“I’m not crying.” I used my sleeve to wipe at my face.
“Do you need to cuddle with the stuffed rabbit?”
“Quit teasing me.” I clutched the satchel in my lap where, yes, Mister Hop was tucked inside.
“Then stop being so fun to tease,” Rowan said.
“Know what else I have in my bag? Your dagger. I’m not afraid to whip it out if I need to.”
He arched a brow. “To do what? Poke your eye out?”
“Rude.” I huffed. “If this is how you plan to seduce me, you have a snowball’s chance in hell of it working out for you.”
“It worked for your captain.” Rowan’s smile grew. “You like when he teases you.”
“You’re not him.”
“Thank the gods for that.” He reclined and spread his legs out, resting one arm on his thigh while placing the other on the back of his seat, watching me with that familiar curve to his lips. “Knights are all about brotherhood and sacrificing their lives for the greater good. I could never be so selfless.”
“At least you’re honest about it.”
“Why be a hero and kneel to some fool in a crown, doing his bidding, when you can be free? Villains have more fun.”
“Is that how you see yourself?” I asked. “As a villain?”
“Don’t you?”
“No.” And I really didn’t. Rowan might’ve come across as a bad guy, but I got the feeling there was more to him.
His brows drew together. “Well, you’re the first.”
“A villain would’ve left me in the dark wood to die once realizing I wasn’t worth anything to him,” I said, glancing toward the trees as the carriage rattled down the road. “But you didn’t. You saved me from that crow demon and tackled me to the ground, using your shadow magic to hide us from it. Pretty sure a villain wouldn’t have used his own body as a shield like that either.”
Rowan looked out the window closest to him, no longer smirking. “He would if he’d finally found something worth saving.”
“That’s how you see me?” I tore my gaze from him, feeling too nervous. “As someone worth saving?”
He didn’t answer.
When I looked back at him, he was gone.
He had sunk into the shadows, leaving me alone in the carriage with nothing but my satchel of keepsakes, an emotional support bunny, and a world of confusion.
***
The long day of travel ended in a port town called White Peak Bay. Apparently, the name came from the way the water looked when crashing against the cluster of sharp rocks offshore. Sailors knew to avoid the area, otherwise have their ships riddled with deep scrapes and holes.
After finding a stable for the horses and storing the carriage for the night, the coachman and guards went ahead of us to secure rooms at the local inn. Duke and Callum walked with me through town, one on each side of me.
Lake had approached me shortly after arriving and said he’d be waiting for me in the room.
“I wish people weren’t so close-minded,” I said at the thought of my wolf. “Lake should be here with us, out in the open. Not forced to hide.”
“Until the conflict with Lord Onyx ends, I’m afraid people will continue to see demi-wolves as a threat,” Callum said.
“Because they sided with him, right?”
He nodded. “The human-demon war goes back many, many years. I’m not even sure how it all began. There are only speculations. Fight over the right to the throne. Conflict overterritory. The same reasons most wars are started, I suppose. It all started between Lord Onyx’s father and King Paris, a former king of Bremloc.”
