A Game of Crowns

“There is not love without forgiveness, and there is no forgiveness without love.”

-Bryant H. McGill

I spent an hour tossing and turning trying to figure out what Rowan had meant. He said he was Hunter Graham but what did that even mean?

Instead of coming up with crazy assumptions, I let myself drift off into a dreamless slumber and decided to ask him about it in the morning.

I opened my eyes to find a sleeping Rowan next to me. Even in his sleep, he was a picture of perfection. I didn’t dare move an inch not wanting to wake him. In our week together, I had never been able to wake up before him. Not after he took the hit to his manhood.

I relished this time to watch him in his unguarded state. Half his face was pushed into the pillow, but the other half was on full display for me to appreciate.

I could get lost in the immensity of his dark lashes if I wasn’t careful. The curve of his cheekbones to the lines of his angular jaw had me entranced. Light stubble covered the lower part of his face. I had never seen him with anything other than a stubble free face and it was throwing me out of odds looking at him. My fingers ached to touch him even at the risk of waking him.

I moved closer until our faces laid a few inches apart and slowly reached up to run a finger across his jaw. The feel of the stubble sent a rush of delicious tension down my body. Touching Rowan was intoxicating beyond anything I had ever felt, and the realization blew right past me as my eyes landed on his lips.

Would stealing a kiss as he slept be selfish? I pushed the question out of my mind.

I licked my lips and kept my eyes trained on his closed ones as I moved nearer. My eyes fell shut as I gently placed a soft kiss on the side of his mouth. A quiet sigh escaped me. He moved an inch and I knew he was awake.

He didn’t have to utter a word for me to know. A part of me was scared to open my eyes and see what he thought of my stolen kiss, but I wasn’t running.

I opened them and stared into his starry eyes. He said nothing as his eyes roamed my face. After what felt like an eternity, he sat up and stretched.

“Morning,” he murmured, before heading to the bathing room.

“Morning,” I whispered back.

The door shut before he had the chance to hear my response. Was he angry with me?

I hung my head in shame. He had told me not to kiss him until I was sure and what did I go and do?

Kiss him.

I groaned and banged my head against the white bedpost. “Stupid. Stupid. Stupid,” I berated myself.

I spent the next hour getting dressed to head out and find Thomas with Rowan. He had yet to speak to me, but I wouldn’t allow his silence to bother me...much.

We left the room and decided to walk towards the docks. According to the freckled woman, whose name we discovered was Jillian, the docks were about a mile away. People chattered among themselves, enjoying the warmth the sun was offering. Children ran up and down the docks giggling and shoving each other.

It was a pleasant day, but Rowan’s silence was beginning to weigh on me. I refused to ruin a perfectly beautiful day, so I decided to confront the situation I had created.

“Rowan,” I said pulling him to a stop. “I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have kissed you until I knew I was ready. I’m sorry for pushing myself on you.”

His tense shoulders fell an inch and his face softened. “I’m not angry, Moonstone. Let’s just move past it, shall we?”

His long lashes curled up framing his beautiful dark eyes as they crinkled with his smile.

I nodded happily and grateful for his forgiving nature.

“We should be finding Thomas’s uncles shop sometime soon. It’s called the Merchant’s Exchange.”

As soon as the name left his lips my eyes found the shop. The other shops around it were bright and nautical in nature but this shop we overbearingly monochromatic.

Two small windows gave a peek into the small shop and a large sign with brown letters announced its name in a garish font.

“Let’s go.”

Rowan held out a hand for me to take, but something had caught my attention in the crowd. A familiar head of copper hair ducked into a shop, but surely, I was mistaken. It couldn’t be.

“Penelope?”

I shook my head and followed Rowan into the small brown shop. A jingle of bells announced our arrival. Two of the four walls were covered in floor to ceiling bookshelves, lined with identical looking ledgers. A narrow door led to a back office.

The third wall held a portrait of the ocean with ten large boats fading into the sunset. Beneath the portrait, an inscription read, ‘By virtue of exchange, one man’s prosperity is beneficial to all others’.

It was an interesting quote and said a lot about the man Thomas’s uncle was. I wondered if Thomas had found his niche here. He was smart and quick thinking. He’d be able to pick everything up in no time at all.

I picked at the sapphire ring on my right hand endlessly, nervous to face Thomas. It hurt to reject him, but my heart held no room for romantic love for my childhood crush. A click of a door behind me brought me back to the room and out of my thoughts.

“Pen?” asked one of my favorite voices in all of Iweah.

