#minor rowaelin

[leiawritesstories]

PART TWELVE: DECEMBER

Word count: ~8.5k

Warnings: swearing, violence, references to d3@th, vivid nightmares, ANGST!!!, weapons, and finally some well-deserved fluff hehe

A/N: Oh my goodness, we're almost at the end!! (yes, that almost will matter hehe). This is the biggest project I've taken on with fanfic so far, and it's been a true joy and a delight to share our favorite ruthless crime boss and our favorite fearless investigator with you all! there will be an epilogue hopefully soon, as long as my class/life schedule allows, and then...well. We'll see what happens then ;)

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Enjoy!!!

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Crouched in the frosty cover of the trees that skirted the edge of her river warehouse’s property, Aelin watched the screen on her forearm with unnerving dispassion, her eyes locked onto every tense coil of Rowan’s achingly familiar body. She’d found him the second he broke through the scrubby underbrush across the lot, her gaze tracking him as he tracked Maeve all the way into the warehouse. 

She watched, oddly detached, as Maeve shot Remelle in the back of the head and both Rowan and Connall emptied their entire clips of ammunition into Maeve in eerie synchrony. 

She watched, oddly detached, as Rowan broke out of his shock enough to drag Maeve’s limp, gunshot-riddled body out of the warehouse and get it onto a waiting tarp. She kept watching as Maeve’s not-quite-so-dead-after-all arm twitched, as a blade glinted coldly in the light pouring out of the warehouse’s open door, as that blade launched itself towards Rowan’s exposed throat in a deadly blur.

She lifted her hollow gaze up across the lot and watched shock wash over Rowan’s face, watched his instincts take over and fire another round into Maeve, watched the blood spill beyond the edges of the tarp, watched his body slowly, jerkily collapse onto the cold pavement. 

She remembered she could move. 

Aelin exploded out of the trees, sprinting across the lot with near-inhuman speed, and skidded to a graceless stop beside the man whose soul was still entwined with hers. Breath sputtered out of his ruined throat, and his beautiful eyes blinked once, twice, three times, recognizing her. “ Don’t ,” she choked out, fingers delicately sifting through his hair. “You can’t leave me, Rowan.” A lump the size of the Great Ocean clogged her throat. “I love you.” 

His breath released in a tormented wheeze, unspoken words churning in his fading eyes. I love you. Fireheart . 

His eyes fluttered shut. 

And Aelin’s eyes tore open in the sudden silence and sprinted around the shadowed corners of her bedroom, their pace matching the thundering skip of her heartbeat. She lifted a shaking hand to her heart, finding her skin clammy with icy sweat, and counted her breaths as her terror slowly began to fade. 

It was only a dream, Galathynius . 

Steady enough to trust her movements, she reached over and flicked on her bedside lamp, illuminating the bedroom in a soft orange glow. The clock beside the lamp read 03:30—a terrible hour to wake from such a vivid nightmare. 

Tentatively, Aelin pushed back the blankets and slid out of bed. She picked up the top throw blanket, wrapped it around her shoulders, and stepped into her slippers. She flipped on an electric candle, cradled it in her hands, crossed the bedroom, and pushed open the door to the second-floor wraparound porch, a feature her parents had specially designed when they built this house. 

Tucked into the edge of the Oakwald Forest just past the park where she had dreamed as a child, Aelin’s family’s private home had long gone unused, serving more as secondary storage for family heirlooms and extra furniture than anything else. Near the end of the summer, Aelin had quietly asked Aedion to check on the house, so that when she came to it five days ago, it was ready for her. 

Aelin had loved this house as a child, entranced by its placement within the Oakwald. Lush tall pines rose into the sky around the house, almost as if they deliberately enfolded it in their shaggy branches. From the second-floor porch, though, she still had a clear view of the stars, and it was to the stars that she looked as she stood there in the cold December night. 

The Lord of the North glowed down at her, and she traced his stars with her eyes until her racing pulse slowed down to normal. 

It was just a dream , she repeated to herself. He’s alive. He’s safe. She’d confirmed it herself. 

After leaving Rowan—an act that her very soul protested—that night at the ruins of her warehouse, Aelin slipped back into the trees and watched as Rowan stared blankly in shock, shook himself, and climbed into his truck. She watched the tiny red dot on her screen as it wound through Orynth, the tracker she’d hidden on Rowan’s pickup feeding her his location. She watched him drive back to TSF headquarters and stop there. 

Then, she sheathed her knives, walked up the alley to another nondescript car, climbed in, and drove away towards the Oakwald. Her family home had become her refuge, and she wasn’t yet willing to give up this brief snatch of quiet. 

But eventually, she knew the time would come. 

Blinking back to the present moment, Aelin stared up into the stars, tracing the familiar constellations until her pulse slowed to normal and the icy winter breeze curling in from the forest nudged her back into the welcoming warmth of her bed. 

~

Not even three miles away—though he had no idea—Rowan jerked frantically awake, dripping with cold sweat, his mind and heart and eyes blurry with terrified confusion. Hands stumbling in the dark, he finally located his lamp and flicked it on, casting his own bedroom in a pool of soft warm light, a jarring but necessary contrast to the stark floodlights that blazed in his vivid, horrifying dream. 

Maeve fired, and the bullet buried itself in the skull of the woman standing on the mezzanine. Rowan couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t control the speed with which he emptied a full round into Maeve from his position crouched behind a stack of crates. The Queen of the Night jerked forwards and crumpled to the floor, and Rowan moved on autopilot, pure muscle memory driving him across the floor and up the steel steps and over to the limp body of the woman who’d stood up there. 

A hollow click echoed in his mind, and he felt his TSF training take over as he turned over the woman’s body and gently—so, so gently—closed her empty turquoise eyes. 

Still moving on autopilot, he lifted her body into his arms and walked back down the stairs and out of the warehouse. Someone had laid tarps out on the cement, and he knelt down and laid the woman’s body onto the cold blue plastic. Bowed over her figure, he carefully folded her arms over her chest, and as he began to lift his head, a gunshot cracked behind him, and blazing pain erupted in his shoulder. 

The last thing he saw as his consciousness began to fade was the warehouse exploding into blue-white flame—unnatural flame, impossibly hot. 

And the last thing he heard was a reedy feminine whisper in his ear. “You’ll never have her, Whitethorn. Never.”

His eyes sprang open, and he forced himself into consciousness. The light from his lamp and the sudden burst of cold from how he’d shoved his blankets away from his body shocked him into the beginnings of sanity, and he raked his fingers through his hair as he willed his mind to stop playing such sick fucking tricks on him. After a good three minutes, he pushed himself out of bed and went downstairs, haphazardly flipping on lights as he went. 

Rowan opened the sliding door in his living room and stepped out onto his back porch, and he tipped back his head and stared up into the clear night sky. Never asleep, his military instincts dragged his gaze across the trees that bordered his property, the beginnings of the edge of the Oakwald Forest. Nothing ruffled their branches, and he steadily calmed as his gaze wandered across the snow-dusted grass and the shadowed path of his long driveway. Eventually, his eyes drifted back up to the sky, and despite himself, he unconsciously searched out the path of stars that formed the Lord of the North. 

Aelin’s favorite constellation. 

Gods , he wanted to see her. No matter the storm of emotions whirling in his heart and soul, no matter the betrayal that soured the back of his throat, no matter the clinically insane amount of questions he had for her, he wanted to see her. Needed to see her, if only to confirm that he wasn’t hallucinating that night at the warehouse. 

Because that was her voice in his ear, her knives against his body. 

And he’d be fucking damned if he didn’t face Aelin Galathynius one more time. Even if that one time was to put her back behind bars. 

~

“Are you seeing this?” Gavriel almost sounded incredulous. Like every other person in the room, his attention was fixed onto the projection screen, where every major news outlet was following a massive protest that was currently occupying the plaza in front of the courthouse. 

“Who isn’t seeing this, sir?” Lorcan returned, dryly. His gaze darted between the wall-sized screen and his phone, and while Rowan couldn’t quite tell from his angle, he was dead certain that Lorcan was texting someone. 

Rowan tapped his fingers on the tabletop. “This has been going on for close to a week, sir.” And the protestors had only grown more vocal. 

Free Galathynius!  

Their refrain echoed down every major news outlet, radio station, and far too much of social media. Ever since Aelin had given that press conference after her trial, bits and pieces of her statements had been circulating the internet. People alternated between admiration of her unflinching willingness to tell the truth and shocked horror at the gruesomeness of her crimes. A little over a week ago, though, an anonymous and frustratingly untraceable source had posted a three-minute video of footage from a prior interview with Aelin. 

And the internet had fucking exploded. 

In that segment, Aelin discussed the method behind her madness. With a half-self-deprecating, half-wry smile tilting her lips, she answered the rapid-fire barrage of questions flung at her with graceful aplomb and her usual undertone of sarcasm. Why did you kill them? Each victim was nothing less than the scum of the earth, rotten criminals who were far better off dead than continuing to plague the world. Why did you keep Celaena’s identity? It suited her purposes—as Aelin Galathynius, she ran the company that kept so many people in respectable jobs, and as Celaena, she roamed the deserted back alleys of Orynth’s underbelly, making sure that no one worse than her remained alive to terrorize innocent people. 

On the screen, she paused for a moment, mulling over one of the questions, then shook her head with a dry little huff. “If you take anything away from this statement, let it be this: I have always acted and will always act to protect Orynth. I suppose I tried to play one too many roles—CEO, criminal, judge, jury, and executioner.” She chuckled. “I only regret that I took the criminal’s path instead of the vigilante’s, since that one seems to be much more acceptable.” Her eyes flicked sideways, and she took a step away from the podium, ending the press conference but raising another clamor of questions. 

Gav closed that video and switched to the next tab, a live news report in downtown Orynth. The reporter on scene stood at the edge of the Old Palace Square, chattering on about the protests that had only grown larger with every passing day. 

A raised voice cut through the chaos, its refrain breaking through the indistinguishable sounds of the reporters and the crowds. “Free Galathynius!” For a moment, stunned silence rippled across the square, but the protestors rapidly picked up the chant, hands and signs raised in defiance. 

“Free Galathynius!”

“Free Galathynius!” 

Free Galathynius!

Rowan clamped his lips together, spun on his worn bootheel, and left the briefing room. So many people were crowded into the space that his exit was unremarkable, and he used the brief snatch of silence to steal up the halls to his small office. He pushed open the door and didn’t bother flipping on the light as he crossed the tight space in two and a half steps and collapsed into his desk chair, scowling at the way the damn thing’s ancient springs jabbed him in the back through the frayed old cushion. 

Almost despite himself, his hand stole towards the inner pocket of his shirt, where a single folded sheet of paper was tucked in beside his heart, shielded behind layers of fabric and Kevlar. He carefully slid the paper out of its pocket, unfolded it, and pressed it down flat onto his dented steel desktop, letting his eyes skim the all-too-familiar lines of elegant script, clinging to the only physical shred of Aelin that he couldn’t let himself burn. 

Before she went to Endovier, she had written him a letter. It had just appeared on his desk the morning of her incarceration, probably left there by Gav, and he had long since memorized the words but stubbornly refused to discard the page. Even after weeks etched into his heart, the words still pricked at the tender edges of the wound he’d too hastily sealed up. 

The woman owned him so completely, even now. 

Rowan’s shoulders slumped as he read Aelin’s words for the millionth time. The tension that had coiled tight in his body seeped slowly out of him the longer he sat in the dim shadows of his tiny office, removed from the noise and the chaos and the visuals of the criminal mastermind who’d stolen his heart and never given it back. 

“I will find you,” he murmured, summoning up every drop of resolve he could visualize. “I will find you, Fireheart, and I can fucking promise you it won’t be the end.” 

“Well, that’s the most confusing love confession I’ve ever heard, but do carry on.” Smooth as silk and lethal as iocane powder, the voice coiled around Rowan’s unsteady heart and tugged his shell-shocked gaze up and across the cold steel of his desk to slam into an amused turquoise smirk. 

His other hand had his spare gun aimed between her eyes before he recognized what he was doing. “Stay where you are.” 

Aelin sighed, kicked the office door shut, and leaned on the bookshelf. “Go ahead, Ro. Fire it.” 

“I—” His finger trembled on the trigger. “No.” Even so, he kept it aimed at her. 

In a dizzying blur, she swatted the gun out of his hand and pinned both of his arms to the desk, a blade he definitely hadn’t seen her draw hovering a hair’s breadth away from his wrist veins. “You should know that I took the liberty of unloading it.” She leaned in close enough for her breath to graze the shell of his ear. “But it’s good to know that you’d still rather see me in prison than anywhere useful.” 

Before he could think of a reply—before he could even begin to process her words—she flicked her knife away, palmed something else off of his desk, and slipped out the door. 

Abruptly regaining control of his body, Rowan burst out of his seat and followed her out into the hall. And stopped short, because there was no goddamn sign of her anywhere. And he’d bet good money that there wouldn’t be any camera evidence either. 

Fucking hell . 

~

Crouched on the rooftop of TSF headquarters, Aelin tapped the pocket over her ribs, feeling the small, slim piece of plastic she’d swiped off of Rowan’s desk tucked securely in there. She’d thought she would feel some kind of relief once she was in and out of the building, but instead, she was just confused. Seeing Rowan—stealing from Rowan—hadn’t been in her plans. 

Not yet. 

Her earpiece crackled. “You out of there yet, Boss?” 

Aelin shook herself. “Quit calling me that, Owens, and give me thirty seconds.” Uncurling from her crouch, she darted across the rooftop, swung herself across to the neighboring building, and dropped down the rungs of a fire escape into an alley. “Go for it.” 

“Good work.” On his end, Nox tapped a few buttons, and the security camera system of TSF headquarters switched seamlessly off of the loop it had been running. “At your location in four, three, two, one…” 

“Surprise,” she said dryly as she pulled open the side door of the electrical utility van Nox was driving and lifted herself inside. “Thanks, Owens.” 

He nodded. “Anytime.” 

Nox drove as far as southwestern Orynth before he pulled into a grocery store parking lot and let Aelin out, and she went over to the nondescript car she’d parked there earlier that day, got in, and drove a circuitous route back out to her house. She let out a long, soft sigh of relief when she turned into the long, winding driveway, not really relaxing until she was in the house with the doors locked and the alarm system activated. 

She tossed the… thing she’d “borrowed” from TSF headquarters onto her nightstand, went back downstairs, and turned on the news. Elide had told her that she and Nehemia would be officially announcing the changes at Gal Inc, including the company’s new name and branding and the purposes for SecondSkin, that evening. 

Elide’s calm, professional presence commanded the cameras’ attention. “In agreement with my leadership team, we have agreed to rebrand this company as Staghorn Development. We will continue to provide the same products we have been developing and offering, and we hope that all current and future customers will continue to be satisfied.” 

The reporter interviewing Elide nodded. “Ms. Lochan, Dr. Ytger, what about the technology that was revealed in October? What is your company planning to do with…that?” 

Elide and Nehemia exchanged a look. “Are you referring to SecondSkin?” Elide asked. 

“Yes.” 

“As was also revealed in October, we plan to release SecondSkin for medical use. In fact, we have arranged for the first batch of the completed product to be delivered to Orynth General Hospital next week,” Elide said. “Dr. Ytger, anything to add?” 

Nehemia leaned into her microphone. “This product cannot be made in large quantities at the moment, but we hope that with more extensive development and clinical use, it will become more readily accessible. SecondSkin will be used for good, never for nefarious purposes.” 

“That’s all. Thank you,” Elide added, covertly gesturing at the off-camera security detail to clear the path for her and Nehemia’s exit. 

Aelin turned off the screen, Nehemia’s clever words echoing in her mind. Used for good, never for nefarious purposes . It was both a veiled reference to the one part of Aelin’s criminal life that hadn’t come up at her trial and a hint at the fear she knew the scientist shared. There was always the possibility that someone would discover SecondSkin and try to use it for evil. 

But if Aelin had anything to say about it, they would only ever try once. 

~

Days after Aelin appeared in his office, Rowan was still reeling from the shock. 

As he’d suspected, there was no trace of her on any angle of the building’s camera footage, and after driving the security team up the wall with his requests, he found himself once again seated in Gav’s office, stewing in confusion, irritation, and a healthy dose of admiration for Aelin’s skill level. Gav was lounging in his chair, typing away at something on his computer, and staunchly ignoring Rowan. 

It had been almost two hours. 

Finally, Gav closed his laptop with a slight click and drilled a flat stare right between Rowan’s eyes. “Why the hell are you in my office again, Whitethorn?” 

Rowan had no control over the blush that crept up his throat. “Aelin was here, sir.” 

Gav blinked, but his flatly disappointed expression didn’t budge. “And…” 

“And I spent too much time bothering the security team with my attempts to examine the footage from that day,” Rowan admitted. “I suspected there wouldn’t be any evidence, and there wasn’t, and when I tried to look for a loop, they…” He coughed. “I suppose I overstepped, sir.” 

“What a surprise,” Gav intoned, his words oozing sarcasm. 

Rowan’s flush spread across his face. “I’m sorry, sir. It seems that I have very little control when it comes to Aelin.” 

“You act like I’m unaware of that, Whitethorn.” Gav crossed his arms across his chest. “Are you forgetting that you dated my niece for months with my full knowledge?” 

“Ah, cut the man a break, Uncle Kitty-Cat.” 

Both Gavriel’s and Rowan’s eyes whipped to the office door, their expressions mirror images of shock. Aelin nudged the door shut with one boot and leaned against the wall, predatory grace lining her alert posture. A half-mask shielded the lower part of her face, and a hood had been pushed back from her head, its dark material blending in with her fitted shirt and pants. Some kind of flexible vest wrapped around her chest, lined with more sheaths than Rowan could immediately catalog. He did a mental estimate of how many blades or other weapons she could possibly have on her person. 

Too fucking many. 

“Rowan isn’t lying to you, Gav.” Aelin shot Rowan a little smirk. “While you all were busy gawping at the news last week, I paid his office a little visit. He happened to be there too.” 

Gav raised an eyebrow. “What kind of visit?” 

Aelin shrugged. “He had something I needed.” Anticipating the next question, she shook her head tightly. “It’s better if you don’t ask.” 

“You—” Rowan broke out, but Gav cut him off. 

“You do understand that by coming here, you’ve turned yourself back in, yes?” Unless Rowan was fucking senile—which he was beginning to think might be true—sadness cloaked Gav’s words. 

A tiny, vicious smirk curled one corner of Aelin’s lips, sending a chill skittering down Rowan’s spine. “I’m aware.” 

“And…” Gav held his niece’s gaze. 

She held out her hands, palms up. “I have a proposition for you, the cops, and the rest of the TSF, and I think both of you might want to hear it.” 

Rowan leveled a stare at his commander, waiting until Gav flicked a glance over at him and gave the slightest dip of his chin. “What is it?” he asked, his voice low and tight.

“I’d like to offer a deal.” Sensing the tension humming in the air, Aelin pulled a tiny, slender blade out of her sleeve and began dancing it across her gloved knuckles. “None of us will benefit if I go back to rotting my ass off in Endovier, so in exchange for quietly remitting my sentence, I promise to give up the Boss business.” Her analytical gaze tracked the crease that formed between Gav’s brows, and without pausing the motion of her blade, she arched a brow at him. “I know this conflicts with both of your overly formed senses of justice, but believe me, I’m far more useful to everyone when I’m in the city, and you know full well that if you stuck me back in Endovier, I’d get right back out.” 

“I know,” Gav admitted. He dragged a hand through his hair. “Tell me how you’re going to be ‘useful’ to law enforcement, Ae. We’re not involved in any active cases at the moment.” 

She chuckled. “So the team of TSF soldiers currently cleaning out Maeve’s compound and tracking down all of her distributors isn’t you?” 

Rowan’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know about that?” 

“I went by the Bitch Queen’s compound last week and discovered a whole bunch of soldiers crawling all over the place.” She shrugged. “I wanted to be mad, but it’s actually rather convenient—I don’t have to worry about staging some kind of elaborately covered cleanup effort.” 

Gav blinked. “So…you broke out of Endovier in order to finalize that list of yours?” 

“That was part of it.” Aelin tucked the blade away. “I left Endovier for everyone’s good, Gav. Like I said, you know there’s not a place on this earth that could hold me.” A grin tugged at her lips. “Besides, who doesn’t love a reformed criminal? Let the city get a glimpse or two of me, and I’m willing to bet that the protests calm down.” 

“You’re not wrong.” He blew out a long sigh. “But I can’t remit your sentence, Ae.” 

“What about alternatives?” She started ticking them off on her fingers. “Parole, supervision, house arrest, monitoring…” 

“ And we cannot publicly work with a convicted criminal,” Rowan added. 

Aelin turned her unimpressed gaze onto him, and he flushed under the force of it. “Then use your sneaky little brain and think of something, Lieutenant. That time when you broke into my warehouse indicates at least some level of cleverness hiding behind those pretty eyes.” 

A tangle of confusion, admiration, affection, and heat scrambled Rowan’s emotions as he processed the witty mix of insult and compliment Aelin had just delivered. “I…I didn’t…”

Gav chuckled, amused by Rowan’s flustered state. “As much as I might not want to agree with you, Aelin, you’re right—you’re better off and more useful to all of Orynth if you’re not incarcerated. I have a few thoughts on how we could proceed.” 

With a final wink at Rowan, she folded her arms across her chest. “Go ahead.” 

~

Aelin hadn’t expected her heart to be so far up her throat as she walked up the curve of Rowan’s tree-lined driveway, her boots crunching the delicate crust of snow atop the gravel. It had been two weeks since she revealed herself to Gavriel and agreed to put on the pretense of living quietly under house arrest while he thought about her deal. It was a pretense because she was still remaining under the radar, still keeping herself out of the public eye. 

Unable to resist the temptation, though, she’d allowed one of the news outlets to catch a fleeting glimpse of her shadow hurtling across the rooftops down by the river docks. Gav had been less than impressed, but he reluctantly agreed that the potential sight of the public’s favorite criminal had calmed them down a good amount. The volume of protestors had gone down, and their activity had largely shifted to online presence, advocating for her freedom through social media. 

She shook away the glittering promise of another covert appearance and focused on keeping her pace steady as she crossed the last few yards and set foot on Rowan’s covered wraparound porch for the first time in months. The deep brown paneling was comforting without being too gloomy, broken by pockets of golden warmth from the wide front windows. A fresh pine wreath hung on his front door, its scent crisp and almost cheery and all too similar to the man who lived there. 

With a controlled, calming breath, Aelin raised her hand to knock, but before her knuckles made contact, Rowan swung the door open. 

“ Aelin ,” he breathed, warmth battling with wariness behind his eyes. 

She clasped her hands tighter to quell her shaking fingers. “Hi, Rowan.” 

Wordlessly, he stepped aside, allowing her into his home, and a corner of her heart melted at the implicit trust in it. She took off her heavy winter jacket and unwound the scarf from around her neck, sighing a little as her chilled limbs began to warm back up. December in Orynth was beautiful, but frigid, and she had walked up to his house from the main road, nearly half a mile out. 

He’d barely moved, stood still a few paces away, tracing her figure and her face with his too-sharp gaze. “Why are you here?” The question rasped out of him; it would have been accusing, but he couldn’t summon his investigator’s voice. 

Her shoulders tensed, and out of habit, she glanced at the door, balancing the odds of escaping before her heart could break again. She pushed her gaze back to his, wove her fingers together behind her back, and answered, “I want to explain.” 

That tiny kernel of honesty seemed to undo something in Rowan, and his posture loosened as he turned and went into the living room. As he passed her, she felt the barest brush of fingertips against her hand, as if his body couldn’t control itself in her presence. 

Neither could hers. 

Aelin followed Rowan into the living room and settled into one of his surprisingly plush armchairs, tucking her legs beneath her. He sat down facing her, his profile illuminated by the crackling orange glow of the fireplace, leaned forward, and rested his elbows on his knees. She shifted her eyes to the low-burning flames, a sudden surge of conflicted emotion clogging her throat. 

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, dragging her gaze up to his. “I’m so sorry, Rowan.” 

His throat bobbed with a heavy swallow. “Why couldn’t you just tell me?” 

“You know why,” she murmured, the pain etched into her heart seeping into her words. 

“I would have fought for you, Aelin.” Dark and flickering and always noticing too much, his gaze pinned hers. “If I knew, I would—”  

“You wouldn’t have gone against the laws, Rowan. You couldn’t.” Aelin shoved down the sob that filled her throat. “And I don’t blame you or fault you for that.” She paused, her heart and her mind warring over whether she should give him the next words. “I fell in love with you partly because of how honorable you are, and I knew all along that no amount of loving you would get me out of the handcuffs that my actions dangled in front of me.” A tear escaped her grip and slipped gently down her cheek, at odds with the next thought that came out of her mouth. “Plus, it was too much fun to lead you and your team all over the place.” 

His lips twitched as he fought back a grin. “I didn’t think it was very fun.” 

“Your team did,” she teased, a bit of her humor sparking back to life. 

“Bunch of idiots,” he mumbled, affectionately. Concern slipped back onto his face, and she braced herself for the questions she knew he needed to ask. “I have questions for you, Ae.” 

“Go ahead.” 

He leaned forward. “How long was Ren Allsbrook spying on me?” 

“You mean Captain Westfall?” She couldn’t resist the tiny jab. “At least as long as you were part of the investigation.” 

“When did he start posing as Westfall?” 

Aelin twisted her ring around her forefinger. “A year ago.” She took a breath. “Ren escaped prison in early December of last year and took over as Chaol Westfall a couple of weeks after that. I have no idea where the real Westfall is, but Ren’s history clearly shows that whenever he took on the disguise of another person, that person conveniently disappears to some remote tropical location for a year or two. If Westfall hasn’t turned up in a month or so, you’ll probably want to look for him in the Iron Isles. I hear they have a pretty elaborate pirate festival there every year.” 

Rowan snorted quietly. “So I never knew the actual Chaol Westfall?” 

“I’m afraid not.” 

He blew out a huff of breath. “I should be surprised, but I’m not.” He went quiet for a moment, mulling over what to ask next. “Could…can you tell me about Fenrys?” 

Aelin had known the question would come, but she wasn’t prepared for how hard it hit her. “I met him in May,” she said, her mind wandering back to their scuffle in the warehouse lot. “But you knew that, didn’t you?” 

“Yeah.” A half-grin pulled at Rowan’s lips. “I thought I was a step ahead of you there.” 

She cracked a grin. “For a while, you were. I asked Fen to get into Maeve’s compound for me, though, and that was when he started reporting to me first.” 

“Why did you ask him to do that?” 

“A few reasons.” She cleared her throat. “Like I said at my trial, Maeve was always a picky little bitch about the men she let into her compound, and Fenrys was exactly the kind of fresh face she’d want to get her dirty hands on. He wasn’t known as one of my affiliates, she never suspected that he could be a spy. And…” Aelin trailed off, gathering her resolve. “And Connall had already been spying on Maeve for me when I sent Fenrys, so I knew Fen would have Con to vouch for him.” 

Rowan bolted up out of his chair, stunned by the revelation. He dragged his hands down his face, visibly reeling from the shock. “You knew…you knew Con was alive this whole time?” 

Slowly, painfully, Aelin nodded. “When I sent Fen into the Bitch Queen’s compound, Con had already been there for three months. I’d known him for about a month longer.” 

Exhaling in shaken disbelief, Rowan lowered himself back into his chair. “Did you know Con is a Navy SEAL and was declared missing in action years ago?” 

“No.” Aelin met Rowan’s gaze head-on, letting the truth of her words show on her face. “He never told me.” 

Rowan nodded slowly. “Okay. So you sent both him and Fen to Maeve.” 

“Yes. I knew she might ask Fen to turn around and spy on me for her, and she did, and that…” She forced the words out through a choked sob. “And he died.” More tears crept down her cheeks. “I still feel responsible for it, Ro. I wish I could have warned him.” 

“I’m sorry, love,” Rowan whispered, the endearment breaking past his defenses. “Maeve really deserved that Bitch Queen title, didn’t she?” 

