“I have to agree with the captain.” Briar turned my face back to his. “If you recall, I can sense a person’s aura. It’s how I knew you were no threat the first day we met. Yet, Rowan is different. I sense darkness in him, Evan.”
“He can’t help it,” I said weakly. “He was born that way. But his actions have proven that he—”
“That he has no qualms about abducting someone if he has the chance to gain something from it,” Briar interjected. “You may not be a prince, but I’m sure there are still those who’d love to have you for their own and would be willing to pay a nice hunk of coin to do so.”
“They’d regret that once I started talking. They’d then pay Rowan to bring me right back home.”
I didn’t like them worrying about me. They didn’t know Rowan like I did. Not that I reallyknewhim, but still.
After kidnapping me, he’d had moments of kindness, albeit brief. Moments where he’d protected me—and picked on me a lot too. After learning he’d captured the wrong person? He had tried doing the right thing and getting me the hell out of there before we became demon food.
He was misunderstood. Like one of those villains I used to swoon over in romance novels.
Lake kept his gaze on the window. His ears were angled straight back, a sign of his irritable state. “If he returns, I’ll rip out his throat.”
“I’ll help.” Maddox held me closer.
“As a physician, I took a vow not to harm anyone.” Briar weaved our fingers together. “However, love makes monsters of us all, I suppose, for I’d do nothing to stop either of you from tearing that thief apart.”
The three of them held a grudge against Rowan and wouldn’t be forgiving him anytime soon, if ever. Perhaps Iwastooforgiving. It was confusing. Logic pulled me in one direction, but that strange flutter in my belly when Rowan was near pulled me in the other.
We settled back down for bed, but my heart ached too much to sleep. As the wind picked up outside, sweeping through the trees and wailing low, I hoped Rowan had somewhere safe and warm to sleep for the night.
