Unwanted Fates | Book Two ✔️

Twenty-two | Tournament

"Shit, Rowan!"

Rowan's towering form prowled from the training squares, a long stick in his hand and his glistening torso rippling in the moonlight.

"What are you doing out here, woman?"

"Has anyone told you it's insulting to call them- woman?" Sylvie pushed her unruly locks behind her ears and pressed onward past the hulking Alpha.

"Why are your eyes glowing?"

Sylvie spun, blinking. "What?"

"Your eyes are glowing pink," Rowan stated, expertly twirling the long stick in his hand.

She brought her hands to her face, and her focus on the tree's pathways faltered until her eyes were useless.

"They are normal now."

"Oh." Sylvie sent her energy back into the earth to find the tree roots she'd been following and smiled as the world lit up. "I can see the energy trails of the trees. I guess the eyes are a Dryad thing."

Rowan stepped beside her, his feet making no sound on the forest floor. She attempted to walk as silently as him, but the crunching leaves were her enemy.

They walked until the ground underfoot became smooth dirt, and Sylvie recalled her earlier grappling with Rosie.

"You never answered my question- Sylvie."

She appreciated his refrain from calling her woman again, but the tingling up her thighs as her name rolled off his accented tongue muddled her brain.

"What question?"

He twirled the stick again, spinning it around her body and catching the other end trapping her between it and him. All of him. It thrilled her to feel how much his body wanted her, even if his eyes and words seemed to say differently.

"What. Are. You. Doing. Out. Here?" Each word was enunciated with perfect English, a slight rolling of the r dragging out the word here.

"I- I-" Was it the right time to be honest? She hadn't even been honest with herself about her motives.

"Speak," he growled.

"I wanted to see you," she breathed.

There was a seconds pause as he processed her words before his lips descended on hers, their bodies moving against one another and backwards into another hard surface. The tree bark scratched her skin, but she relished in the grounding nature of the pain as Rowan's kiss took her to the edges of reality.

He palmed her cheek, using his thumb to tug on her chin, forcing her mouth to open and let his tongue dance with hers more deeply. Her body reacted to his dominance, and she shoved him back, sticking out her foot at the last second and tripping him. 

He twisted gracefully onto his hands, but she continued her assault, grabbing his side and flipping him on his back on the dirt. With raised brows, he watched as she ripped her shirt over her head and stood over his reclined body, massaging her breasts lightly.

"Take off your pants," she said, pulling her sweatpants down and kicking them off. He obliged and hissed as she dropped onto all fours, grabbing him tightly in her fist and guiding him to her drenched entrance.

"Wait." His hand curled around her forearm, but she swatted him away.

"No."

She lowered on his tip, and he groaned. "Wait, woman." His grip tightened, and she froze, before lifting off and sitting back on the tops of his thighs, her eyes filling with burning tears.