Trial by Fire

Rowan gave Lily another memory.

… I’m exhausted after days in the woods, and after last night—the confrontation with Gideon, and then Lily bonding with her willstones. I didn’t meet Lillian until after she bonded with hers. Last night was an experience between Lily and me alone. Tristan is sitting across the table, angry with me for giving myself to Lily. I can tell he wants me to share the memory of my claiming with him, but I don’t want to. I don’t want to share her. I’m telling Tristan we can’t trust her, but that’s not it. She didn’t ask for any of this. It’s not her I don’t trust, it’s me. I don’t trust myself around Lily.

So you do trust me, Rowan?

Yes. Except for one thing.

“What?” Lily asked aloud, hurt.

Rowan smiled at her, and led her away from the fire. He brought her inside his tent and pulled her close to him. She leaned against him, her limbs suddenly light and her insides lifting like she’d jumped off a cliff. Rowan was breathing fast as he lifted her hand to his willstone. Lily hesitated for just a second, wondering if he really meant it, and then gently laid her fingertips on it. She took a deep breath, resisting the urge to grab it and crush it in her hand, and managed to hold it gently even though she wanted it. Rowan shivered and sighed, his willstone glittering.

A world of tenderness wrapped around Lily and filled her up, as if the air had turned into Rowan and she was standing in him and breathing him in. Lily saw images of herself—a pile of rags and pale skin in the oubliette, a human cinder that muttered and twisted with fever, a pleading white mask under dark and icy water.

This is why I don’t trust you, Lily.

He looked her in the eye. “I don’t trust you not to go and die on me,” he said aloud. “You’re stubborn and brave and you don’t listen to me.”

Lily smiled up at him nervously, her throat tight. “I’ve never been good at doing what I’m told. I’m sorry, Rowan. I know you want me to say that I won’t go tonight for your sake, but I can’t.”

“I know,” Rowan said. “You wouldn’t be you if you could.”

He kissed her, softly at first, but then more deeply, until Lily felt herself falling open under him. Rowan dropped his head to the side and kissed her neck.

“See?” he whispered against her jawbone. His fingers were inching her skirt up her thighs, his knee sliding between her legs. “I can’t trust myself around you.”

Rowan opened himself up to her completely. He let her feel what he was feeling in his body, all his excitement and anticipation. He showed her the ways he wanted to kiss her and touch her and how urgently he wanted it. Lily’s body lit up with sensation, but her mind fumbled somewhere between eagerness and fright. She wanted to open herself to him, but she had nothing to share back. And inside her was a nagging thought. She’d never intended to stay in this world, and although she still had no idea how to get home, that was still what she wanted to do.

At least that’s what she thought she still wanted.

She was falling in love with Rowan, and yet she still intended to leave him—didn’t she? Lily froze. Rowan pulled away and held Lily at arm’s length, abruptly shutting off the stream of feelings.

You’ve never been with a man, have you?

No.

Rowan’s face darkened and he took a step back.

“But you and your Tristan. You showed me the two of you together,” he said carefully.

Lily shook her head, suddenly feeling very small and exposed. She crossed her arms. “You didn’t see all of it. I would have, but he didn’t want to.”

“Idiot,” Rowan whispered.

“No,” Lily said fairly. “I’m lucky he stopped.”

“I meant me.” Rowan smiled and came to Lily. He unwound her arms and stepped into them. “I knew you were shy with your body.”