angry serpent.
"You ungrateful little ..."
"I will give you all you could ever desire," Lucien interrupted, and his father fell silent in surprise. Lucien's voice was still soft, but deep and rich as well. Seductive if she would let it be. Perhaps it would have been had she not known him for what he was.
"You will want for nothing," he continued, the faint glow of his eyes almost hypnotic. "Only belong to me, and all I have to offer, all the world, is yours."
"And will I have your love?" Rowan asked, chin tipped up defiantly. She knew what the answer would be even before his expression became guarded, before Mordred gave a mocking snort of derision.
"A dragon cannot love," Lucien replied softly. But instead of the reproach she'd expected, there was a hint of melancholy in his tone that puzzled her.
"And the Dyadd do not marry," she countered. "But since you ask that I do so anyway, why can't I ask whether you would at least love me in return? It's hardly an impossible price."
"This is pointless," snapped Mordred, and Rowan knew it was. She had only wanted to hear the words, to have the crowd hear the words, to seal her refusal. But the burning look Lucien gave her held fathoms more emotion than she had expected. She looked away quickly, shaken, feeling as though the violent longing she had glimpsed had torn a hole right through her. Though she would never admit it to another soul, it frightened her.
They frightened her.
She wanted to send them away and be done with it.
Mordred was out of what little patience he had. "My son has offered you everything but the moon in the sky. It is more than I would gift a wench like you with, but the choice, fortunately for you, is his. So consider carefully. What is your answer, witch?"
"Your son has given me his," Rowan said coolly, wanting nothing more than their departure so she could regain her balance. "And so you have mine. I will not marry. And I would never marry for anything less than love." Naive, perhaps. But the words were true. She had grown up a nomad, the traveling court of the Dyadd Morgaine her home wherever it might be, often different parts of the Noor's vast network of forests every few days. She had learned to love beautiful things, but not to value them above nature, family, the things that could not be purchased. She felt that she wanted for nothing.
Almost nothing.
And so she would dream of the arukhin warrior who would return from the blackness to give her his heart, as the tales all said they would. She would belong to no other. But especially not an Andrakkar.
"There now, you have your answer, though I can't see how you would have expected any other," Elara was saying to an obviously furious Mordred. She was, to her credit, trying to contain her smile a little, though not having much success at it. Rowan relaxed. Her mother approved of this choice. She would send them away, use her strength to make sure they never bothered them again...In the blink of an eye, the great tent was gone, dissolved into a nightfall of screams and blood-colored flames that seemed to have set the night sky itself on fire. Rowan stood, horrified, in the doorway of her tent as she watched Elara battling a massive red dragon that she knew could be none other than Mordred himself. Green venom dripped from his fangs as he hissed and circled, long neck curved back as he readied for the death strike. Elara fought valiantly, power flowing from her fingertips, attempting to mortally wound the beast. A haze of sparks floated around them as they grappled, neither truly getting the upper hand. Until a drop of that vile green liquid fell in just the right way to touch Elara's fair skin, burning a hole in the flesh just as quickly as the poison it contained was surely burning through her system.
Rowan opened her mouth, knew she was screaming though she couldn't hear it over the cacophony surrounding her. She had to go to her, she thought wildly as the dragon gave a triumphant roar and closed in for its feast. There must be something she could do, some way to stop this madness ...
A hand closed over her wrist, jerking her back into the darkness of her tent even as a scream she recognized as her sister Lari's rose tortuously into the night from somewhere close by. And everywhere, louder than all, was the terrible sound of great, leathery wings moving through the air.
She had cried the first time, Rowan remembered as she was pulled backward into darkness. Many times, as she had relived this night countless times since it had happened. Now, however, there were no tears left. Elara was dead; Lari too, no doubt. And Bastian had found her once more, ready to take her from this world into another with some strange magic only he possessed. To save themselves while everyone else burned.
"Hold on to me, love. I can save you."
Rowan turned slowly at the voice that was not her brother's, though it was as familiar to her as her own. And instead of bright blue, eyes of gold and green blazed forth at her from the blackness. This wasn't right, she thought, confused as the dream began to break up around her in a fury of light and sound. None of this was right. It was Bastian who had come to save her. Bastian who had taken her away.
"I can save you if you let me," Gabriel said, pulling her to him in a night that had gone suddenly silent and still. And she wanted, how she wanted, to let him embrace her, to believe he could protect her. To feel his strong arms around her forevermore.
"Will you love me?" she heard herself asking.
His voice echoed faintly back to her as the hot winds returned to tear her from him, dragging her up, up toward consciousness and away from the torment of dreams.
"... if you let me."
Rowan gasped as she awoke, struggling against sheets that seemed to have wound themselves around her while she slept. A thin sheen of sweat covered her body, which was bathed in the faint glow of moonlight filtering in through the window beside the bed.
The dream again, same as it had been every night since her escape. Except the end.
Never, in all the nights she had been forced to relive the consequences of the decision she had made, had there been any variation. Until now. Until Gabriel.
"... if you let me ..."
The words echoed in her ears as she shoved the covers aside and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. She shot a quick glance at the little clock that ticked away the hours on the nightstand, its face barely illuminated in the dim light.
11:30.
Time to go.
Rowan closed her eyes, listening, expanding her senses until every breath, every whisper in the house was as loud to her as a shout. She had to be absolutely sure that her departure would be unnoticed. Since she was given to understand that the werewolves had senses nearly as developed as her own, the best option had seemed to wait until they were asleep. After a moment she let out a breath she hadn't even been aware she was holding. There was only silence, and the gentle inhalations and exhalations of deep slumber. She moved as silently as a cat around the room as she readied herself. Silly though part of her knew it was, she was by no means certain that she wouldn't find one werewolf in particular guarding her door.
Gabriel. She frowned as she pulled the shorts and tank she'd worn earlier back on, eschewing underthings simply because she had none. She'd done nothing to encourage him, everything to send him as far away from her as possible, and yet the man seemed determined to hover around her. She no longer even had the privacy of her dreams, Rowan thought irritably. She picked up the pair of old flip-flops Carly had dug up for her and then, after some consideration, placed them back on the floor. Bare feet would be quieter.
Not to mention faster.
She had to get the hell out of here, and as soon as possible. Because not only was she dreaming of Gabriel MacInnes, she was hungry again. For his touch. For his blood, though what he had given her should have sustained her for weeks. And that was impossible, inexplicable. Or it would have been had he not told her he was a descendant of the arukhin warriors she had dreamed of as a young girl. The fanciful tales she had grown up on had done nothing to prepare her for the flesh-and-blood reality of the big, determined shifter who had made no secret of his desire for her.
Though she could admit to herself, at least, how badly she had begun to want him, there was no way she would sacrifice any more of her people on the altar of her own self-interest. It was so tempting to slip into the room where Gabriel was sleeping just two doors away, to give herself to him and damn the consequences. And, Rowan felt, damn herself in the process. Which was why she had to leave now, while it still seemed a better idea to walk away.