Mooncalled: The Road Part I

Story by Saltyneoma on SoFurry

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#2 of Moon Called

Second installment of Mooncalled.


The first few miles were easy.

She'd been riding, slowly but steadily, with Jalal's party for weeks, and had adjusted to days spent in saddle. Rowan's party did not ride slowly and steadily, however. They pushed hard along the main road, north, the collective pounding of hooves like thunder in her ears; the constant jarring and vibrating rattling her teeth and, at times, taking her breath. Rowan's stallion was enormous, and the saddle beneath her was wider than she was used to, arching her hips at an odd angle. By sunset of the first day, Sarrassin's thighs and ass and hips ached relentlessly.

"Relax," Rowan said, mouth against her ear to ensure it carried over the noise of the party. "Stay tensed like this and you won't make it another day."

Sarrassin shook her head. "I'm not doing anything. It's never been this uncomfortable."

She jerked as one of his paws released the reins and dropped to her thigh, slid between it and the tough leather of the saddle. "You're squeezing here." His paw moved upward, bypassing the ripped hem of her dress, sprawling over her lower belly. "And here. You aren't riding with royalty, Princess. Drop the posture. Adjust yourself so that you're comfortable and relax into the saddle."

Her lessons as a girl had revolved around appearance; being graceful and attractive over the short distance she was required to ride. As part of the royal family, maintaining standards was more important than competence. Her brother's lessons were different. More extensive. As King of Thilinael, he'd one day be expected to travel over long-distances to meet with foreign diplomats and oversee friendly and hostile interactions that spanned all four borders. There were times she'd even been made to ride side-saddle, as if that were the least bit reasonable over any distance. Even then, she'd never been in such pain.

"Take a deep breath," he instructed, voice dropping even lower. His paw, still pressed flat to her stomach, rose and fell as she did what he asked. "Another." He put a little pressure at her core, and she let him move her so that her back was flush against his front, her rear and hips cradled in the breadth of his thighs and pelvis. "I know it's awkward, but it's not worth making the rest of your ride unbearable or rubbing wounds into the back of your legs. Relax and breathe."

Sarrassin inhaled and exhaled slowly once. Twice. Three and four times. Their mount hadn't slowed as the sun sank over the mountainous skyline, or as the moon rose and blanketed them in silver-blue light, casting shadows as far as her eyes could reach. The pain was still there but didn't worsen. The ache in her spine from sitting rigidly, straight and square-shouldered, eased as she let her shoulders sag and rested her head against Rowan's chest. Her muzzle slid into the dense fur between his chin and chest and, as she took another deep breath in, the scent of fresh soil and pine and a musk she knew belonged to him alone lulled her eyes closed. The ride was smoother, now, moving with the saddle instead of against. Rowan's arm slid fully around her middle and he lifted her slightly, readjusting them into something even more comfortable.

"Sleep, Princess," he murmured, holding her securely to him with one arm and directing their mount with the other.

Some faraway, sensible part of her mind told her not to trust him. He was a stranger. An Alpha from the north that had just killed and plundered her future husband's caravan. She'd gone against her brother's advice once already. Underestimating this situation and her enemies might very well be the last mistake she made. And still, she didn't fear him. Felt no urgency or stress when she let her body go completely slack, Rowan the only thing stopping her sliding from the saddle and to the ground to be trampled by the rest of the party. Instead, she was ridiculously, stupidly at ease, and she was too tired to analyze the whys.

.

It was jarring to be so immediately and unexplainably connected with someone.

He'd grown up with both parents and siblings and extended relations; aunts and uncles and grandparents and cousins. Loving and being loved were not concepts lost to him. The experiences of his childhood remained buried somewhere under the grief and trouble of his adult life. It made imagining meeting this woman as a younger man easy. He'd have told his older brother, first, because Alder felt no need to tease and push buttons. Being born into a family full of Alphas meant having thicker skin than most. Everything was a competition and, if the stakes were high enough, it didn't matter if they were brothers or sisters, or father and son or daughter, they would do anything, anything, to win. Even if that meant hurting each other to do it.