“A thousand times over.” Aelin flicked stray tears off of her face, ignoring the way Rowan’s fingers twitched as if he wanted to be the one to do that. “Sometimes, I wish I could have killed her myself, but knowing that it was you might be even better.” 

“You saw?” His eyes flared wide. “I… how?”

She turned the ring around her finger, over and over. “It’s a long story, Ro.” 

Rising from his chair, he crossed the few steps over and crouched down in front of her, his big warm hands covering her restless ones. “I have time, love.” 

Hesitantly, she tucked her hand into his, and together, they stood up and went to the couch, settling down at opposite ends. Aelin picked up one of the decorative pillows and hugged it to her chest, sorting out her thoughts. Across from her, Rowan waited, impossibly patient with her even after everything she’d put him through. Another piece of her heart melted for him, warming in the light of his steadiness, his calm. 

“I was going to go after Maeve the second I left Endovier,” she began. “Con had managed to send me a note, telling me that she was crazed enough to go after me if she thought she saw me, and my plan was to show up at her compound and lead her down to the warehouse to put a knife through her fucking throat.” She caught her breath. “But after I left prison, I realized I needed some time to recover, to build myself back up. I wasn’t as capable after weeks of having nothing to do. So, I waited. I stayed at one of my safe locations in the industrial district, and I worked out a plan with a few of my men.” She paused, and Rowan raised a brow, waiting for her to go on. “The woman you saw at the warehouse—the one up on the mezzanine—that was Remy.” 

Rowan’s eyes nearly leapt out of his head. “ What?”

“I used Remelle as a decoy for me.” Aelin fought back a knife-edged smirk. “It worked so well as a cover for leaving Endovier, and Maeve was so hell-bent on just killing Celaena Sardothien that she wouldn’t look closely.” 

“But Remelle was innocent ,” Rowan said, quietly. 

“No.” 

His jaw slacked. “No?”

Aelin shook her head, her lips twisting in remorse. “On the surface, she was. But Ro, I wouldn’t have used her as a decoy if she was totally innocent. I’ve done a lot of terrible things, but I’ve never, ever intentionally hurt or killed an innocent person.” 

Confusion wrinkled his forehead. “So what did she do?” 

“When my tech guy looked into her background, he found a whole bunch of inconsistencies. I asked one of my other men to follow her around for a while, and where did Officer Remelle go every other day? She went right to Maeve’s compound.” As the recognition clicked in Rowan’s stunned eyes, Aelin confirmed it. “Remy darling was spying on the police for Maeve, and when I discovered that, it just felt right to trick Maeve into shooting her little spy.” 

“Holy fuck ,” Rowan breathed. 

“Con was there too,” Aelin continued. “If things went wrong, he’d be there to take Maeve out. It was him who dropped you Maeve’s location, if you were wondering. He knows more about tech stuff than I do—hell, he might know more than my tech guy. I was on the edge of the property, hidden in the tree line, watching it all go down. I wanted to be there to shoot the Bitch Queen, but Rowan, when you walked across the lot, I suddenly didn’t want my revenge as badly as I wanted you to have it.” She smiled despite herself. “Fuck, I love you so much that I’d let you take the kill I’ve been chasing for over a year.” 

The words bled from her heart to his, and when they landed, he reached across the couch to slip the pillow out of her hands and take them in his. “And I love you so much that I’d look the other way when you break out of federal prison.” 

She chuckled. “I was at the warehouse for one other reason, Ro. I had to be there for the explosion.” 

He nodded, thumbs stroking the back of her hands. “I’ve been wondering about the explosive since that night, and if it’s the same one used at the Wilkins lot explosion in January, then I’ve been wondering about it for almost a year. It’s baffling.” 

“It’s a variant of hellfire, and I may have created it on accident,” she admitted. 

“You what?” His jaw, already hanging loose, nearly tumbled off his face. 

Aelin pressed her lips together for a moment. “Since I have my degree in chemical engineering, I occasionally like to run experiments, and Nehemia generously let me tinker around in the labs. I had an idea a while ago to try and isolate the part of hellfire that makes it burn so hot, hopefully to use that as some kind of fuel source for the labs. I got partway through the experiment—I found the compound that keeps hellfire so hot—and when I tried to move the isolated compound, it reacted with something else in the solution I was using and melted a hole in the lab table.” Unconsciously, she moved closer to his side. “I was curious, so I tried combining tiny drops of the isolate with the other solution, and the same thing happened. Separate, the chemicals are harmless, but combined, and possibly with the effect of the oxygen in the air, they burn like hell itself.” 

“How much of this stuff do you have?” 

“It’s gone.” She squeezed his hands in reassurance. “Like I said, creating the explosive was an accident, and I’m not known to write things down when I’m running an experiment that might possibly be slightly illegal.” Rowan chuckled at that, and she continued. “I used the last half of the stuff at the warehouse. When my guys set Remelle up, I went in and planted the two halves of the explosive in a little device like an hourglass. After a set amount of time, the chemicals would combine, and there was enough there to make the whole place explode.” 

“And you knew how much time to give it?” 

“I guessed, but the timer had a remote control that could add or subtract time as needed. So I watched and waited, and I added minutes to the timer when I had to.” She paused, her eyes tracing the ink written up Rowan’s arm. “Everything happened so fast—Maeve shot Remy, you shot Maeve, Con hauled ass out of the warehouse, you came out, and Con gave me the signal. And I ended the timer.” 

“That’s…fuck.” Rowan exhaled harshly. “How was the explosion so contained? I wasn’t close to the warehouse, but given what you’ve said, I would have expected the explosion to go farther out, to burn more than just the warehouse. But it didn’t.” 

“I don’t know,” Aelin said. “It seems almost like this variant was oddly limited by concrete, and everything around the warehouse is concrete, so only the building burned.” She poked his side. “Don’t worry, you buzzard. I’m not going to try recreating it just to find out its limitations.” 

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” he returned, deadpan. “I’d hate to have to arrest you again because you blew up some abandoned factory somewhere.” 

She snickered. “Your arrest power only applies if I commit another homicide, love. Has your aging brain forgotten the terms already?” 

“Watch it with the age jokes,” he teased, flames kindling in his look. “I’m only two years older than you.” 

“Those two years made it that much easier to lead you and your cute little investigation around in circles,” she laughed, giving into the pull of his presence and curling her body into his side. “Is it really that difficult to keep up with the younger generation?” 

“It is when you’re in love with the woman you’re supposed to arrest.” 

She tipped her head up, surprise coloring her cheekbones. “Rowan…” 

“Aelin,” he murmured, his arms wrapping around her waist, guiding her into his lap. “I…this can’t possibly be a good idea.” Longing simmered in his gaze, but he kept it at bay with that staunch soldierly control of his. 

Carefully, she reached up and balanced her palm gingerly on the angle of his jaw. “I can wait until it is.” Although her heart wanted to propel her forward, she kept herself back. “I never stopped loving you, Rowan Whitethorn.” 

“I never stopped loving you either, Fireheart,” he rasped. “Never.” 

Slowly, cautiously, he closed the gap between them and touched his lips to hers. His kiss was hesitant, delicate, testing the strength of the love that laid beneath every layer of betrayal and grief and longing that shielded both of their hearts. She sighed into the kiss, melting into his arms, and she swore her heart sang. When she pulled back to catch her breath, a soft smile lit up her face, matching the one he wore, hinting at the hope she still carried for their future. 

His hand traced a lazy, gentle path up her back. “Stay, love.” She tensed, unsure of whether that was a good idea, and he kept up the path of his hand. “Just for dinner, if that’s all you can do.” 

“Okay.” She relaxed, grateful beyond words that he could still read her so well. “That sounds better than whatever I can throw in the microwave.” 

His deep laughter rumbled down into the depths of her heart. “I thought you could cook.” 

“Sometimes.” She grinned. “Other times, I let the man I love cook for me.” 

“You do?” 

She pressed a kiss to the corner of his lips. “Yes.” 

He caught her chin and turned her face back to his and kissed her properly, a slow heated sweep of his tongue sending fire dancing down her spine. She slid her fingers into his hair, holding him close, as if he would vanish like her dreams did if she let go. Not breaking the kiss, he dragged her against him, and they both forgot about dinner the moment his fingertips ducked under the hem of her sweater, meeting the skin of her back in a simple, almost sweet touch charged with too many layered emotions to name. 

“Tell me to stop,” he breathed, his touch skimming too lightly up the path of her spine tattoo. 

Aelin arched into him, her breath shuddering. “Don’t stop.” 

So Rowan didn’t. 

~

“And cheers to Staghorn Development’s newest chemical engineer!” Elide raised her champagne glass to Aelin, grinning. 

Aelin laughed, clinked her glass against Elide’s, and took a sip. “What can I say? I guess it’s time I put my degree to good use, and I’m thankful for a friend who’s willing to hire the most notorious ex-crime boss in Orynth.” She winked. 

“Oh, I don’t know about ‘ most’ notorious,” Rowan teased. “Wasn’t there at least one name on that list who was known for worse reasons than you?” 

“We don’t talk about that, remember?” She nudged him in the ribs, and he chuckled. “Besides, the list is behind us now. It’s over, love.” 

“I know.” He wrapped his free arm around her waist, his hand settling low on her hip. 

Elide wrinkled her nose. “Look, we get that you two are still disgustingly in love, but would it kill either of you not to be all sappy in front of your family?” 

Aelin arched a knowing brow at Lorcan, whose fingertips lingered on the small of Elide’s back. “I think you’re one to talk, Ells.” She smirked. “It’s cute, though.”

A bright crimson flush blazed up Elide’s cheeks. “ Aelin!”

“What?” Aelin tipped her glass at the couple. “It’s not a secret, Ells. I’ve known you were jumping Salvaterre’s massive bones for months.” 

Lorcan spewed a mouthful of his drink everywhere as he erupted with strangled coughing. Elide instantly set down her glass and pressed a cloth napkin to his face and rapped on his back a few times until his wheezing subsided. “The fuck, Galathynius?” he croaked, just as flushed as Elide was. 

Rowan was howling, only keeping himself upright by the arm he had around Aelin. 

Lorcan scowled at him, but there was a spark of laughter somewhere in his glare. “Asshat,” he grumbled. 

Elide rose up onto her tiptoes and pecked a kiss onto his lips. “It’s okay, babe. You can still kick his ass the next time you’re at the gym.” 

“Damn straight,” Lorcan muttered. “Fuck you too, Whitethorn.” 

Aelin was still beaming. “You two are too cute.” 

“I could have you fired for that,” Elide drawled, deadpan. 

“You could, but then who would tell you all the lab gossip? Just the other day, I opened the cleaning closet to wipe down my station and found two of the new assistants in a very interesting embrace,” Aelin said. “I’ve got half a mind to start some kind of social media page that just posts every new couple who thinks they’re being secretive down in the Staghorn labs.” 

“Now that’s an idea,” Aedion chimed in. “It’d keep you busy during all this new free time you have now that you’re not sneaking around Orynth at night.” 

Aelin flipped him off. “Who says I’m not?” 

Aedion raised a brow. “Oh, I don’t know. The police? The Special Forces? Every judge, lawyer, and law enforcement official in the city?” 

“You’re no fun anymore, Aedy.” Aelin rolled her eyes. “And there’s nothing wrong with going for a little midnight rooftop walk every once in a while.” 

“ Aelin ,” Rowan groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You know I still have to report to Gav, right?” 

“I’m just joking,” she chuckled. Mostly , she added to herself. 

“I swear my life shortens every time you say something like that,” Rowan grumbled, playfully. 

“Welcome to the club, brother.” Aedion slung his arm around Rowan’s shoulders. “This has been happening since Aelin and I were kids.” 

Aelin elbowed her cousin in the side. “Just because you didn’t want to do anything except play with your My First Science Experiment kit doesn’t mean you didn’t climb a few trees with me.” 

“More than just trees,” he huffed. 

She grinned. “What’s a childhood without at least one attempt to climb onto the roof of your parents’ house?” 

“I feel like I shouldn’t be hearing this conversation,” Rowan said dryly, pretending to press his hands over his ears. 

“Why not?” Aelin winked at him. 

“Because now I want to tell my commander and the press all about your criminal childhood.” 

“Rude!” She gasped. “We never did anything actually criminal.” She paused for a moment. “Well, until that fucker Arobynn kidnapped me, but you’ve all heard that part of my story.” 

Rowan’s hand flexed against her waist. “If he wasn’t already dead, I’d kill the bastard myself.” 

“How adorable,” Elide crooned, giggling. “Aren’t they too cute, babe?” 

“I’m not answering that,” Lorcan grumbled. 

Aelin shot the broody man a smirk. “Too embarrassed to admit that your soldier buddy is just as cute as you and your girlfriend?” 

“Fuckin’ gods ,” Lorcan groaned. “Fine. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again—Whitethorn in love is stupidly fucking adorable. Also, he’s not my buddy .” 

“Fuck you too,” Rowan muttered. 

“Been there, done that,” Elide whispered to Aelin, who buried her spluttering laugh in her sleeve. 

“You’re an evil woman,” she wheezed once she had control of her breath. 

Elide just arched a brow. “You know, I think that’s a compliment coming from you, so I’ll take it as one and let you keep your job.” 

“How generous,” Aelin deadpanned. “I might be forced to turn back to the streets if you kicked me out of the lab, and we can’t have that.” 

“Right,” Elide mused. “Remind me again, what were the conditions that you agreed to? You were pretty vague when we were talking about it a while ago.” 

“I couldn’t risk sharing too much in public,” Aelin said. She took a sip of her drink. “Basically, the TSF has generously agreed to ‘monitor’ me rather than slap me back in Endovier, knowing that I would just leave the place again. My sentence has been suspended on the condition that I never commit another homicide; if I do, the sentence will go back into effect and I’ll have to return to prison.” 

“So that’s why you agreed to move into Rowan’s house,” Elide said. “I guess it’s easier to keep an eye on you when you’re in direct sight.” She snickered at Aelin’s disgruntled scoff. 

“There’s a few… other benefits to our arrangement,” Aelin added sweetly, winking slowly and wickedly at Rowan. His eyes nearly bulged out of his head, and he coughed harshly, his face a peculiar shade of red. 

“ Aelin ,” he managed to croak, mortified. 

She laughed and handed him a glass of water. “I’m sorry, buzzard.” 

He drank the water and chuckled dryly. “I really should have expected it.” 

“You should have.” She tucked herself against his side and beamed up at him. 

“Lovebirds!” Elide interrupted, clapping her hands sharply. “We have fifteen seconds until the new year hits!” 

“Pucker up, honey,” Aelin murmured, winking at Rowan. 

Aedion groaned and covered his eyes. “I’m gonna go hide.” 

Aelin laughed, and as the clock hit midnight, she rolled up onto her tiptoes and met Rowan’s kiss, sighing quietly as her lips parted for him. “Happy New Year, love,” she whispered when they parted. 

A quiet, bright smile lit up his face. “Happy New Year, love.” 

