Sitting there with Nite and Rexford made him quiet. He’d never gotten to spend much time with Rexford, not before, nor after. But he sat beside Mads on the floor, sushi tray in hand. Heclumsily ate with chopsticks while Mads stuffed soaked fish into his mouth to chew in a way he definitely knew was rude.
“Enjoying yourself?”
Yep! I can taste so much like this.Mads also didn’t have to stop eating to talk, as something of the telepathy made his mind project words he would have spoken and some he wouldn’t. Like right that moment.Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought this would be us one day.
“The trash panda part or the raw fish part?” Rex tried to pick up a fish-covered pat of rice and failed a few times before eating it with his fingers almost guiltily.
Any of it. I imagined you’d be a wandmaker like Marquis, and just as stuffy. You’re as wild as I ever could have wished to be.Mads huffed a little raccoon’s sigh.
“I have the knack for it, but when I was young, nobody would teach me, so I only got the basics from Father. Baron, as the head, would have had to teach me, or I would have had to go off to Wales for a century. I’d still be there learning and would have never met Nite.” He scruffed at his hair and smiled.
There’s still time.
Rex reached out, fingers spread, and stroked over Mads’s head with an experimental touch. Almost affectionate. “I’m from a different time in mage life. I was born for a different purpose. I lead. I feel like my purpose is to undo all the harm wish worked. I was born to bring the magical world back together. Wands are not where my talent lies. I’m born of a union between highborn mages and low. I have shifter blood, I assume.”
As far as I know. I’m not certain who my alpha father was. I’ll find out one day, if the tests they say exist now will work.Mads stuffed another piece of fish into his mouth, unable to hold back. Raccoony instinct was no joke.
“In any case. It’s good to have you, Papa. I know we missed a lot, but I’ll be here. I want you in my life, and my sons will growup having a grandpeep.” Rex sat his tray down and opened his arms for a hug that came so naturally despite the furry form.
Mads melted when Rex plucked him up and squeezed, fingers scritching into coarse fur in a soothing way. “Besides, I believe you have every right to a do-over without guilt. Start the family you dreamed of. I was a gift to the mage world to undo so much wrong, and you love me. That will be enough.”
He sat Mads down and smiled before climbing up to stand and stretching. “Good to have you here, Papa.”
Marquis, having been speaking to others at the time, wandered over, almost the same as when they’d met all those years ago, maybe a few extra gray hairs. He was the man Mads had chosen to marry for better or worse. Time would come for his cups to overflow.
For their honeymoon, they’d gone to Europe all those years ago while Marquis’s estate was being readied for them. He’d inherited it and a nesting fund from one of his grandparents, so when they returned and Marquis set about forming his own subsidiary coven and wandmaking studio, they were living frugally, even more so when Mads wound up in the family way soon after. Mads was horny and Marquis an absolute animal at the first whiff of estrus. He wondered if his mate was the same male he’d been all those years ago.
When Marquis’s deep tones brushed Mads’s ear, he froze. “Perhaps we should retire for the evening. I feel quite the unseemly fool sitting here growing aroused by a raccoon in my lap.”
Mads chirped and nearly dropped the slice of fish he was nibbling on. So, when Marquis excused them and gathered Mads’s clothes, nobody said anything other than a polite good night or a reminder to check in come morning.Or what passed for morning among mages.
Marquis walked fairly calmly for a male intent upon debauchery of the marital kind, his grace and poise as delicate as Mads ever remembered. Though, while being small and furry, it was an entirely new experience, one where Mads could experience a new level of his gentleness. But even as a familiar, Marquis didn’t look at Mads any differently. Part of him wondered if that would be the only reason Marquis took him back, because he was more valuable. But no. Mads was Mads.
They entered the designated motel room, the old carpet clean and bed made comfortably. It held none of the ostentation that the Eclipse coven were known for, but the comfort couldn’t be denied as Marquis settled him down and let him shift, bare body presenting in a sprawl. “This feels familiar.”
Marquis smiled as he plucked at the button of his collar and slid his tie free. In his eyes lay that same dark, feral heat that Mads had enjoyed once upon a time. When their story was young. And from Mads’s perspective, their story had ended on chapter two. The bookmark nothing but a lock of hair and a promise.
Mads lost himself in the memory of all those years ago.
In the beginning, there was the hero from a good family, a good name, and the savior of his people in the making. And there was the gutter snipe hopelessly drawn to a prince, and true love was borne from a night of Tolstoy, cold chicken, and a hot bath. Nobody foresaw how Marquis’s father would demand they wed—partially to keep Baron’s indecency quiet. And while Arthur had never openly welcomed Mads, he’d never treated him unkindly.
It shocked all of them when Marquis had accepted the arrangement.
“You barely know me,” Mads had told him at the time.
“A Penumbra has intuition in their heart. If Marquis agrees and says your magic is pleasing, it is because he knows your soul.I cannot tear apart that which destiny has united.” Arthur had dismissed Marquis and kept Mads behind.
“Speak with me. Are you in the family way? Has Baron done you irreparable harm?” At least Arthur acknowledged that his son was cruel.
“No, sir. I come from a broken home, and one does not break the limb from the tree they want a wand from.” Mads drew an old phrase his father had used. One did not secure their destiny by force. They let it come naturally.
Arthur nodded sagely, tenting his fingers. “You would say yes to Marquis?”
“If he wants to form a union, I wouldn’t oppose. He’s a good man and a gentleman.” Mads had been honest. “I wanted to seduce him out of spite, but he spent the night comforting me.”
Arthur lifted a brow, the corner of his mouth ticking up. “This stays between you and me. Baron, by mage and wand law, has to be the favored son, the inheritor. Marquis would be a better choice.”
Mads didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing.