Alder didn't care for their games, though. He was a beast of an Alpha, a true force, and saw none of them, not even his father, as a threat. Talking to him was easy, and he'd always given the best advice. Rowan wondered, suddenly, what Alder would have thought of this female. What his mother would have said, had he brought her to their dining table for dinner, or to run with them beneath the full moon. They would have said she was beautiful, he knew, because there was no arguing that; white fur with a light gray saddle over her back and long, silver-white hair braided and wrapped around thin ears; big, glacial blue eyes. She was smaller than was really expected of her kind; short, petite, with a thin muzzle and narrow face. A long, thick, white tail speckled with gray. Her body was small, but she wasn't overly thin with wide, full hips and breasts and thighs.

His younger brothers would have wanted her. They wanted everything the other had and couldn't stand to feel outdone. It was worse between them and Rowan, because he was at an odd age in the middle of his older siblings and younger; too young to be close with those above him and too old to be close to the ones that came after. These characteristics didn't speak to the core of his siblings. Alphas weren't meant to live together long after reaching mid-to-late adolescence. Dominance and the drive to have their own territory made close quarters nearly impossible. They were all good, honorable men and women. They just needed space and freedom to quiet their instincts.

Rowan had watched nine older brothers grow, learn, and then leave before Alder's time came, and eventually his own. He'd been gone for twelve years, carving his way through the wild north, roaming and living life the way he wanted, when he heard that Alder had been killed.

Life after that was chaos and loss.

He slammed the small hatchet clutched in his paw against another chunk of wood and was minutely satisfied when pieces shot out in all directions. He'd never know what his family would have thought of this bewitching female, because they were all gone. Wiped out, and he had Jalal to thank for it.

"Am I interrupting?"

Rowan glanced side-long at Arrik, his second in command. The dark gray wolf was nearly as large as him. He leaned against a yearling pine and the poor thing nearly caved under his weight. Rowan said, "No. But feel free to make yourself useful. I need kindling for these logs."

Arrik rolled his eyes but pushed from his weak perch and began collecting small sticks and pine needles. "I want to ask you something."

"So ask."

"Why did we bring the girl with us?"

Being an Alpha was one thing. Maintaining a position as Alpha over others was sometimes a tricky dance. There would always be someone bigger and badder out there; it was the way of their world. And no matter how loyal one man or woman were to their Alpha, there would always be an undercurrent, waiting and watching for things to go poorly, or for their leader to slip. There was a fine line to walk between fairness and order. Wolves were heavily driven by instinct. Those instincts, their size, and intelligence, made them unspeakably dangerous without proper structure and respect. It was an Alpha's job to walk that line, and Rowan normally walked it with ease. He was glad that Arrik came to him with this question, rather than posing it to the rest of their party. Unfortunately, the answer wasn't going to do either of them any favors.

"Leaving her out there on the road would have been cruel."

Arrik shook his head. "The Vesnean Council deals in morals in humanity. You and I watch the big picture. Eliminating the caravan was tactically sound. You contradicted that by taking the girl, all but guaranteeing we would be followed." Arrik stood, arms filled with kindling. "It's unlike you. I would like to know why."

The hatchet came down on another log, splitting it. Rowan replaced it. Struck. Replaced it. Struck. He inhaled deeply, eyes on the level stone he was using to cut wood. "I don't know."

"That's it?" Arrik raised a brow. "You don't know?"

Throughout his substantial life, Rowan learned that honesty was most often the best policy when dealing with those close to him. Remaining close to the point kept everyone on the same page. It built trust. Still, it was hard, now, when he wasn't even sure about the truth himself. Rowan dealt in facts and logistics. This, whatever this was, was not based in either of those things. "I just couldn't leave her there. It didn't feel right."

"She's the Princess of a competitive country. The gateway to the south. Her family is rich beyond measure, with unlimited resources, and she's engaged to wed Jalal who _also_has unlimited resources and is twice as ruthless as anyone from Thilinael. He also happens to hate you. He's going to spin this as an escalation and push for war. His men will follow us to Vesnea's borders and, who knows, might even push over them. Right now, under these circumstances, we're at fault. All of the bad he's done, everything he's destroyed in the north will go unseen because we kidnapped a King's daughter and held her hostage." Arrik's brows furrowed. "I'm not telling you anything you don't know. So, you can see how I'm struggling to understand this move."

