His sharp gaze cuts to mine. “Do what you will. But I, for one, am beat.”
Rowland throws himself into the other chair, the leather worn from years of use, the legs creaky. He kicks off his muddy boots, propping the bloodstained things on the desk. For someone so concerned about me ruining whatever organization system he had going on at his desk, he sure doesn’t seem bothered by disturbing the delicate system himself, but I keep my mouth shut about it. I’m in his domain now. He can do whatever he wants here.
“You’ve been busy since I last saw you,” he says, breaking the silence and folding his hands over his stomach. “Did spending time with me really give you a death wish?”
My smile is tight. “It usually does.”
Irritation flares behind his charcoal eyes. He never could handle my humor. Little does he know, it makes it all the more enjoyable for me.
“If you hate seeing me so much, then why do you come here?”
“I learned something today that I thought you should know.”
“By all means then”—his arms spread wide—“tell me so I can get back to what I was doing. I’m a busy man. Believe it or not, I don’t wait around all day hoping that I might need to save you from your own recklessness.”
The way he says it, I’m almost not sure I believe he’s lying. A lie is always best concealed in the truth, after all.
“Oh, I’m sorry,Lord Rowland. Did I come at an inconvenient time? Should I have scheduled an appointment?”
“Dammit, Charlotte!” His fists slam against the desk, loose sheets of papers flying into the air like dead leaves falling in autumn. “Not everything is a joke!”
Under normal circumstances, Rowland is well adept at diplomacy. When Hulbeck fell, it wasn’t long before his mother established a new community, one that his mother raised him to assume leadership of after her passing, which she did a few years back. Since then, he’s dealt with the usual conflicts that arise whenever people live under constant duress and fear of losing their lives. He’s handled petty altercations as well as a near-uprising when they hadn’t harvested enough food to feed everyone through the winter comfortably.
He’s always handled such situations with a calm grace befitting his station.
But he has never quite learned how to handle me.
“Do you even care that you nearly died today?”
“Of course, I fucking care, Rowland! Don’t act like you give more of a shit about whether I continue breathing than I do. It’smylife. I want to keep it, and I definitely don’t want to end up like a soulless ghoul eating everyone I come across.”
Chest heaving, I stare into the pits of his dark, foreboding eyes.
The air is heady, rich and warm with the decadent scent of cloves and cinnamon. Being with him always reminds me of home, of the spice cakes my mother would bake for celebrations around the village, or of the early mornings he and I would spend together tucked under our mothers’ skirts while they sipped their steaming teas and we nibbled on whatever breads his mother had left over from the bakery from the previous day.
If we have anything in common, it’s our stubborn tempers, but mine has always been more persistent.
He breaks our gazes first, kicking his feet off the desk and rocking forward, head cradled in his hands.
I know he’s just worried. He’s always the maddest at me when my life is threatened. It makes me feel like an asshole, even when my own irritations are warranted.
Somehow, I find it within me to reel myself in. There are bigger things at play here, information he needs.
“I wasn’t trying to stir up trouble today. I awoke this morning and discovered I was out of blood, so I went to check my traps—”
His eyes shoot up to mine. “Is that what’s on your face? You know, my sentries almost shot you when they saw that. They thought you were one of them.”
“That’s kind of the point. It’s not the best disguise, but it works in a pinch. And today was quite the pinch.”
Disgust wrinkles his expression as he examines the dried blood on my chin. “What is it?”
“Pigeon blood.”
“And they can’t tell the difference?”
I shrug. “I don’t think it matters to them if it’s human blood or animal. They see something that looks human eating with blood smeared across their face, and they’re going to assume I’m a noctis.”
Understanding registers in his expression, the scientist in him being satiated. For now.
