Chapter 43 Rowan Doesn't Back Down, It's Nice.
Malia’s POV
Rowan doesn’t brawl, he's never had.
Rather, he battles with the understated yet unyielding allure of a dancing flame.
It’s the day after I move back into my dorm that it starts.
I slide open my door, still half-aware-I’m there, and sitting there on my desk—right next to my laptop—is a single moonflower. Rigid, shining white petals, glowing with an otherworldly light even in the dim morning light coming through the blinds.
The fragrance hits me like a cool mist: sweet, clean, a tad citric. Rare. Expensive. And I suspect it’s almost as hard to find as you can make out from this, unless of course you happen to know who you pay off in the university’s greenhouse for secretly raising prohibited plants.
There is no note to accompany it, rhat’s because you don't need one. Next day, another.
And morning after that.
Every day new. Always different from an old vase — sometimes a big glass jar, sometimes a small ceramic cup I’ve got in the kitchen. Just one bloom. They always pick one bloom. They always do a moonflower scent. Always there. shining bright. And Yes, It’s always waiting for me when I wake.
I should throw them away too, I ought to tell him to stop.
Instead, I toss them all in an old jam jar on my windowsill, one by one, until the petals begin to wither. Then I press them gently between the pages of my textbooks, tucking them away like secrets I’m not quite ready to reveal.
It's not like he's trying to buy me back, he’s reminding me and It’s working.
That afternoon, I’m halfway through my advanced werewolf metaphysics reading — pages of thed theory about soul bonds and resonance frequencies that might as well be written in ancient Sumerian. My head hurts. Oh, my eyes burn.
There’s a soft knock.
Rowan stands at the doorframe, wearing his hoodie which makes him look like a k-pop star, hands in his pockets, like he’s a little bit expecting me to just slam the door on him.
“I brought coffee,” he says, hoisting two to-go cups. “And … I figured maybe you could use a study partner who actually knows what the hell the textbooks are talking about.”
I stare at him.
He shrugs, sheepish. “I'm not Aiden. I won’t growl at the textbook until it submits. But I did get an A last semester.”
I let him in.
We sit on the floor because my desk is covered in moonflowers and notes. He unfolds his own tattered copy of the text—pages highlighted in three colors, tiny notes in the margins in his neat, slanted handwriting.
He describes resonance theory in the same way most people describe how to make toast: with patience, clearly, and no condescension when I have to have him say something a few times.
When I understand at last, he grins — not smug, just pleased. “There she is.”
I roll my eyes but I’m smiling.
Then he's off making fun of himself. “I really was just a lot of nodding and smiling in class pretending like I knew what I was thinking while yelling to my soul ‘what the hell is liminal resonance even really mean.’” He pulls a face, clutching his chest. “I still have nightmares about Professor Hale asking me to define it in front of everyone.”
I laugh— genuine, unexpected laughter that catches me off guard. He looks at me like that sound is some kind of treasure.
“Keep laughing that way,” he says softly, “and I’ll tell you all about quantum entanglement until the sun comes up.”
I duck my head, blush in the cheeks.
He isn’t pressing, he never pressures.He just…stays.
Assisting and listening and making me laugh when everything will be too heavy. And steadily, recklessly, I begin to lean into it.
The gentleness, the patience.
The fact that he never makes me pick him — he simply arrives, consistent and comforting, like a hearth fire left burning for somebody who might one day come home.
Aiden is wildfire, a cute wildfire though. Ugh! What am I saying?
Rowan is the quiet dawn after the blaze and I’m beginning to want the stillness.
That night he texts me.
Observatory rooftop. 9 p.m.
Dress warm. Don’t bring anything else.
Or he mean ‘Anyone’ else? I almost say no.
Almost.
But the moonflowers on my windowsill are still faintly radiant in the dark, and my heart is a traitor.
I go.
The campus observatory is atop the highest hill, a small dome with a roof that slides open that’s more often than not reserved for astronomy classes. Tonight the door is unlocked. Rowan waits just inside, bundled in a thick wool coat, his scarf loose around his neck, hair messy from the wind.
He smiles when he sees me—small, hopeful, as if he wasn’t sure I’d come.
“Come on,” he says. “The sky’s clear for once.”
He led me up the narrow metal stairs to the telescope.
The dome is open. Stars flow in, bright and crisp in the velvet black. No light pollution here. Just cold air and sky without end.
He fiddles the telescope with cautious fingers and then retreat.
“First one’s for you.”
I’m leaning in. The view takes my breath away: the Orion Nebula, gentle swirls of pink and blue gas illuminated as if by spilled watercolor.
Rowan is standing right behind me — not touching, but close enough that I can feel his warmth radiate through my coat.
“That’s M42,” he murmurs. “A star nursery.
Violent, beautiful. It all begins there, in chaos.”
He lets me look as long as I want. Then he assumes command, swinging the telescope gently to new points on the sky.
He points out to me Cassiopeia—“the queen on her throne, vain and eternal.”
Pegasus—“the winged horse that dreams are ridden on.”
At last he points out a wispy, sprawling constellation close to the horizon.
“That one,” he says, voice softer now, “is Lyra. The lyre of Orpheus.”
I follow his finger.
“There’s a romantic tale to say he went through the underworld to bring Eurydice back because he loved her so much in life. He nearly succeeded. But he looked back — he couldn't help it — and lost her forever.”
I swallow.
Rowan’s voice stays steady.
“But there’s a part that most people don't mention. When she was gone, he roamed with his music so devastating that even trees would cry. And when he died, they placed his lyre in the sky so that his song would never end.”
He turns to look at me.
“‘That constellation—Lyra—stands for eternal love.’ The kind that waits. The kind that never stops singing whether or not there is someone listening. The kind that doesn’t call for compensation.”
My throat clenches. His hand is rising slowly, all the time allowing me to retreat, step by step.
I don’t, his fingers find mine. Cold from the night air, but steady.
Heat radiates from the contact point up my arm and nests behind my ribs.
“I’m not asking you to pick me tonight,” he says tenderly. "I'm not asking you to promise me anything. I just… I want you to know that if you ever think of quiet instead of fire, if you ever think of someone who’ll wait as long as it takes, I’ll be here.”
His thumb glides a single time over my knuckles.
“I’ll be here tomorrow, too. And the day after. Until you tell me to stop.”
The stars above us seem to be within arm’s reach.
I look down at our hands clasped. His hand is larger, hardened from years of training, but still he holds mine as if I were made of glass.
I think of the moonflowers, the study sessions.
The way he never accused me of lying, never tried to rush me, never raised his voice or offered to bet on whether of race i belonged to.
Tonight, under my scarf, I thought about Aiden’s wolf pendant, heavy against my neck. I think of Cian’s unwavering grey eyes, taking in all, saying nothing.
And I know – with a breath-snatching stab – I’m not just being pulled apart.
I’m terrified.
Because I could love any of them and loving all of them might break us all.
But for now, beneath this wide sky, Rowan’s hand warm in mine, his constellation of patient love illuminating the darkness above us, I do not break away.
Instead, I give his fingers a gentle squeeze. Just once.
Just enough to tell them, I hear you. I‘ll tell you when I’m ready to let go. Or just enough to say: I‘m not done yet.
He doesn’t ask for more, he just smiles — that quiet little smile that feels like home — and goes back to the stars.
We stay like that until the cold drives us inside.
Until the dome closes and until the night ends.
But the feeling doesn’t. The feeling of someone who wanted to wait hangs on my skin long after we say goodbye.
Like moonflower petals pressed between pages or like starlight caught in the hollow of my throat.
This is like a promise I didn’t know I needed…