"I do see. And I understand." Rowan hooked the hatchet to its place on the side of his vest and began gathering the split logs. "I wish I had a better answer for you. I'm still trying to understand it myself. I saw her there and I just -" Somewhere beneath the confusion, he remembered that moment vividly. The startling jolt of awareness. The immediate struggle between knowing he should leave her behind and not wanting to. Her scent; hibiscus and sweet spring rain. Everything that happened after only compounded his bewilderment. Having her pressed into him, soft fur tickling his jaw, her claws scraping against the skin of his thighs, the unmetered satisfaction when she took his advice and let herself relax into him. Rowan shook his head. "I just knew. She needed to come with us."

Arrik snorted and followed as Rowan headed back to the others. "If you were anyone else, that wouldn't fly. That I trust your instincts as well as my own is the only reason I'm not pushing this."

"I appreciate that." Rowan stopped just short of the tree line, giving them both a clear view of their party's camp.

Mostly, it was a few strips of waterproof fabric hung between trees that would deter beds from getting wet. Some didn't even bother with that and unrolled their mats nearby the fire, out in the open. They'd ridden hard over the last twenty-four hours. Everyone was tired and hungry, waiting anxiously for the game they'd brought in to cook. They'd built four fires in a large clearing and had set up their 'tents' along the tree line circling it. Rowan set Sarrassin up a little closer in, so that she was surrounded on all sides by his people. It had required a little more work, building a sturdy-ish frame for the fabric, but it was for the best. She didn't wake when he pulled her from the saddle and settled right in on his mat. Looking around the group and thinking over Arrik's words, Rowan sighed.

"Perhaps we should split up."

Arrik shot him a disapproving look. "Splitting up is almost always a bad idea."

"They can't follow all of us. Not in force, anyway. If we split up, they'll have to, as well."

"I could take Cerise along the main road. It's faster, and the Council needs to know what's happening. Vesna will need to prepare."

Rowan nodded. "I'll take the girl through the Caskana Mountain range."

"Do you think she'll make that? You'll have to send Argus ahead. He won't fit through the passes." Arrik tilted his head. "That's a long, hard road for a Princess." He grimaced. "She's tiny, Rowe. And weak. She'll slow you down and put you in more danger than you're already in. Again, I wonder, why you'd risk yourself for a girl you don't even know."

Rowan lifted a shoulder. "I'll let you know when I figure it out."

.

She woke buried in warmth, but the air outside of her cocoon was frigid. Her nose and cheeks and ears ached with the cold, and every breath both burned and invigorated her lungs. As her mind waded through sleep-fog, Sarrassin recognized a familiar scent and her eyes snapped open. Not the flowery, clean scent of her home or the familiar musks of her family, but that potent mixture of fresh soil and pine and male she'd become familiar with on the trail to... wherever they were now. She blinked a few times to clear her vision. There was a tent up around her on three sides. The fourth, the front, was wide open. It was dark out except for the faint glow of fire a few paces from her, and another a little farther out. She could see men and a few women sprawled atop mats, sleeping out in the open. If she listened closely, she could hear their soft snoring.

The mat beneath her smelled thickly of Rowan, and the fabric draped over her, she realized, was his cloak. Sarrassin sat up slowly, aching and sore beyond measure. It occurred to her that she didn't remember being taken off the horse. Didn't remember anything after finally relaxing enough that she fell asleep in the saddle. She _did_remember Rowan, though; his arm wrapped around her waist, his chest pressed into her back, the way she'd fit so easily between his hips and the warmth of his fur surrounding her so entirely. An intoxicating feeling she hadn't had the chance to appreciate while she'd been in so much pain. She could appreciate it now.

"You're awake."

Sarrassin jerked and snapped her eyes to Rowan's head, peeking around the corner of the tent. "Gods, you shouldn't sneak up on people like that." She rubbed her chest with a paw and puffed around the pounding of her heart.

"Apologies, Princess -

" - You don't have to call me that," she interrupted, waving the title off.

Rowan, moving more fully into the entryway, raised a brow. "You are a Princess."

"But you are not a subject in my country, and therefore I am not your Princess." Her impression of him was poor, but amusing. Her stomach dipped as a grin broke over his mouth. There was a deep satisfaction knowing she'd drawn it out of him. "Besides, I think after the last day or so, we can drop the formalities. I'm not riding with royalty, right?"

He nodded. "Far from it." A beat of silence and then, "How are you feeling?"

"Sore. Tired. Hungry." She lifted a shoulder. "About the same as I was before you showed up."

"Hold on."

