I twisted around to look at him, holding my left wing to my front with my left arm. “I’m still the Dark One. They don’t follow me. They follow Cynnia. Our people still need the promise that I will never be their leader. No matter what strength the Great Mother may give me, I will always be in the shadows.”
“That’s wrong.”
We stood in silence, embraced by the darkness. Only the sound of the stream flowing around us filled the night air. He knew my great secret; the one thing I had hid my entire life from my people, and I felt that I could trust him. I just wondered how far he trusted me.
“Will . . . will you show me your back?” I asked.
“Why?” he demanded, suddenly very defensive.
“I can guess that the scars stretch across your body. I want to know if they had hindered the growth of your tree,” I admitted.
“Growth?” he scoffed. “Our Great Mother abandoned me centuries ago.” Yet as he spoke, Rowe grabbed the top back of his shirt and jerked it over his head. He stood with his back to me, facing the thick woods that surrounded us. Even in the darkness I could easily make out the white lines of the scars that crisscrossed his arms and went over his shoulders. There were a few that streaked through his tree, but I was relieved to find the tree tattoo had grown over the scars, indicating that his connection to the earth had not actually been damaged. It didn’t seem as advanced as it should have been, considering his age, but I could still spot bits of new growth near his shoulder blades.
“Do you trust me?” I asked.
“Why?”
“Because I want to help you.”
“How?”
Instead of answering, I placed both of my hands against his warm back. Muscles danced and flexed under my touch, but he didn’t move. Closing my eyes, I spread my wings as far as I could, ignoring the pain that shot through my right wing. I reached out, pulling the energy straight from the earth and through my body. It left through my hands and poured into the limbs of the tree that graced Rowe’s strong back. He jerked once and then a low groan escaped him as relief rolled through his body.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t just the power from the earth that was flowing through me and into his body. My own thoughts and emotions poured unbidden into him no matter how I tried to control the flow. I had admired and cared for Rowe for as long as I could remember, but was careful to hide all those emotions deep inside as I fought to become his strong comrade in arms. I was his second in command of the armies, the weapon of the queen, the protector of our people. I was the Dark One. I wasn’t permitted my own feelings.
After nearly a minute my hands began to tremble under the weight of the energy flowing through me and my knees buckled. I collapsed down into the icy water so it flowed around my hips. The cold water helped to clear my head from the fog that seemed to have grown around my thoughts, but fatigue still kept me on my knees.
Throwing his shirt on the nearby bank, Rowe turned around and knelt in front of me. He gently captured both of my upper arms in his hands, his thumbs slowly caressing my flesh as if he could push away the growing cold. My wings hung limp behind me and I no longer cared what he could see of my naked body. I was too drained and emotionally embarrassed.
“What did you just do to me?” he whispered.
I kept my head down, staring at the water that flowed between us. “I strengthened your connection with the earth. It had grown weak because of all the trials you’ve been through. It was like I rejuvenated your tree.”
“You can do that?”
A half smile twisted on my lips. “I learned long ago that I had more skills as a healer than as a soldier. Unfortunately, my father only saw my strength with the earth as a weapon of war.”
“I’m sorry.” He lifted his right hand and pushed some of my hair away from my face.
“It’s no matter,” I replied brusquely, lifting my eyes to meet his. “The important thing is whether I have won you. Will you help us?”
A smirk danced across his face, lighting his expression. “My brain still rebels at the idea of fighting against the woman I still see as my queen, but I cannot just simply bow down and die for her, because she does not see my work in a positive light. I struggled and gave her freedom, and yet she calls me a traitor. But I will be accepted in Cynnia’s world, once again given a place as commander of armies.” He paused and his smile grew even wider. “I will be once again faced with the Fire Starter, allowed to be close to her as she is forced to work with me. It will be an interesting experience, and I wouldn’t miss it.”
With rubbery, tired legs, I pushed to my feet and stepped around him as I walked back to the shore. “I’m realizing that this is the best answer I’m going to get from you.” Shuffling through my clothes, I picked up my left boot and opened a small compartment in the heel where I withdrew a small iron key. I walked back out to where he was standing in the water, watching me.
“You had the key?” he demanded.
I reached up and inserted the key into the lock, trying to avoid his gaze. “Of course. I had to be able to set you free if you saw reason.”
“And what if you were killed?”
“Cynnia has a second. You would have had to go see her,” I replied as I removed the iron collar and tossed it out into the water.
“I should have suspected as much,” he grumbled.
“I’m sorry, but keeping you weak was the only way of keeping you from killing me in my sleep.”
A weak smile crossed his mouth for a second as he reached up and let his fingertips stray across my cheekbone. “I don’t think that I would ever be able to do such a thing to you, no matter how bad things became.”
I shook my head, my cheek brushing against the palm of his hand. “You would have done so to protect yourself. It would have been understandable.”
To my surprise, Rowe continued to stare at me with his piercing gaze roaming over my face. “I always suspected that I married the wrong sister.”
I tried to form the words that Cynnia would have been a wise choice, but the words grew stuck in my throat because I knew without a doubt that he was talking about me. I knew by the softened gaze and his hand lingering on my face. Also through the infusion of power from the earth that I had given him, he now fully knew my feelings for him.
“You look at me with the same compassion in your eyes that you always have. You don’t see the monster that I’ve become. You don’t treat me like an outcast like the rest of our kind.”
“Because you’re not,” I argued, cupping his cheeks with both of my hands. “All I see is a man who has sacrificed more for us than anyone else. You only wear the scars to prove the trials you’ve been through.”
“And you wear your scars on the inside. We are a pair.”
Rowe pulled my face closer to his and kissed me gently on the lips. My eyes fell closed, basking in the feeling of being touched by another; to feel such warmth and intensity toward another creature was new to me. No naturi had ever touched me in such a way. They had used weapons to hurt, but I’d never been touched with compassion and what could only feel like love.
Threading his fingers through my hair, Rowe pulled me tighter against him, deepening the kiss. My hands slid from his cheeks to his chest as his tongue slipped into my mouth, tasting me. I moaned against his mouth, enjoying the feel of his warm chest pressed against mine. I traced his scars with one hand, trailing from his shoulder down to the top of his pants.
Rowe gave a soft chuckle as he slid his mouth away from mine and down my neck to my shoulder. “You taste sweeter than honey and your hands are driving me more than a little mad.”
“Should I stop?” I whispered, stilling my hands where they rested on the sides of his stomach.
“I don’t think there is any stopping now. We owe each other this after so many years,” he admitted. “You’re not the only one who has been watching from afar, admiring but remaining silent.”