Today was Grand Central Station.
Rowan appeared, spotted me, and stalked over, not bothering to ask if he could sit down. “Cernunnos was just here, wasn’t he? I can smell his magic.”
“Yep.”
I’d opened my wards to Rowan several months ago, as he’d done the same for me. The difference was Rowan rarely used the privilege because I was on his lands far more than he was mine.
I reached into the cooler beside my chair and tossed him a beer. Rowan caught it one-handed and flipped the cap open.
“Evie asked me a weird question today.”
I jerked my thumb over my shoulder. “Does it have to do with the asshole who just left?”
“Sure does.” Rowan hesitated. He scratched the edge of his jaw. “When Moira started feeding from Cernunnos did you notice?”
I frowned. “Excuse me?”
“When Moira feeds from him, do you know?”
Odd question, but Rowan wasn’t a man who spoke just to hear himself. He had to be going somewhere with this. “I knew when they started having sex.”
Rowan nodded. “Every shifter in my godsdamn Keep knew. Half of them went into mourning.”
I couldn’t dwell on that statement without wanting to tear something apart with my bare hands, so I focused on Rowan’s question. “She started gaining weight and had more color in her cheeks. But no, I never smelled his blood on her.”
“That’s what I thought. I knew because her magic started smelling like his.”
I went still. Rowan merely sipped his beer and watched me. Shifters were resistant to magic, some of us more than others, but the Lord before me had proven to have an odd affinity for it. None of us thought too much of it. We all had our quirks, right?
“Her magic?”
Rowan nodded. “Moira never smelled like blood to me, even if I saw her consume some. The moment she and Cernunnos started their experiment, something in her magic changed.”
“You’ve asked some of your other people?”
Rowan nodded. “They said the same thing you did.”
I shifted in my seat, uncomfortable with the direction this conversation was taking. “Why would you scent something different than the rest of us?”
Rowan smiled this time.
“Godsdamn,” I swore, realization hitting me like a truck. “You’re fae, aren’t you?”
“Part,” Rowan clarified. “But qualified enough to tell you I think if you decided to feed Moira, Cernunnos would probably know.”
“She doesn’t want me to.”
“I don’t believe that’s true.” Rowan tipped the rest of his beer back. “If anything, Moira is trying to spare you from being under Cernunnos’s microscope.”
“Too late,” I muttered.
Rowan’s look was too perceptive. “Is there a particular reason he’d be so focused on you?”
Rowan had shared a deep secret with me, but I wasn’t ready to share mine. Moira deserved to know first. “I wouldn’t know.”
The other Lord knew I was lying, but he didn’t press. “Very well.” Rowan stood. “You up for sparring?”
He and I had taken to sparring for exercise and stress relief. Sometimes we stayed in human form; sometimes we sparred in animal form. But now that I knew he was fae…