“Cheers to this next one.” She linked her fingers with his, and they exchanged a private little razor-sharp grin, knowing full well what the coming year had in store for them. “So tell me, love. When do we leave?”

~~~

TAGS:

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[acourtofquestions]

Aelin said to Rowan with a secret smile, "You, I don't know. But I'd like to."

Rowan's lips tugged upward "I'm not on the market, unfortunately."

"Pity," Aelin said.

"She must be a rare, staggering beauty to make you so faithful."

Gods save them all. He could have sworn Fenrys coughed behind him.

"She must be clever, and fascinating, and very, very talented. She must be the most wonderful person who ever existed."

Another cough from behind him-from Gavriel this time.

But Aelin only had eyes for Rowan as the warrior said to her, "She is indeed that. And more."

[dreamdragonkadia]

Feeling a little burnt out lately, but I couldn't resist doing one more post with my favorite poly couple. They just have my whole heart. Rowaelin x reader

This was going to be your thirteenth reason —the final, undeniable proof— that you were absolutely, one hundred percent justified in considering throwing yourself off the battlements next time Aelin or Rowan so much as breathed too loudly in your direction.

It had started that morning. A sniffle. A slight ache behind your eyes. Maybe a little nausea. Minor. Manageable. Nothing worth worrying about, let alone worth the King of Terrasen turning into a hulking, overbearing, mother-hen of a male who hadn't let you out of his sight for more than a few minutes.

And gods, if Rowan's pacing didn't drive you mad first, Aelin's dramatics were sure to finish the job.

"Go away," you rasped from the center of the massive bed you were currently buried under, your voice coming out more of a pathetic wheeze than the fierce snarl you'd intended. You coughed once, squeezing your eyes shut as if that alone would ward them off. "I'm fine."

"You’re not fine," Rowan said without even looking at you. His tone was pure command, flat and emotionless to the untrained ear, but you knew him too well. The steel in it was only a thin veil over the worry thrumming through every inch of him.

Before you could summon the strength to argue, another voice chimed in, light and wickedly amused.

"Yeah, maybe we want to get sick too, just so we can stay in bed with you," Aelin drawled from across the room, where she had just abandoned her chair and the book she’d been half-heartedly pretending to read.

You barely cracked an eye open in time to see her grin. That wicked, golden grin that could unravel kingdoms. You didn’t even have the energy to be properly suspicious of it as she crossed the floor toward you with far too much intent for someone claiming casual concern.

Your brow lifted weakly as Aelin, without so much as asking, climbed up onto the bed and crawled over the covers until she flopped dramatically at your side. Her hair fanned across the pillows, a gleaming river of gold that seemed to catch every beam of light from the window.

"You’re going to get sick," you said flatly, though your heart wasn’t in it. Your body was already sagging toward hers instinctively, seeking the warmth you knew she’d give without question.

"If I get sick, I fully expect royal treatment," Aelin sniffed, flipping her hair over her shoulder with a theatrical air that would have made any courtier weep in envy. "Breakfast in bed. Daily foot rubs. A personal bard singing me to sleep. The works."

You let out a weak laugh, your chest rattling slightly with the effort, and shook your head. "You’re the worst patient in the world."

"And you love me for it," she said smugly, resting her head lightly against your shoulder. Her hand found yours under the blankets, fingers twining with easy familiarity. You thought you might’ve had a clever retort when the bed dipped again on your other side, and the mattress shifted with a heavier weight.

There was the faint scent of pine and snow—Rowan. Large, calloused hands, so careful for all their strength, brushed over your forehead. Checking for fever. Again. You grumbled weakly and batted at him, your effort about as effective as a leaf fighting the wind.

"I’m not a fledgling," you muttered, glaring up at him.

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t smile. He simply pressed the back of his hand to your cheek again, his face carved into that same hard, merciless mask he wore on the battlefield, but the worry slipped through the cracks.

"You’re warm," he said quietly, the words rough against the otherwise soft hush of the room. "Warmer than this morning."

"I’m fine," you repeated stubbornly, though it was clear none of them believed you.

"And stubborn," Aelin added brightly, squeezing your hand for emphasis.

You rolled your eyes, or you tried. Everything felt heavy. Hot. You hated feeling weak. Hated that you couldn’t just will yourself better and put an end to the worried looks being traded above your head.

"You’re both idiots," you grumbled hoarsely, burrowing deeper into the blankets despite yourself.

"And you’re ours," she said, softer this time. She pressed a kiss to your temple, feather-light, the scent of lavender clinging to her hair.

Rowan shifted closer too, pulling the covers higher up your body, tucking them in tightly around you with infuriating tenderness. His hand lingered against the crown of your head, his thumb stroking once, a quiet touch.

"Rest," he murmured, his voice little more than a breath against your burning skin. "We’re not going anywhere."

It was easier to let yourself sink with them there. To surrender to the pull of sleep.

Maybe later, when you weren’t feeling like death warmed over, you’d yell at them for being ridiculous. For hovering like your mere breathing was something fragile and precious.

But for now, you let yourself drift, knowing that if the world dared so much as breathe wrong in your direction, Rowan and Aelin would burn it down before it ever touched you.

[throneofsapphics]

kink/angst-tober masterlist

A/N: vast majority of these will be smut, other prompts may be dark. minors dni please! some of this is subject to change. they'll be posted at midnight est!

Day 1: Spanking with Gavriel Day 2: Wax play with Mor Day 3: Lingerie with Rhys Day 4: “She will die, thinking you never loved her.”  Day 5: Cockwarming with Rowan Day 6: Temperature with Rowaelin Day 7: Free use with Feysand Day 8: “If I see you again, you’re dead.”  Day 9: Piercings with Ruhn Day 10: Blood Kink with Manon Day 11: Mirror with Manorian Day 12: “You can run, we’ll find you every time.”  Day 13: Praise with Fenrys  Day 14: Corruption with Lorcan Day 15: Somnophilia with Nessian  Day 16: “Don’t be nice to me, I know how much you want to slit my throat.” Day 17: Bondage with Feysand  Day 18: Knife play with Manon and Asterin Day 19: Face fucking with Azriel and Rhys  Day 20: “Tell her she can come on her own feet, or over my shoulder.” With Cazriel Day 21: Hair pulling with Elorcan Day 22: Overstimulation with Aelin Day 23: Breath play with Dorian  Day 24: Edging with Lidia Day 25: “Really, poison again? Get more creative.”  Day 26: Face sitting with Nesta  Day 27: Voyeurism with Asterin (ft.the thirteen) Day 28: Degradation with Rowaelin   Day 29: “If you’re going to try and stab me, at least learn how to hold the knife.”  Day 30: Submission with Manorian Day 31: Brat-taming with Rowan 

[live-the-fangirl-life]

“The legend said it only goes after virgins…so sucks for you I guess.” for elorcan 👀👀

Tell Me S’more

Elide Lochan x Lorcan Salvaterre

“The legend said it only goes after virgins…so sucks for you I guess.”

Halloween Dialogue Prompts

Masterlist | Read on Ao3 | Halloween Collection

Warnings: Language, Scary Stories

2003 words

*******

Elide stuffed another marshmallow on the skewer and held it over the fire. She half listened to the conversations and bickering around her, occasionally putting in her two cents as she focused on getting her marshmallow a perfect golden brown. She hated when the flames caught and scorched it and left it a crumbling charred mess.

On another night, if her marshmallow burned, she could’ve given it, albeit dejectedly, to her boyfriend who for reasons she couldn’t comprehend liked his marshmallows burnt. But not tonight. Tonight, Lorcan was sitting on the opposite side of the fire from her, separated on each side by their friends. Tonight, she couldn’t give him a burnt s’more without the confused or shocked looks from their friends. Because tonight, she and Lorcan had to pretend like they haven’t been secretly dating for a month and a half.

So, tonight, Elide focused on her marshmallow.

“Okay, okay, here we go,” Aelin sat next to Elide and grabbed a flashlight from her bag before turning it on and holding it beneath her face. The light caught on her cheekbones and cast shadows over her skin. “Who’s ready to have nightmares tonight?”

“You don’t need to tell a story for that, Galathynius,” Lorcan smirked. “You’re disturbing enough.”

“I think you mean delightful, Salvaterre, not that you’d know what that is.”

Elide cringed inwardly. This was why she and Lorcan were keeping their relationship to themselves for now. She loved Aelin, and she lo—really liked Lorcan, but Aelin and Lorcan could be at each other’s throats on a good day.

Rolling her eyes, Elide nudged Aelin with her shoulder. “Come on, watch’ya got?”

As her friend began to tell the story, Elide caught Lorcan’s eye. His dark brows had raised a bit at her interjection, and he flashed her a quick wink as she discreetly rolled her eyes at his amusement. She lost track of the story as she kept her attention on her boyfriend. It really was a cruel joke of their own making that she wasn’t sitting next to him, curled up into his side. By the look that flashed across his face, she knew he was thinking the same thing and cursing the fire that separated them.

“Virgins? Really?” Fenrys interrupted, drawing Elide’s attention and earning a glare from Aelin. “That’s so cliché.”

The blonde opened her mouth to reply but Lysandra beat her to the punch. “What, not interested anymore knowing it isn’t coming after you?”

“Fuck off, Ennar,” he scoffed but any annoyance was negated by his self-satisfied grin.

The story went on, and even if the tale itself was lackluster, Aelin had a way of captivating people’s attention. It wasn’t long before everyone was leaning closer to the fire, listening to a story about a horrifying creature that lived in the very woods to their backs.

“A creature that fearsome and bloodthirsty doesn’t need to be clever. Anyone with a lick of common sense may just outwit the monster, but its prey rarely survives long enough to try. It doesn’t have a name. The lucky, or unlucky, few who do escape its clutches are never the same; only lucid enough to recall its jagged claws and gruesome teeth, warning others about the beast that prowls these woods. Don’t go looking for the monster, it very well may be the last thing you ever do.”

Silence stretched out around them as Aelin turned off the flashlight…only to be broken by Fenrys wetly blowing into his palm, eliciting a loud fart noise. “Is that the best you can do?” He laughed as he narrowly missed the flashlight flung at his head.

Elide knew Lorcan was about to chime in and she tried shaking her head but he continued anyway.

“Where did you find that?” He mocked. “From some kiddie Halloween book?”

Elide arched a brow at him and replied drily, “Yeah, ‘cause a kid’s book would have a monster who specifically attacks virgins.”

“Exactly,” Aedion argued, but used her point oppositely, “it goes after all of them. Scary.”

Lysandra nudged his shoulder with an eye roll, “Most of them wouldn’t even know what virgin means.”

“And that’s,” Rowan nodded, “where the story turns scary for the adults who have to bullshit their way through that explanation.”

“That’s convoluted,” Elide scoffed and met Lorcan’s amused stare over the fire.

“Maybe,” Her boyfriend shrugged before turning back to Aelin, “Doesn’t matter though, ‘cause it still sucks.”

Scoffing and crossing her arms, Aelin countered, “Like you could do better.”

“Better than a half-wit monster?” His voice dripped with condescension. “Yeah, I think so.”

Individual voices rose and bled together as everyone chimed in with their own opinions. Marshmallows were thrown across the fire in between insults and laughter, and while everyone else was focused on arguing, Elide found Lorcan’s gaze again. Truthfully, he’d barely taken his eyes off her – she could feel the intensity of his stare on her skin and prayed she didn’t look as flushed as she felt. If she did, she could blame it on the fire.

He was smirking at her and Elide’s eyes darted around the group ensuring no one else noticed. When their eyes locked again, his smirk was impossibly wider. She rolled her eyes, biting back a grin of her own. As much as she wished they weren’t pretending, it was exciting having a secret just between them.

Snap!

A loud cracking sounded from the woods.

The conversation immediately halted, and everyone’s heads swung around towards the noise. Nervous laughter jumped around the group as they shifted uneasily. It was just a story, but it was also dark and Halloween. Murmurs of there’s nothing out there echoed.

Another branch snapped loudly from the darkness, followed quickly by a second, louder snap, once again silencing the group.

“Aelin, are you doing this?” Aedion asked uneasily as he shifted in his seat and side-eyed his cousin. “Did you set this up?”

Lysandra scoffed and lightly hit his shoulder.

“Nah,” Lorcan disagreed, “she isn’t that clever.”

Sometimes Elide thought Lorcan goaded Aelin just for the fun of it… and because he had a death wish. Before Aelin could bite his head off, Elide arched a brow and leaned forward before taunting, “Why don’t you go see what that noise was then?”

Lorcan turned towards her and beneath the annoyance that he wore for show – mostly for show – she could see the heat simmering there. He shook his head, scoffing, “Right, because I’m going to walk into the supposedly haunted forest. I’ve watched horror movies; I know how that ends.”

As if on cue, more snaps and cracks echoed through the trees. This time, they were followed by birds cawing before a dozen or so of them flew out of the forest, their silhouettes visible against the moonlight.

Laughing to herself, Elide brushed herself off and stood. “For fucks sake, I’ll go check it out.”

All eyes focused on her, but no one else made a move to stand.

“Why does anyone have to check it out?” Rowan asked incredulously

Lysandra pulled her jacket tighter around herself and scoffed as she looked pointedly at Aedion, Lorcan, Fenrys, and Rowan.

“Really? None of you men,” she teased, “have the balls to go in there? You’re gonna let Elide go all by herself?”

Lorcan and Aedion rolled their eyes good-naturedly as Fenrys scoffed, “Excuse you, but as a feminist, I refuse to believe Elide isn’t capable enough to go by herself.”

Rowan added, “And as someone who’s met Elide, I refuse to believe that any monster would stand a chance against her.”

Aelin nodded sagely, “She is small, but she is mighty.”

Rolling her eyes at her friends, Elide rounded the fire and aimed for the woods. She turned to walk backward and joked, “I could be walking to my death right now and you’d all be laughing it up around the fire.”

Lorcan had turned to watch her walk away. “Get back over here, you’re the one who volunteered.”

“After your scared ass refused.” She retorted making Aelin laugh.

Huffing and crossing his arms, Lorcan continued to watch her with raised brows. “I’m not scared of a few broken tree branches.”

Elide grinned. “Could’ve fooled me.”

With his face turned away from the group as he looked at a retreating Elide, they couldn’t see the way his brows furrowed at the sight of her getting farther away, or how his eyes darkened at the amusement on her face, both of which only fueled her more and pulled her grin wider.

“Oh no,” she teased, getting farther away from the group and the fire. “I hope I don’t find the beast and lead it back here.”

If any of their friends were surprised at how reactive Lorcan was being, they didn’t show it. Or maybe the two were too focused on each other to notice.

Elide saw his face twist into a smirk and for a second worried about what was about to come out of his mouth.

“That’s not a threat, Lochan” his words dripping with provocation. “The legend says it only goes after virgins…so sucks for you.”

Elide’s brows shot up in disbelief as trickles of laughter sounded from around the circle. It was true she wasn’t as open about her exploits as her friends, but of all people…

“Mm,” she waited for the laughter to die. “It’s a good thing you aren’t going; the legend says someone only needs a speck of common sense to best it…so that’d suck for you.”

Aelin snorted hard enough to choke on the marshmallow she was eating. Loud laughter trailed her as she finally made it to the forest’s edge.

Just before she could step past the tree line, she heard the unmistakable sound of Lorcan grunting as he rose from his seat and walked towards her. “Let's go.”

She chose to ignore the cheering and whistling that followed them into the woods. They stayed quiet as they stepped over dried leaves and fallen branches, staying careful to not trip over something and end up injured and sprawled on the forest floor. It wasn’t until they’d walked far enough that the fire was no longer visible, and a minute more, before Lorcan wrapped a hand around her hip and pulled Elide backward so that her back was resting against a tree trunk and Lorcan was standing in front of her.

Both of his hands fell to her waist, and she lifted hers to the front of his jacket. One of his thumbs draw light circles across her skin as she toyed with his collar. But when he dipped his head down, trying to connect their lips in a much-anticipated kiss, she pressed on his chest to stop him an inch away from her.

“Virgin? Really?” she asked with an unimpressed raised brow, unintentionally echoing Fenrys earlier criticisms of the story.

“Blame my apparent lack of common sense,” he chuckled low and leaned forward as her resistance lifted, pressing his lips against hers in a way that almost had her forgetting why she paused him in the first place.

When they broke apart, Elide grinned and laughed softly. Lorcan offered her a small smile exclusive to her and tucked a rogue lock of hair behind her ear. She wound her arms around his middle and asked, “Wanna go break some branches and scare the shit out of the scaredy cats?”

His smile turned wicked, and his eyes lit up with dark amusement. “Oh, I absolutely do. But they deserve to worry for a bit; let ‘em stew”

“Good thinking,” Elide’s grin matched his. “What do you think we should do with the time?”

Lorcan leaned his head down so that his lips brushed her ear, bringing one hand up to graze her jaw before sliding around to cup the back of her neck. She could feel his breath on her skin as he spoke, and it sent shivers down her spine. “I can think of a few things.”

*****

Taglist:

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[seasonofthewicth]

nobody does it like you do - act 2

Thank you so much for all your reactions to part 1! I hope you enjoy part two just as much :)

CW: mentions of past minor character death (incl. a pregnant woman)

7.3k - masterlist - ao3

--

Her first day of shooting isn’t great. It’s not bad by a long way, but it could have easily been better. They’re on location in a forest somewhere in the outskirts of Rifthold and she didn’t even know there were places in the city like this, she’d assumed it was all the sprawling metropolis of skyscrapers and crowded streets, but apparently not.

She’s cold. There’s a machine beating down torrents of fake rain on her and Fenrys where they stand opposite each other on the muddy path through the trees, they’re filming the scene where their characters first meet. Her feet are soggy inside the canvas trainers she’s wearing and they keep spraying water on her hair to keep the wet look running throughout all of the takes and she hates it. She’s uncomfortable and stiff but she comforts herself with the knowledge that Fenrys is the same if the frown he wears whenever the camera isn’t on him is anything to go by.

It helps, barely.

She keeps having to spit water out of her mouth between lines, she swears it never rains this heavily in real life but who is she to comment, and she watches Rowan’s lips twist in displeasure where he sits behind the camera every time she does it. Aelin’s not sure what else she’s supposed to do, he can sit there out of the line of the water all fine, but she can’t speak with her mouth full.

It can take time to fall into the natural rhythm of shooting a new project, even the shitty ones she’s done in the past have shown her that, but there’s something about the way Rowan watches her that prickles the back of her neck, his stare intense and heavy as he watches, that adds the pressure. She wants to show him that she can do this. She wants his approval.

She ignores the reasons why.

After they finish and Rowan has called cut she sulks back to her trailer, she’s only just managed to change out of her sodden clothes when there’s a knock at the door. It’s Fenrys, warm and dry now in his own change of clothes.

They’ve sort of become friends recently, after swapping numbers after the table read he had texted her first. The studio has put him in the same complex as her and they’ve shared a car back there a couple of times after some of their meetings. She likes him a lot actually, and while she knows his reputation of infamy with the ladies follows him around like a bad smell, she feels comfortable with him.

“That could have gone better,” he tells her as he flops down onto the two-seater sofa at the end of her trailer, the other half has a mound of clothes dumped on it that she hasn’t bothered to sort through yet.

She just shoots him a look that she hopes says tell me about it.

“Tomorrow will be better,” he tells her, reassuringly. He would know she supposes, he has far more experience than her.

“I hope so.”

“How’re you finding it so far, working with Rowan?” he asks, and she frowns, bristling at the fact that he somehow knows the worst question to ask already. Aelin doesn’t think she’s behaved weirdly around Rowan since the day at the table read, in fact she’s tried to avoid him where possible. Maybe that’s it.

“Fine,” she says, but that’s not quite true. It messes with her in a dangerous way every time she knows he’s watching her. She should be able to turn that part of her brain off during a scene, she trained for years to learn how to do that, but he gets to her. She’s working on it.

Fenrys laughs, seeing right through her.

“He’s not bad once you get to know him, the first time we worked together I thought he was a total dick.” She gives him the same look as before as she clears the clothes and sits down next to him.

“I swear he’s not that bad. He’s just-” Fenrys pauses, weighing her up with a look, and something that he takes in from the way she stands, gnawing on her lower lip with her hair still wet, has him saying; “He’s got a lot riding on this.”

“Why?”

It doesn’t feel like he has a lot riding on this, his last piece was nominated for the Oscars, how much higher than that can you get? It’s not like he’s in the same position as her, desperately clawing herself back to a place where she can be cast in a role and it not be followed by a stunned, oh?

She knows there were articles written when her casting was announced that were doubtful of her ability to do this movie, that questioned whether she’s up to the task and whether she’s good enough to be standing next to names like Fenrys and Rowan. Some of the articles were straight up mean, and she only knows that because she searched them up like a masochist when all the ones Elide sent over were far too nice.

A dark part of herself can’t help but fall prey to some of the headlines. The ones that throw around words like nepotism, the ones that question whether Aelin is talented enough to be where she is cut deeper than any knife, and only half of it is because she sometimes wonders the same. She should be better than that, but the reminder catches in her throat that she really does have a lot riding on this.

“It’s not really my place to say.”

That’s a load of shit, and she tells him so. He only shrugs, not willing to so openly gossip about their boss.

“How well do you know him exactly?” She’s fishing for any details, but it definitely could be passed off as casual curiosity.

“He directed my debut, we keep in touch every so often.” He’s nonchalant. “He asked me to audition for this.”

“Nice humble brag.”

Fenrys only flashes her his movie star grin, in combination with the wink he throws at her it’s almost an effort not to blush.

“He wanted you cast, you know?” That she didn’t know, but it’s nice to hear.

“Why? He doesn’t know me.”

“You’re hard work, you know?” He’s joking but it doesn’t sit quite right. She knows it’s true. “Come with us tonight. There's a group of us getting dinner, and you can ask him yourself.”

It’s an olive branch. She knows it’s obvious to everyone that she’s uncomfortable, still hasn’t quite found her feet on set after taking such a break, and it’s one that she’s grateful for. No matter how closed off she knows she still seems to them.

“Okay,” she says and Fenrys’ smile is genuine and a part of her lifts, it’s a start.

They share a car to the restaurant and he fills the journey with easy chatter. She appreciates it because she feels really fucking rusty. It’s been a while since she spoke to anyone outside of her immediate circle of friends and family, and it’s always been easy with them. This is different, but not unwelcome.

Sometimes she worries that, as much as they love her, Aedion, Lysandra and Elide are inclined to tread lightly around her. She’d like to think that she’s not that fragile, that she could take the full front of their humour and teasing like she used to, but then remembers when Fenrys’ joke fell flat for her in the trailer and she thinks again.

Either way, the cast and crew here don’t treat her like she’s broken, or even breakable, and it’s refreshing.

Fenrys leads the way into the restaurant, and there’s definitely paparazzi down the street snapping away at them as they cross the short distance from the car to the door. She tries to ignore it, she’ll text Elide once they’re done here, even though Elide will probably be overjoyed. It’s probably (definitely) easier to publicise your talent when she’s out there doing things with other famous people compared to staying inside her home alone.

Fenrys greets the staff on the door and they lead them through the restaurant to a staircase at the back of the room and it leads up to a private space with only one table. Right, privacy. Some of these guys are proper celebrities.

They’re the last ones there, and there’s two seats left at the table. Manon is here, so is Rowan and one of the executive producers who she thinks is called Gavriel.

“Alright guys, you all know Aelin,” Fenrys says and she smiles as they greet her.

Fenrys holds a chair out for her, the one next to Rowan, and she slides into it as he takes the one on her other side.

Rowan offers her a quirk of his lips, one she returns as she takes him in. He’s wearing short sleeves this time and she gets a good look at the tattoo snaking the whole way down his left arm. It’s in the Old Language and she can’t read it, even though her father had spent hours trying to teach her when she was a kid, but the lettering is beautiful and neat. She wants to reach out and touch, to trace the lines that roll down his golden skin.

She doesn’t. Obviously.

A waiter comes over to take their drink orders, Fenrys gets a beer, Manon and Gavriel opt for wine, but Rowan asks for an orange juice. He’s not drinking either and she wonders if it’s related to the reason he needs this movie to go well. So she’s nosy? So what?

She sits back and observes as the conversation flows, laughing along at the easy banter that flows between the three men and the sarcastic quips Manon throws in. Fenrys clearly understated his relationship with Rowan, they seem tight and have a clear fondness for one another. It’s easy to slot herself in as the night progresses, snarking with Manon and joining in with the general light-hearted mockery of Fenrys.

She thinks maybe so far she’s got Rowan wrong.

Tonight he’s quick-witted and charming, and he makes his best effort to include her in the conversation which she appreciates. It’s a contrast to the dark and teasing side of him she’s seen so far in the hallway and the table read. Maybe he’s decided to just start again, pretend they never met before she was cast, and she can do that too.

“So, Aelin.” Manon turns the spotlight to her after a while. “Tell us the scoop. I’ve not seen you in anything for a while.”

It’s not a nasty question, Aelin can just tell from the way she asks it, nothing more than genuine curiosity lies in her tone even if the phrasing is somewhat harsh. Manon might not be the bubbliest of characters, she’s blunt and doesn’t beat around the bush, but she’s not unkind, and Aelin doubts if she knew the truth she’d ask that question in such a way.

Elide managed to keep the worst of her… career break? One could phrase it more like breakdown, out of the limelight. She somehow managed to keep the worst of it hidden, and Aelin will owe her that for the rest of her life.

All the world knows is that Sam was murdered when they were both still newbies to their respective industries, neither of them had had their big break yet, and after that she took a break. For three years.

She remembers the headlines from the time, most were in smaller magazines, Sam wasn’t famous enough to make the front pages. Her mouth tastes like bile.

Singer-Songwriter Sam Cortland, 20, murdered in random street attack in Orynth, girlfriend Aelin Ashryver unharmed and working with police to identify suspect.

No one knows she knelt there in his blood begging for him to open his eyes, not even Aedion, or Lysandra or Elide, and she blinks back the image now. Her hands are curled into fists below the table and she forces herself to uncurl them and lay them flat against her jeans.

“Yeah,” she says after clearing her throat. “I took a break from it all for a few years, but I’m back now obviously and really excited for it.”

Manon nods and Gavriel raises a glass. He’s been nothing but kind to her all night. He kind of reminds her of her father, though he’s not that old, probably not even forty yet. He’s softly spoken and counters each snarky comment from Fenrys or Manon with something softer but no less amusing.

“Good to hear,” Fenrys says with a grin, clinking his glass against Gavriel’s.

The way Rowan watches her as he raises his own glass in a toast to her, careful and without speaking, tells her he knows. At least the basics about Sam, and it seems like maybe he did google her just like she joked back at the table read.

Their meals arrive then, mercifully taking the attention away from her. She needs to find a better way to deal with the attention than shutting down, especially if this film is going to be as big as everyone thinks it will be. She should call her therapist.

She will.

Eventually.

They leave the restaurant not long after, Fenrys covering the bill, emphasising that this was a celebration and an initiation for Aelin. She almost blushes for some unknown reason at his words, but she likes it. It sounds good. Like she really is back, or at least will be.

They each give her their numbers, and she likes the way he’s in her phone now as Rowan rather than Rowan Whitethorn, it feels like he’s not just someone from work. Not just her boss.

They each say goodbye and share a series of embraces, ignoring the small group of paparazzi that follow, desperate for any kind of incriminating image of any of the five of them. It’s clear that most of them are here for Fenrys, but she still makes sure to keep her expression clear and guarded as Rowan wraps her into a one-armed hug when they leave. It’s not just for the paparazzi.

Back in her apartment, when she’s tucked up in bed knowing she should be asleep, she can’t stop herself from googling him. She’s honestly surprised she’s lasted this long.

The first few news articles to come up are all about the movie and she scrolls past them, instead pulling up his Wikipedia page and scrolling straight to the personal life section. Maybe this is the weirdest way anyone’s ever got to know a friend, but she’s intrigued and still slightly flustered by him so it will do.

The section on his personal life is relatively bare, and it doesn’t surprise her. His Instagram account alone told her pretty explicitly that he’s a private kind of guy. She almost scrolls away after the first few lines, they don’t give her much information other than the college he went to and the languages he speaks, but she reads the final few lines of the section anyway.

In March 2018 Whitethorn’s fiance, Lyria Woods, passed away as the result of a road traffic accident. The driver of the other vehicle was found to be under the influence of alcohol at the time of the accident and was later sentenced to 6 years in prison for death by dangerous driving. Woods was 12 weeks pregnant with their child at the time of the accident.

Only a couple of weeks after the Oscars that she and Lysandra watched. She does the maths and realises this is his first film since then and thinks she knows what Fenrys meant.

Fucking shit.

Her second day of shooting goes better than the first, just as Fenrys said it would.

She’s more relaxed when she crosses the set from her trailer with a coffee in hand and she thinks she knows her place a little better now, even after only one night spent with the others.

She lies back while her make up is done, chatting to the make-up artist instead of sitting silently like the day before, and she’s almost ready for the discomfort that her wet hair will bring. The weather adds to the atmosphere of the film, dark and dreary and moody, and she gets why they’re doing it, but it still sucks.

Fenrys is ready when she gets there, and while she’s not avoiding Rowan today after finding out about his… past, she just finds it difficult to look him in the eye knowing what she does. He probably wouldn’t be surprised that she knew, if it’s on Wikipedia it’s public knowledge and they have made jokes about googling each other, but she feels weird in a way that she didn’t learn it from him. It feels intrusive, or invasive, to find out about something like that through Wikipedia.

But even though they bonded somewhat last night, and he greeted her this morning with an easy hey, they’re still not close. No matter that she thinks she might want them to be. She’s trying again to ignore the way she feels drawn to him, the way her eyes seek him out without her permission.

She knows she kills the take. Knows it from the high five Fenrys slaps against her palm once Rowan’s called cut and from the swift nod he offers her when she glances towards him.

There seem to be two Rowan’s too, there’s the award winning director Rowan Whitethorn, and then just Rowan.

Rowan Whitethorn is cool and calculating and distant, quiet while he watches their scene from his place behind the camera, the big black headphones he uses pushed down around his neck. His eyes are as sharp as a hawk’s while he watches for all the minute details of their expressions and any improvements they could make. He doesn’t give her that many she’s pleased to note.

The way he instructs them is impressive, with clear directions and thoughtful analyses. She’s been here two days and she knows how he got the Oscar nomination, he’s scarily intelligent and seems to know exactly what’s off about a performance before she figures it out herself.

The other side to him, the side that is just Rowan is…

Just Rowan is the one she likes more.

She suspects the smile he gives her later, after they’ve nailed the bulk of the scene in one take and she’s being twirled around by Fenrys, comes from him.

She has two full days off in a row, and she decides the best use of her time is to go and stay with Aedion and Lysandra. Fenrys isn’t free, and the reason she is is that he has a load of solo scenes to shoot, and she doesn’t envy him at all.

Lysandra is ecstatic when she announces via a group text to her and Aedion that she’ll be at their house for lunchtime, and she loves it, but it makes her feel a little guilty. That she’s let it get to the point when her friend reacts like that at her promise of a visit is quite frankly appalling, but she finally feels as if she’s taken the first step. She’s on the bottom rung of the ladder, and it’s taken her a while, but she’s there now.

Aedion and Lysandra live in a disgustingly big house in a gated part of the suburbs, and she knows the house isn’t exactly what they would have chosen in an ideal world, it’s too big and garish and grey, but there are gates by the entrance and 24 hour security.

It still messes with her head that Aedion is that famous. Aedion. Her gangly cousin, always too tall for his own good, who used to pull her hair when they were kids and sneak her extra helpings of cake at family parties before her parents divorced. She doesn’t know that much about football, so little in fact that her dad and Aedion teased her relentlessly for years, but everyone tells her he’s good.

Like really good.

The salary he gets from the Ravens is more than enough proof.

She rings their front door bell and she can hear Lysandra’s quick steps before the big wooden door is pulled open.

Her friend is glowing. Her dark hair falls into waves near the end and her staggeringly beautiful face is free of any make-up and unblemished and dewy. She’s had time to get over the insecurities that come from being friends with Lysandra so it barely phases her as she wraps her arms around her friend.

“I’ve missed you,” she whispers into Lysandra’s hair. It smells like coconut and citrus and just Lysandra.

“I missed you too. So much,” Lysandra sighs as she pulls back, dragging Aelin into the house and shutting the door.

Their hallway is grand and open but there’s a pile of their shoes by the wall and a rack of coats that make it feel more homely. There are framed photos carefully arranged on the sideboard in the entry way that show the two of them with their whole family and all of their friends.

There’s one on there of Aelin and Lysandra at eighteen, their arms thrown tightly around each other while they grin massive, excited smiles at the camera, or more likely Elide behind it. She remembers the day it was taken, Lysandra had signed to her first agency and arranged to move to Rifthold, and they had taken her out to celebrate.

It was around the same time she signed for her first movie, a tiny role with two lines and twenty seconds of screen time but it got the ball rolling with her first proper acting credit, and she’ll never forget it.

A head of golden hair pokes around the kitchen doorway at the end of the hall and she lets her cousin sweep her up into a hug, swinging her up and around so her feet dangle above the floor.

“Alien, we’ve missed you.”

A stupid nickname from when they were young, the kind of young where he thought it was hilarious to replace her name with an extraterrestrial, but it only makes her smile now, squeezing her cousin tight before he puts her back down.

“Yeah, I bet you’ve been lost without me.” She beams at them, taking a moment to soak in how it feels to be with them even as Aedion rolls his eyes. “I’ve missed you both too.”

“Lunch is ready, come on,” Aedion tells her as he takes her case and drags it through the house, leaving it by the bottom of the stairs. It’s then that she spots the frilly pink apron tied around his waist.

“Alright,” she laughs. “I can’t wait to try what the domestic goddess has in store for us.”

Peals of laughter burst out of Lysandra and she grins back at her, forever grateful that they managed to keep their relationship with each other from ever impacting on their relationship with Aelin. At first she had been worried that Aedion and Lysandra would become AedionAndLysandra and that she wouldn’t have a place left with them, but she needn’t have worried, and they worked too well together for Aelin to have ever wished for anything different.

