A/N: I'm a bitch for even writing more angst in this fandom. But damn I hate Lorcan for what he'd done!
He and Elide are cute though. I love how Elide turned Lorcan to her bitch *lol*. SJM is giving me so much confusion about these two.
Disclaimer: Of course all the characters are SJM's and I am not her. Because if I wrote EoS there would be several weddings at the end because MY BABIES DEDERVE A HAPPY ENDING. *roll into a corner and sob*
Elide has lost track of how long they have been looking for Aelin. She has also lost track of how far they have travelled, how many lands they have passed.
There was only one thing that none of them lost track of though.
War was looming over their home, as plain as the grief was threatening to drown Rowan to a point of no return.
The girl often spared him a glance. Rowan barely ate or slept during the first few weeks, and only after his body has given up to exhaustion that the Fae male allowed himself to rest, even only for a second. Then, he seemed to give up on his Fae form. Elide suspected that once the grief was too overbearing, the prince - no, king, she reminded herself, her king now - shifted into his hawk form and stayed there, letting the base instinct take over and soothe somewhat the loss and the pain he endured.
They spent days, weeks, and months travelling in silence like that.
The othe Fae male, Gavriel, often casted his glance toward where Elide assumed Terrasen was, where his son was probably shouting an order or two, leading the Bane to fight against an ancient demon king.
She didn't allow her thought to linger on the other male left in their group.
They fell into a silent routine. Rowan, in his hawk form, would follow whatever little trail Fenrys managed to leave for them; Gavriel and Elide behind, the little girl often blended in villiages or towns nearby effortlessly, picked up a gossip or two, whatever useful to deduce if their Queen had been there, or where she had been taken to; covering their track was Lorcan, no more than a whisper of shadow.
No matter how hard her heart craved, Elide didn't think she was able of forgiving, or forgetting, what the Fae bastard had done. The fact that he claimed he had done it, for her, was another low blow that Elide was afraid she couldn't take in physically anymore. Not to mention Rowan, her king, brooding in his hawk form and only turning back when his body screaming to, he was the living proof of the crime Lorcan had committed. Elide couldn't even look at the male without feeling pain, remembering how she once thought he might be her sanctuary...
Elide loosed a shaky breath, reminded herself one more time to not trail down those routes of thought. The mountain lion - Gavriel - took it as a sign Elide was getting cold. He scooted closer to her, Elide didn't bother to correct him.
Further, hiding in the dark shadow of the forest, a shadow was watching her. Elide turned her back to him and let the rhythm of the lion's breath lull her to sleep.
She woke up with a jolt.
The dim light of early dawn snaked down to their dying campfire, enough to crafted the huge brooding form of Rowan - who has turned back to the Fae form. Beside him was Gavriel, quietly assessing whatever information the king had given.
Elide blinked. If Gavriel was across her, then the source of heat she was still currently bathing in had to be...
Clumsily, the girl sat up, tried to make more space between her and the Fae warrior. The mountain lion looked up and flashed her a look of apology, or Elide assumed so. Rowan passed her an emotionless nod, the warmest good morning Elide could ask of him. As she began the morning routine of assessing her ruined leg, not that she ever hoped it would heal completely (an annoying habit Elide had learnt to pick up the hard way during the time she stayed with Vernon), a drop of magic effortlessly slipped into her bone and stay there.
It was so effortless that Elide knew only one male could do it, because he had already done it a hundred times before.
She drew a control breath, holding back the confusing battle of gratitude and hatred inside her.
"Rowan found a villiage nearby here, about three hours walking to the west." - The lion's voice cut through the battle in her head. - "I will go with him. You two stay."
It took Elide a longer second to absorb the news in. - "No..."
"It's a Fae villiage." - Gavriel explained lightly, his eyes gouged up her reaction. - "Beside, you've been walking a lot lately, Elide. You deserve to rest."
There was a small voice in her head that agreed viciously with the idea of a day off, but it was also the same one that was protesting aggressively with the idea of with whom she would be resting.
Gavriel passed her an amused glanced, so Elide turned to Rowan, looking for support, but the king was looking anywhere but them. Following her glance, the lion finished his breakfast, then stood up. - "Better go now. Wait for us." - He nodded to the figure behind her, then to Elide. - "Try to stay alive when we get back."
