Chapter 5

Rowan’s POV

Getting even

This is strange.

Something was wrong and I could feel it down to my bones. Philia should have come to me by now; that icy, immovable exterior she wore on the surface should have cracked again, with her running to me for an explanation. But the only thing she had done was leave the occasion early. No reaction, no explosion—just nothing. And it grated on me inside. Why was she so lukewarm about everything?

A shiver brushed through my chest, following Veil’s fingers. I looked down at her, a smile finding its way across my face before I realized it. It was bittersweet, but it was there, because every time I look at her, I see Elena.

It’s like she’s right here with me—still in my arms—with that soft oval face, flushed cheeks, and lithe body. But she called me too cold to caress her.

"Rowan, there seems to be a lot on your mind. Why don’t you let me distract you?"

It was morning, and we had found ourselves in the shower. She had been amazing since last night, and I had a good feeling that she would start giving again. I pulled her closer to me in the tub, deciding to forget about that tiresome mate of mine.

She’s always been on the dull side, but her infatuation with me stroked my ego the right way—so much so that I thought I could learn to live with her, maybe even love her down the line. But then, I remembered what happened.

A crack in a memory I kept shielded away inside my mind sent some of it leaking out, and the mood began to plummet again as I remembered that night.

"Bramwell will be fine. He’s strong," I had told Veil five years ago, as she whimpered in the waiting room, crying so hard that her shoulders shook.

"No, he won't."

I raised an eyebrow. "But he is my blood. Of course he'll—"

Suddenly, her back was straight. I no longer looked down towards her thighs. "That woman’s child is also yours too, isn’t she?"

The implications of her words hit me harder than any slap ever could. My hold on her shoulder went numb. "What do you mean?" I kept pressing until she told me everything.

Turns out, Bramwell had been born with a weak life core, too.

"How did you hide this from me?"

"It wasn’t really hard," she said, a hint of spite in her words. "You’re always interested in playing 'perfect family,' but you never truly ask. You don’t ever really want to know what’s going on with him. You’re fine with all the surface stuff, but you never get deep."

I knew in that moment that she was not just talking about my relationship with our son, but also about her. Because, by the Goddess, I’ll admit that she looked so much like Elena.

So much so that when I woke up some mornings, my mind still blurred by sleep, I would embrace her and burst into tears calling her "Elena." She’d cry herself and pull away, reminding me who she was—reminding me that Elena would never truly come back.

"I’m sorry," I stroked her cheek.

She was the closest thing I had to Elena, and I had promised myself that I would never let that go. This promise was so embedded in me that when it was time to sign the papers for the organ transfer, I had pushed away my fatherly instincts, trapped them in a box, and swept my signature across that paper.

I knew I would hate myself forever, but Ellie was just far too weak. With a life core like her own, there was no helping her; she would just spend the rest of her life plugged into machines, wasting money until she finally died.

That’s right. I didn’t do anything wrong. I just did what was necessary.

Coming back to the present, I buried my fingers into Veil’s hair, smoothing it out as I thoughtfully stared at her beautiful face.

"You’re beautiful..." I found myself saying.

She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. She knew that compliment wasn’t truly for her, but rather for a woman I couldn’t bring back from the grave.

We got dressed and soon we were downstairs for breakfast. I expected to be met with the smell of bacon from the stairs, but even as I stood at the dining table, there was nothing.

Not until I came closer and saw that Philia was smiling to herself as she ate the last bites of pancake on her plate. It was finished. Both my eyes and Veil’s swept across the empty table. We exchanged looks, and even though there were no words said between us, we both understood—especially me.

She was throwing a tantrum.

Normally, she would have gone to remind the chef of what we were going to eat this morning, made sure that everything was presented properly, and even waited for both me and Veil to arrive before she would eat her own meal separately from us.

But today, not only had she chosen to dine at the same table, but she had only catered to her own meal as well. My stomach was growling. Hours of endless intimacy was still exercise, after all. She should be understanding of that, at least.

"All right, Philia. I can see what you’re doing—throwing a little tantrum for attention. I get it. But since you’re already done with your meal, why don’t you go and remind the chef? You know what we like eating on Tuesdays, don’t you?"

She looked at me, her expression strangely distant with a pinch of shock, as if she just noticed that I was in the same room as her.

"If you need a meal prepared, then speak to the chef yourself," she said. Her voice held no sarcasm, but it bit nevertheless. She hadn’t spoken to me like that in five years. What was going on?

"Philia, I don’t want to repeat myself. You should—"

My phone began to ping rapidly. It was from the pack platform. Thinking it was an emergency, I decided to push away my arguments for now, until I saw something that started a fresh argument.

I turned the phone screen over to her, the veins on my neck beginning to appear. "Philia, what is the meaning of this?"

She clinked her fork against her plate and said without missing a beat, "Getting even.”