My Mate Can't be a Bird! (I swear I'm not into that kind of stuff)

14: Let's Pretend this Bond Has A Mind of it's Own

Recap: While crossing the barrows on her first try, Celaena was assaulted by a valg. She made it back alone, but snuck out again at the break of dawn to take the "test", pretending she never left since the previous day. Now, Rowan has showed up. Will she survive his wrath?

Celaena

Rowan crossed his tattooed arms as Celaena tried not to fidget. Calm down, she thought to herself. Let's play this cool.

"Thanks," Celaena finally replied. "I tried."

Playing it cool was hard to do, though, because she'd been apart from her mate for what the bond insisted was ages. And it now felt like there were butterflies in her stomach every single time his long silver hair fluttered in the wind, or the shadows brought out the contours of his perfect face.

She had to keep herself from throwing herself at him like some kind of madwoman—her arm twitched as she tried not to do something silly like hold his hand or worse, pull him into a kiss.

It was as if the bond wanted to say, enough time has been wasted, you two, now begin mating!! Celaena tried not to gag at the thought.

"It took you a full day and night." Rowan's face was devoid of expression. She didn't know if he knew what she'd been up to yet. 

"Keeping track? I suppose you missed me." Awkward. Should not have said that. Rutting bond making things come out flirty in the strangest circumstances. For many weeks, she'd even had the sneaking suspicion that Rowan was not surprised about the bond; he just had a deep hatred of her due to them being bonded. Now though...

"No. I did not." A hint of anger flickered in his green eyes. Yep. That was no fire of lust in those eyes. He definitely disliked her. Deeply. Great. She could work with this.

"No need to be so uptight, it's just a joke." Celaena didn't know if he did know what she did, or if he was surprised to see her alive. Her best bet was just staying calm and controlling her breathing and heartbeat. His fae hearing could easily detect those telltale signs of her lies.

"Did you use magic?"

"I am alive and well."

Rowan's eyes travelled to her sticks in a disdainful glance. "The deal was no weapons, magic only."

"Well, actually, the deal was no steel weapons of mine, and secondly, I didn't even have to use these sticks. You can check." Celaena held them out for Rowan to inspect. It was getting hot out and she realized she was hungry and thirsty from missing two meals.

"I saw you sleeping yesterday among the barrows," Rowan said finally. "Did you think that was a wise thing to do?"

Oh. The time she met the thing and pissed herself and passed out...He saw that. Celaena cringed.  At least he didn't know the truth. 

"I merely came across the biggest, baddest one here early on," she arranged her words carefully, "then the rest of them were too terrified to do anything even now."

Technically this was true. The wights were scared—just not of her, but the creature. She hoped Rowan wouldn't ask too many questions. Right now he was droning on about how lazy she was for trying to skimp off all her chores all day yesterday.

"And did you feel so secure you could challenge the beasts?" Rowan continued his lecture.

Celaena's stomach growled and she held back an eyeroll of irritation.

"Or perhaps, princess, you did not know how lucky you are to live through the night?"

Rutting hell. Could she get the the answer already? What could she say to make him shut up and send her back already? She suddenly thought of something that fit the bill... But at what cost? Well, who cared, all this hunger was making her restless and dizzy.