“What do you mean?” I asked.
Rowle set his glass down and opened the smoking jacket he wore. There, just above his heart, a small dowel of wood protruded from his chest.
“Is that what I think it is?” I asked.
Rowle nodded. “Yes, that Apprentice of yours will be the death of me yet.”
I looked at the stub of Tess’s crossbow bolt, buried in Rowle’s chest, and wondered how he could be alive.
Chapter 41
therese
With Alex’s hand in mine, I tried to forge a meshing, but he was being difficult.
We stood in front of the enormous hearth, the heat from the fire felt warm against my face and on the exposed skin of my hands, but the rest of it was blocked by the spells Rafe and I had put on my leathers. I wasn’t sure how Alex was standing there without backing away, but I assumed it was just that Wanderers’ indifference to temperature.
While I pushed Alex to mesh with me, the sound of conversation between the others died away and the only thing I could hear was my pulse in my ears. More minutes passed and then he opened his mind up and we gradually synced pulses and breath as our emotions, auras, and thoughts meshed. I could at last share his pain of losing his mother, feel the agonizing heartache of never seeing her again, and the anger of knowing Raphael had been the one that killed her.
*Alex, please, I was there. Rafe did everything he could to save your Mom. He loved Laura. I think he would have died in her place if he could have.*
*But he couldn’t think of how to save her, even though it was only minutes before he forced the shade out of me.*
*That’s right and it has troubled him to no end since then. Our daily training requires daily meshing and I’ve felt how he was affected by not saving her. It’s been killing him. He’s not his usual jovial self except for those times when he’s busy and the memory isn’t in the front of his thoughts.*
I felt the roiling turmoil of Alex’s emotions as his love for his mother was overshadowed by his hate for the one that killed her.
*Alex, you know that Rafe may have held the sword that killed Laura, but it was the shade that actually killed her. Once it was in her, she was dead.*
*And yet, I live. The shade did not kill me.*
*Would you rather Rafe had killed you too?*
For a moment, I wasn’t sure how he was going to respond. Then I felt him give an emotional shake of his head. *No, that wouldn’t have helped her and she wouldn’t like it if I talked like that.*
I turned toward him and drew his face down to mine. We kissed, softly at first, but then I felt his hunger. Our emotions fed off of the other’s and our passion grew. My fingers tugged at his shirttail and then slid upwards across the bare skin of his back. His hands moved to the sides of my head and held me tightly as our kiss deepened and our desire flared.
I heard a throat clearing and remembered where we were.
The two of us broke the kiss simultaneously and sheepishly took a step backward from each other. Our pulses were pounding in both our ears and while I tried to maintain the meshing, Alex was not experienced enough to hold onto it once we separated.
Breathing hard, I put my back to the fire and faced the others.
Cris had a sly grin on her face and Rafe looked like he’d just finished rolling his eyes at me. Rowle, I couldn’t read. His face had a dispassionate air to it and I didn’t know him well enough to guess at his thoughts.
“Ah, excuse us. We, ah…” Alex stammered.
Rowle made a dismissive gesture with his right hand. “Don’t let our presence trouble you. You are both Wanderers, you needn’t concern yourselves with our approval. However, you may excuse yourselves if you feel you must.”
I started to say something cocky, I think being around Rafe had worn off on me, when I noticed Rowle’s smoking jacket was open and that near the center of his chest was what looked like a wooden dowel, the same size as my crossbow shafts.
I was struck speechless. The broadhead I’d shot him with, it was still lodged in his chest?
He noticed my wild-eyed expression, made another dismissive gesture with his hand, and then pulled his jacket closed. “Don’t let this bother you. It was a great shot, even though I wished it were aimed at someone else. That was then and you had every right to shoot me.”
He paused and chuckled mirthlessly. “If I’d known how that day was going to turn out, I think I would have been elsewhere.”
What the hell do you say to someone who has your bolt stuck in his chest?
“Ah, I…” I stopped, took a breath, and started again. “Can’t you remove it?”
“I have tried, but the best I’ve been able to do is keep it from penetrating farther. I’ve seen the Amazons’ bolts, but I’ve never seen them like this. Their bolts are amazing and I don’t know just how they prepare their steel to make them magical enough to penetrate shields, but all of the ones I’ve seen either hit their target or not. They don’t keep trying for months.”
“I don’t understand, Rowle,” Rafe said. “What do you mean?”
Rowle indicated his chest. “This broadhead not only refuses to be withdrawn, but it keeps trying to slide deeper toward my heart. I have tried everything I could think of to remove it and it won’t budge. Any spell that I haven’t tried would have done