Rowan turned and hustled off into the shadows of the campsite and returned a few moments later, both arms full. "I didn't consider the state of your dress before we left Jalal's caravan there on the road. Though, I doubt you had anything in those trunks less formal than what you're wearing." He knelt before her and offered what he was holding in his left hand. "There's no one in this camp your size, but Cerise had some leggings she used as long johns in the cold. They should fit you well enough. You'll have to settle for one of my shirts, I'm afraid. It'll be too big, but it's warmer and more comfortable to travel in than that." He nodded at her dress and relinquished the garments to her. "I've brought you some food." Rowan spread the contents of his right arm on the ground beside his mat. "Eat. I'll draw some water for you to freshen up and then you can change. We'll need to sleep as much as we can tonight. We leave at dawn."

Sarrassin rubbed the material of his shirt between her fingers; thick and sweater-like, a deep red. She imagined he was right. It would be warmer than her shredded dress. "North? To your home?"

"Yes. Vesnea. It's what they call the seat of the north. Serves as a capitol to the smaller towns and villages."

She leaned forward and got to her knees. "Is that where you were born? How big is it? Like Thilinael? Or -"

" - Easy, now, Pri -" he cleared his throat, " - Sarrassin. Eat. Wash. Dress. In that order."

"And then you'll answer my questions?" She wasn't sure which she was more interested in; learning about the infamous northern territories, or him. Right now, watching his mossy green eyes study her face, feeling the heat of his interest, that uncertainty was waning. "I'll have your word."

Rowan snorted. "Of course you will. Eat. We'll speak when I return." He raised a paw and lifted the end of her braid, hanging limply over her breast, rubbed it lightly between his fingers. "I'll try to find you a comb. No promises on that one, though."

He'd brought her a decent assortment of foods; jerky, cheese, bread, and a handful of nuts and berries. It wasn't a four-course meal, but it was an improvement from the gruel Jalal's soldiers had fed her in the weeks she'd traveled with them. Sarrassin ate purposefully, careful not to make herself sick by consuming too much or doing it too fast. She only just stopped herself from moaning as a blackberry burst against her tongue.

"Sorry about the fare," Rowan said upon his return. "We travel light."

Sarrassin shook her head emphatically. "No, no, this is perfect. Really."

"Right." He didn't look as if he believed her but changed the subject. "The water's pretty cold." The bucket he set in the corner of the tent nearly sloshed over when it touched the ground. "I'd just wash what was necessary. Leave your hair and the majority of your fur. The air at night is sharp, and we won't relight the fires once they go out. Wouldn't want you getting sick."

She nodded. "Of course."

He extended an arm and, balancing precariously on two of his fingers, was a comb. "Cerise says you owe her."

"I'll be sure to thank her properly." And she meant it. This braid had been in her hair for forty-eight hours and was almost certainly tangled in great knots. She probably looked a mess.

The wind whipped the material of the tent and Sarrassin shivered. Rowan said, "I'll wait outside. Let me know when you're changed."

"I don't think that's necessary." At his raised brow, she shrugged. "It's cold. And I think I can trust you to keep your back turned."

He stood, arms crossed, in the entryway for a long moment, watching her face. After inhaling a deep breath, he said, "If you're comfortable with it, I'll turn away. You have my word."

.

It had seemed like an innocent enough suggestion.

Rowan moved to the opposite side of the tent and gave her his back, and the extra material hanging from the front of the tent shielded her from the rest of the camp. Sarrassin had all the privacy she needed. Yet, as she pulled the ruined fabric of her dress from her shoulders and down her arms, over her hips and thighs to pool on the ground, she felt horribly exposed. Stepping out of the dress, Sarrassin knelt before the bucket of water and splashed some over her face and under her arms, and anywhere she'd felt especially sweaty over their long ride. It wasn't much. Rowan was right, the water was like ice. Being naked with him so close was... strange and, in a way, exciting. She wondered if he felt it, too. If he was wondering what she looked like under her clothes; what it would feel like to - no. He was a stranger for gods sakes. This was ludicrous.

She pulled the black leggings up and over her legs and hips and then slipped into his sweater. The pants were surprisingly tight, but stretchy and easy to move in, and the sweater was softer than she'd imagined it would be, even if it did swallow her up to her knees. "All done," she announced, and turned to face him.

