The guards saw everything. And ­weren’t shooting. Because it ­wasn’t a mountain cat, but—

   In a flash that could have been distant lightning, the mountain cat became a tall, broad-­shouldered male walking toward the open door. Rowan surged into flight, then shifted, seamlessly landing midstride as he walked into the rain.

   The two males clasped forearms and clapped each other on the back—­a quick, efficient greeting. With the rain and Emrys’s narrating it was hard to hear, and she silently cursed her mortal ears as she strained to listen.

   “I’ve been looking for you for six weeks,” the golden-­haired stranger said, his voice sharp but hollow. Not urgent, but tired and frustrated. “Vaughan said you ­were at the eastern border, but Lorcan said you ­were on the coast, inspecting the fleet. Then the twins told me that the queen had been all the way out ­here with you and returned alone, so I came on a hunch . . .” He was babbling, his lack of control at odds with his hard muscles and the weapons strapped to him. A warrior, like Rowan—­though his surprisingly lovely face had none of the prince’s severity.

   Rowan put a hand on the male’s shoulder. “I heard what happened, Gavriel.” Was this one of Rowan’s mysterious friends? She wished Emrys ­were free to identify him. Rowan had told her so little about his five companions, but it was clear that Rowan and Gavriel ­were more than acquaintances. She sometimes forgot that Rowan had a life beyond this fortress. It hadn’t bothered her before, and she ­wasn’t sure why remembering it now suddenly settled in her stomach like a dead weight, or why it suddenly mattered that Rowan at least acknowledge that she was there. That she existed.

   Gavriel scrubbed at his face, his heavily muscled back expanding as he took a breath. “I know you probably don’t want to—”

   “Just tell me what you want and it will be done.”

   Gavriel seemed to deflate, and Rowan guided him toward another door. They both moved with unearthly, powerful grace—­as if the rain itself parted to let them through. Rowan didn’t even look back at her before he disappeared.

   •

   Rowan didn’t come back for the rest of the night, and curiosity, not kindness, made her realize his friend probably hadn’t had dinner. At least, no one had brought anything out of the kitchen, and Rowan hadn’t called for food. So why not bring up a tray of stew and bread?

   Balancing the heavy tray on her hip, she knocked on his door. The murmuring within went silent, and for a second, she had the mortifying thought that perhaps the male was ­here for a far more intimate reason. Then someone snapped, “What?” and she eased open the door wide enough to glance in. “I thought you might want some stew and—”

   Well, the stranger was half-­naked. And lying on his back atop Rowan’s worktable. But Rowan was fully clothed, seated before him, and looking pissed as hell. Yes, she had certainly walked in on something private.

   It took a heartbeat to note the flattened needles, the small cauldron-­shaped vat of dark pigment, the rag soaked with ink and blood, and the tracings of a tattoo snaking from the stranger’s left pectoral down his ribs and right to his hip bone.

   “Get out,” Rowan said flatly, lowering the needle. Gavriel lifted his head, the bright candles showing tawny eyes glazed with pain—­and not necessarily from the markings being ­etched over his heart and rib cage. Words in the Old Language, just like Rowan’s. There ­were already so many—­most of them aged and interrupted by various scars.

   “Do you want the stew?” she asked, still staring at the tattoo, the blood, the little iron pot of ink, and the way Rowan seemed as much at ease with the tools in his hands as he did with his weapons. Had he made his own tattoo?

   “Leave it,” he said, and she knew—­just knew—­that he would bite her head off later. Schooling her features into neutrality, she set the tray on the bed and walked back to the door.

   “Sorry to interrupt.” What­ever the tattoos ­were for, however they knew each other, she had no right to be in ­here. The pain in the stranger’s eyes told her enough. She’d seen it in her own reflection plenty. Gavriel’s attention darted between her and Rowan, his nostrils flaring—­he was smelling her.

   It was definitely time to get the hell out. “Sorry,” she said again, and shut the door behind her.

   She made it two steps down the hall before she had to stop and lean against the stone wall, rubbing at her face. Stupid. Stupid to even care what he did outside of training, to think he might consider sharing personal information with her, even if it was only that he was retiring to his rooms early. It hurt, though—­more than she wanted to admit.

   She was about to drag herself to her room when the door flung open down the hall and Rowan stormed out, practically glowing with ire. But just seeing the lividness written all over him had her riding that reckless, stupid edge again, and clinging to the anger was easier than embracing the quiet darkness that wanted to pull her down, down, down. Before he could start shouting, she asked, “Do you do it for money?”

   A flicker of teeth. “One, it’s none of your business. And two, I would never stoop so low.” The look he gave her told her exactly what he thought of her profession.

   “You know, it might be better if you just slapped me instead.”

   “Instead of what?”

   “Instead of reminding me again and again how rutting worthless and awful and cowardly I am. Believe me, I can do the job well enough on my own. So just hit me, because I’m damned tired of trading insults. And you know what? You didn’t even bother to tell me you’d be unavailable. If you’d said something, I never would have come. I’m sorry I did. But you just left me downstairs.”

   Saying those last words made a sharp, quick panic rise up in her, an aching pain that had her throat closing. “You left me,” she repeated. Maybe it was only out of blind terror at the abyss opening up again around her, but she whispered, “I have no one left. No one.”

   She hadn’t realized how much she meant it, how much she needed it not to be true, until now.

   His features remained impassive, turning vicious, even, as he said, “There is nothing that I can give you. Nothing I want to give you. You are not owed an explanation for what I do outside of training. I don’t care what you have been through or what you want to do with your life. The sooner you can sort out your whining and self-­pity, the sooner I can be rid of you. You are nothing to me, and I do not care.”

   There was a faint ringing in her ears that turned into a roar. And beneath it, a sudden wave of numbness, a too-­familiar lack of sight or sound or feeling. She didn’t know why it happened, because she had been so dead set on hating him, but . . . it would have been nice, she supposed. It would have been nice to have one person who knew the absolute truth about her—­and didn’t hate her for it.