I scoffed. “That is an argument for a HUMAN, which we are not. We are shifters, but even more so, we are LORDS. You knew she was not your mate and chose to pursue her anyway. So aggressively, you frightened her. You asked her to marry you, then you allowed that wretched woman to move into the main area of your Keep.”
“I was under a spell.”
“A spell that would not have worked if you’d been sure of what you were doing. Fae magic, especially illusion and glamour do not work well on shifters, unless it has something to latch onto.”
Caelan’s face fell. “You do not think I am aware that I’ve fucked everything up?” he asked hoarsely.
“Not for the first time,” I added, unable to resist rubbing salt into his wound. “I warned you multiple times. But this one…” I shook my head. “I don’t think you can come back from this one.”
“Do not tell me what I can and cannot do,” he snapped. “We both know you want her.”
“And if I do?” I said after a long moment of silence. I’d never admitted it, not the truth laid bare. Caelan suspected, and I’d screwed with him about it in a teasing manner, but things were different now.
“I fuckingknewit,” Caelan whispered.
“Unlike you, I don’t plan to scare her into marrying me.”
Caelan let out an annoyed breath. “I’d like to speak to her.”
“Have you called her?”
His jaw tightened once more. “Yes.”
“More than once?”
“Rowan. Stop being an asshole. She won’t answer my texts or calls.”
“Then perhaps you should heed her boundaries. Something you’ve never done before.”
“Godsdammit, Rowan! Let me speak to her.”
I smiled. “No.”
“I will come there and settle this if I need to.”
“This is not my battle. If you trespass onto my territory and attempt to harass my ward?—”
“Your ward?” Caelan asked in disbelief. “You have got to be kidding me.”
“Then I will make it my problem and expel you from my lands.”
Caelan’s eyes narrowed. “Are we no longer friends, then, Rowan? After all these years? Will you forsake me for her?”
I cared about Caelan. I really did. He’d been one of my best friends for years, but the way he’d treated Evie was egregious. “I never thought I’d see you treat someone so wonderful so terribly, Caelan. How can I be friends with someone who continually refuses to see how awful his behavior is? How much you wound her? You are not the same man you were a year ago, and I feel sorry for you.”
Caelan’s irises glowed with a ring of gold. “You presume to speak to me like that?”
“I do,” I said sadly. “Come onto my lands at your own peril, Caelan.”
I disconnected the call.
This would not be the end of Caelan’s obsession with Evie. I could feel it in my bones.
Chapter
Four
Ifound the Lord in the kitchen the next morning, eating a bowl of oatmeal topped with blueberries and walnuts. He was still in his sleep clothes: a cotton t-shirt and flannel pants.
