Page 38 of The Last War We Ever Fought

Rowan shivered. She didn’t think it was from the cold. “Light the lantern. I can’t see a thing.”

He didn’t answer her.

“Elijah?”

Thunder cracked the air, and she looked up at the angry dark skies right before blue lightning flashed across them. Her heart raced, and she was unable to contain the excitement from her face at the show nature was putting before her.

A drop of rain fell on her brow. Then another until she stood under a shower.

Lifting both hands up to feel the rain in her palms, she spun. Head tipped up to the skies and her eyes shut. A smile stretched on her face.

She was so envious of the rain that bitterness was going to burn a hole through her heart. If she could only be so free, so unpredictable, so unapologetic, so guiltless, so pure and so peaceful yet violent. Maybe she wanted to be reborn as rain. She wanted to fall with such trust and be braced by the earth below to help it grow. Rainstorms were short lived, too. A short life, but full of meaning.

If it wasn’t for the sudden chatter of her teeth, she would have remained there longer.

He was already there when she turned to him, half submerged inside water, holding a towel up to her, his figure fluttering in and out of sight because of the flashing lightning.

“Come here, Rowan.”

She swam up to him and opened her arms, letting him wrap the towel around her body, hoping he couldn’t see her naked through this darkness either.

Lightning flashed again and she briefly saw his eyes were on her. Even if she had not, she knew they were looking at her. She flinched a little when he touched his fingers to her shivering cheek. Rowan let him. Every time he’d touched her it had felt like a first. Tentative. Exploring. So, so innocent. Strange for a man like him.

“You’re about to freeze,” he said, pulling his hand back from her face and retreating away from the sound of the shifting water. “Come.”

Lightning flashed again. And again, his eyes were on her. His hand stretched for her to take.

It remained extended between them for a long while before Rowan battled away every thought against taking it before she did.

The towel was entirely soaked, thankfully he’d placed her clothes under the shade of a tall tree, and they’d remained dry. Only just briefly though, as they soaked and matted to her body as soon as she had them on. She lit her lantern and turned to him. “Will you walk back with me?” She wasn’t scared, but for the first time, she didn’t want to be alone.

“Did you really think I would have let you walk back alone?” he asked, removing his shirt and throwing it over her head and helping her arms through the large sleeves.

“Aren’t you going to be cold?” she asked, bringing the end of the too large sleeve to her face, inhaling the warm scent of sandalwood that clung to it from his body.

“Hold my hand and maybe I won’t.”

“What if I am cruel and do not care?”

“You wouldn’t have asked.”

“You’re right.”

“I am?”

“Just this once.”

“I will take this small win,” he said, lowering the lantern from her hand down, enshrouding their faces in darkness again. “And this small secret.”

“What secret?”

“The one only the dark has ever held. Your happiness.” Elijah lowered his face close to hers, their foreheads resting against one another’s. “If it only were darker longer. If it only were darker always.”

“I like being near water,” she confessed, offering a piece of her—of what made her happy.

“I know you do. And I am terribly envious.”

“I don’t mind being near you either.”