Rowan spun around and settled, elbows on his knees. His eyes took her in, head to toe, and she watched his throat bob spastically. "An alright fit, all things considered."

Her face heated. It would have seemed like an offhanded comment if he hadn't been staring like that. She _felt_his heated gaze, though, as it moved over her throat and down her chest, to her belly, her thighs. "It'll do," she agreed, and sat down on the mat in front of him, cross-legged, tail curling around her. Sarrassin removed the tie from the end of her braid and began unweaving it slowly. "So. Vesnea. Were you born there?"

"No. My family carved out about a hundred or so acres some miles from the city long before it was a city. Gave us all enough space that, if we ever wanted to, we could come home and have our own territory within the security of my father's." He smiled. "I think that's what my mother wanted. All of us within walking distance of each other, but far enough apart that we wouldn't clash all the time."

Sarrassin winced as her fingers caught in a thick tangle about halfway up the braid. She glanced at it and frowned. It looked like a bird had nested in her hair. "We. You have siblings?"

"I had enough siblings to make up a small settlement." He snorted. "Mostly males. The three girls my parents had were enough, though. Drove everyone mad."

Sarrassin paused in separating the nest in her hair. "Had?"

"Yes." Rowan's eyes dipped to the ground. He cleared his throat and motioned a paw for the comb. "Turn around. Let me help."

Another innocent suggestion. Sarrassin turned as he scooted closer, and she found herself once again cradled between his hips. He pulled her braid over her shoulder and began unraveling it with deft paws. She laughed softly. "Had a lot of practice doing hair?"

"Yes, actually." She felt it the moment he freed her hair; an instant loosening that had her sighing in relief. Rowan's fingers slid along the crown of her head and his claws lightly scratched her scalp, intensifying the easement of having her hair down for the first time in days. He said, "my nieces haven't quite got the hang of doing their own."

Sarrassin arched her head so she could see his face. "How old are they?"

"Five and three."

"So young," she breathed, smiling. "I bet they're precious. Do you spend a lot of time with them?"

Rowan gently turned her head away and began working the comb through the ends of her hair. "Stay still." She heard him sigh. "They came to live with me two years ago when their parents were killed; my sister and her mate."

"Oh." She turned her head again, stopping his ministrations. His expression was neutral, but she could see the tension in his shoulders and neck, the way his movements, even his breathing, were carefully controlled. His way of appearing unaffected, she thought. Her brother often had that same look; overfull with emotion yet unable or unwilling to express it. Sarrassin imagined that she, herself, resembled it. So cautious about what she said, how she said it, and to who. Carefully concealing her thoughts and feelings, afraid that they might be used against her. Politics was an ugly game. She held his gaze and murmured, "I'm so sorry. For you and for them."

Something flickered there, in his irises. A spark of some unnamed thing she couldn't decipher. Didn't know him well enough to pin it down. He closed his fingers around her jaw softly and turned her back to the front. "Stay still, or this will never get finished."

It was kind of funny, imagining this massive, powerful Alpha working a comb through her tangles, slowly and easily enough that she barely felt it. Her father, for all of his goodness, wouldn't have been caught dead brushing his wife's hair. Not even in private. That's what house staff were for. Her family's love had always been subtle; there but distant... a little impersonal. Eldril tried, but their father's influence had worn on him over years of seclusion and lack of contact with others outside of their political affiliations. While her brother had caved into their way of life, accepting and even relishing being alone, it had the opposite effect on Sarrassin. She craved attention and affection and physical contact. Wanted a connection with friends and the people of her community.

This trip had taught her a bit about doing things on her own. Jalal's men hadn't cared much for her comforts, and he'd refused her request to bring her ladies maids. While it might have been a little tedious at first, especially while adjusting to life on the road, Sarrassin had come to appreciate it. It made the little things seem more important, and she felt a deep satisfaction in doing those things for herself. Still, the soothing pull of the comb and the brush of his fingers against her neck and ears as he worked was something, too. A different nature of satisfaction. Being cared for, she thought, not because he was being paid to do it, or because he was beholden, but because he wanted to. Being kind for kindness' sake.

She thought about what her brother had said about Jalal's intentions; about his dealings with the north and what he planned for the south. She thought of what little Rowan had told her of himself and of his family. Speaking of them in the past tense. The death of his sister. Sarrassin hadn't thought much about why Jalal's caravan had been attacked. Hadn't thought much about the stories pouring in from the towns along the northern borders about a heavier presence of soldiers and outbreaks of fighting with no explanations why. An uneasy feeling settled in her gut.

