He didn’t try to hold back his laugh. “I love how you don’t take me seriously.”
“You say that because I’m probably the only one,” she said pragmatically. “I imagine I’ll have to learn that from you, how to be taken seriously as Lady.”
Reagan felt the conviction in her words tug at his chest. “I cannot wait to see,” he said, pulling her closer. “Maybe we should let them watch you divine in an Audience. You did look terrifying then.”
“Were you scared?” she asked, purely curious.
“Shitless,” he said, without humour. Between the bloody tears, the pale eyes, and the thing that had looked back at him through her, he had almost forgotten how to breathe.
A quiet giggle escaped her, then faded too quickly as her focus slipped somewhere else. Reagan felt it happen, the way her thoughts shifted as worries crept back in.
“We have to tell Malory about my father,” she whispered.
All the ease drained from her voice, and he tucked a curl behind her ear. He imagined the same grief he knew running through her now, wishing things could be different. Wishing the love of his life wouldn’t lose her father.
“Not today,” he said. “Today, I tell Malory about us.”
Her watery eyes lifted to his, but Jane seemed at a loss for words. Reagan let his power drift through her skin, softening and warming it.
“I can buy you a few more days,” he said dolefully. “There will be adjustments to his life so he is cared for. You can visit himand speak to him, but he cannot know who you truly are. It isn’t allowed to keep family ties known.”
She took a long inhale, as if gathering herself, and nodded. Her gaze dulled with it.
Reagan reached for their scattered clothes, motioning for her to put on his shirt while he stepped into his drawers. The deep furrow between her brows gnawed at him.
He summoned two mugs of coffee from the kitchens—milk for her, black for himself. Her hands curled around the warm ceramic, steam wafting in the space between them.
It was only a matter of time before someone came looking for him.
“There is a sigil I would like to draw at the house,” she said, fastening the last button. “It works as a warning for me of ill intent near him.” He was not surprised that she’d already prepared. “And I wanted to ask you to raise a ward around him, especially now that more people will know about us.”
“Done,” he said immediately, already planning the same.
Jane worried her nails as she thought. “Maybe in the future, I will be able to do it myself.”
Reagan’s mouth curled despite the forced hope in her voice. “Definitely,” he murmured, kissing the corner of her mouth. He lifted her chin so she would meet his unworried expression, her eyes reddened at the edges. “He will be safe and well.”
She gave her assent, stiff but practical. “What happens now?”
“Now,” he breathed, “we have a bonding ceremony, so you are officially and irrevocably mine. And Mountheim’s.”
His tone tried to lighten the mood.
She hummed, wiggling her brows, and studying him. “Do you tell your prospects?”
He frowned. “My what?”
She pursed her mouth, but a smile hid behind it. “The women you were courting.”
“Hm.” He gave her a wicked look. “Would you like to break the news to them?”
She scoffed and feigned pulling away, but he held the shirt. She set her mug on the floor. “You’re ridiculous.”
He finished his coffee and ditched the mug. “Fine. I will break the news today.”
Jane slid closer on the couch and trailed a finger over his chest in the shape of the protection rune. Her voice dropped, hesitant, when she asked, “Did you…”
Her lips opened and closed. She seemed to regret the question before she finished, but he already knew.