“Gods, shut up,” he mutters, slinging an arm around her shoulders and leading her to the kitchen. “So annoying, both of you.”

She grins as she hears Lysandra smack an overly dramatic kiss to his cheek.

Aedion’s a surprisingly good cook, the lunch he’s made is tasty despite being carefully planned to fit into both his and Lysandra’s strict meal plans. If they’re the cost needed to be able to live in a house like this, Aelin doesn’t want it.

“So,” Aedion says after he’s finished chewing a mouthful. “How are things going?”

He asks it with a gentle kind of sensitivity that she understands what he’s really asking. She knows it’s code for are you still sober? but she also knows he hasn’t asked it because he doubts her. Aedion and Lysandra have always been in her corner, even in her darkest moments they were there.

She never wants to put them through anything like that ever again. Never wants them to experience anything as terrifying as the last night she ever touched a drug. That night, almost a year ago now, will forever be the bottom of her pit. She doesn’t remember much of it, other than the devastation on Aedion’s face as he carried her out of the men’s toilets of a seedy nightclub in Perranth. The way he’d bitten his lip as he picked her up off the sticky floor, pulling the hem of her dress down to cover her underwear where it had ridden up.

The thought makes her sick.

He’d had to skip a game, leading to a bollocking from his coach, but he’d done it for her. Had carried her out of the club and into a car, waiting to take them back to his house. Lysandra had stroked her hair where she lay on the cool tiles of the bathroom floor while Aedion called a doctor to the house. Even through his panic he had thought of her and how little she would want it publicised that she’d been pulled out of a club, off her fucking rocker on whatever substance she’d been given by the lowlives she had fallen in with. She’s really, really lucky that for once Aedion hadn’t been followed by paparazzi.

She takes a sip of her sparkling water before she answers, it feels like all she ever drinks these days and it tastes like shit but it’s worth it if she never reverts back to where she was.

“I’m good.” She’s almost surprised to find that it’s true. “I’m feeling much better.”

She can barely look at them, can barely take the level of subdued joy on their faces.

“We’re glad Aelin, really glad.” Lysandra’s voice is sincere.

“So, how’s the new project going?” Aedion asks her, sensing her discomfort almost immediately.

“That’s good too actually.” It is. It feels good to have something positive to focus on, something that she feels is productive and worth doing. “It’s nice to be back and be busy even if the morning shoots begin disgustingly early. It’s good to be on set, surrounded by it all again and to remember that I can actually do this.”

She stabs her fork through a piece of tomato a little aggressively as she finishes and the look Lysandra shoots her tells her she’s not impressed with the self-deprecation but that she’ll let it slide for now.

“And Fenrys Moonbeam, is he really that good looking in real life?”

Aelin laughs. “More actually, sometimes it's too much.”

“Nice,” Lysandra nods appreciatively.

“Is he alright though?” Ever the overprotective older brother figure, she expected some version of this question from Aedion.

“He’s great. He’s hilarious and it really helps on the long days,” she says before taking her next bite.

“And Rowan Whitethorn’s directing isn’t he? What’s he like?”

Aelin blinks and finishes chewing slowly. “He’s… fine.”

She knows she’s fucked it when Aedion and Lysandra share a look, matching smirks beginning on each of their faces.

“Fine,” Lysandra repeats. “What exactly does fine mean Aelin?”

She purses her lips. “He’s a great director.”

Lysandra rolls her eyes. “And?”

She could probably lie here, they’d probably let it slide if she said some bullshit about how they’ve not spoken much and how she barely knows him, but she honestly needs to talk to someone about this. You know, to set her straight.

“And he’s really hot.”

She’s blushing as Lysandra laughs and Aedion chuckles.

“You’ve got a crush,” Lysandra sing-songs, and when she doesn't respond she says, “Have you got a picture of him? I don’t think I actually know what he looks like.”

She can’t blame Lysandra for that, she’s still kicking herself for not recognising him that day in the hallway, but he was only on screen for a few seconds at the Oscars and it wasn’t long after Sam so it wasn’t like she was paying attention in that way. She still thinks she should have noticed.

She pulls her phone out to find the only picture she has on there with Rowan. She had only taken it this week when they were eating breakfast with Fenrys one morning, in one of the tents that had been set up for them to sit in between takes, and Fenrys had pulled his phone out to snap a photo of her for his Instagram story.

She’d been wrapped up in one of the huge parkas they’re given for the times in between scenes holding her croissant high up in the air when he’d taken it. He’d captioned it she could have dropped her croissant and tagged her, and she’d gained a good few thousand followers. She’s almost at a million and they’re only a couple of weeks into shooting.

She had taken one of him in response and then spun around to force Rowan into a selfie with her, he’d protested but she’d pouted until he relented, grumbling something about actors that she knew he didn’t mean. She didn’t post it anywhere, she kept it to herself and she can’t lie, she’s looked at it way too many times since.

She’s smiling a wide smile, cheeks stuffed full of her croissant and it’s really kind of gross, but the small smile on Rowan’s face makes it bearable. More than bearable, she has to resist the temptation to make it her lock screen because that would be weird.

She remembers the heat of his chest where he had stood behind her to lean down so their faces were level, the hand he rested on her shoulder to steady himself and the way his fingers had brushed against her neck in the lightest caress.

She hands the phone over to Lysandra and wants to pull it back almost immediately.

It’s not that she’s embarrassed or whatever, even if they think it’s a bad idea they’d let her down gently, it's just that their opinion matters to her a lot. And while they haven’t exactly approved of her string of random hookups in the years since Sam, they’ve never tried to comment on it other than to check she’s in a good place with it, but she knows they’re waiting for the next person she sees seriously.

There’s a fairly large part of her that thinks her first relationship since Sam shouldn’t be with her boss. And that fucks her up a bit, because since when was she considering a relationship with him?

“Oh yeah,” Lysandra says, scaring away the intrusive thought and raising one perfectly arched eyebrow. “He’s hot alright.”

Aedion nods along, peering over Lysandra’s shoulder. Lysandra’s eyes are far too knowing when she looks back up at Aelin and passes the phone over. She doesn’t say a word before locking the phone and sliding it back into her pocket.

“You’ll have to invite us to set sometime.” Lysandra is sneaky but not subtle.

“I will,” she agrees.

The next week flies by, she shoots every single day but one, and she’s far too exhausted each night to do anything other than scrounge up a measly meal that can be pulled together from her cupboard basics and the limited vegetables in her fridge before falling straight asleep. They’ve made good progress so far, and she knows it's going to be good, but she’s tired.

She’s seen a lot more of the process outside of her own character by now too, and she’s amazed, but not surprised, when she persuades one of the crew to let her watch back one of Fenrys’ solo scenes from the previous week. He’s a phenomenal actor, that much is clear, but she had allowed herself to get caught up in Fenrys as her friend, the happy and funny guy she spends her time with, forgetting the talented and driven lead actor of their movie.

Not that she can forget it in the scenes they share, but she’s mostly concentrating on the emotions her character is going through, and responding to what Fenrys gives her. It almost feels too natural for him, and she forgets that it takes work.

His text meets her at lunchtime on the Sunday they both have off, when she’s still in her pyjamas on the couch, debating whether to start a new series or watch the latest cheesy rom-com that Netflix has released.

She auditioned for one of them a couple of years ago, and she’s far enough past the bitterness that comes with not getting the role that she could enjoy it. Maybe a little, cynical part of herself thinks she’s glad she didn’t get it. What she has now is far better. She’s being a snob, but she straight up doesn’t care. It’s not like anyone else is here to judge her.

Fancy coming to Rowan’s to watch the game? I’m leaving in 20 his text reads.

She didn’t plan on doing anything today, but the invitation sparks something in her, and she’s never been to Rowan’s place before. The studio put him in a house about thirty minutes from set, and she’s curious. How much luxury does the big name director get compared to what she and Fenrys have got? She’s lucky really, that Dorian managed to negotiate the same for her as they offered Fenrys.

rowan’s??? She replies, followed by what game????

She gets up off the couch, putting the lid on the tub of yoghurt she was tucking into with a spoon and walking through to the kitchen to throw it back into the fridge.

Tall, grumpy guy that bosses us around all the time comes through a minute later and she grins at her phone at the description. It’s followed up by Ravens v Panthers.

She taps out, getting changed will be ready in 15 and he replies with three smiling emojis.

She doesn’t think it will be anything fancy if her impromptu invitation is anything to go by so she only swaps her pyjama bottoms with tiny cartoon sheep down the legs for a pair of black leggings and throws a sweatshirt over her oversized t-shirt.

Manon is there when they get there, sprawled across the two seater sofa at the far side of Rowan’s living room, and she gives them both a wave when they enter the room. The house is a pretty modest, two-up two-down in a sweet neighbourhood and it’s cosy inside with relatively modern decor. She doesn’t know for sure whether or not that fits Rowan, but she feels like it does.

He doesn’t let them in, Fenrys swings the door open and marches in like it’s his own place and she wonders how much he and Rowan have hung out, or whether that’s just him. Rowan appears in the doorway about a minute after they come in, a bowl of snacks in his hand that she thinks could be popcorn and he puts it down before coming over to wrap Fenrys in a hug. They slap each other on the back in the way that guys do before pulling back.

Aelin stands at Fenrys’ side watching the exchange, unsure whether to greet Rowan or just take a seat, and once they’re done he seems to regard her with the same sort of uncertainty. Fenrys darts around Rowan to throw himself onto the other sofa and she doesn’t give herself long enough to doubt her decision before she opens her arms and steps towards him.

“Hey,” he says simply as he wraps her into a brief hug. “Thanks for coming.”

She wraps her arms around his own broad shoulders, and it feels nice. He’s warm and strong beneath her hands and the way his arms loop around her waist, so far his hands reach back around to her stomach, gets her in a way that she really doesn’t need to think about. It feels really good pressed up against him like that.

“Hey,” she breathes as he pulls back, and she knows he sees the blush on her cheeks. She’s not fifteen, she really needs to sort herself out. “Thanks for having us.”

“Of course, make yourself at home.” He gives her another half smile, offering a flash of his straight, white teeth, and again she’s struck by him. That his place is behind the camera is a crime. “I’ve got more snacks and drinks in the kitchen if you want.”

“Beer?” Fenrys asks her, already heading to a door that she assumes leads to the kitchen.

She shakes her head, “do you have sparkling water?” She directs the question to Rowan who nods.

He doesn’t have to speak before Fenrys says “on it,” and leaves the room.

She assesses the seating choices left in the room, there’s a cream two-seater sofa opposite where Manon lies, and that’s probably her best bet, but Rowan has already taken his seat on it, an ankle crossed over a knee as he settles into the cushions. There’s plenty of room to sit by him and not touch, and she weighs it up against having to ask Manon to move.

She’s friendly with the girl, but still feels slightly intimidated by the calculating and sarcastic blonde despite the fact that she’s a few years younger than Aelin herself, so maybe Rowan is the safer choice.

Fenrys comes back into the room just as she takes her seat.

“Move your feet, Blackbeak,” he demands as he hands her a glass of sparkling water, it’s chilled with a couple of cubes of ice and she appreciates it.

Manon lifts her legs for Fenrys to sit, but plops her legs back down across his lap immediately and sticks her tongue out at him as she does. Aelin feels herself smile at the display, and the fact that she’s included in this circle of friends. She hasn’t really made an effort with anyone new since Sam, the only people she’s really spoken to are Elide, Lysandra and Aedion, and they were all there for her before Sam. It feels really damn good.

She really, really, doesn’t understand the rules of football, but it’s easy enough to cheer along when the others do and laugh at their outrage when something doesn’t go their way. It’s the most animated she’s seen Rowan so far, and she’s not quite sure which way their allegiances lie, but it’s probably with the Ravens being in Rifthold and all, and she knows her own is.

Everytime Aedion gets the ball or is shown on screen she can’t hold back the cheers. She’s proud of him and she knows how hard he works to be as good as he is, and even knowing as little as she does, it's special to watch him excel.

Rowan and Fenrys both seem a little starstruck that he’s her cousin, to her he’s just Aedion and they’re the real, scary celebrities, but they gush about him like starstruck little boys.

“And you were at his house last weekend?” Fenrys cries, almost outraged that this is the first he’s ever heard of it, but honestly? They’re both Ashryvers; it’s not like it's a secret.

“Yes,” she laughs. “He’s basically like my brother.”

“Gods, Aelin.” He sounds almost pained that she hasn’t brought this up before. “You've been holding out on us! Please give me his number or introduce me or something.”

“Sorry.” She laughs again and throws a smile to Rowan that he returns with another quirk of his lips. “Invite me earlier next time and I’ll ask him to sort a box for us at the stadium.”

“Seriously?” Even Rowan sounds awed now.

“Yeah, just let me know,” she says. “It’s no big deal.”

It really wouldn't be, Aedion has been telling her for years to invite any friends she wants to games, she would just need some friends outside of him, Lysandra and Elide first.

“It’s definitely a big deal,” he says, watching her with a smirk still playing on his lips.

She shrugs. “Just make sure you text me early next time.”

“Oh, I will,” he says, and she has to look away from him. The way his voice curves around the words, all low and intense, is definitely about more than just the game.

She tries to pass it off as just looking to where Fenrys is cheering loudly at the next play, but Manon is there again, looking at her with such a knowing expression that she immediately focuses back on the TV.

At half time she needs to use the bathroom and Rowan gives her a quick rundown of the layout of the house. She’s quick to do her thing and runs by the kitchen afterwards to grab a refill of her drink and find something to eat.

Rowan had told them all to help themselves, explaining that he felt they had as much right as he to poke through the cupboards in the only just filled rental property and she gets it. The places the studio rent out for them are nice enough, and she’s more than grateful that they do, but it’s never quite home. Even if her home is somewhat impersonal, it’s still home.

She’s on her tiptoes, scanning through the relatively well stocked cupboards on the hunt for anything chocolate, when someone enters the kitchen behind her.

“I know I said help yourselves, but you’re going to eat me out of house and home at this rate.”

It’s Rowan, and he leans against the doorframe as he watches her startle and spin to face him, his legs are crossed at the ankles and his arms are folded over his chest. The pose highlights his powerful arms that she wants to be wrapped up in again and he looks really good in the dim lighting of the kitchen. It bounces off the lines of his tattoo, shining and highlighting the swirls that she can barely look away. She wants to ask what it means.

Aelin scoffs and pushes the cupboard door shut gently, they’re not eating that much and if they are it’s definitely not her, Fenrys and Manon are another story.

“There’s nothing stopping you from kicking us all out,” she says and he laughs, shaking his head.

He tilts his head to the side, his gaze picking her apart by the second before he says “maybe not all of you.”

His words and the way he shifts in the doorway as his eyes run her up and down gives her the confidence to bite her lip and look up at him through her lashes. He pushes off the door frame and comes to lean against the counter by her side.

He opens a cupboard door on her other side and rummages through a shelf before handing her a foil packet.

“I have a feeling this is what you were after.”

She accepts the chocolate and tucks it onto the counter at her side as she mirrors him and leans against it too.

“Unsurprisingly, you’d be correct.”

He presses his lips together before his lips twist again, it’s the same expression from before that she knows means he wants to smile but he can’t quite commit, and she feels her body loosen like she wants to lean forward to press into him. She doesn’t though.

What she does instead is take a sharp breath and a step back. “Thanks.” She waves the bar of chocolate in the air before stepping around him and making her way back into the living room, forcing her steps to seem calm and collected as she feels his gaze heavy on her back.

“Anytime.” His words follow her out of the room, they’re a promise.

Luckily, Fenrys and Manon both ignore it when Rowan follows her and retakes his place next to her.

[rhysand-vs-fenrys]

Rowaelin Preview:

Only @aelin-and-feyre knows the context (and it’s a secret but it may be the greatest thing I’ve ever written).

I will say-- the fic takes place about a 10-12 months after Erawan/Maeve have been dealt with.

[theladyofbloodshed]

After reading your and a few other Neris and LucNes fics, I feel that SJM saying she wouldn't work with an Autumn Boi is a strict cop out and refusal to provide valid character dynamics, character growth and plot intrigue. Instead she throws all the sisters together in the NC and expects them each to just be happy because Feyre is (she hasn't but that's another rant). It reflects poorly on an authors ability to challenge themselves. Minor character or no, she gave Nesta an entire book and she truly shined dancing with my sweet, he who can never do wrong, fire Boi and even then it was a ploy by Feyre and Rhys.

Now, I love me a good Nessian fic and story, especially groveling and redemption ones, but I think Neris will forever be my Ship. SJM really dropped the ball on what could have been incredible!

I have two theories why Nesta and Lucien didn't happen.

SJM's writing of couples ACOMAF was released in 2016, by which point she had established a few couples in her series: Rowaelin - full of sexual chemistry and arguing Manorian - full of sexual chemistry and arguing Lysaedion - full of sexual chemistry and arguing Feysand - full of sexual chemistry and arguing The only couple that doesn't really have this is Elorcan so I think SJM just didn't really know how to write a couple that didn't have that hence why Nesta ended up with Cassian because the moment they came together, they could be arguing. ToD was released after ACOMAF and I think that Chaorene and Nestaq didn't have this formula to a degree. Chaorene had arguments but they weren't playful, Yrene just downright didn't like him - and Sartaq was star struck from the moment he met Nesryn. I feel like if Lucien met Nesta, he wouldn't argue with her - even if she tried to instigate it - because he would recognise that she is hurting and blames him. He has a very small role in ACOMAF so it leaves only Elain or Mor to establish a new relationship to be explored. At this point, Moriel was supposed to be endgame so Mor is off the table. Elain and Cassian just would not work. They lack any chemistry - whereas Nesta can have chemistry with pretty much any character, good or bad.

They would escape the Night Court The only thing keeping Lucien as the Night Court's emissary is Elain. He clearly has lots of contacts, he's good at making friends, and would be an asset to many courts. Feyre isn't a good friend, so seeing Elain is the main reason why he returns to Velaris. Nesta might look good in black, but she looks good in everything. She is not suited to the Night Court. Take away a link to Cassian, and the only thing keeping Nesta there is the Valkyries really. She wanted to explore the Continent previously. If Nesta and Lucien were a couple, I firmly believe that they would likely leave the Night Court. It might take Nesta a while to warm to Lucien, but they have similar social backgrounds, they have quick wit, he has good manners, his dad has a crush on her. SJM could not tie to them the night court any other way than by having Nesta be with Cassian and Elain with Lucien.

[leiawritesstories]

PART ELEVEN: NOVEMBER

Word count: 10.1k

Warnings: Oof, this one's a doozy. Swearing, prison, police presence, shitloads of scheming, graphic violence, minor character d3@th, and angst

enjoy ;)

Masterlist

Read on AO3

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Endovier Prison, as it turned out, really wasn’t all that awful of a place to live. 

To be fair, the food quality was subpar and the communal bathrooms reminded Aelin of being in the college dorms again, but all told, it wasn’t a terrible place, except for the silence. She had been placed in solitary confinement based on her “history of conspiring with others to evade containment,” but she was allowed to take her meals in the common dining room and have her recreation time along with the other inmates. She was always monitored by at least one guard, and for the most part, her guards were stolid, silent presences in her periphery. 

And then there was Remelle. 

Technically an officer of the Orynth Police Department, Remelle was assigned to Aelin’s prison guard rotation three days per week as an additional security measure. Orynth PD had requested to assign a police officer to her guard rotation to ensure that she wasn’t trying anything suspicious, and the guards at Endovier had agreed after some deliberation. Apparently, Remelle had volunteered to be the PD guard so fast the job wasn’t even available to anyone else. 

She had first shown up in the guard rotation about five days into Aelin’s sentence, and jealousy practically oozed from her pores. It had taken Aelin only half an hour to figure out that Remelle had a completely unrequited crush on Rowan, and it took her only a little bit longer to casually mention his name within Remelle’s hearing. The sneer on the cop’s face and the steam that could have poured out of her ears confirmed what Aelin already hypothesized—Remelle was viciously jealous of Aelin and Rowan’s relationship, no matter that it was over. 

Which made her the perfect linchpin to Aelin’s escape plan. 

Two weeks into November, her first month at Endovier, Aelin had demonstrated nothing but good behavior, and she was allowed to have supervised computer time each day. Part of that was necessary, since she was still working with Elide to finalize the transition of power in her company, and Aelin had shown no resistance to having one of her guards watching her while she worked for her allotted hour of computer time. She was so cooperative, in fact, that her guards had become complacent after a week of supervising her and begun to just sit outside the door to the computer room, glancing in every few minutes to make sure she was still there. 

As soon as the guards were out of the room, Aelin began adding an extra task to the handful of things she was wrapping up as her company transitioned into Elide’s capable hands. During her computer time, she casually started to peruse the computer’s data logs and trace its network paths, and she eventually discovered that all the prison’s computers ran on a central network, even the secured ones that only the guards and other staff used. 

Including the security staff. 

A few clever digs into the system’s backbrain got her into the logs for the security system itself, cameras and all, and she had slowly begun to map out where the relevant cameras were located and what mechanisms she could possibly trigger to get them on a temporary loop. 

She couldn’t risk working too quickly, though, so she only did a little bit more each day, slowly working her way into familiarity with the prison’s computer network. Interestingly, she had also found the log that tracked all the visits to the prison, and she noticed that she had two visitors waiting to see her. The yellow flag by her name was a warning—she was not yet cleared for visitors—but given her good behavior, she was fairly certain that it wouldn’t be long before she could have visitors. 

Endovier Prison wasn’t going to know what hit it when they allowed Aelin Galathynius to have visitors. 

~

In the weeks she had been there, Aelin had managed to make some acquaintances with other inmates during communal mealtimes or rec time. The most interesting one was a woman about ten years older than she was who had been in Endovier for six years, a timeline that she tracked by marking the days on her cell wall with charcoal. Her name was Petrah, and she had been a licensed cosmetologist with no intent or interest in the criminal life until she discovered that her ex-husband was involved with a major drug smuggling operation. When she confronted him, he denied it and threatened to forcibly silence her if she told anyone else about it. 

So she murdered him. 

Petrah had been found guilty of manslaughter but had successfully managed to prove that it was in self-defense, and her sentence was only ten years. She was up for parole the next year, and she was constantly asking Aelin questions about Orynth to prepare herself for a potential return to the city. Aelin was happy to answer her questions; she had even said she would provide a reference if Petrah ever wanted to look for work at Galathynius, Inc. Elide would be renaming the company, but the leadership team had yet to decide on a new name. Grateful, Petrah had thanked Aelin but said she didn’t think she would pursue that kind of employment. 

The two of them had a casual friendship, little more than the shared bond of fellow inmates in a high-security prison, but Aelin trusted Petrah enough to ask her a favor. In the middle of November, Aelin was moved from solitary confinement to a cell block in a different sector, and while she was still alone in her cell, she had neighbors along the hallway. One of them was Petrah. 

“Morning, Sardothien. How does the slop look today?” Petrah’s raspy voice greeted Aelin as she set down her tray on the long metal cafeteria table. 

With a scoff, Aelin pushed her spoon around the grayish mass that was supposedly oatmeal. “No better than yesterday,” she drawled. “Seems like the supplies are getting a little thin.” 

Petrah chuckled. “It happens every few weeks. What it usually means is that the delivery comes at the end of the week, and they’ve got to get rid of as much stuff as possible.” 

“Fair enough.” Aelin managed to force down about half her portion, chasing it with multiple cups of bitter drip coffee. “Hey, do you still have any of your stuff from the salon?” 

“Yeah, I brought a box when they sent me here.” Petrah raised a brow. “Why?” 

Aelin shrugged, aware that the guards were probably watching and listening to her. “I feel like a little bit of a change. Got any bleach?” 

“Hmm.” Petrah tipped her head sideways, thinking. “I might.” 

When rec time rolled around that day, Aelin went over to the small, sparsely stocked library, and she was slowly browsing through the handful of books that looked interesting when Petrah tapped her on the shoulder. “I’ve got bleach.” 

“Perfect.” Aelin left the books alone and went down to the bathrooms with the stylist. “I was thinking I wanted to go platinum, or as close to that as you could get.” 

The older woman nodded, a sly grin tugging at her lips. “Ever bleached your hair before?” 

“I’ve had highlights, but not for years.” 

“Okay.” Petrah lined up a few bottles on the shelf under the small mirror in front of one of the sinks. “Damn, this brings back college.” 

“Tell me about it,” Aelin chuckled. “Looks just like the dorm bathrooms.” 

“Yeah.” Petrah tugged Aelin’s hair out of the braid she usually kept it in and glanced quickly towards the door. The bathrooms were about the only part of Endovier that didn’t have security cameras, and Aelin was half convinced there were hidden microphones somewhere. “We’re safe here,” Petrah said softly, keeping her tone low. “So tell me, Shadow Assassin. Is there any other reason you had this desire for a change?” 

Aelin met the stylist’s eyes in the mirror. 

And smirked. 

~

It had been twenty-five minutes since her visit began, and Elide was still sneaking astonished glances at Aelin’s hair. Aelin smothered her laughter and kept her face neutral as she chatted aimlessly with her dear friend. She’d finally been cleared for visitors two days ago, and Elide was the first one to arrive, bringing a stack of paperwork with her. Despite the no-touching and no-exchanges rule, she’d strolled right into the visitors’ room and plopped the stack of paper right down in front of Aelin. 

“No passing, ma’am,” the guard on duty interrupted, his eyes darting awkwardly between the current CEO of Galathynius, Inc. and the Shadow Assassin. 

Elide’s polite smile could have cut glass. “Would you like to sort through this paperwork yourself, Officer…” She glanced at his name tag. “Officer Owen?”

The man gulped nervously, stepped forward, and picked up the stack of papers. He flipped through it and set it back down. “A-all clear.” 

“Good.” Elide sat across from Aelin and handed a pen to the guard, who managed to give it to Aelin without dropping it. “These need your signatures, Aelin. It’s backlog from before the transfer.” 

“Couldn’t be bothered to use digital paperwork, I guess.” Aelin picked up the pen and started working through the paperwork, scratching her signature onto the blank lines. Elide updated her on the company business as she worked, and it was only a few minutes before the guard’s eyes began to glaze over and he retreated to the opposite corner of the room. Aelin stifled a chuckle. 

Nox Owen put on the second-best performance she’d seen in an undercover agent. Only Ren Allsbrook had been better. 

As Elide stole another glance at Aelin’s new, icy-toned hair, she caught the blonde’s gaze and sighed, shaking her head. “Didn’t take long for the boredom to kick in, did it?” 

Aelin shrugged. “When I got moved out of solitary, I found out that one of the nearby inmates is a cosmetologist. She’s nice. I felt like having a little fun.” 

Elide laughed softly. “I suppose you have to find those moments when you can, given that you’re never seeing the outside of this place.” 

“I see a few yards of the walls once a day,” Aelin joked. “Don’t worry about me, Ells. I’m okay.” 

“Really?” 

A shrug. “It’s not my apartment by any means, but it’s not awful.” 

“Hmm.” Elide pulled the finished stack of paperwork back over to her side of the table. “Officer?” 

At the sound of his title, Nox jerked and came to stand a few feet away from Elide. “Yes?” 

Elide turned a warm, charming smile onto the man. “Officer, is it possible for inmates here to receive care packages from outside?” 

“Well, I, um…” Nox cleared his throat, perfectly acting as a nervous wreck of a new prison guard. “All incoming mail must be thoroughly inspected by prison security.” 

“So that’s a yes?” 

“Yes, ma’am. You can put the inmate’s name and the prison’s address, and as long as the package passes inspection, the inmate will receive it.” 

“Wonderful!” Elide beamed. “I’d just like to make sure Aelin gets some real food, since she’s said that the food quality here isn’t all that great.” 

“If you could include extra for my cell-block neighbors, that would be great,” Aelin added. 

Elide nodded crisply. “Of course.” She made eye contact with Aelin, and the pair exchanged the slightest nod. “Is there anything specific you’d want besides food?” 

“Hmm…probably toothpaste and maybe some tampons. The ones in the communal bathrooms fall apart too fast. Oh!” Aelin grinned. “And if you happen to throw a few pieces of hazelnut dark chocolate in there, I’d be a happy woman.” 

“You and your chocolate,” Elide laughed. “Okay.” 

“Um, visit time is up, ma’am,” Nox interrupted, voice quavering. 

“I know.” Elide tucked the paperwork into her folder. “Would you be so kind as to show me the way out, Officer Owen?” She gave Aelin one last glance before she walked out the door, following Nox Owen in his prison guard’s disguise back out of Endovier. 

Another guard came into the visitors’ room. “Computer time, Galathynius,” he said curtly. Aelin followed him out and down the hallways to the computer room, mentally memorizing her steps. Although she could probably just follow another guard when she eventually made her break, it would go better if she didn’t. Besides, the cover she planned to use knew her way around Endovier. 

Or at least she should, after several weeks of being Aelin’s personal police guard. 

“You have thirty minutes.” The guard opened the door, checked the room, and sat down in the chair right outside the computer room. Not very talkative, this one. 

Aelin sat down at the computer and went to her email, where she answered some of the queries that still came to her and redirected others back to Elide. The camera in this room faced the chair, not the screen, and she kept her face and posture casual and neutral as she opened up another window and navigated herself easily into the prison’s computer system. Since everything was centralized, it had been laughably easy to clear her file’s hold, making it appear that the superintendent had cleared Prisoner Galathynius for visitors. The central system also made it much easier to track and locate the camera system, and in just over four weeks, Aelin had managed to map out the locations of every security camera in Endovier. 

The next step was figuring out how to run a certain sector of the cameras on a loop. She’d started with the one directly opposite her cell a week ago. A few typed commands, and that camera had blinked and gone dark for a few seconds, then rebooted. Aelin tried a few different methods, and eventually, she discovered how to make that camera replay a previously recorded segment of footage. She then moved on and started trying to sync up more cameras, a task that had proved more challenging. 

But after two weeks of work, she finally had it down. 

A handful of commands and a couple of passwords swiped from a database—really, this whole centralized system was just such a peach—and all twenty cameras in the sector Aelin had targeted were running a section of footage from a week ago. 

Beautiful. 

Aelin set the cameras back on their normal track, cleared all evidence of her meddling, and was closing out of her email when the guard opened the door again. 

“Time’s up.” He walked over and watched as she calmly exited the computer. 

She followed him back to her cell, and once his footsteps had receded, she sat down on her bed and picked up a journal from the shelf built into the wall. She knew the guards probably searched her books every once in a while, so she was careful to keep every piece of her plans in a code that only she knew. The words were ostensibly normal, set up as an ordinary journal entry, and the cute little drawings in the margins and on some of the pages were also apparently mindless scribbles. 

In Aelin’s eyes, the words and the sketches turned into her plan to get out of Endovier and finish Maeve Bitchface once and for all. 

And if she died in the process, then so fucking be it.

~

Nox Owens was having the time of his fucking life. 

When Elide had contacted him in the middle of Aelin’s trial, he’d been expecting another ordinary request for a tech job, which was his usual role. But she had surprised him—of course she had. If he knew anything about the Boss, it was that she always had another plan up that infinite sleeve of hers. Instead of a tech job, she wanted him to get into Endovier. As a guard. 

That was always Ren’s job. 

Nox had plenty of spy training and experience, but his primary strength was his tech savvy, and once Ren had joined the Boss’s team, he’d been content to take the tech jobs and leave the infiltrations to the most wanted spy in the world. But Ren was dead, and the Boss wanted Nox to work as her inside man. And it had been a hell of a long time since he’d had the chance to practice this skill set. 

It had been almost laughably easy to slip into Endovier’s database and add himself to the prison guard register, which rotated frequently enough that another new name didn’t catch any second glances. He barely even bothered to change his name, and his prison guard nameplate read “Nick Owen,” a bland, forgettable name to go with his bland, forgettable face. Just for fun, he swiped Ren’s fingerprints from the Boss’s archive and imprinted them onto the SecondSkin he applied to his hands—if he was ever printed, the staff would have such a fun time scratching their heads at the fact that this guard’s prints apparently matched those of a former inmate, one who was supposed to be dead. 

About a week after she visited, Elide Lochan sent a plain cardboard box by courier to Endovier Prison. As he passed by the shipping room on his rotation, Nox heard the gruff bark of the mail supervisor. 

“Owen! C’mere!” 

He strolled over, stopped a few paces away, and fiddled with the cuffs of his sleeves. “Yes?” 

“Quit twitching,” grumbled the crotchety old man who’d been the mail supervisor at Endovier for twenty years and counting. “Damn newbies.” 

“S-sorry, sir,” Nox mumbled, masking his snicker with a wobbly voice. 

“Just stop shaking, newbie.” The man pulled a box across the table and tugged the small, flat white envelope off the top of the box. He tore it open, and Nox swore he saw an avaricious smile flicker across the supervisor’s face at the sight of the cash inside the envelope. “Here. This one’s for Sardothien.” 

Nox cleared his throat. “Aren’t we supposed to inspect every package that comes for an inmate?” 

The supervisor chuckled dryly. “I see someone memorized the handbook.” Carelessly, he took a box knife out of his pocket, slit through the tape, and gave a cursory sweep of his hand through the contents of the box, then slapped a stamp on top of the cardboard. “How’s that for inspection, Owen?” 

“I…uh…” Nox pretended to be lost for words. 

“Good lad.” The supervisor tucked a stack of cash into the inside pocket of his vest and passed Nox fifty dollars. “This is called an inspection fee.” 

“Really?” 

“Of course not!” A rattling cackle scraped out of the mail supervisor’s throat. “It’s called good business for me and some goddamn tampons for Prisoner Sardothien. Now quit shaking and take that box to Sardothien’s cell.” 

“Yes, sir!” Nox picked up the box, slapped a bit of tape on top to hold it together, and left the mailroom as fast as possible. He wove through the corridors, flashing his badge when necessary, and came to Aelin’s cell. The snide blonde policewoman was leaning on the wall beside the cell door, a sneer on her face like usual. She glanced sideways at Nox as he approached. 

