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“So curious about my negligees, Prince. Whatever would the others say? Maybe you should issue a decree to clarify.” He growled, and she grinned. “Yes, I have more, don’t worry. If Lorcan is going to murder me in my sleep, I might as well look good.” “Vain until the bitter end.”

“I would be very, very careful how you speak to her today, Captain,” Fenrys said. His eyes were fixed on Rowan, who was indeed watching Rolfe as if he were dinner. “Choose your words wisely.” Rolfe glanced at Rowan, saw his face, and seemed to get it.

A shudder went through Rowan, and his head dipped slightly. “Are you…” He seemed to grapple with the right word. “Can I hold you?” The stark need in his voice ripped at her, but she stepped back. “I…” She scanned the cave, blocking out the way his eyes guttered at her retreat.

“The male I fell in love with was you. You, who knew pain as I did, who walked with me through it, back to the light. Maeve didn’t understand that. That even if she could create a perfect world, it wouldn’t be you with me. And I’d never trade that, trade this. Not for anything.”

And as Fenrys managed to lap the blood from her wound, as he swore a silent vow to their queen, blinking a few more times, Rowan’s chest became unbearably tight.

“I know you are tired, Fireheart. I know that the burden on your shoulders is more than anyone should endure.” He took their joined hands and laid them on his heart. “But we’ll face this together. And when we are done, when you Settle, we will have a 1000 years together. Longer.”

She felt the truth of his words echo into the unbreakable thing that bound their very souls, and tilted her face up toward his. But he made no move beyond it. She frowned. “Why aren’t you kissing me?”

She smiled at last. And damn if it didn’t kill him, the quiet joy in her face. They had walked out of darkness and pain and despair together. They were still walking out of it. So that smile… It struck him stupid every time he saw it and realized it was for him.

Their cautious steps on the bone floor were the only sounds. Aelin moved deeper and deeper into the gloom. Rowan soon cleared his side of the temple and joined her in the back, exploring the alcoves and little hallways that branched off into the slumbering dark.

Aelin gazed at the Fae Prince who held her—at her friend, who had traveled through darkness and despair and ice and fire with her. She didn’t know which one of them moved first, but then Rowan’s mouth was on hers, and Aelin gripped his shirt, pulling him closer.

When he made to set her down, she held on to him, a silent request. So Rowan sat on the bed, holding her in his lap as he stretched out his legs and settled into the rows of pillows. For a moment, they said nothing.

They were silent again. Then Rowan said, “I’ve never seen—clothing like that.” She rolled over. “You mean to tell me the females in Doranelle don’t have scandalous nightclothes? Or anywhere else in the world?”

Her voice stalled, yet she met his stare. Let him read the words she could not say, in that silent way they’d always been able to communicate. Escape wasn’t my intention. “No, Fireheart,” he breathed, shaking his head, horror creeping over him. “There… there was no collar.”

Her eyes burned behind their lids, but she leaned into his touch some more, even going so far as to put a hand on his broad chest, savoring the steady, assured heartbeat pounding beneath. “Thank you for looking after me,” she said.

She smiled at the darkening horizon. “Seems like yours might end rather soon as well.” “You bitch—” Rowan snarled, taking all of a step before Rolfe flinched away.

“I have never told anyone this story. No one in the world knows it. But it’s mine,” she said, blinking past the burning in her eyes, “and it’s time for me to tell it.” Rowan leaned back on the rock, bracing his palms behind him.

Healers could remove scars, yes, but the most likely reason for the lack of them on Aelin, on all the places where he’d once traced them with his hands, his mouth … It was new skin. All of it.

Then she asked softly, “How long?” It took the entirety of his three centuries of training to keep the devastation, the agony for her, from his face. “Two months, three days, and seven hours.”