Rowan finally met her eyes, then his gaze turned murderous as it moved to the only male left. Elide wondered what had truly kept the king back from killing him on spot. Even she had wanted to kill the warrior.
But Rowan said nothing. The two ancient Fae left without another word.
Lorcan had never flinched in his life, not even when Whitethorn had a knife on his throat, or whenever the Fae's eyes lightened up with promise of a slow and painful death. But he did flinch when Elide's emotionless gaze casted over him barely a second, before it moved away.
There was absolute nothing that was capable of describing what Lorcan had gone through the past few months. It pained him greatly, being torn without hornor from his bloodoath with Maeve, but the pain went to another unspeakable level as Elide refused him. To think of how a little mortal girl had managed to consume his mind, it was so odd that past Lorcan would have spent a good decade laughing at the idea. But here he was now, in a forest of nowhere, aching just to be close to her, to protect her frail little form from whatever harm may come, and yet she refused to let him do just that. Lorcan was forced to sit back and watched everytime Elide slipped from a rock and asked for Gavriel, everytime she was cold at night she asked for Gavriel, everytime that cursed leg of her ached she asked for Gavriel... He wasn't even allowed to act all territorial over her!
Lorcan pinched his nose, keeping his anger in check. Elide had gone for some privacy, but he made sure the ruined leg would not bother her.
At the very least, without the lion around, she did not have a reason to refuse his help.
The ancient male stared at the dying fire. Yes, he was aware of how royally and majestically he had screwed up. Literally, he had screwed up everything that was possible to screw.
The sound of Elide coming back teared him briefly away from his self-loathing session. Lorcan's gaze trailed after her as Elide sat down a healthy distance from him, only enough that his heat could still shielding her from the leftover frost of last night.
He was not stupid. Lorcan knew the girl was playing the silent treatment card, he had seen it played out thousands of times in his life. But this time it was different, as he actually cared about her. How foolish he was to to be tangled up with a mortal girl, as for many years after her passing, the warrior still may walk the earth. The thought of how short her life may last, and how long she would willingly spend to loathe him, made the warrior ache in places he had never thought of being able to feel.
Maybe facing a raging fire-spitting Galathynius and a lost control Whitethorn would be more comfortable than facing the torture Elide was giving him.
"Elide."
The girl pointedly looked away from him. Screw it, Lorcan would face both Erawan and Maeve, plus the cadre, plus the entire world-changing court of Aelin Galathynius, if it meant Elide give him a chance.
"Elide." - He tried again, regardless of how pathetic his voice sounded like. Elide scooted further away from him. Away from his heat. For a brief second Lorcan panicked with the image of Elide catching a cold.
"Elide!"
"Do not talk to me."
The hand he was reaching out for her stopped mid-air, as Lorcan's mind was too busy sorting out which is worse, having her not talking to him or her icy voice to him. It was ridiculous how much Elide consumed his mind and heart, how fast her priorities always went above all. Lorcan wondered if it was the way Whitethorn felt all the time around his mate, then it would be completely understanable for the king to go mad without her. The warrior's mind wandered briefly to the scenario of Elide being taken away the same way Whitethorn's mate was pried away from him.
Fear, uncontrollable and pure fear, took over his body, and the Fae warrior had to reach over the girl beside him, just to feel her there, to know she was safe and sound.
The bastard. Elide's eyes widened as all of a sudden her body was pressed into his. She was about to protest - with violence if had to - when she felt the shuddering breath down her neck, as Lorcan shook quietly, both from fear, and relief.
He was weeping, Elide realized with an ache in her heart. His hold on her tightened, and with a sigh, Elide entwined her small fingers with him. Lorcan did not reply by word, his face buried deeper in the crook of her neck, breathing in her scent.
They sat like that for quite a while.
"I'm sorry." - His voice was somewhat muffled, the shaking had yet to cease. - "I'm sorry for everything. I'm sorry that my appology would never be enough. I'm sorry. But I don't think I can live for a moment with the thought of you in danger, Elide. I'm can't."
Elide closed her eyes and cursed the way her traitorous heart was thundering in her chest. She did not need Anneith to confirm how much of it was true, for she had known, simply by her own.
She did not reply however. Her heart could be racing and thundering as much as it wanted, but this was a world where the heart didn't rule the mind. At least not yet. Not when her queen was still missing and her king mourning. Not when the wound Lorcan had struck was still too fresh, too painful, to be forgiven.