“What do you want?” 

“Delivery for the inmate,” he said coolly, showing the cop the box. The red stamp indicating that it had passed inspection glared against the beige cardboard. 

The cop sniffed haughtily. “I’ll make sure it doesn’t contain any contraband.” 

“Whatever.” Nox set the box on the floor and folded his arms. He’d learned very quickly that the easiest way to deal with the snippy blonde cop was to go along with whatever her snide, bitchy voice said. 

“You could at least hold it,” she huffed. 

He shrugged. “It’s stable, and you can make sure anything you flag doesn’t get passed to the inmate.” 

She curled her lip, but knelt down, tore the tape off, and started sifting through the contents of the box. A plastic bag full of tampons was pushed aside, and she sorted a whole pile of electrolyte drink packets into stacks and shook the empty plastic water bottle. She went through the handful of food items too, exhaling in disgust when she didn’t find anything suspicious enough to confiscate. “Fine. The inmate can have the box.” 

“About time,” Aelin drawled from inside her cell, where she was sitting on her bed, watching the cop tear through the box. “Thank you for your excellent supervision, Remy.” 

“Don’t call me that,” the cop snapped, her icy-blue eyes narrowed into little slits. Once again, Nox was struck by how similar she looked to Aelin—with the exception of the eyes and the sneer. She unlocked the cell door, and Nox slid the box into the room. 

“So kind of you, Remy darling.” Aelin’s snicker floated over the sound of the cop slamming the cell door shut in frustration. She flicked through the box aimlessly, then took out an energy bar and tossed it through the bars of her cell. “Here, Rems, have a little something sweet to counteract all that bitterness.” 

Nox turned and strode away down the corridor before he could erupt into laughter at the shade of enraged purple that Remy the Cop’s face turned. 

He knew goddamn well what was in that box, and it wasn’t just the food and period products that seemed to be in there. While there was ordinary food and ordinary tampons, there was also some quantity of Aelin’s SecondSkin, the very same substance that was currently covering Nox’s hands. He didn’t know exactly how much Elide and Nehemia had folded up and tucked into the decoy drink packets, but if Aelin was going to use it to get herself out of Endovier, he could only imagine that it was a lot. 

And he could only imagine the look on her face when she strolled out in plain sight. 

~

Four weeks, two days, and seven hours after she became an inmate of Endovier Prison, Aelin Ashryver Galathynius received the package that would get her out. 

Elide and Nehemia had done everything exactly as they had all planned. Carefully measured and prepped sections of SecondSkin were tucked into a number of the electrolyte drink packets, and a set of ice-blue contact lenses hid in another packet. Elide had even tucked a tiny scrap of a note into one of the packets, and Aelin chuckled at her familiar, comfortingly blunt writing. She confirmed that everything was in place for whenever Aelin decided to make her move. 

Which meant that Maeve Bitchface had taken the bait. 

Aelin smothered a smirk. She’d never really doubted that Maeve would fall for her trap, not when that woman’s ego was so laughably easy to predict. Aelin knew Maeve was gloating over her arrest and imprisonment, and that meant she’d grown too comfortable in her power. A short note from Connall had been tucked into an earlier letter from Elide, and in code, he confirmed that he’d run the course of poisoning the Bitch Queen of the Night, and she was visibly weakened and frantically throwing money at anyone she thought could help her condition. 

The second she got through Endovier’s gates, Aelin would be heading straight for Maeve Bitchface’s cute little compound. Well, not straight—she knew the most convoluted path to get there, and she’d take it to keep any potential pursuit off her trail. She and that bitch had a score to settle. 

Shaking those thoughts away, Aelin carefully sorted the normal drink packets from the SecondSkin ones. All the orange-flavored ones were SecondSkin, both because it was the most common flavor and because Aelin loathed artificial orange flavoring almost as much as she loathed Maeve. She tucked the orange ones into the plastic basket where she kept her shower things, hiding them beneath her bar of soap and her washcloths. 

A couple of days later, in the shower, Aelin turned the water on extra hot, creating a cloud of steam in the shower room. Behind the plastic curtains, she tore into the packets, unfolded the SecondSkin, and began the tedious process of laying the film atop her skin. Somewhere around half an hour in, a guard rapped on the door and grunted something about not taking too much time. 

Aelin ignored him, of course. 

It took a good forty-five minutes to get every piece of SecondSkin laid onto her skin, and she wrapped a towel around her hair and put on a clean set of inmate scrubs. Only a few more days in this rancid orange, she promised herself. Only a few more days. 

“About damn time,” the guard grumbled when she emerged from the shower room. 

She shrugged. “I’m a woman. We take long showers every once in a while.” 

“Whatever.” He led her back to her cell, and she lounged on her bed, content for a while. She picked up her journal and wrote aimlessly on one of the last pages, her pencil moving almost without any conscious effort. Her shower had been a night one, and it wasn’t long before the corridor lights dimmed and she tucked her journal back onto its shelf. She fell asleep dreaming of the smell of fresh pine air in her lungs and the sweet taste of freedom. 

And she dreamed snippets of strong, tattooed muscles flexing and shifting above her skin, fragments of tortured moans breaking the thick, hot air. Shattered emerald eyes stole a glance at her, and in an instant, the dream crumbled, giving way to cold concrete and steel. 

Fuck. 

~

Aelin pushed the scraps of her dreams away as she went about her day, letting nothing show. When the usual guard came to escort her to the computer room, she walked in calmly, sat herself down, and let her fingers fly over the keyboard. She was into the system and navigating to the cameras almost before her brain caught up with her actions, and she forced herself to stop and breathe deeply before she went on, lest she make a wrong move and trigger some kind of alert. 

Now or never, Galathynius. She entered the sequence of keystrokes that gave her command over her sector’s cameras, and in a matter of minutes, that entire section was playing a loop from two days ago. 

That loop was the last time Remelle was on Aelin’s guard rotation. 

Like clockwork, the platinum-blonde cop joined the guard as Aelin was returning from computer time, a sneer on her face. “No snide comments today, inmate?” 

“It’s too early for that,” Aelin returned sweetly. As they rounded the corner into her corridor, she nodded a fraction at the guard. Obediently, Nox started to walk faster, and as if on cue, Remelle stopped and scowled. 

“There’s no need to rush, guard.” 

Nox shrugged. “I’m not rushing.” 

“You are.” 

“Didn’t seem like I was.” 

She huffed in irritation. “Just go back to your rotation. I can handle the inmate from here.” 

“Fine.” Nox peeled away and headed back down the corridor, off to his usual path. 

Remelle curled her acrylic-tipped fingers around Aelin’s arm. “Just you and me now, inmate.” 

Aelin fixed a dry, blank stare on the cop. “Is that supposed to be threatening, Remy? Because you should know that you sound childish at best.” 

“Shut it,” she snapped. “Get moving.” 

“Hard to do that with such a…significant weight clinging onto me.” Aelin knew it was a low blow to comment on another woman’s size, but Remelle fucking had it coming. 

The cop gasped, then her face burned scarlet. “You little bitch,” she hissed. She threw Aelin’s cell door open with a rattling clang, following her into the small room. 

Perfect. 

As Remelle wound up to slap her across the face, Aelin slipped a tiny syringe out of her pocket, ducked the cop’s wild swing, and grabbed her ponytail, holding her head still as she stuck the needle into the nape of her neck. Her hairline would conceal any puncture marks. Remelle’s eyes went wide, and she flailed without success—the sedative worked rapidly, and Aelin had asked Nehemia for enough to knock the woman out for a good twenty-four hours. 

When Remelle sank to the floor, unconscious, Aelin swiftly stripped her of her clothes, then removed her own prison scrubs and did a quick clothing swap. Before she put the undershirt onto Remelle, she very carefully applied the SecondSkin patches to her fingertips. The synthetic nearly disappeared into her skin, and Aelin chuckled as she put the pinch-faced cop into her prison clothes. 

“Enjoy your stay,” she crooned, tidily switching the cuff from her wrist to Remelle’s. She stepped in front of the mirror, applied the pale blue contacts to her eyes, and then slipped the turquoise ones into Remelle’s eyes. “And thank you,” she added as she settled Remelle into the bed, tucked the blankets up around her, grabbed her journal, and left the cell. 

She’d memorized Remelle’s schedule, so it was natural for her to adopt the cop’s sneer and customarily pinched expression as she sauntered down the corridors. A brief stop at the staff computer room allowed her to transition the cameras from their loop back to their normal settings, and she went back to her corridor and stood the rest of her Celaena Duty before the next guard came to relieve her. 

“Any changes?” the guard asked. 

Aelin curled her lip. “Why would there be?” she snipped in a flawless imitation of Remelle’s nasal whine. She’d had weeks to perfect that inflection. 

He held up his hands. “Standard question, as usual.” 

“Well, if it’s so standard, just stop asking.” Aelin turned on her heel and walked snootily down the corridors. She passed rows of cells, ascended a couple of floors, and went down more hallways, carefully following Remelle’s usual path, which Nox (and her studies of the security camera footage) had graciously provided. 

In the guards’ break room, she picked up Remelle’s uniform jacket and backpack, into which Nox had tucked a plastic bag containing a change of clothes. She swiped her badge at the door and went out to the checkpoint, where all she had to do was sneer at the fidgety young man on duty as he double-checked her badge before he let her through. Jingling the keys on her belt, she walked over to the parked police sedan, unlocked it, dumped her bag on the passenger seat, and got in. 

And she drove out of Endovier’s gates in an Orynth PD vehicle. 

Fuck, she liked irony. 

Aelin drove to a gas station on the western outskirts of Orynth, parked just out of range of the single camera by the gas pumps, and got out of the car. She quickly stripped for the second time in a few hours, changed into the formfitting dark clothes that Nox had left for her, tidily folded Remelle’s uniform and left it and everything else in a neat stack on the passenger seat of the sedan, clicked the manual lock switch, and tossed the keys into the car before she closed the door. 

Let Orynth PD figure that one out. 

She knew the gas station was rarely open—hell, she often had a couple of her guys use this place for distributions—so she ducked around the side of the building, swiftly crossed the street, and disappeared into the tightly clustered tangle of buildings that lined this side of Orynth. As the afternoon faded into evening, Aelin let her muscle memory take over, winding a circuitous, rambling path through half of Orynth, doubling and tripling back to tangle up her trail. She worked her way around the outer districts, a grin curling the corners of her lips as the familiar steel and brick walls of the industrial district rose up around her. 

About half a mile away from her favorite riverside warehouse, an old apartment building had been taped off and designated for destruction. Aelin had the Boss’s men plant those signs months ago, planning to use the building as a contingency. She slipped in through a ground-floor window, shook the dust off of her shoes, and latched the window shut before she went down the hallway into the darkened building. 

To her pleasant surprise, the reinforced walls around the kitchen were even sturdier than before, and she flipped on the soft light as she walked in. With a long, muffled groan, she sat down at one of the high stools, relieved to get off her feet after so much walking. 

“Good to see you again, Boss.” The voice nearly made Aelin jump out of her skin. 

“Fuck!” She pressed a hand against her thundering heart as she turned around to meet Elide’s sly grin. “Scared the hell out of me, Ells.” 

Elide snickered. “The bold Officer Remelle would never be so terrified.” 

Aelin rolled her eyes. “The bold Officer Remelle wasted most of her boldness trying to get into my—into some man’s pants.” 

“I’m almost surprised,” Elide continued, tactfully ignoring Aelin’s slip of speech. “If you were still in the uniform, I’d probably think you were actually Remy.” 

“Don’t call me that!” Aelin sniped in her Remelle voice. Elide bent over, howling, and Aelin’s laughter joined in. “Hey, when you give a girl enough time with nothing else to do…” 

“Nice work.” Elide discreetly wiped the corners of her eyes. “Right. Here’s your phone.” She passed Aelin a nondescript burner phone. “Con’s number is already there.” 

“Perfect.” Aelin tucked the phone into a side pocket of her pants. “Where’s the best place for me at the moment?” 

“Right now?” Elide bubbled her lips. “Probably here, honestly. Stay the night—the place is secure and should have everything you need. I’ll update you tomorrow—actually, it’ll probably be Con. He’s better at going around unnoticed than I am.” 

“Side effects of being a high-profile CEO,” Aelin joked. “Speaking of—have you and the team figured out a new name yet?” One of the clauses in the transfer of ownership was renaming the company, since there was a high chance that people wouldn’t want to be associated with a company named after an infamous criminal. 

“We have some options, but nothing is set.” Elide tapped her phone, pulling up a page on her notes app. “Staghorn Development is currently the top choice, though.” 

“I like that.” Aelin mulled over the name. “If my opinion has any weight—which it probably doesn’t—I’m a fan of Staghorn.” 

Elide’s lips quirked upwards. “Good to know.” She slipped her phone back into her jacket. “I have to get home, but Ae?” 

“Yeah?” 

The petite woman grinned. “It’s so good to see you safe.” 

Impulsively, Aelin hugged Elide. “Thank you,” she murmured. “For everything.” 

“Least I could do.” Elide squeezed Aelin’s hands. “I’ll see you soon.” She left, and Aelin waited for the muffled click of the doors locking before she headed further down the hallway, towards the bedroom and bathroom. 

After a long, hot shower that made her feel both clean and more human, Aelin changed into fresh undergarments and the same clothes she’d been wearing. The nondescript, cheap cotton-blend clothes could have come from anywhere, which made them perfect for sneaking around in. She’d taken out the pale blue contacts and tossed them in the trash before her shower, but she kept the protective film of SecondSkin on her hands. 

Better to mask her fingerprints than to get caught too early. 

She flipped on the bedside lamp in the plainly furnished bedroom and gratefully crawled into bed, near tears at the feeling of a proper mattress beneath her body for the first time in over a month. Unable to fall asleep without some kind of light—she’d grown accustomed to the hallway lights in Endovier—she left the lamp on and drifted off, letting her body shut down as the adrenaline high finally wore off. 

When she woke up, watery grey sunlight had broken through the clouds of the late-November sky, and she rolled over and just stared out of the window, soaking in the morning light for the first time in weeks. Eventually, she rolled out of bed, brushed her teeth, redid her braid, and made herself a coffee in the kitchen. She sipped it carelessly as she fiddled with her phone, waiting for Con to text. 

And when he did, she couldn’t control the smirk that spread across her face. 

~

For about the trillionth time in the last year, Rowan was royally fucking pissed, and Aelin was the reason for it. 

“What the fuck do you mean?” he snarled, hands clenched into fists atop his desk. The cold wood was still unfamiliar under his fingers, so different from the steel tables of the police building. 

“Watch it, Lieutenant,” Gavriel warned from the doorway. 

Rowan pulled in a deep breath and shoved it out in a harsh exhale. “Where is she?” 

“Downstairs, in a temporary holding cell until we can verify that it’s actually her.” 

“I’m going to talk to her.” He was halfway out the door when Gav’s iron hand clamped around his upper arm. “What?” 

“I don’t think that’s the best idea, Whitethorn,” Gav said, coolly. 

Scarlet anger crept up the edges of Rowan’s vision. “Why not, sir?” 

“You have a personal history with this woman—technically, with both of these women, since you worked with PD for almost a year. I’d hate for that to compromise anything.” 

“I understand, sir, but—” 

“But nothing,” Gav interrupted, cutting him off. “No.” 

Rather than tearing free from his commander’s grasp, Rowan deflated, his posture going slack. “I only want a few minutes, sir. I…” He cleared his throat, not expecting this tangle of emotion. “I need to know.” 

After a long, tense moment, Gav sighed. “Fine. I’ll give you five minutes. When the timer goes off, you get the hell out of there or I swear to all that’s holy I’ll slap you right back into basic training.” 

“Yes, sir.” Rowan snapped off a salute at his commander and strode down the hallways, his pace increasing with every step he took. He took an elevator down several floors, flashed his badge at the pair of TSF guards stationed outside the double doors that blocked off the temporary holding quarters that took up half the floor of the TSF building’s basement, and pulled the doors open. Inside, he took a deep breath, dredging up every scrap of resolve he could summon, and walked down another few yards. 

He stopped in front of the first holding cell, clasped his hands behind his back, and turned an impassive gaze onto the platinum-blonde woman seated on the bench inside the cell. The instant she saw him, she shot up to her feet, folded her arms across her chest, reared her head back, and sneered at him, her pale lips curling back, rage filling her icy blue eyes. 

“Hello, Remelle,” Rowan said quietly. 

“Fuck you,” Remelle snapped. 

Rowan raised a brow. “If this is some kind of plot to escape Endovier, I’m afraid you’ve failed.” 

She practically growled at him. “I’ve told every stupid asshole in this place and I’ll tell you too: I am not Aelin!” 

“That’s not what your fingerprints say,” he replied. 

She laughed caustically and, to his surprise, pinched her skin between the tips of her acrylic nails and yanked, and the skin at the tip of her finger peeled away. “Because that bitch put her fingerprints on me, asshole.”

“Prove it.” Rowan leaned against the wall opposite the holding cell and waited for Remelle to yank the synthetic off of her fingertips. She shoved the synthetic through the slot in the door, and he tucked it into a plastic bag to give to the forensics team. 

“Get me out of here,” she snapped again. 

Rowan had only vaguely wondered whether Remelle was actually Aelin in disguise, and he was unsurprised to find that it wasn’t. “That’s not for me to do,” he tossed over his shoulder as his timer rang. The guard from outside the holding area poked his head in and gestured, and Rowan turned on his heel and left, letting Remelle’s enraged whining fade away. 

“I’m taking this to forensics,” he told Gav, who was waiting outside the holding area. 

Gav nodded. “Did you get your answers?” 

“I’ve seen enough,” was all that Rowan said. “Should be fine to let her go, if only to get rid of the goddamn whining.” 

“You’re certain?” 

“Yes. Sir,” he added, tacking on Gav’s title at the last second. 

Gav raised a brow but otherwise didn’t react to Rowan’s near instance of insubordination. “I’ll let her get back to PD, then. Wait for me in my office, Whitethorn.” 

Not trusting himself to reply verbally, Rowan dipped his head tersely, saluted, and headed upstairs, where he dropped off the bag at the forensics lab and walked back to Gav’s office. He only waited for around ten minutes before the commander came into the office, sighed heavily, and sat back down at his desk. 

“That woman is a piece of fucking work,” Gav grumbled, mostly to himself. 

Rowan didn’t suppress his snort. “Couldn’t agree more, sir.” 

“If she’s always like that…” He scoffed quietly. “I can’t say I blame my niece for choosing that woman as a decoy.” 

“I don’t think that was the whole reason, sir,” Rowan said. He’d been thinking over the situation as he waited, and while his thoughts were still clouded with rage—and a hefty dose of lust, if he was being honest, because clever, scheming Aelin had a way of working him up—he’d formed a somewhat solid hypothesis. “Besides her, uh, cattier tendencies, Remelle also looks remarkably physically similar to Sardothien, a fact that I’m sure she knew.” 

“You know that’s not Aelin’s real name, Whitethorn.” Gav made a statement, not a question. 

It was real enough to convict her. “I…it’s easier this way, sir.” Rowan swallowed the lump in his throat and kept talking. “I suspect she began planning this as soon as she found out that Remelle was the police officer on duty. However, I’m perplexed at the footage, since it shows no apparent signs of tampering and everything looks perfectly normal.” A crease dug between his furrowed brows. “I’m having Luca at PD look at the footage, since he was the one to figure out Sardothien’s loop when she broke into PD headquarters in the summer.” 

Gav chuckled. “Back up, Whitethorn. She broke into Orynth PD?” 

“Yes, sir.” Rowan stifled his irritation. “Somehow, she managed to put the entire security camera system on a closed loop—except for my personal camera. We still have no knowledge what exactly she did while there, but since nothing was visibly disturbed, it was probably just recon.” 

“Interesting.” Gav tapped his chin, thinking. “Do you have any idea where she is now?” 

“I…no, sir.” Rowan reluctantly answered. “She could be anywhere.” His phone buzzed, and he glanced down at the screen. And a fresh wave of scarlet washed across his vision. “Goddammit!” Composing himself, he showed Gav the messages from Luca. “Apologies for the outburst, sir. Luca just confirmed that there was in fact a rather sophisticated loop run on Endovier’s security cameras for several hours.” 

“All of the cameras?” 

“No, sir. Only the sector of cameras by Sardothien’s cell.” 

“What does the footage show when the loop ends?” 

Rowan sent Luca a text, and it was only a few minutes before the younger cop replied. “That’s the confusing part, sir. When the loop ends, the cameras show Sardothien asleep in her cell—which is to be expected for around ten p.m.—and Remelle changing duty as normal. We checked the rest of the cameras as well, tracking Remelle’s path, and it’s completely ordinary. And then, the next day, Sardothien wakes up and starts screaming at the guards to get her out.” 

“And she turns out to be Remelle,” Gav finished. 

“Correct, sir.” 

Gav pressed his lips into a flat line. “Is there anywhere else that we could look for intel?” 

Rowan sighed heavily. “I don’t know yet, sir. We might be able to ask PD to search the area around Endovier for any signs, but—” Before he could finish his thought, both his and Gav’s phones pinged at once. His eyes rapidly scanned the alert. 

“Well, I’ll be damned.” Gav stood up and pocketed his phone. “Looks like I’ll be heading down to PD headquarters after all.” 

“Sir, I—”

“No.” 

Rowan blinked. “Sir?” 

“No,” Gav repeated, the command clear as day. 

“Sir, with all due respect, I have the most information on Celaena Sardothien, and as the TSF agent from the case, I believe I should know about this new development.” 

“You already have your answer, Lieutenant Whitethorn.” Gav drilled a steely stare into Rowan’s forehead. “It’s in the best interest of both you and this case that you leave the case behind. Any further attempts to participate will be considered violation of a direct order, and you will be punished accordingly, Whitethorn. Clear?” 

Rowan locked his jaw. “Yes, sir.” 

“Good.” As Gav left his office, he tucked a folded piece of scrap paper into Rowan’s clenched fist, sparing him a hint of a nod as he strode down the hallway. Reining in his fury, Rowan stormed back down to his much smaller office, threw the door shut, and unfolded the note. 

Unless I tell you otherwise—Stay. Fucking. Put.

He’d be fucking damned if he did. 

~

There’s a cop in my backseat. 

Nox navigated the meandering turns of the industrial district with ease, focusing more of his attention on the serpentine tangle of streets rather than on the trussed-up, unconscious cop occupying the back seat of his nondescript car. Officer Remelle had been almost laughably easy to kidnap, since she was so overcome with rage at her recent run-in first with Aelin and then with the Terrasen Special Forces. Nox had lingered outside a chain coffee shop a couple of miles away from TSF headquarters, waiting, and the moment Remelle had stopped for her usual beverage, he struck. He knew the TSF and the police were probably scurrying around the coffee shop like a bunch of idiots by now, and he couldn’t help but snicker at the thought. 

Mostly hidden by the cold, foggy darkness and the smoggy smear that hung over the industrial district, Nox parked his car about half a mile away from the overgrown path that led down to the Boss’s riverside warehouse, climbed out, and hoisted the still-unconscious Remelle over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. He backtracked down the side alleys, doubling and tripling back on his steps to confuse anyone that might try to track him, and eventually pushed through the curtain of brittle branches and headed down to the warehouse. 

“Nice work, Owens.” The soft, crackly voice sounded abruptly in his ear, and he almost dropped Remelle onto the half-frozen ground. 

“Fuck’s sake, Boss!” 

The Boss snickered. From her perch somewhere outside the warehouse, she was watching her set of concealed cameras as the final pieces of her grand plan fell into place. “Upper mezzanine. And be quick—Her Royal Bitchiness should be here in an hour or so.” 

“Sure thing.” Nox crossed the final stretch of pavement and entered the warehouse’s dim gloom. 

“Oh, and Owens?” 

“Yeah?” 

“There’s a chance that PD might be on scene by the end of the night.” 

“Good to know, Boss.” He glanced over his shoulder, a little unsettled by the fact that she could see him but he couldn’t see her. “You know where the car is.” 

“Indeed.” A sinister note crept into her voice. 

Nox went up to the mezzanine, where he set Remelle down, untied her, and set her up so she was faced out over the warehouse, head turned away from the south door. To stabilize her, he cuffed her hands to the metal railings and hooked a short grappling cable from the wall to the crossed straps of her weapons harness. As he slipped down the stairs, he heard the distinct rattle of another door being opened, and his hand flew to the knife tucked into his waistband. 

The west door creaked open, and a man dressed in nondescript gray fatigues and some kind of military vest ducked inside, his dark hair and clothing blending him into the shadows almost seamlessly. But Nox was friends with the shadows too, and he slipped up behind the man and had a knife to his throat in seconds. 

“Who the fuck are you?” he hissed. 

Faster than he thought possible, the man slipped his hold, whirling and grabbing his knife hand and immobilizing it above his head. “Who the fuck are you?” he retorted. 

Nox jabbed the man in the ribs and slithered free. “Call me Nox.” 

“The other man paused. “You’re the Boss’s spy.” 

Caught off guard, Nox lowered his knife halfway. “And…?” 

“I’m Con,” the dark-haired man said. 

“Con,” Nox repeated. A smirk crawled across his face. “Is that short for Convict?” 

Con snorted. “Why would I tell you?” 

“Because of my pretty face and winning personality?” 

“I’ve seen better.” Con’s onyx gaze traveled slowly down Nox’s face, half-obscured in the warehouse’s gloom. 

“Oh, I hardly believe that.” Nox winked, slowly, watching a faint blush creep over Con’s cheekbones. Hell. He was a pretty one. 

“Boys,” Celaena’s drawl crackled through each of their earpieces. “I hate to interrupt your little meet-cute, but I’m tracking a royal bitch onto the property.” 

“Heard.” Nox and Con spoke at the same time. 

Con was the first to break their stare. “I’m in place,” he answered Celaena. 

“Leaving,” Nox said hurriedly, and he ducked out the west door with a last glance at the pretty man in the warehouse. “Boss, who the hell is he?” 

She chuckled. “A former Navy SEAL and my inside operative at Maeve’s compound.” 

“Damn.” Nox whistled. “Man of many talents.” The line went silent, and he swiftly scaled the ladder rungs built into the steel wall of the warehouse and crouched on the rooftop. Some of the roof’s panels were pushed open, allowing room for a crane to reach inside and hoist pallets in or out for distribution. It also gave him a clear sight line into the warehouse.

Which was perfect, because he’d eventually need to throw the little glass vial in his pocket into the pallet sitting in the middle of the warehouse floor. 

Shifting himself into as comfortable a crouch as possible, Nox fixed his eyes onto the warehouse floor. And waited. 

~

Clad in an old, faded set of black fatigues, with knives tucked into his sleeves and boots, a pair of handguns on his hips, and Kevlar strapped to his chest, back, and upper thighs, Rowan trailed Maeve Ond through the industrial district of Orynth. He kept about half a block between himself and the woman known as the Queen of the Night, but she was so singularly focused that he doubted she would even notice she was being tracked. He’d picked up her trail thanks to an anonymous, untraceable number that had somehow contacted him with nothing more than a location pin. 

Whoever had sent it had placed a tracking device on Maeve. 

He’d barely taken a few seconds to marvel at the skill and sheer audacity of that feat before he was on the move, a lethal shadow prowling through the cold late-November night. She stalked down the maze of streets and alleys with deadly precision, despite the occasional tremors that rattled through her body. He observed those shakes with analytical curiosity, noting that the supposed Queen of the Night wasn’t invincible after all. Those were the tremors of someone whose body had been exposed to long-term poison. 

Maeve shoved through a brittle curtain of overgrown vegetation, and Rowan followed at a short distance. Past that patch of cover stood a solitary, steel-sided warehouse on the edge of the river. The skeleton of a crane loomed beside it, barely visible through the foggy night. She stormed up to the building, rounded the corner, and fired a single bullet through the keypad beside the south door. The latch released, and she yanked the door open with a snarl. 

“You can’t hide forever,” she called in a hoarse voice. It probably would have been more sinister if her throat hadn’t been ravaged by coughing. 

Who the fuck is she talking to? Rowan wondered as he crept up to the edge of the building. 

As if she could read his damn mind, she answered in the form of another snarled question. 

“Show your worthless self, Moonbeam!” 

Rowan froze in his tracks, ice shooting through his veins. Moonbeam? At the distinct sound of more than one gun cocking, he whipped his attention back to Maeve. Although her body visibly shook with tremors, she gripped her gun fiercely. 

“Still disobeying me, Connall? I’m disappointed.” Connall. The name clanged through Rowan with the force of a train. Connall Moonbeam was alive.

This…could change everything. 

As if she were on the set of a crime drama, Maeve continued monologuing. “I should have known you’d turn and sell your secrets to the highest bidder, Connall. I’m only irritated that after everything I gave you, you’d let Celaena Sardothien’s dirty money control your loyalty.” 

Once again, Rowan felt like he’d been hit by a train. Connall Moonbeam was not only alive, but he was working undercover for Sardothien. Which meant he’d probably been feeding Fenrys information for gods only knew how long. 

Which meant Fenrys had known his brother was alive. 

That explained the contact labeled Con in Fen’s phone. 

“I’m tired of your tricks, Connall.” Maeve’s frigid voice coiled through the warehouse as she tugged on a nearby cord, pouring a pool of yellow light over the area where she stood. Rowan immediately flattened himself against the wall behind a heap of boxes, melting himself into the cover of the shadows but keeping a clear view of Maeve as she paced across the floor. 

A blur of movement peeled away from the west wall, and Maeve whipped around to find a distinctly male figure ducking behind another stack of crates. She curled her lip and glanced that way. 

And did a visible double take. 

Her sneer melted into a twisted expression of blinding fury as she fixed her hollow violet gaze onto the black-clad female figure who stood poised on the mezzanine. “I suppose you made yourself useful one last time, Connall,” she crooned, raising her gun and cocking it. “Say goodbye, Celaena Sardothien.” 

Sardothien?

The ice in Rowan’s veins solidified into iron, weighing his body down as he lifted his gaze up to the mezzanine and traced the undeniably familiar figure who stood there, her head turned away, scanning the wrong side of the warehouse as the Queen of the Night curled her finger around the trigger. 

And fired. 

No!

White-hot horror blazed through Rowan’s body, and he forgot who and where and what he was as he pulled his gun and aimed and emptied an entire chamber into the back of Maeve’s skull and watched as her body arched backwards, blood bursting out of her throat and forehead and chest, and collapsed to the cold hard cement in a blur of gore and gunfire. The roar of gunshots abruptly cut off into thundering silence, and Rowan forced his eyes to move from the crumpled corpse of the Queen of the Night upwards, climbing the steel wall to the mezzanine. 

The woman lay slumped over the railing, crimson soaking steadily into her platinum hair. 

Rowan’s gun clattered to the floor, its dull thud echoing in his ears with the force of an anvil crashing into stone. Numbness swept over him, and he barely recognized that he was moving as his TSF survival instincts took over, directing his limbs to lift Maeve’s prone form and haul her outside to get her back to the investigative team for analysis and confirmation of death. He turned to go back, but a strong set of hands clamped down on his shoulders. 

“Don’t.” Lower and rougher than Fenrys’s voice, Connall Moonbeam’s baritone jolted an old, familiar strand of Rowan’s memory. 

He made a weak push against Con’s hardened grip. “She��Celaena…” 

“You can’t go back in there,” Con repeated. “It’s not safe.” 

“Fuck that!” In a burst of adrenaline, Rowan managed to break halfway free. Before he could sprint back into the warehouse, Connall spun him around and slapped the knife out of his hand. 

“You can’t, Whitethorn!” For the first time in a decade, Rowan came face to face with the second of the Moonbeam twins, whom he hadn’t seen in the flesh since he went off to Navy SEAL training. 

“Why the fuck not?” Rowan growled, feeling his burst of energy give way to hollowness again. 

Too many emotions to count rippled across Con’s eyes. “All I can tell you is not to trust what you think you saw.” Before Rowan could formulate a response, Con pinched the nerve at the joint of Rowan’s neck and shoulder, and he felt himself go weak. In a rapid blur, Con slung him over his shoulder, sprinted to the cover of dense but winter-bare vegetation surrounding the far side of the lot, and hurled him into the frigid dirt, covering Rowan’s immobile body with his own. 

And both of them watched as the warehouse exploded in a searingly white burst of flame. 

“N…no,” Rowan croaked, feeling sensation begin to return to his fingers. “No!” From deep in his chest, a single name tore brokenly out of his throat. “FIREHEART!”

Gaze flicking between Rowan’s tears and the blazing ruin of a warehouse, Con put the pieces together as he stood up. “She wasn’t actually there, Whitethorn,” he said softly. 

Rowan’s shattered gaze locked onto him. “What?” 

“That wasn’t Aelin,” he repeated. 

But before Rowan could say anything else—before Con could reveal anything else—a birdcall sounded in Con's earpiece, and he turned sharply on his heel and jogged into the dense overgrowth, leaving Rowan prostrate on the ground behind him. He broke through the brush and jogged up the alley, sparing a single glance over his shoulder at the blaze he left behind. At the top of the alley, an electrical van idled, with Nox Owens at the wheel. 

“Hop in, pretty boy,” Nox said with a sly little grin. Con shook his head with a dry huff and swung himself up into the van, and Nox drove off. 

A panel behind the seats swung open, and Aelin Ashryver Galathynius stuck her very much alive head into the cab. “Where is he?” 

“North end of the lot, halfway into the tree cover.” 

“Good. Nox, slow down.” Aelin withdrew, and a moment later, Con heard the back door unlatch and thud closed shortly after. He glanced into the rearview mirror as the van sped back up, watching Aelin tuck and roll and jog back in the direction of the warehouse, her figure rapidly disappearing into the night.

~

Through a fog of devastation and confusion and a thousand other roiling emotions, Rowan finished loading Maeve’s body into the back of an Orynth PD van. He’d pinged Luca as soon as he arrived at the warehouse, alerting the cops of his location, and the police squad—with Gavriel in tow—had arrived on scene as the oddly controlled blaze faded into smoking embers. 

Gav’s face was stone, but his eyes flicked from Rowan to the ruins of the warehouse and back and rapidly made the right connections. His posture softened. “Get in the vehicle, Whitethorn.” 

“I…” Rowan couldn’t form words. “He said it wasn’t her.” 

“Who said what now?” 

Rowan gulped. “It…Connall. I saw Con.” 

Shock flared Gav’s eyes wide, but he shut that expression down. “And he said…”

“He said it wasn’t Aelin,” Rowan croaked. 

Gav loosed a long, tight exhale. “I think we should go for tonight, Rowan.” 

“Please,” Rowan breathed. “I only want a moment.” 

“Alright.” To Rowan’s surprise, Gav ran a hand through his hair and walked away. “Get yourself home safe, Rowan.” He climbed into the leading PD vehicle and waved them forwards. 

As the taillights of the PD van faded away, Rowan turned his stare back onto the smoking heap of rubble where Aelin’s river warehouse had stood. His heart fought his eyes at the sight, torn between wanting to cling to Con’s words and wanting to believe what he saw. An icy breeze curled up from the river and bit through his clothes, and he finally took a step towards his waiting truck. Dry leaves crackled behind him, and he drew in a sharp breath and started to turn around. 

Only to be met with the kiss of steel at his throat and his groin. 

“This feels somewhat familiar, Lieutenant. Have we met?” 

Shell-shocked and hardly trusting his own state of consciousness, Rowan tried to maneuver, but a simple twitch of the blades stopped him cold. 

“Oh no you don’t, Lieutenant. It’s best for both of us if you don’t get a visual.” With that, the blade at his throat dropped and was rapidly replaced with the sharp pinprick of a needle. Heaviness spread through his limbs, and the last thing Rowan saw as his vision went black was a half-dazed glimpse of the turquoise eyes that haunted his dreams.

His Fireheart…was alive?

