"Can you feel it?" Yelena asked and sank to her knees. She rested her hands and cheek on the grass. "It's all around me, I've never sensed anything like it."
"What are you feeling? The magic?" Valentine asked, smiling at her enthusiasm.
"Magic, yes, but it's love. Everything is pulsing with love. Generations of it," Yelena replied, her voice dreamy and her eyes filling with tears. "The house loves you. The family loves the house, and it goes around and around."
Valentine looked up and saw the dark stone, the statues of dragons, and the stained glass, which he knew would shine so brilliantly in the day.
"Yes, we love it. A house that was built and lived in by generations of magicians is never going to be normal. You can't see the towers from the outside, but they are there," he replied.
Yelena got up off the grass, her smile so bright that it made his heart hurt with how much feeling and love pulsed through it.
"Show me everything, Valentine," she said breathlessly.
They left her armor, their weapons, and filthy boots in the mud room on the way into the house. A few weeks ago, Valentine's soul would have recoiled to leave them like that. A lot had changed in those weeks, him most of all. The house cleaning spells would tend to them. He didn't need to do it himself, so he could stop thinking about it. He no longer felt the obsessive need to control everything around him.
"You can wander the house as much as you like tomorrow. For now, I need to show you to the kitchen so I can feed you," Valentine said, guiding her down the halls.
"I don't know what I expected from your house, but I didn't expect it to feel so…right," Yelena commented, stopping to look at a painting of Cosimo's parents with him and his sister, Maria. "This feels so welcoming."
"It's because you are welcome, now and always. You aren't just a part of the wider family. You aremyfamily. A Greatdrakes. This can be your house as much as it is mine. You can even have the last name if you want it," Valentine assured her.
"I think I would really like to be a Greatdrakes," she whispered, as if she was scared to say it out loud.
Valentine recalled the wards around her tower in Faerie and the way those outside of Taranis and his knights had treated her. Had that ever felt like a safe place for her? Her blood family had abandoned her, too.
"You will be a Greatdrakes as soon as you want to be." Valentine took her in his arms. "You will never have to protect yourself here either, baby girl. No one and nothing will ever hurt or harm you. You are always going to be safe here with me."
Yelena pressed her face into his chest. "Thank you, Valentine. Thank you for choosing me to be your mate and loving me."
"You are easy to love, Yelena. I'm the grumpy bastard."
She sniffed. "You had your reasons. I'm sorry. I don't know why this is making me so emotional."
"It's been a trying day, and we are both exhausted. Don't cry, love. We are home, and that's a good thing," he said, rubbing her back.
"It's beendaysfor me, Val. I thought I was going to lose my mind waiting for you to activate that token," Yelena corrected, letting him go.
"Tell me about it?" Valentine asked.
Yelena wiped at her cheeks. "You first."
They washed their hands in the kitchen sink, and Valentine talked. He got her seated at the kitchen table before he went hunting in the fridge. He wanted to hug Bas a million times over when he found frozen minestrone soup. His brother's meal-prepping tendencies were always a good thing. Valentine heated the soup, poured wine, and toasted bread while telling her about Midir.
"It felt like hours to me in that place. I knew time was screwy in there. You only have to look at the ageless, young fae in there, but I didn't realize how messed up it was," he said, setting her up with a steaming bowl, an extra glass of water, and bread for dipping.
"Sit, Val. This is more than enough," Yelena said, amusement in her eyes.
"My dragon is worried. It needs to look after you. I don't know how and..."
Yelena took his hand. "Val, it's all I need. Sit down and eat with me."
Valentine sat. His appetite was usually nonexistent, and he was surprised by how ravenous he suddenly felt. "How did it go with you? Two days is a lot more time than I thought we had to get people in place."
Yelena swallowed a mouthful of soup. "I'm glad you wrote them letters because they were all mad. We expected that, but I honestly thought Cosimo was going to shift. He was scared for you."
Valentine pushed a hand through his hair. "I knew he would be. I thought now I had shifted, he would have trusted that I could handle the situation."
"He knew you could handle it, but he's your father. He's always going to be scared for you."