I turned around shyly and held up my hand awkwardly in hello. It wasn’t my first instinct when I saw Thomas, but I held back out of respect for his feelings. I wanted nothing more than to fling myself into his arms and hug my best friend.

Thomas’s shock faded into outright amusement. He held open his arms for me and I quickly dropped my awkwardly held up hand and rushed into his offered embrace.

“Come on, Pen. Things can never be awkward between us,” he chuckled.

I laughed along, relieved he wasn’t angry with me. He released me from his arms and sat at the edge of the lone desk in the front room. He shoved his shirt sleeves up to his elbows and tucked his thumbs into his front pockets. I hid the grin that threatened to slip onto my lips.

Thomas was a good-looking man and he didn’t even know the effect he could have on women if he tried. He’d make some lucky woman happy one day.

“So, what brings you to Clearwater?” he asked. “Not that I mind, it’s just I didn’t expect a visit so soon.”

I looked back at Rowan, who still stood near the door, and motioned him forward. “Thomas, you’ve met Rowan?”

He and Rowan gave each other firm nods in acknowledgment. I rolled my eyes.

Men.

I continued, “Well, you know how I told you about everything going on with Xandra and her sisters?”

“Yeah, body stealing Priestess. I remember. What’s going on?”

And so, we told him. Rowan and I filled him in and what we needed of him.

“So, you need me to take you out on one of my uncle’s boats to these coordinates?”

Rowan nodded.

“The entrance is out on the water?”

“Not exactly,” Rowan answered.

“I’d like to know too,” I piped in.

“It’s in the water,” he clarified.

Oh.

“My sisters and I will recite an incantation for you to enter and hold open the entrance as you pass through. We’ll give you and Tobias two hours to find Xandra’s sisters and do what needs to be done. Then We’ll reopen the entrance at that time. You need to make it back because we won’t be able to open the entrance again for another year. We need the eclipse’s power to boost our own in order to do it. My sisters and I won’t have enough power to accomplish it otherwise.”

Rowan’s plan was a daunting one. “How will you do it if the full eclipse only lasts for a few minutes?”

“We’ll start one hour before and have one hour after it passes to accomplish what needs to be done. It’s a tight window, yeah, but it’s our only window.”

“Are you sure you want to do this, Pen?” Thomas asked worriedly.

I patted his shoulder and nodded. “I’m the only one that can.”

***

I sat at the water’s edge watching the horizon in front of me. Waves of crystal blue water drew close to me before returning to depths of mother nature. I enjoyed the feeling of the tiny droplets of salty water being sprayed onto my face and the feeling of my bare feet nestled into the cool sand.

My fingers ran through the sand as I agonized over the details of the plan for tomorrow but there wasn’t much room for changes. I had to accept that the day of reckoning was upon us.

A cold splash of water hit my face. “Snap out of it, Moonstone. Everything is going to be alright.”

“You didn’t just splash me,” I laughed.

“I’m pretty sure I did,” he grinned playfully.

“You’re going to pay, Hunter Graham,” I said, calling him by his real name.

I hadn’t had a chance to question what he meant by what he said the night before, but there was time for questions later. Right now, he was going to pay.

The shock on his face at hearing his name from my mouth dissipated as he saw me jump up from the ground to chase him. He dashed out of my reach just before my fingers could grasp onto his white t-shirt. I had to come up with something quick or I’d never be able to catch him.

I smiled deviously as a plan took form in my mind. I jogged towards him, making sure he had a full view of my theatrical fall.

I cried out in fake pain as I hit the sand. I curled my leg up into my body and held onto my ankle.

“Penelope, are you okay?” he called from a few yards away.

I cried out in fake agony again and it worked like a charm. The man came running to save the damsel.

As he neared, my heart thumped giddily in my chest.

Just a little bit closer.

When he reached out for my ankle, I attacked. We fell to the ground, rolling and laughing as we neared the shoreline.

Not even five seconds later, I was pinned to the ground, arms out by my ears.

“Did you think that was going to work, Moonstone?” he whispered into my ear, sending tantalizingly erotic thoughts into my mind.

I worked to control my breathing.

“It was worth a try and who’s to say it didn’t work. Maybe I have you right where I want you,” I whispered roughly.

He pulled back to look at me in the face. Darkened celestial eyes stared back at me. They darted to my lips and back up to my eyes. Just as his head dipped closer to mine a voice rang out.

“Penelope.”

A voice I knew well.

Tobias.