~~~

TAGS:

@superspiritfestival

@thegreyj

@wordsafterhours

@elentiyawhitethorn

@mariaofdoranelle

@rowanaelinn

@house-of-galathynius

@tomtenadia

@julemmaes

@swankii-art-teacher

@charlizeed

@booknerdproblems

@earthtolinds

@goddess-aelin

@sweet-but-stormy

@clea-nightingale

@autumnbabylon

@llyncooljones

@silentquartz

@renxzs

@anarchiii

@fauna-flora11

@cynthiesjmxazrielslover

@mysterylilycheeta

[acourtofquestions]

“I claim you Rowan Whitethorn. I claim you as my friend.”

“I claim you, Aelin. To whatever end.”

[sassyhobbits]

as a competitive beach volleyball player myself from south florida, i love this. i never seen a fic w vball before and the tension between them is perfection

The Eyes of Texas: A Rowaelin Origin Story 🏐 🍺 ❤️

Long before Cash and Nesta, there was Rowan and Aelin.

Rowan Whitethorn—a Navel academy graduate and recently discharged second lieutenant from the United States Navy—takes a break from studying of the police academy exam in Los Angeles to fly back to his native Hawaii and compete in a twos volleyball tournament with his ex, one of the best sand players on the amateur circuit.

Beyond Remy’s devious machinations to win Rowan back, the biggest impediment to victory is the so-called Ashryver twins, a pair of cousins from Miami with a reputation of their own. Rowan can’t help but admire the gorgeous and sharp-tongued Aelin Galathynius, who’s more than ready to give Remy a run for her money—both on the court and in the race for Rowan’s affection.

This takes place in the same AU-verse as my Nessian story In Vino Veritas, about four years before. There will be two parts to the story, this is part I. Also I don’t feel like editing right now and since we live in a post-apocalyptic world and there are no longer rules, I’m not gonna. I will go back and fix later.

The Eyes of Texas, Part I:

No matter how many times he made the journey, Rowan Whitethorn always found a wonder in returning home. He’d been glued to the window on the plane’s final descent into Maui three days ago, drinking in the sight of the Kahului Bay’s glittering waters and the distant peaks of Haleakalā rising up like silent guardians in the distance. It had only been six months since he’d last been home, but it still made his heart race; he doubted it would ever fail to take his breath away.

It had only gotten better when he’d landed and found not just Cash and Fen waiting for him, but Lorcan as well. The self-proclaimed success story of the friend group, Lor had gotten a full-ride to MIT and graduated with a 4.0 before being recruited to some tech giant in the Silicon Valley. It didn’t matter how times Rowan tried to point out that he himself had needed a recommendation from a US Senator to get into the Naval Academy; Lor would simply start rattling off college rankings and acceptance rates until Rowan conceded defeat just to shut him up. 

Keep reading

[shallyne]

What do you think about CC3?

It's an unpopular opinion but I don't think there will be tog characters as otherwise it would be too difficult to manage them all. but perhaps we will finally discover some surnames of the characters of acotar and some connections between all three worlds.

i'm sure Rhun is the son of Feyre and Rhysand, and Lidia is the daughter of Aelin and Rowan although i have no proof and i don't even know if it's possible.

plus, although I'm amazed that it needs to be emphasized, I don't think the Valkyries will play a major role as some people think: Bryce certainly won't be making friendship bracelets with them since her mate and her brother meanwhile they are tortured by the Asteri. and anyway the valkyries Azriel and Elain are minor characters in their book series i doubt they will have major roles in cc but maybe they will get a spinof in acotar. in any case in my opinion the characters of acotar we would only see at the beginning when they help bryce to go home (and maybe at the end during the final battle). But Sarah said that there will be povs of the different characters and i hope for at least one Feyre's pov.

And finally, of which I am absolutely certain, Bryce and Hunt are the endgame

Hello anon!

I already talked about this on my blog, I think, but I also don't thin tog will play a role in the crossover. If characters will play a part it's going to be Dorian, Manon and/or Vaughan, I'm sure.

I am so excited for the possibility to discover some last names of the acotar characters! I hope it's going to be Rhysands but SJM said in an interview once that IF she reveals it, then maybe in the last book but maybe something changed in the meantime bc after all, Feyre made fun of his last name in silver flames.

I love the theory that Ruhn is the son/descendant of Feysand and Lidia the daughter/descendant of Rowaelin. If you've been on my blog for a while, you see that my all time favorite theory is that Dorian is Feysands son and I will talk about it every chance I get.

I don't even think the crossover will play a huge part in CC3. Bryce doesn't even speak their language so I don't know how the "Bryce will be besties with XY" stuff comes from. It's funny as a headcanon but it won't happen canonically, the only one who can communicate with her is Amren and Rhys a tiny little bit. I do hope SO MUCH that we get Feyre's pov. I am pretty sure we will get Rhys's and/or Amrens POV because, like I said, they can communicate with Bryce. I do NOT think they will be part of a battle

I am so excited for HOFAS and not just because of the crossover. There are so many open storyline that will be explored beside it and I can't wait!

[throneofsapphics]

have your little girlfriend series masterlist

poly!Rowaelin x f!reader

Summary: Catching Aelin's eye, you quickly end up entangled between her and Rowan, forced to navigate their darker sides in your new relationship.

Series Warnings: dark aelin/rowan, possessiveness, smut, light d/s dynamics, drinking, dubcon, angst, mentions of blood/injuries, flashbacks, nightmares, death, minors dni, negative self talk, pregnancy, bad handling of pregnancy/poly dynamics, murder, knives, needles (tattooing)

part one // part two // part three // part four // midnight panic - standalone // part five // part six // part seven // part eight

visual teaser - part seven (1,2)

[elentiyawhitethorn]

Exile

Rowaelin Month, Day 29

A Work Based on a Song @rowaelinscourt

CW: language, minor NSFW

AN: Based on the Taylor Swift song

Rowaelin Month Masterlist//Main Masterlist//5747 words

Second, third, and hundredth chances

Balancing on breaking branches

I think I've seen this film before

And I didn't like the ending

There she was. Arm-in-arm with that man and standing tall and smiling.

She didn’t have any right to smile like that.

Not when it wasn’t because of him. Not when he wasn’t the one holding her, wasn’t the one telling her cheesy jokes and pressing heated kisses to her neck.

And that man had no right to lay his hands on her. She didn’t belong to him.

Rowan clenched his fingers so tightly he heard something snap. He glanced down to see the plastic lid of his coffee cup with a crack in it. He loosened his grip, then looked back up.

He shouldn’t be watching her. She had given up on him. She was the reason he was struggling, and she was the cause of his pain. Aelin didn’t deserve any attention from him.

But he just couldn’t tear his gaze away.

—

“Stop it,” Aelin complained halfheartedly, a laugh creeping into her voice. “You can’t pay for everything.”

Sam winked. “Who says?”

Aelin rolled her eyes and shoved him lightly, a smile twitching at her lips all the while. “I hate you.”

“And I love you.”

A grin broke over Aelin’s face. Sam had said that for the first time last night, after a lovely dinner. There had been roses and candles and a gourmet (at least to Aelin’s uncultured taste buds) meal. Sam had really gone all out.

And he had been more than understanding about the fact that she wasn’t ready to reciprocate those three words. He’d insisted that she didn’t actually, knowing everything there was to know about the relationship she’d just gotten out of and having complete and utter respect and supportiveness for her.

But she would say it back soon. She was free, and she was with Sam, and for the first time in a long time, she was happy. Aelin may not love him yet, and she never was sure of when that extreme adoration crossed the line, but it had to be soon. It had to be because Sam was good to her. And if she could love people who weren’t good to her, Aelin must certainly be able to love the ones who were.

That’s how it worked, right?

Aelin smiled even as her thoughts raced back in time, to a different point in her life, when things had been much different. These things did not need to be analyzed. Aelin had done enough overthinking to last a lifetime, and she had promised herself to stop. To just stop thinking about him at all.

Aelin leaned in and pressed a chaste kiss to Sam’s cheek. “C’mon, our coffee’s getting cold.”

Sam grinned and waggled his eyebrows. “I bet I could find a way to warm things up.”

Aelin choked on a laugh. “Don’t you dare. That was the least sexy thing I have ever heard come out of your mouth.”

Sam pulled her closer. “I have plenty more up my sleeve. Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?”

Aelin whacked him on the arm playfully. “You are the worst boyfriend ever,” she teased. “Let’s go, maybe I will let you warm things up.” She grinned, knowing that encouraging him only increased the number of ridiculous jokes and pick-up lines being sent her way and not caring one bit.

With one last smirk, Sam tugged Aelin toward the door of the coffee shop, arm loosely around her waist. She leaned into him as they walked to the door, only slowing down as she reached over to adjust her purse strap over her shoulder… and something caught Aelin’s eye when she looked back.

Someone.

Aelin came to a complete standstill, eyes widening in shock.

It shouldn’t be such a surprise. After all, this was a small town. But Aelin having to see him again, having to see him staring at her unashamedly, maintaining eye contact…

It was unnerving.

His eyes bore holes into Aelin, and she shivered. He hadn’t always looked at her like that. It had been happy, once. Once there had been love in gaze. Not possession. Not loathing. Not fury. Just pure, unadulterated love.

So much had changed. No, Aelin corrected herself. Nothing had changed other than her ability to notice what was really going on. This was how it had always been. Aelin had just been too blind to see it.

Distantly, Aelin realized Sam was asking her what was wrong. He was following her gaze. He was putting the pieces together.

And now he was asking her if that was him, but they both knew. They both knew it was.

Aelin spun around suddenly, a complete 180 degree turn, eradicating Rowan from her line of sight.

“Let’s go,” Aelin said. “Let’s just go.”

—

“See you tomorrow,” Aelin said, kissing Sam on the lips.

He deepened the kiss slightly before pulling away and saying, “See you, babe. Love you.”

Aelin smiled.

Sam smiled back, but the expression dimmed before he could leave, hesitating on the doorstep. “Are you sure…”

Aelin took a deep breath. “Sam, I love that you care about me, but there is nothing to be done. Rowan lives nearby; I’ll have to get used to seeing him every once in a while.”

Sam shook his head. “That’s not fair. He doesn’t get to do what he did to you and then walk around untouched, flaunting it.”

Aelin flashed a watery smile. “That’s the thing, Sam. He can do whatever he likes, and it won’t matter. It doesn’t matter because I am with you and I am happy and anything he does is entirely inconsequential.”

Sam held Aelin’s gaze, then his eyes softened. He kissed her again and pulled back. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he repeated in a whisper.

Aelin smiled, watching him leave.

She leaned against the doorway of her apartment, watching Sam walk away with a gentle expression on her face. He glanced back only once to toss a saucy grin her way as he took the turn and headed down the stairs, out of sight. But she didn’t go back inside quite yet, instead gazing in the direction he’d last been visible at, thinking. Thinking happy things.

And then thinking some not so happy things.

It wasn’t fair that Rowan could consume her thoughts so wholly. Yes, consume was the right word. He consumed her mind now, and before he had consumed every inch of her body, every aspect of her life. And it was a word with so many different connotations that for a long time, Aelin hadn’t thought that was so bad.

She knew better now.

Aelin normally would have willed a smile back to her face to reassure those around her, but she was alone now. No more pretending. Aelin frowned fully as she turned to renter the apartment.

And nearly ran smack into Rowan, who was standing on the opposite side of the doorway. Only a couple feet away, staring at her, breathing her air, and she hadn’t noticed.

Aelin regarded him silently, trying to decide if Rowan was real or not. This wouldn’t have been the first time she’d imagined him beside her.

“What exactly did I do to you, Aelin?” He was real then.

“You have no right.” Aelin’s voice was raspy and beyond furious.

“You can’t stop thinking about me, can you?”

Aelin shook her head, her entire body shaking. “You have no right,” she repeated.

Rowan crossed his arms. The door was wide open, and Aelin stood on the side with the hinges. Which meant she had the disadvantage, unable to get in without Rowan stopping her.

“What do you want from me?”

Rowan shook his head, eyes simmering with something deceptively similar to hurt. “I want to understand.”

“What is there to understand?” Aelin hissed.

“Why did you leave me?” Rowan’s voice was hard.

Aelin breathed hard through her nostrils, not bothering to put a leash on her temper. “Because you didn’t treat me right, Rowan. You ignored me. You used me.”

“I loved you!” Rowan shouted.

Aelin shook her head. “That wasn’t love. That was something else.”

“What was it, Aelin?”

She bit her lip, and Rowan’s eyes snapped down to her mouth. He stepped forward. “What was it?” he demanded, voice far too gravelly for this conversation.

“I don’t know!” she snapped. “Something bad. Something wrong.”

With that she kicked out her foot and caught Rowan on the inside of his leg. Thought likely uninjured, he was surprised enough by Aelin’s spite that he stepped back an inch. Just enough space for Aelin to shove past him and slam the door.

Angry tears streaming down her face in hateful torrents, Aelin flipped the lock, then slid the chain into place.

Then she released a muffled cry of anguish and leaned back against the door, swaying. She started crying in earnest, trying to keep her sobs relatively quiet in case Rowan was still at the door. He probably was.

Aelin slid down the door limply, falling into a pile on the floor. She reached around and placed a palm flat on the wooden surface. He was out there.

She knew he was.

Confirmation came in the form of a shadow, flitting across the crack under the door, and finally blocking the space considerably, accompanied by the a soft thump.

Rowan was sitting next to her. Without the door, he’d be touching her. Holding her.

Aelin pressed her face against the door, getting as close to him as she could while still being able to deny it. She’d slammed the door on him. No one could take that away from her.

But no one could take this away from her either, this moment.

—

Aelin was crying. He’d known she would be, but it still hurt to hear.

Rowan traced his fingers across the door delicately, imagining her own touch on the other side. They were almost holding hands.

Time passed. They kept sitting there, and Rowan knew Aelin well enough to know she’d be screaming at herself inside her head, trying to make herself get up, to no avail.

Rowan felt a twisted sense of satisfaction to know that she couldn’t leave him just yet.

It was two in the morning when Rowan finally heard Aelin stand. Faintly he heard her, still sniffling, shuffle off to somewhere else in their apartment.

For it was their apartment. Rowan’s just as much as Aelin’s. More even. He just wasn’t allowed inside anymore.

Rowan stood and walked away.

—

Aelin giggled. “You did not.”

Chaol flashed a smile. “I swear on all that is holy I did.”

Aelin shook her head, eyes dancing with mirth. “How does one even manage to do that without being—”

“May I cut in?”

Aelin turned, smile frozen in place, to find her boyfriend reaching over to place an arm around her side, fingers digging in a bit too much for her liking. “Of course. We were just talking about you, actually.”

Rowan smiled, but there was something in the expression that didn’t appeal to her. “Oh?”

Chaol joined in. “I told her about the day I met you, how I got so upset with you that I put your phone number in all the bathrooms and you got a bunch of calls asking for a hookup.”

Chaol laughed, clearly under the impression this was long since water under the bridge. Rowan’s returning smile was a bit tighter, and Aelin wondered if he still held a grudge. Or if he was upset about something else.

“As much as I would love to reminisce,” Rowan said, voice dripping with manners and camaraderie, “My girlfriend and I need to go. I’ll see you on Monday, Westfall.”

Chaol smiled and waved. Aelin just took another sip of her champagne.

Rowan plucked the champagne flute from her hand and set it somewhere off to the side, then pulled Aelin toward the exit, his hand still firmly around her waist.

Aelin didn’t say anything as they left the work party. Nor as Rowan opened the passenger door of his car and helped her inside, like he thought she’d bolt at the first opportunity.

The ride home was silent. As was the walk up the stairs leading to their apartment. Rowan unlocked the door with his keys and held it open, letting Aelin go first. Once again, she got the feeling it wasn’t a gesture of kindness.

Aelin dropped her purse on the counter then spun around, anger finally spilling over the top. “What the hell was that?”

Rowan crossed his arms. “I could ask you the same thing.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Rowan didn’t waver. “You were flirting with my coworker.”

Aelin gaped at him. “I was doing no such thing!”

Rowan just snorted.

“You asked me to make an effort with your friends,” Aelin said icily. “That’s all I was doing.”

Rowan scoffed. “Don’t take me for a fool, Aelin.”

“Excuse me? I was not flirting with anybody, Rowan. We were talking about you for fuck’s sake.”

“Chaol always has ulterior motives. I don’t trust him.”

“And what about me? Do you trust me?” Aelin barely managed to keep her voice from cracking.

Rowan’s face instantly softened. “Of course I trust you, baby.”

Aelin didn’t reply.

Rowan stepped forward and brought his hands to her face, gently cupping her cheeks. “Look at me.”

Aelin hesitated, then brought her gaze to meet his own.

“I’m sorry, love. I shouldn’t have been so suspicious. Forgive me.”

Aelin’s lower lip wavered. She still said nothing.

“I love you,” Rowan continued, softly tracing a line over her cheek. “Forgive me.”

“I love you too,” Aelin rasped. And it was true. She loved him more than anything in the world.

Rowan leaned in and pressed his lips against her forehead. “I’m sorry.”

Aelin squeezed her eyes shut. She was tense as Rowan started to move his mouth down her neck, loving and demanding at the same time.

Rowan’s hand found its way to her shoulder, sliding the thin strap of her dress off. Aelin stayed still, breathing through her nose while Rowan started following the top of her dress down with his mouth, kissing her bare chest, Aelin’s breasts covered only barely.

“Rowan,” Aelin gasped as he finally freed a breast from the fabric and closed his mouth around it. She wasn’t sure if she was spurring him on or protesting.

Rowan pushed her back a step. Then another. Aelin felt the wall at her back. She let her head fall back against it.

“I’m sorry,” Rowan repeated in a dark murmur, breath caressing her ear. His hand fell to her thigh and pushed up the dress, then he reached for his own buckle.

Aelin could only try to convince herself she wanted this as Rowan pulled her underwear to the side and—

Aelin jolted up in bed with a gasp.

Sweat soaked the sheets and dripped down Aelin’s face as she panted into the darkness. Aelin bent over and buried her face in the sheets, face already wet with tears.

—

Routine had long since become mechanical for Rowan. Get out of bed. Take a shower. Eat breakfast. Brush teeth. Dress and get out the door.

It helped keep his thoughts from straying.

It wasn’t just getting ready that Rowan approached with machine-like indifference. The rest of the day passed in a blur, and soon enough Rowan was in a bar, sipping his first whiskey of the night.

It sure as hell wouldn’t be the last.

He slipped his phone out of his pocket and placed it on the bar in front of him. Turning it on revealed Aelin’s smiling face, framed by her vibrant golden hair. A white sundress highlighted her curves subtly. The sun was high behind her, and the cloudless sky was the blue of her eyes. The whole picture was so Aelin.

Rowan entered his passcode and took in the home screen, another picture of Aelin, this one with him as well. Aelin’s cousin Aedion had taken the picture. They were sprawled across the grass, Aelin haphazardly lounging on top of Rowan, her mouth open in a laugh that he could almost hear, even now. And that beautiful hair, strewn across his chest.

She looked the happiest Rowan had ever seen her. There was no way someone could look that happy and just be pretending. It was utterly impossible.

Rowan searched for indications that he was treating her wrong, that his grip on her arm was too tight or his eyes were angry or mean.

They weren’t. He was gazing at her with adoration, just as he’d always done. He had loved her, and he still did, and Rowan had never hesitated to tell Aelin. So why had she left?

Rowan entered his photo app and started scrolling through them, though dozens upon dozens of photos of her smiling in the sun and laughing in the rain and eating on the couch.

He was a masochist to do this to himself, but he couldn’t stop.

He kept searching for any signs that something was wrong, that he wasn’t loving her right.

He couldn’t find any.

—

The echoing noises of the thumps on the bag were the only sounds in the room. Aelin struck with deadly capability, slamming her fist into the punching bag again and again.

She’d gotten into self-defense not long after the breakup with Rowan. Punching things, more specifically. And Aelin had gotten good, too.

She used to work out in the gym, but the closest gym was annoying to get to, all the way across town. So Aelin had invested some money into some basic equipment and set everything up in the only empty room in the apartment.

Well, it was only empty after Aelin had dumped all of Rowan’s things out on the curb. This was his former office. There was a picture of him on the wall where there used to be one of her. It was filled with holes from the various weapons Aelin had thrown at it, among them knives, darts, and a single fork.

Maybe Aelin needed to talk to a therapist.

Aelin twisted her body and pivoted her foot, landing a deadly roundhouse kick on the bag. Why the fuck hadn’t anyone told her about this miracle cure sooner?

Aelin was so busy taking out every ounce of fury within her body—which totaled up to a frighteningly large quantity—that she almost didn’t notice her phone ringing. She finally noticed the screen lit up out of the corner of her eye, and Aelin pulled out her earbuds and strode over to her phone.

It was from Sam. Aelin reached for her phone, then paused, breathing deeply. From the exercise, she told herself. Solely from the exercise.

The ringing stopped. Aelin was too late. She reached once more, intent on calling Sam back, but stopped again.

She’d been thinking a lot over the past few days. Trying. Trying so hard to love him. And every time she was with him and she opened her mouth to get it over with, she couldn’t. Because Aelin couldn’t do that to Sam. He deserved better.

And because she was thinking about somebody else.

Aelin spun around and executed a perfect boxing maneuver on the bag. Jab, dodge, duck, right hook to the body, left hook to the body, left hook to the head, slide back with a defensive jab. She repeated it, then moved onto a different maneuver.

Then Aelin stripped off her gloves and bolted for the door, off to do something she would most certainly regret.