She kept her head still as she asked, "Why did your nieces come to live with you? Why not your mother? One of your other siblings?"

"Because," he said quietly, without pausing the comb, "I was the only one left."

Sarrassin swallowed thickly around the burn in her chest. "What happened?"

As he reached her scalp, with the rest of her hair now smooth and tamed into soft waves, it was far less work. "All finished." Rowan handed her the comb over her shoulder. "We should get some sleep. It's late."

He stood and pulled the excess fabric of their tent across the opening and tied it together. It didn't completely close it off; the wind still snuck through a small opening at the top and larger one at the bottom. Rowan untied the leather holding his chest armor together at the shoulders, and then at the sides, and tugged the vest over his head, dropped it to the ground nearby the mat. The fur on his chest and sides was flattened from wear and sweat. The partially enclosed space quickly filled with the scent of him. Sarrassin's nostrils flared around it and the effect was dizzying. Rowan rubbed a paw up and down his torso, sending his inky fur spiking at all angles.

Sarrassin scooted over on the mat and laid down, pulled the cloak up over her shoulders as Rowan sprawled out beside her. The warmth of his body immediately heated her left side. In the quiet, she could faintly hear the crackling of the dying fire outside and the sporadic whistle of the wind rustling trees and brush around them. Closer than all that, she could hear his even breathing, could feel the slow inhale and exhale expanding and deflating his torso, pushing his shoulder into hers. She had a million questions burning the tip of her tongue. He had some of the answers, and it was physically taxing to stop herself from firing them all at him at once. Rowan had been exceedingly accommodating up to this point. Shared details about himself and his family and life that he didn't have to. Beneath her appreciation of it, she couldn't help but wonder why.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, staring upward. "For asking about what happened. It's not my business. I promise I'm not always this rude."

Rowan snorted. "I've not kidnapped many people in my lifetime, but I never imagined they'd be apologizing for their rudeness while eating scraps and wearing stranger's clothes."

"Is that what this is? Kidnapping?"

She turned her head to look at him just as he did the same. Noticing how attractive he was seemed silly while contemplating her current situation. He sighed; a heavy gust of air from his nostrils that tickled the fur around her ear. "What else would you call it? I didn't give you a choice in coming along."

"Whatever your dealings are with Jalal have nothing to do with me. On that we both agree. Did you know I'd be with them?"

"No."

"Yet you brought me along and have kept me safe. You've fed me and seen to my needs." She lifted a shoulder. "If I were kidnapped, I think I'd be strapped to the back of a mount and sleeping out there, tied up, rather than in a fairly well-made tent with clean clothes and your cloak to keep me warm."

Rowan huffed amusedly. "What shall we call it, then?"

"Hmm." Sarrassin felt him watching her intently as she considered it. "We'll call it two friends helping one another out."

He let loose a deep, beautiful laugh that made her smile. She felt the vibration of it in her belly and had to take a shaky breath. Rowan said, "Friends now, are we? And how exactly are we helping each other?"

"Well, you kept me from being left out on the road, alone, trying to find my way back to civilization. It would've taken me days to find someone to help me. And who's to say I wouldn't have run into trouble along the way? Gotten hurt or worse..." she gave him a glib look. "Kidnapped, even." Sarassin shrugged. "You gave me your word that you'd get me safely home and I trust your word. You've kept it thus far. I haven't helped you yet."

Her mind wandered back to Jalal and his part in all this. There was something more going on than what he'd told the officials during the Litha celebration. These northern wolves weren't plundering and killing aimlessly. Their attacks so far had been pointed and specific to Jalal and his company. If she figured out exactly what, she might be able to give Rowan something of value. Something in repayment for his kindness. Knowing that it could potentially destroy Thilinael's alliance with Jalal gave her only a brief pause. People were dying. More than she or any of her family realized. She had a growing suspicion that her future husband was playing a starring role in this conflict, and she could never bind herself to the man without knowing for certain. The mere thought of her impending marriage made her chest tight with anxiety.

"But maybe I will," she murmured, and rolled so that her back was to him, the stress of her family's situation catching up to her once again. "Goodnight, Rowan."

"Goodnight."

.