—

Panting, Aelin knocked on the door before she could loose her resolve. Then she waited, hands on her hips and shoulders back.

Not even a minute passed before the lock clicked and the door was pulled inward.

Aelin took in Rowan’s tired eyes and haggard expression and knew she was the reason for that. And probably for the smell of alcohol on his breath.

He didn’t ask how she knew where he lived—Aelin had a depressing amount of free time; or why she looked like she’d run all the way here—she had; or why she was here—that one she didn’t know. He just opened the door wider.

“Come here.”

Aelin did. She wondered if her fate had been sealed from the moment she first laid eyes on him. Rowan Whitethorn was like a sinkhole, drawing you in farther and father no matter what you did, only tightening his grip when you struggled.

That gruesome description wasn’t enough to make Aelin turn back quite yet.

She stepped inside and pressed her lips against Rowan’s, hands twining in his hair instantly. His own hands came to her hips, pushing her tank top up slightly and tracing familiar patterns on her bare skin.

Aelin shoved Rowan backward in his apartment one step, then one more. She spun around so Rowan was against the wall. Aelin could feel his lips curve upward against hers, but she didn’t care what amusement he was deriving from her dominance. He wanted to take everything from her? Well, she would take right back.

Aelin parted Rowan’s lips with her tongue and the small groan that left the back of his throat had Aelin pulling his hair none-too-gently, melting into his giant frame even farther.

Nothing mattered anymore. It all evaporated into some space that Aelin couldn’t and didn’t want to access. Her brain was blissfully empty as she hooked a leg around his ankle, and as she nipped at his lip.

Rowan growled and started moving his hands upwards toward her breasts, thumbs brushing the undersides just enough that Aelin could feel it and lean into the sensation, ignoring his gleeful smirk against her mouth. Rowan finally broke the kiss and trailed his mouth along Aelin’s jawline, until his lips reached her ear.

“I love you,” Rowan whispered, voice dark and hoarse.

Aelin exhaled, her grip on him loosening. “I hate you.”

Rowan pulled back and frowned. “No, you don’t.”

Aelin chuckled humorlessly. “You’re right.” She stepped closer to the door. “But I hate that I love you.”

“Bullshit.”

“I shouldn’t have come here.”

Rowan shook his head. “Bullshit,” he repeated.

“Goodbye, Rowan.”

Aelin started for the still-open door, only a couple feet away.

Rowan’s hand immediately took hold of her wrist. “You can’t leave again. Not like this.”

“How, then?” Aelin asked, shaking her wrist free of his grasp. “Was last time any better?”

“Don’t leave me at all.”

The desperation in Rowan’s voice would have provoked some sort of sympathy in Aelin any other time, but she only felt cold as she stared him down.

“Goodbye, Rowan,” she repeated. Then Aelin spun around and slipped out the door before he could stop her.

—

“Stop it.”

“I will not.”

“Yes you will.”

“No I won’t.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“What’re you gonna do if I don’t?”

“I’ll beat you up, that’s what.”

Aelin and Sam only managed maintain eye contact for a minute more before dissolving into laughter.

“I’m being serious,” Aelin said between laughs.

Sam shook his head. “I don’t even understand what the issue is,” he replied, features filled with delight.

“The issue,” Aelin enunciated, “is that you can’t just be stupid like that. It’s not a good look on you.”

Sam scoffed in pretend hurt. “Excuse me, it’s not stupid to tickle my girlfriend.”

“It is,” Aelin insisted. “You’re an asshole for it.” She pouted.

Sam made an over-dramatic frown. “I’m so sorry I hurt your feelings, babe.” He spread his arms wide and leaned over from the car seat.

Aelin could only involuntarily cackle as Sam moved his evil fingers over her again, his false hug turning into an ambush. “Stop it,” she cried between giggles. “This is mean. And foul. A foulable offense.”

“Is foulable even a word?”

“It is now,” Aelin hissed, elbowing him.

Sam grinned. “It’s not my fault. What else is a guy to do when he finds out his girlfriend’s ticklish?”

“You’re supposed to not bully them!”

Sam laughed into Aelin’s shoulder. “I love you so much.”

Aelin hugged him, for the sole purpose of making sure he couldn’t see her face at the words. Before she had been so happy to hear Sam say it, and now the only thought she could conjure upon hearing it was Rowan’s face.

Everything she’d ever had, everything she’d ever worked for, Rowan soured. It was a talent of his.

Aelin hadn’t told Sam about the kiss. Almost a week had passed already, and she hadn’t told him. Acknowledging it validated it, and Aelin didn’t want that. She just wanted to forget. Though it was hard to forget the one thing haunting her through all hours of the day and night.

“Let’s go inside,” Aelin said abruptly, pulling away. “I’m already forgetting what I wanted to get.”

Sam smiled, oblivious to Aelin’s internal struggles. “Sure.”

—

How dare she come to him, kiss him, make him think she was ready to invite him home? How dare she use him the way she claimed he used her?

The nerve of Aelin’s visit left Rowan seething. All he wanted was Aelin. And he’d be damned if he didn’t get her.

The bell dinged to signal a customer’s arrival and Rowan’s eyes snapped up. He relaxed once more as he saw it was only an elderly man, then tensed up all over again as he spotted a familiar car parked outside the shop.

Aelin came here every Tuesday without fail to buy a new book. It was one of the few luxuries she allowed herself, and it was the only part of her routine she hadn’t changed after dumping him, and he’d been waiting in the mystery aisle for over an hour now.

And his waiting had paid off. Except, rather than leaving the car, Aelin and that man were talking and laughing and touching. He was tickling her, like a fucking loser.

Another five minutes passed and Rowan was debating going out there and knocking on the car window when the doors finally opened.

They walked hand-in-hand into the bookstore, and Aelin pressed a kiss against the man’s cheek as they neared a shelf.

His smile made Rowan smile. This poor, innocent man had no idea what had happened last week. He had no idea how unfaithful Aelin truly was.

Aelin murmured something to the man—Rowan refused to even think his name—and headed off to the romance section. Rowan followed her, creeping around shelves and not giving a fuck how bad it looked.

Aelin was reaching for some book or other when she noticed Rowan coming up behind her. Her face flushed, much to his delight, and her eyes widened.

“Go away,” was the first thing to come out of her mouth.

Rowan shook his head. “Not a chance, princess.”

Aelin’s face tightened visibly. “I’m not interested in doing this again, Rowan. We’re over.”

“Really? You haven’t seemed too sure about that lately.”

Aelin huffed. “Last week was a mistake. I know that now. I knew it when I did it. But that’s it. We’re done now. Get over yourself, Rowan.”

“I love you.”

“And I used to believe that,” Aelin snapped.

Rowan ground his jaw in frustration. “What do I have to do to prove that I care about you?”

“That’s just the thing,” Aelin hissed, voice quiet but angry. “There is nothing to prove. You could started acting like the perfect boyfriend, the man I thought I loved, and it still wouldn’t matter. We’re not good together, Rowan. We’re broken. We. Are. Fucking. Broken.”

Rowan took a step forward, every molecule in his body freezing as Aelin flinched. “Are you scared of me, Aelin?”

She shook her head, but she’d always been a bad liar. Rowan could see right thought it.

“I have never laid a hand on you in my life,” Rowan stated, voice devoid of human emotion. “Never.”

Fire swirled behind Aelin’s eyes. “I know that. But you didn’t have to.”

Rowan shook his head vehemently. “What the hell does that mean?”

Aelin’s chest was heaving. “Think about it, Rowan. Think about us. Remember how you were with me.”

He did. Because he was a fair person who cared enough to listen to Aelin, he did.

—

“Maybe you should stop hanging out with Dorian,” Rowan commented.

It was a joke. It had just been a joke.

“What?” Aelin asked. She looked confused.

“I mean, whenever you two are together you’re smiling more than you smile with me. It’s a little difficult to watch.”

Rowan shrugged as his lips twitched. She was supposed to laugh now, amused at the joke.

Aelin didn’t laugh.

—

“You should really learn how to cook something,” Rowan said, watching in amusement as Aelin reached for the Chinese takeout menu, and not for the first time this week.

“Gods, Rowan, if you’re so sick of eating takeout then make something yourself.”

Aelin stormed off. And Rowan had clearly been the right one in that conversation, because after Aelin didn’t like his suggestion and decided to make a fuss about it and be a bitch, Rowan let her leave and didn’t bring it up again. Because he cared about her.

—

And finally, the day everything went up in flames:

Aelin tipped her head back and laughed. Rowan watched this little spectacle from afar. Until she got so loud that his boss’ boss looked over and that’s when Rowan had had it.

“Aelin, come with me,” Rowan said as he grabbed her hand. Gently. He had grabbed her hand gently.

Aelin frowned, but didn’t protest. She would have protested if she wasn’t okay with this. Rowan knew her.

They made it outside the building and both of them stopped. They weren’t waiting to go all the way back to the apartment this time.

“Maybe I need to stop bringing you to these things,” Rowan said, running his hand through his hair.

Aelin frowned. “Why? Am I embarrassing you?”

“No, Aelin, of course you aren’t. But you are bothering my coworkers, and I don’t want them to look down on me because of my girlfriend.”

She snorted. “That’s the literal definition of embarrassment,” she slurred.

“No, there’s a difference between being embarrassed by someone and logically not wanting to have someone with you for strategic purposes.”

Aelin laughed incredulously, and Rowan wondered if she still didn’t understand. But the next thing that came out of her mouth made him the one who couldn’t comprehend what was happening.

“We’re done.”

“What?”

Aelin smiled, but it wasn’t a happy thing, it was twisted and sad and so many other emotions, some of which Rowan couldn’t even name. “I’m breaking up with you.”

A moment of shaky silence passed as Rowan held eye contact with Aelin. Finally, he said, “We’re going home now.”

Aelin scoffed. “Don’t you hear me?”

“You’re drunk, Aelin.”

A tear slid down Aelin’s cheek and Rowan stepped forward to console her, for that’s what he’d always done when she was upset.

But Aelin stepped backward. “Go home. Get your things. Get out.”

Rowan sighed. “Aelin, seriously—”

“No!” she yelled, and Rowan glanced back at the party he’d just emerged from, worried someone might have heard her. “You don’t get to ignore me! Get the fuck out of my apartment. Now!”

“No,” Rowan snapped.

Aelin seethed. “Well, I guess I’ll just have to get your things out on my own.”

She snatched the keys from his hand and took off toward the car, but Rowan’s head was swimming enough that he could only stand there, frozen, for a solid thirty seconds as she climbed in the driver’s seat.

Then he started moving. “Aelin, stop this. Calm down. You’re overreacting and I need you to get out of the car.”

Aelin held the wheel tightly as she hastily locked the car. She didn’t bother buckling in before the car jerked backward. Rowan raced to the other side of it and blocked it from leaving the parking space.

Aelin must have had more to drink than Rowan originally noticed, for instead of stopping like the sensible woman he’d thought her to be, she slammed on the gas and went over the grass, swerving and turning back onto the pavement farther down. Aelin narrowly avoided a lamppost as she got onto the road and started speeding down the street.

Rowan could only watch, mouth agape and heart stopping altogether.

—

“I can’t think of a single thing I did to provoke something like that from you, Aelin.” Rowan’s hands were clenched into fists. “You just started acting out for no reason at all. I wasn’t the one behaving poorly.”

“There were signs,” Aelin breathed, voice riding the edge between stability and insanity. “There were so many warning signs.”

Rowan opened his mouth to protest, but before any sound could come out, Aelin’s so-called boyfriend walked up to her. She was at the corner of a shelf, and the men were on either side of it, meaning Sam hadn’t yet noticed him. Rowan wanted to step forward and beat some sense into the man, show him who Aelin really belonged to, but Aelin spoke before he could step forward.

“Hey, babe. I found my book. Ready to leave?”

The man grinned. It was a snarky little look, and Rowan knew he’d look better with a fist in his face.

“I am.”

Aelin stepped closer to him and farther from Rowan, then paused. Her tactic had originally seemed to be getting Sam away from Rowan as quickly as possible, but now she stance took on a different posture.

Rowan had never wished he could see inside her head more than he was now.

Aelin didn’t even look his way. “I love you, Sam.”

Rowan froze. He didn’t need to know anything about their relationship to know that was the first time Aelin had told Sam that. Not just from the delight on his face, but from the way Aelin spoke. Rowan could feel it in his bones.

She was spiting him. This could easily be discussed anywhere else, at any other time, but Aelin chose to say it now, with Rowan hovering in the background. It was a message to him, to stay away. It was hateful. It was cruel.

Something splintered in Rowan’s chest.

Sam was saying something, presumably a reciprocation of those three words, but Rowan didn’t hear it. His ears were buzzing.

Aelin took ahold of Sam’s arm and started for the checkout desk.

She didn’t look back.

———

Tag List:

@aelin-bitch-queen

@evolving-dreamer

@feysand-loml

@flora-shadowshine

@gracie-rosee

@infernoqueen19

@julemmaes

@lemonade-coolattas

@live-the-fangirl-life

@midsizewitch

@morganofthewildfire

@nehemikkele

@realbookloverproblems

@rhysandswingspan

@rowaelinismyotp

@rowanaelinn

@sexy-dumpster-fire

@sleeping-and-books

@story-scribbler

@swankii-art-teacher

@thenerdandfandoms

@yesdreamblog

[live-the-fangirl-life]

Candy Hearts

Elide Lochan x Lorcan Salvaterre

Prompt from anon: “A spells out something sexy/lewd in rose petals/candy hearts for B, but B comes home with unexpected guests.”

Masterlist | Read on Ao3 | Valentines Collection

Warnings: Language, Allude to NSFW

1958 words

*******

“Aelin,” Elide breathed a sigh of relief when her friend answered the phone. “Listen. I need you to do me a favor, but you can’t ask any questions, okay?”

She twisted a dark curl between her fingers as she heard the light clicking of a keyboard halt. Aelin’s heavy pause lasted a second before the blonde responded in a steady voice, “Is this a I need help hiding a body kind of favor, because you know I’ve never been too keen on Lorcan and I would not judge—”

“What?” Elide sputtered, “No. Gods, no. For fucks sake, Ael.” She loosed a long breath, her eyes surveying the floor in front of her half littered with treats. “No, I just need you to go buy two more bags of those little candy hearts—”

“Yum, do I get to keep any? You know, as like a delivery fee?”

Elide laughed and shook her head. “If there’s any leftovers, sure. But Aelin, you can’t buy the normal ones, you need to go to that sex shop uptown and buy the adult candy hearts. You know, the ones that all say Do Me and Bend Over and Sit On My Face.”

“Elide Lochan, what do you have planned?” She teased and then muttered, “And how do they fit that last one onto the candy?”

“I said no questions.”

Her friend snorted and griped. “The body thing would’ve been more fun. But sure, I was just about to head out anyway.”

“Thanks, I owe you one.” Elide’s shoulders relaxed, and she sat back on her heels. She could hear the sounds of papers being shoved into folders and bags being zipped up as her friend scoffed at the mention of a debt. “For the record, if I ever did need that sort of help, you’d be my first call.”

Aelin snorted and Elide could hear the grin in her voice. “Love you too, babe. I’ll be there soon.”

Elide hung up but stayed sitting on the floor. So far, she had managed to spell out half of what she was planning to write. When she’d come up with this idea, she didn’t think it would take so many pieces of candy, but try as she might, Elide couldn’t think of anything else to say.

She could’ve gone with a simple I Love You or Happy Valentine’s Day, but she wanted to be a little more original than that. Not that the poem was original—she hadn’t thought of it herself, merely finding it after googling for five minutes—but it was better than those generics phrases.

Huffing a sigh, she got up and started lighting the candles she had placed on the kitchen counters and island, the coffee tables, and the bookcases. The latter being fake because she wouldn’t risk real flame by the books.

Knowing Lorcan would get off work soon, she nervously texted Aelin asking when she’d be getting back to the apartment. The last thing she wanted was for her fiancé to get home and start celebrating with her only for her friend to barge in and interrupt them.

Less than a minute after shooting off the text, Aelin knocked at the door to Elide and Lorcan’s apartment, leaving just enough time for Elide to question the whys of what she was doing.

“You’re the best,” Elide offered in greeting, quickly swinging the door open and ushering Aelin inside.

A long whistle was her response as Aelin took in Elide’s outfit with wide eyes. From the thigh-high, black, latex stilettos, to the matching corseted bodysuit laced with dark red ribbon. She felt her cheeks heat but grabbed the bags of candy out of Aelin’s hands.

“You might need my help after all—you’re dressed to kill, Lochan.”

“It’s Valentine’s Day,” she muttered in explanation as she lowered herself back onto the floor in front of the semi-legible words spelled out in candy hearts.

Aelin walked in further and followed Elide’s gaze to the words, reading them with a furrowed brow. “Roses are Red, Violets are Bl—. This is why you needed more candy?

Elide focused on opening the bag and adding the ue to the end of that line. “Well, I thought I would have enough but then I couldn’t decide on what to write, so I settled on this stupid poem, but then I didn’t have enough hearts and I thought about finding something else to write, but I still couldn’t think of anything and I was already committed.”

Aelin opened the second bag and leaned against the back of Elide’s sofa. “And you couldn’t go buy more because…”

Elide sighed, tossing a large curl over her shoulder. “Because this damned outfit took me nearly an hour to get on, and I didn’t want to peel it off and have to put it back on before Lorcan got home from work.”

She finished forming the last line and pretended not to notice that for every piece of candy Aelin handed her, the blonde popped one into her mouth.

“Okay, I’ll leave you to it,” Aelin said, pushing off from the couch and walking towards the door, “I picked up a few extra things from that shop that I wanna try with Rowan tonight.” She grinned wickedly and Elide snorted.

“Have fun, and thank you again.”

Aelin waved her off. “Don’t worry about it.” She got to the door and pulled out her phone before saying, “If you do end up giving Salvaterre a heart attack, please, please, let me be the first to know.”

Elide rolled her eyes and pushed Aelin out the door, leaning against the back of it once it was shut and groaning into her hands. She was lucky she and Aelin had no qualms about sharing details of their sex lives—there wasn’t anyone else she would have asked to go to a sex shop for her, and not feel totally awkward being around in a skin-tight, latex costume.

Gods know she had caught her friend in more compromising positions.

“This works, this is good,” she muttered to herself, pushing off the door, flicking off the overhead light so the room was basked in the warm candle flames, and stepped closer to the area on the hardwood where she’d set up the candies.

Roses are Red, Violets are Blue, All I Want for Valentine’s Day is to Do You

She squeezed her eyes shut and groaned again. It would have to do. Elide checked the time and her eyes flew wide when she realized Lorcan would home any minute. She carefully stepped over the writing and paused at the hall mirror to give her hair an extra fluff and touch up her deep red lipstick. Then she headed towards the bedroom to wait.

***

Aelin left Elide’s apartment and took the stairs down to the first floor. She pulled out her phone to call Rowan but stopped short as she exited the building and saw a familiar car parked at the curb.

Why was Rowan here?

Her brow furrowed in confusion and she checked her texts to see if he’d said something. Sure enough she had one unread message.

>>Buzzard: Lorcan had to bring his truck into the shop today, so I’m giving him a ride from work. I’ll be home soon.

It was sent ten minutes ago. She must have just missed him if he was already here and going up to the apartment with Lorcan.

Shit.

She spun on her heel and raced back into the building, bypassing the elevator that the guys must have taken and running up the stairs.

***

Lorcan stepped out of the elevator and walked towards his and Elide’s apartment. “You want a beer, man? Make up for any gas money I owe you?”

He was still angry that his truck decided to fucking break down and wouldn’t be ready for him until tomorrow. Getting to work was just fine. Going out to grab some lunch? Not gonna happen. At least the tow wasn’t going to be too expensive.

Rowan followed him down the hall. “Just one, Aelin and I have reservations at Orynth tonight.”

The taller man glanced over his shoulder with a raised brow. “Fancy.”

Not bothering to hide his smug smirk, Rowan asked, “And you?”

“And I what, Whitethorn?”

Rolling his eyes, Rowan asked “And what do you and Elide have planned?”

“El insisted she wanted to keep it low-key,” Lorcan shrugged.

Rowan immediately interjected, clamping a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Please tell me you ignored that and planned something.”

Lorcan scoffed as they got to the door. “What am I, an idiot? Of course I did.”

He could’ve sworn he heard someone running as he unlocked the door and stepped inside, Rowan following a moment after.

He blinked at the dimness, his eyes darting around to the candles placed in every corner of the apartment. “What…?” Lorcan flicked on the light and immediately spotted the brightly colored words spelled out on the ground in…candy hearts?

“Lor? Baby?” Elide’s sultry voice floated in from the direction of the bedroom and Lorcan’s head snapped towards it. He suddenly felt a growing strain in his jeans at the mere sound of her luring voice as she said in that same, velvety tone, “I have a surprise for you.”

He heard a choked laugh from behind him and Lorcan remembered that Rowan was still there, trying to keep his face neutral as he read the poem on the ground.

Lorcan whirled around, fully prepared to shove him out the door so he could go find out what surprise Elide had waiting for him, and so Whitethorn wouldn’t catch a glimpse of Elide if she sauntered out here, when the running steps he’d heard before got louder.

“Wait!” a female voice hollered from the hallway.

And then Aelin Galathynius was in his living room, breathing heavily from her apparent sprint here. She grabbed a surprised and amused Rowan by the arm and flashed Lorcan an apologetic smile that came out more like a grimace. She muttered a sorry before she and Rowan were gone, slamming the door closed behind them.

He shook his head, not spending too much energy wondering why Galathynius was there in the first place because that was when he heard movement behind him and turned to see Elide leaning against the wall.

His mouth dried up as she crooked one arm over her head and pointed the other out to him, beckoning him forward with a smirk. “What was that? I thought I heard voices.”

He wanted to answer but found himself almost immediately forgetting what she asked as his eyes raked down her body. Slowly, so as to use every second to soak in the image of his fiancé wearing something straight out of one of his dreams, he stalked towards her.

Elide seemed to forget her question too, as Lorcan’s large palms landed heavily on her waist, pulling her firmly against him. He smirked as she tried to keep her unfazed composure when she felt exactly how much he enjoyed her outfit.

“If this is what you call ‘low-key’,” he practically growled into her ear, relishing in the hitch in her breath. “then I suggest we never make elaborate plans.”

She huffed a laugh that quickly became a soft moan as he hooked his hands under her thighs and lifted her in his arms so she could wrap her legs around him while he walked them towards the bedroom.

“Does that mean you don’t want to know the elaborate plans” she whispered into his ear, her tongue snaking out to tease the sensitive skin and grinning as his fingers tightened on her thighs “I had for tonight?”

A low groan was his only reply.

*****

Taglist:

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[seasonofthewicth]

nobody does it like you do - act 1

I'm finally back with some more rowaelin! I started this fic in november last year and wrote the first 10k in 24 hours, but from then on this fic was a struggle... Thank you so, so much to @morganofthewildfire for sharing so much of your time to help me with this, this fic would not be here without you 💗 I'm so happy to have finally finished it and can share it on here. I hope you enjoy

CW: past drug abuse, minor character death, violence

7.7k - masterlist - ao3

--

When her agent sends her the script it’s not the first time she’s heard of Rowan Whitethorn, his name is written at the top under the heading director, which itself is under the big red text reading confidential. He’s been at this stuff for a while now, directed a couple of movies that popped up on her radar but that nothing ever came of for her, and he’s well known in the business.

He was even nominated for an Oscar a couple of years ago, and she watched the ceremony with Lysandra, slapping the bills into her outstretched hand when he didn’t win.

His movie had been far too fucking raw for him to have won, she knew that, a tale about a group of kids who witnessed a murder and how it stayed with them and fucked them up into adulthood, but it had stuck with her nonetheless and she’d put her money on him anyway.

She reads the section of script Dorian has sent her, tucked up in bed with a glass of sparkling water and her most comfortable sweater, leaning back into the mountain of expensive pillows she had Elide buy for her and pondering how so much money could end up so uncomfortable, and she knows it’s something special.

She realises she wants this role, almost to an uncomfortable degree, when she’s about five lines in. The heroine is bratty and rash, but serious and pained in a way that makes her completely fleshed out and Aelin wants to play her, wants to be her and embody her in a way that takes her out of the pit she’s in.

She hopes this could be what gets her out of it.

Aedion had tried to pull her out, gods bless him, dropping by her apartment every morning for weeks to check up on her with a coffee in his hand, topped with cream and two sugars the way he knows she likes. Each morning he let himself in with her spare key, the one she gave to him the day she moved in, wanting him to be able to let himself in whenever he wanted but also knowing there was no one else she wanted to give it to.

She would have given it to Sam, would have given everything to Sam, but he’s gone and she’s left sitting here, wondering how to salvage what’s left of her reputation.

What reputation she had even managed to build after starring in one mediocre TV show and a handful of low-budget movies. She knows deep down, and in a way her brain likes to remind her of when she’s at her lowest, that the main reason she isn’t a complete nobody is because she’s Evalin Ashryver’s daughter. Her therapist tells her every time she bothers to go to a session that having a famous mother doesn’t mean she’s a failure and that she has to recognise each of her successes as her own. She nods along every time, but she doesn’t believe her. What has she managed to accomplish truly on her own?

It hasn’t been made public yet that Rowan Whitethorn is involved in the film, she only knows because Chaol wrote the whole script himself and texted her to let her know when he signed on to direct. She’s known Chaol since she was eighteen and took her first solo trip to Rifthold, drawn to the lights of the big city and the almost magnetic pull of the heart of the industry. He’d stumbled upon her in a club she was far too young to be in and had pulled her out, sending her home in a cab that he paid for. Looking back she was grateful for his attempt to avoid what she knew later was an inevitability.

She had cursed him when he told her she’d still have to audition, but she gets it. She hasn’t exactly behaved in a way recently that makes people want to take a chance on her.

Stumbling out of clubs, eyes as wide as saucers and high as a fucking kite isn’t the kind of star casting directors are desperate to hire, but she’s trying to be better. She’s promised those around her that she’ll be better, and she knows that the only reason she hasn’t ended up in rehab is that she has an incredible therapist and a highly persuasive manner of dealing with her friends and family. The only reason they’ve taken that chance on her is time, and she’s grateful for that mercy.

She turns the page, hitting the final line for the third time. Chaol’s script is so good she’s read the few pages she’s been sent over and over.

She only reads scripts in physical copies, takes the time to print them out using her shitty printer that belongs right back in 2008, and she knows it’s wasteful but she allows herself that small luxury of the crisp paper in her hand as she delves into each new world. Her character is in the middle of a teary monologue that she knows exactly how she’d do, the way she’d halt her breath and choke out the words-- it’s not her character. Yet.

The audition is next week, and she’ll work her ass off to make sure she’s ready. Her usual pre-audition ritual involves taking up far too much of Lysandra’s time to practice reading the lines and filming herself time after time, take after take, and watching it back in the unholy hours of night until she’s happy she’s made an improvement.

Or at least that’s how she used to do it, nothing has made her want a role like this in a long while. She worries as she bites her lip, that wanting something this much means she’s getting over Sam. That maybe one day she won’t think of him and hear the pounding in her ears, won’t feel the lightheadedness that comes with a memory of their time together. Worries that if she forgets the sounds of his screams she’s failing him somehow.

She takes another sip of her sparkling water. It’s poured into a wine glass so she can at least pretend she’ll get the relaxation she craves. Alcohol was never one of her vices but she finds it’s better to be safe than sorry. It’s unhealthy as far as coping mechanisms go, but she’s been worse so it’s going down as a win.

Chaol told her some guy called Brullo is casting this one. She’s never heard of him, which is kind of rare. She’s been on the periphery of this bubble for pretty much her entire life, following her mother around her own movie sets and sitting on the wooden directors chair when her legs still dangled off the side, but if he’s like any other casting director in Adarlan she knows how to impress him.

When she reaches the last line of the part of the script she’s been sent, her mind wanders again to Rowan Whitethorn.

He’s the kind of director up and coming actors can only hope to one day work with, even though she’s pretty sure he can’t be much more than thirty, he’s built himself to a level where he can be choosy with his projects.

It's a well deserved privilege. Each of his works has stayed with her after watching, his style is gritty and dark, but grounded in a way that leaves her empty each time after finishing.

She wants this, and she buries the guilt she feels for that. Sam would want her to want this. She deserves it, or at least she hopes she can come to.

Dorian books her a mid-morning flight so she doesn’t have to wake too early before the audition, he’s a damn good agent and one she definitely doesn’t deserve with his seemingly endless patience, but she’s continuously grateful for him.

Aelin styles herself for it, ties her hair back and leaves the makeup to a minimum in a way that she hopes shows them she’s right for the part, that she can be the insecure little girl who experiences far too much. She knows she doesn’t have the sheltered innocence the character has, but she’s an actress and this is what she does. Aelin pretends for a living.

He’s also booked her a room in a pretty nice hotel for the night, she’s not sure whether he’s used her meagre acting funds or the funds from the account she knows he mom throws money into every month. It’s an argument she and Evalin have had repeatedly, she wants to stand on her own two feet, but she never protests too hard. The account kept the roof over her head when she was too busy snorting her life away to consider where her next paycheck would come from.

Aelin throws herself backwards into the crisp white bedding on the hotel room bed and takes a deep breath. The only luggage she brought with her is a carry on slung somewhere by the door and the room feels too empty to sit here and wait for the car that’s arriving to take her to the studio in just over an hour. If she sits here and waits the nerves will only build, and then she’ll itch for something to take the edge off.

She picks her phone up to text her cousin.

Jet lag from a 2 hour flight. Who would have thought?

Aelin waits two minutes for a reply, locking and unlocking her phone as she sits there, but one doesn’t come. Aedion’s probably at a training session and not checking his phone. Aelin runs a hand through her hair, careful not to dislodge the pins she placed carefully in it this morning, she needs to stop using him as her crutch. She knows he doesn’t mind, but it’s not right either way.

She needs to get out of this room.

The streets of Rifthold are busy and crammed as she meanders down them, clutching the takeout coffee cup she bought from a vendor with a stall at the side of the road.

People pay her no mind as she walks, the oversized shades hide her eyes that she knows are a dead giveaway for her membership of the Ashryver line. Even if she didn’t wear them, everybody else here wants to be someone, and so far she can still blend in if she tries.

She sends a text to the assistant organising the audition, it’s kind of shitty of her but she keeps it brief because she can’t remember their name, letting them know the car isn’t needed anymore and that she’ll make her own way there. She needs the stroll through the streets to clear her head.

Aelin needs to nail it. She hasn’t felt the twisting of desire so sharp in her stomach for a long time and the only way she’ll manage it is with a clear head.

She alternates her breathing with sips of her coffee, the taste is bitter but she keeps drinking. She pulls her phone out to check the directions to the studio.

Spontaneous isn’t a word Aelin would use to describe herself anymore, any longing to go with the flow died the minute she lost control. It’s safer now to plan, to make sure she won’t lead herself astray.

Brullo is a man in his mid forties, with dashes of grey seasoned through his muddy brown hair, and kind lines around his eyes as he smiles and shakes her hand. Aelin wipes the sweat off her palm on her jeans before clasping her hand in his.

The audition goes about as well as she can hope for, she remembers every line, and the other casting director is fairly natural reading the lines for her to act against. Aelin swallows back her tears after she finishes, trying to keep what dignity she can to end the audition when there’s snot threatening to run down her upper lip. It was a brutal scene to start with, but if she can pull this off she can surely manage the rest.

Brullo’s expression is carefully guarded as she leaves, giving nothing away, but Aelin thinks she did a good job, which is all she could have ever hoped for.

She’s staring at the tiled floor, mulling over Brullo’s parting words, thanks Aelin, our people will be in touch, when she hits something hard and warm.

She’s too busy dissecting those eight words to register exactly who it is with their hands clamped around the top of her arms, steadying her as she stumbles, but she looks up and her gaze meets that of a pair of striking, green eyes.

The man gripping her is easily over a head taller than her, broad and strong enough that she fights back the shiver that wants to roll through her at his touch. He’s staring down at her, the strong planes of his face drawn into a deep frown, with his strangely coloured eyebrows pulled in.

They’re a kind of silver that matches his short cut hair, and it shines in the fluorescent light of the hallway in a way that it can only be natural, but she’s never seen a shade quite like it.

“Sorry,” she manages to stutter out, still thrown from the vulnerability of her audition.

“It’s alright.” His voice burns through the words, his accent rolling in a way that raises hairs down the back of her neck. He flashes her a dangerous grin and she steadies herself. She knows what that look means. She’s used to the male attention, and as much as she hates to acknowledge it, she knows her looks are an element of how she’s got as far as she has. That and her family’s name.

The decision of whether to register in the guild as Aelin Ashryver or Aelin Galathynius was one she had spent hours deliberating over. Did she want the level of independence Galathynius would give her, or the reputation being an Ashryver would bring?

The man releases his grip on her shoulders, but not before running his hands down her arms until he reaches her wrists which he releases with a light squeeze. She takes an almost imperceptible step back, leaning back to breathe some air into her lungs. All she ends up doing is filling her mind with this man’s smell, inviting and intoxicating, a delicious combination of pine trees and snowy winter mornings.

“I don’t usually go around slamming into people like this,” she tells him, letting some of her snark slip through. He’s said two words to her so far but she knows he can take it, and she wants to play.

His grin becomes even more wicked and it truly is a sight to see. This man is built like a god; broad, muscular shoulders stretching the white button up he wears and she spies the dark lines of a tattoo threatening to slip past his collar.

It’s been a couple of months since her last mindless hook-up, and this man would more than do. The mischief glimmering in his eyes tells her he’d know how to make her gasp and beg.

“Slam into me anytime.” His words are a sensual croon and her mouth drops open slightly, but he sidesteps her before she can manage to speak again, nodding towards the door she’s come through. “Good luck with whatever you were here for.”

With that he’s gone, leaving her to turn and watch the way his grey slacks pull against his thighs as he walks away from her.

Aelin tries not to think too much about the outcome of the audition, and flies back to Orynth in economy class with a sleep mask tucked over her eyes lest she be recognised when all she wants to do is curl up in bed and be alone for a bit. That or get fucking wasted, and she can’t do that.

She tries far too hard to forget about the man from the hallway, forget about the way his voice had rumbled deep in her chest and the tug in her belly that his words had sent through her.

She begs Elide to come to a bar with her, and she agrees. Aelin needs to pay her more, maybe change her title from publicist to publicist-come-part-time-therapist-and-life-saver. Aelin’s not sure she has the budget for that really.

Elide would smack her if she knew Aelin’s thoughts. Would scold her for looking at Elide just like an employee as if they weren’t childhood friends and Elide hadn’t been there holding her hand through the whole Sam thing. As if she, Lysandra and Aedion hadn’t been her only reason for being here now.

A bar might be a risk, but she can sip her sparkling water while she browses the small selection of men that Orynth has to offer.

She enjoys the easy conversation she has with Elide, chatting about what their friends have been up to, even though most of them are mainly Elide’s friends at this point. After Sam she stopped speaking to everyone but those who were necessary. She couldn’t manage any more than that.

“You should come with us next time,” Elide is saying as she sips her own lemonade. Aelin knows Elide would normally choose a crisp glass of white wine over a lemonade and her sobriety solidarity touches her heart.

“Maybe,” she shrugs, noncommittal.

The look Elide wears tells her she’s debating pushing the issue for the millionth time against the risk that Aelin would pull back again. She hates that she does this to her friends so she sighs.

“Text me next time,” she tries. “I’ll see if I’m free.”

Elide offers her a thankful smile, and Aelin returns it, trying to tell herself this is what she needs and that she shouldn’t just stay locked up thinking about Sam.

There’s a dark haired guy at the bar catching her eye, his jeans are far too tight and his shirt is ridiculous, but she can see the body beneath and his face is striking. Elide notices her stare and smirks.

She likely knows why Aelin invited her out tonight, but doesn’t mind. Lorcan’s probably waiting for her at the home they share, waiting for her to come back so they can be in love. Aelin hates the bastard, except she doesn’t. She introduced her friend to the tall, dark and grouchy hockey player at the wrap party for the shit teen movie she did a couple of years back, and she’s big enough to admit she wants what they have.

She had what they have.

What’s left in her glass slips down her throat easily in one mouthful and she promises to text Elide tomorrow before slipping out of the booth and over to the guy at the bar.

“You going to just stare at me all night?” She asks with a sly smile. “Or did you plan on doing something about it at some point?”

His smile makes him look even more attractive.

“Maybe I was waiting for you to make the first move, a beautiful girl like you can be intimidating.”

It’s a shit line and she rolls her eyes, but tugs him into a cab back to her place anyway.

“Please.” Her voice shakes as she begs. “Please don’t do this.”

The man in front of them scoffs and Sam squeezes her hand, his palm rough against her own.

“Aelin, baby. It’s okay, just do what he says.”

He lets go of her hand and turns back to the guy in front of them. His face is covered by a black mask, only two slits show her the dark brown of his eyes. She can barely look away from the knife he holds out in front of himself, it’s pointed at Sam but that doesn’t make her feel any better, it makes her feel worse in fact.

“Your wallet,” the guy demands.

Tears are rolling down her cheeks, fat and hot, as she fishes around in her bag for her purse.

“Just dump the whole thing,” the guy growls, irritated, but she’s pretty sure she’s going into shock and she can’t focus. Can’t breathe.

Sam’s voice is steady by her side as he throws his own wallet onto the street in front of them.

“Alright, man. We’re doing everything you say.”

“Hands up.” The mugger’s voice is sharp. “Don’t fucking move.”

She raises her arms straight in the air, trying to control the way her hands are shaking and the attacker ducks down to grab their things.

She lets out a tiny whimper and feels Sam spin to her, his eyes begging her to trust him. No, she shakes her head.

“I said don’t fucking move,” the guy yells and lunges for Sam.

His scream cuts the night air and she whirls, hands dropping into the air between them as he drops to the ground. The mugger takes off, sprinting down the empty street and she falls to her knees by Sam’s side.

In the dark, the pool spilling out across the floor by Sam’s side just looks black, but she knows that really it’s red. She’s not stupid. His face is twisted in pain and her hands flutter around his torso before she manages to pull back the flap of his jacket.

There’s a hole in his white t-shirt and now her jeans are wet where she kneels.

She needs her phone, needs to call someone who can make this all better, but her phone is gone.

She presses her hands against his side and his eyes shutter closed as he gasps. His breathing is stuttered and uneven.

“Sam. Sam, no,” she cries. “I’ll get help. You’re okay.”

“Aelin.” He raises a hand to press against her cheek, and the blood on it is sticky and warm.

“No, Sam. No, stay with me.”

The scream that tears through her throat will hurt tomorrow but now she barely feels it. “HELP!”

His breathing becomes much quicker as she presses on his side and screams again.

She knows abstractly that she’s crying, tears and snot streaming down her face as she desperately presses her hands against his side.

There’s a strong arm around her waist, tugging her back and away from Sam, and she screams one word over and over.

“No, no, no, no.”

There are people here now, leaning over Sam, leaning over his body.

“NO.”

Aelin gasps as she launches up in her bed. The sheets are stuck to her clammy skin and her head flies to the side. The guy is gone, the side of the bed he occupied when she fell asleep now cold. Good.

She lives it over and over in her dreams, sees the dark street more often than not, feels the phantom warmth of his blood down her legs. Wakes screaming herself hoarse just as she did that night. She doesn’t normally let people stay the night. Even when Aedion tried for the first few weeks after the fact, she couldn’t sleep, couldn’t turn her brain off for even a second. Every time she closed her eyes she was back on that street, begging and pleading for him to open his eyes.

She grasps at her side for the switch of her bedside lamp and flicks it on. Her room is cold and empty and she hasn’t had it in her to decorate past the basics so it’s plain and impersonal when she looks around, trying to calm her breathing.

She checks the time. 6:25am. Not bad, she must have managed about six hours of sleep last night, and it’s more than she usually gets.

There're a few texts waiting in her inbox, including one from Elide, and she expects it to be a request to let her know that she got home safe but it’s not.

Call me as soon as you wake up.

Sent at 6:02am. Elide is a chronic overworker, no matter how much Aelin begs her to stick to a 9 to 5 schedule, but she couldn't imagine her friend any other way. The smiling emoji at the end of the text lets her know it’s nothing she needs to panic about, so she takes a moment to scroll through her other messages. It’s unusual for her to wake up to so many.

She clicks on her conversation with Dorian, the only message she can see, his most recent one, just says Aelin. He has sent her nine messages while she slept, and she scrolls up to reach the first one.

Aelin, you did it. You booked the Rowan Whitethorn movie.

Her heart pounds in her chest, running into overdrive as she processes the words on her screen.

She got the part. She fucking did it.

This is one of those moments she knows she’ll remember.

Dorian has forwarded over a number of contracts and official things but she ignores them in favour of dialling Elide’s number.

“Aelin!” Her friend’s voice is breathy when she answers. “Congratulations, I knew you could do it.”

“Thanks, El.” A pause where she takes a deep breath in. “I can’t believe it.”

She falls back onto her mattress, pressing a fist to her lips as she smiles, eyes closed, almost giddy as she listens to her friend talk.

“They’re putting a press release out today at 12:30, announcing you and the male lead, who I haven’t found out yet but I will.”

“Oh my gods,” she sighs, covering her eyes with a clammy hand.

“I know,” Elide laughs.

She allows herself one tear as she stares up at the white of her ceiling.

This is big, she can feel it.

Later her phone buzzes as Elide sends her links to two different articles breaking the news.

Fenrys Moonbeam and Aelin Ashryver to star in new Chaol Westfall drama. More to follow.

Rowan Whitethorn signs on to direct The Crescent City, the latest project from Chaol Westfall (Throne of Glass, The King’s Hand & more).

She presses the phone to her chest as she lets out a sigh of relief.

It all moves pretty quickly from that point.

She’s on a plane back to Rifthold the next day and Chaol has sent over the whole script for her to read on the plane, bypassing Dorian completely even though that’s how it normally goes and she knows the two are like brothers.

Chaol was the one to introduce her to Dorian, and they kind of took her under their showbiz wings in the first few years she began to get really serious about acting.

They gave her the inside scoop, having been in the industry for a few more years than her. Chaol writing and making movies and Dorian doing all the background stuff like contracts and negotiations and exposure. They took her to their wrap parties that everyone knows are just networking events and introduced her to some of the big names in the industry without so much as batting an eyelid, and she knows she owes them a lot.

The script is phenomenal, and she has to try and hide the tears that form when she reaches the end, it probably wouldn’t be the best start to the project, being photographed crying on the plane on the way to start shooting. It really is some of Chaol’s best work, and she sends him a text when she lands that says fuck you, I hate it, but his reply lets her know he knows she’s joking.

It tells the story of her character, Feyre, and how she’s dragged into selling drugs to pay for her mom’s hospital bills. Along the way she meets Fenrys Moonbeam’s character, Rhysand, the glowering bad-boy who’s well established in the gang and together they see some shit and do some shit but manage to get out together. The topics are kind of cliché and over done, but Chaol has managed to add a level of originality to it that makes it really special.

It’s heavier on the romance than Rowan Whitethorn’s previous projects, but it’s gritty enough that she can see why he’s signed on. It’s going to be hard, she knows this, and it will really push her to her limits trying to embody the range of emotions her character goes through. But she wants it, and she will make her performance incredible if it fucking kills her.

There’s a niggling part of her brain that reminds her that she’s surrounded by some big names on this project, names that are big for a reason, and she can’t let them hiring her be a mistake.

She sends Chaol a follow up text, wtf are these names btw???

He ignores her.

When she’s in the car taking her to the apartment the studio is renting out for her while they film she decides to take a little trip through Instagram and look up her new co-star. Fenrys is a household name by now, a couple of years in after his debut, but it can’t hurt to know a little more about her leading man.

f.moonbeam01 comes up as the first option when the types the three letters f e n into the search bar and he has over eleven million followers.

Shit.

Not that she needs a reminder but it slaps her in the face that this is actually big. Aelin only has a few thousand followers herself and Elide has already told her to prepare herself for that to rise.

His Instagram is a mixture of mostly photos of himself, some selfies and some professional shots, and he’s obviously gorgeous. His deep brown complexion playing well against his golden curls with a straight strong nose and flawless white teeth. He’s definitely leading man material, and she can tell just how charming his grin is even through a screen.

There are also promo pictures for all the movies he’s involved in at the moment, there are at least three projects he has coming out this year. Damn.

His most recent picture is a screenshot of the article announcing their casting, and he’s actually tagged her in the photo along with Rowan himself. She hasn’t seen the tag until now, it’s normally Elide’s job as her publicist to tackle the professional side to her social media, but there’s 6.4 million likes on the photo.

Again, shit.

She can’t help herself from clicking onto Rowan’s account, rowanwhitethorn is a pretty simple handle. He only has 27 posts, most of them are behind the scenes shots from projects, one with his classic director’s chair that has his surname printed across the back in thick white lettering, and a few pictures of different cameras and pieces of equipment.

There’s only one picture of him on there, and it’s from 2017. He has his back to the camera and the sunset behind him lends a shadow that covers all of his features. Very artsy she muses to herself as she double taps the screen to like it, he probably won’t see anyway, the notification will probably get lost in the ones his account no doubt gets from his 2 million followers. The only thing she can gather from the photo about his physical appearance is that he has pretty broad shoulders.

She’s tempted to google him, wanting to know what he looks like, but she feels a bit too much like a stalker, and she knows she’ll meet him in a couple of days anyway so she leaves it and pulls up her emails to reply to the seemingly endless list of forms she has to fill out and send back to Dorian.

The apartment she’s living in for the next few months is modern and airy, with clean lines and bright decor. Aelin likes it, and while it’s not hers in the same way as her home back in Orynth, it’s far better than a hotel room that lower budget movies tend to shove actors in. Another reminder that this time is different, there’s a bigger budget than she’s used to, bigger names than she’s used to, and she can’t fuck this up. There’s more eyes on her now than ever before.

She sends Elide a picture of her new bedroom and her friend just replies with a bunch of exclamation marks and she forwards the picture across to Lysandra too. Aelin wanders through to the kitchen, wondering if anyone bothered to stock the kitchen, not that she can’t do groceries herself, it would just be nice. She’s delighted to find a fridge full of fresh produce and gets about making herself a dish of pasta and veggies.

She tucks herself in front of the big television, munching away as she watches some National Geographic documentary about whales and it helps to take her mind off the fact that this is her last night of peace for a while. She’s trying not to get too in her head about it, there’s a fine line between knowing it’s a big deal and freaking the fuck out about it, and she needs to stay on the right side of that line, needs to keep herself in check.

If she allows herself a moment to relax, a moment to sink into the situation and bask in the opportunity; she’s excited.

And depending on how well this movie does, she knows she may not have another night like this one. Somehow the thought doesn’t seem to scare her.

Lysandra calls her as she’s waiting for the car to arrive to take her to the studio, it's day one of their table read today and she’s tired. She spent all of last night tossing and turning, unable to shut her mind off and panicking over every single detail of how this day could go.

She’s lucky it’s only a table read, she’s not sure even a professional make-up artist would be able to cover the dark circles under her eyes.

“Hello, you.” Lysandra’s voice is cheery through the phone and Aelin smiles, she’s really missed Lysandra and hasn’t taken nearly enough time to seek her out during her recent whirlwind. “I hear congratulations are in order.”

They had texted since the news dropped, but with Lysandra shooting a campaign for a brand she can’t remember somewhere over in the Southern Continent they haven’t had time yet for a call.

“Thanks Lys,” she says as she gets into the back of the sleek black car that the studio has sent for her, tucking her small black backpack onto the seat next to her. It’s all she can use at this point, any other bag just makes her think of that night.

“How’s it going? Have you met everyone yet?”

Lysandra runs in these circles of A list celebrities and Aelin wouldn't be surprised if she already knew Fenrys. She met Lysandra when they were teens; years before her first show for Victoria’s Secret, years before she was walking for people like Gucci and Prada, and they stayed close when they were both living off cheap ramen and thin strands of hope. Aelin likes to tease her about hanging with a lowly C-lister like herself but Lysandra is always quick to quip that she’s maybe a G-lister at a push.

That could change.

“I haven’t met anyone so far, but I’m literally on my way to meet everyone now.”

“That’s exciting, you’ll have to let me know if Fenrys Moonbeam is really that good looking in person.”

“So you don’t already know him?” she asks, teasing. Maybe Lysandra doesn’t know quite everyone.

“Oh you know, apart from every week-end when we hook-up, we’re not really that good friends.”

Aelin laughs, mostly to herself, knowing that somewhere out there that probably is a story that’s cropped up in some cheap tabloid. She knows there’s probably some dating rumours about herself and Fenrys already even though she’s still yet to meet him. It’s just how it is, she knows this, has known this since she was old enough to read the stories about her parents’ messy divorce.

“What does Aedion have to say about that, hm?”

“Oh, he joins us obviously!” Lysandra’s laugh is bright and loud through the grainy speaker.

No-one is more desperate for Aedion to propose to Lysandra than Aelin, not even the magazines, desperate for a scoop of the golden couple, quarterback for the Rifthold Ravens and the world-famous supermodel.

“I think I’ve heard enough, thanks,” Aelin laughs as the car pulls through security checks at the studio. “Lys, I have to go, I’ve just got to the studio.”

“Okay, good luck! Promise you’ll call me later though and let me know how it goes.”

She needs to make sure she puts aside a minute to catch up properly with Lysandra, she’s been slacking recently and she knows her friend misses her. She misses Lysandra too, and Aedion. Maybe she’ll stay with them for a couple of days when she gets a break from filming, she can probably see them far more often now that she’s in Rifthold too.

“I promise,” she agrees. “Tell Aedion to make sure he spoils you from me.”

Lysandra snorts, “Oh he does, I’ll pass it along anyway though.”

“Means a lot. Love you, got to go.”

Lysandra’s returning love you is sincere, but she cuts off the phone as the car comes to a stop outside the plain brick building.

She readies herself in the back of the car, pulling down a deep breath to center herself, she can do this.

The girl leading her to the room doesn’t speak other than to tell Aelin to follow right this way, and she’s grateful, she’s not sure she could speak right now without vomiting all over the dated linoleum flooring.

She needs to get a grip, and fight the urge for a hit that strikes her when she’s nervous like this. It could make her fears disappear, at least for a moment before they all came crashing back down ten-times worse the minute the high faded. There is a reason she packed that shit in, and she knows her nerves will pass. It’s been a while since she’s done any of this, her last movie read was pre-Sam and no matter how hard she tries to push it down, there’s a lot of pressure on her for this to go well.

The girl pauses outside an unassuming white door and holds a hand out to gesture for Aelin to go in. She rolls her shoulders back, holding her head high before she steps into the room. If all else fails she’s still Evalin Ashryver’s daughter and to some people that is something to be proud of.

Fenrys Moonbeam is the first person to catch her eye when she steps into the room, and it seems he’s done some stalking too because he ends his conversation by the food table with some others she doesn’t recognise and bounds straight over to her with a grin.

“Aelin Ashryver,” he says, his voice deep and smooth like velvet. “I’ve heard of you. It’s a pleasure.”

“You have?” She’s both surprised and not at the same time as she holds a hand out for him to shake.

He bypasses the hand she holds out and tugs her into his chest, wrapping both arms around her and knocking her backpack off her shoulder.

“I have,” he says as he bends down to pick her bag back up. “Sorry about that.”

She shakes her head. She needs to stop acting like a bewildered school girl meeting the Queen, she needs to remember that she has second billing for this movie thanks to Dorian.

“Don’t worry about it.” Aelin finds a smile and plasters it on.

Someone calls for everyone to take their seats and she notices the name placards spaced out in front of each chair. She locates her own and it's surreal to see her name printed there, Aelin Ashryver, between Fenrys and another actress playing her sister called Manon Blackbeak. She’s even less known than Aelin, and she only feels slightly guilty for how much that relaxes her.

Aelin knows how this goes down, they sit opposite the production team, the director and all the executive producers and she realises that she’s opposite the sign that reads Rowan Whitethorn.

She slides into her seat, Fenrys and Manon chatting over her head as she does, and she spots a male slipping into the chair opposite her. He’s wearing a slim-fit forest green henley and dark jeans, his shoulders are just as broad as they were in his Instagram photo and here there’s no shadow across his handsome features.

She can’t deny that he’s attractive, she knew it the first time she saw him. Her stare locks onto the man from the hallway after her audition and he smirks at her as if they have a secret. And maybe they do, but now she’s realising that he’s her boss, and a little voice in her head that sounds suspiciously like Elide is whispering to her that opportunities like this don’t come around everyday.

She owes it to Sam and she owes it to herself not to fuck this up, but the look that Rowan Whitethorn is sending her across the table makes her think she could risk it all.

It takes them three hours to run through it in full, and she’s happy to see she’s not the only one with a tear in her eye at the end. Rowan doesn’t cry, but he hasn’t looked at her since before they started and each time she read a line she avoided looking at him. She knows there were a couple of times where he nodded along with her expression of the lines. She’s ignoring it.

This is what she lives to do, they’re not even filming yet and she feels like she’s right where she needs to be. It’s cliche but she breathes easier when she acts, the air feels lighter when she takes on a new personality and feels all the things she’s told to feel.

It takes away the restlessness she feels when it’s all just down to her, being told how to feel is far easier.

Her therapist tells her she has both anxiety and PTSD, but she feels like giving it a name doesn’t make it any easier to deal with. She knows a diagnosis can be a relief for some, but to Aelin, what she feels is far too messy to be summed up in four letters. Her life has simply become the before, and the after, even though what each of those contains is a complete fucking shit show.

There are two Aelins; pre that night and post that night.

The Aelin from before that night doesn’t exist anywhere but in her own memory.

Once the run through is completed and basic notices are given by the producers, things like call sheet distributions and health and safety, the occupants of the room begin to mingle. She sees him make a beeline for her, and she swallows. She’s not ready for this.

“You look surprised to see me.” His voice is as hot as it was the last time she saw him, the slight rasp in his throat and his accent. Gods, the accent.

“You don’t look too surprised to see me.” She tilts her head at him because she feels way thrown off, like he has all the power here. Which he does. But like, she can play it cool. Fake it ‘til you make it, right? “Maybe had a little google search?”

He shakes his head at her, biting his lip kind of like he wants to laugh, and she bristles. She needs to level the playing field.

“Says you.” He’s definitely laughing now. “I saw you liked my photo last night.”

“What about it?” She shrugs, hoping her acting skills are up to it. He only tilts his head to the side as he takes her in.

“Do you think I didn’t know who you were in the corridor? I’m the director.” And fuck him for saying it like that, full of an easy confidence that in any other situation would have had heat pooling in the floor of her stomach. “Brullo discussed the casting with me.”

Right. Of course.

She’s not sure what to say next. Honestly? She kind of wants to flirt with him, but fuck.

Instead she hums a laugh, not really caring whether he thinks it’s sincere or not, and looks absentmindedly around the room instead of back up at him. He reaches a hand out to brush his fingers down her arm, looping them round the bones of her wrist and squeezing slightly like he did the last time before letting go. Her eyes snap back to his.

“Just between you and me?” he asks and the smile he wears is far too hot for her to deal with right now. “I think we made a good choice.”

“Thanks,” she says, but it’s a little too breathy. A little too dazed for having spent such a short amount of time in his presence. She’s aware that she needs to be careful, they are very much not alone in this room right now, and she doesn’t need to start any rumours that would destroy her chances of escaping this without a scandal.

She’s here to do a job, and she’s going to do it well. She doesn’t need any distractions.

He leaves her soon after that, and his parting remark of “have a good first day, Aelin” sticks with her, and she tries not to replay the way his voice had wrapped around her name.

Manon Blackbeak is watching them from across the room, and she arches one perfectly shaped eyebrow at Aelin. She ignores her; let her think what she wants, she’s surely professional enough not to gossip to any press, and stomps over to where Fenrys is chatting with one of the producers. It seems like a good enough place to start.