For a moment he simply looked at her.
Elia held his gaze, waiting. Her fingers tightened slightly in his shirt, as though bracing for an answer she wasn’t certain she wanted.
“Because the alternative was leaving you there,” he said at last.
Her brow drew together.
Magnus’s voice lowered, controlled but unmistakably hard. “You were about to be handed to men who would’ve used you, traded you, and eventually broken you. I wasn’t going to allow that to happen.”
A faint breath escaped her. The color drained slightly from her face as the reality of that statement settled between them. “So you bought me?”
“So I bought you.”
Her eyes widened a fraction, but she didn’t pull away.
Magnus continued before she could speak, his tone steady and brutally clear. “Not to own you. To remove you. To put you under my protection where no one could touch you without going through me.”
Elia searched his face, as though measuring the truth of every word. “But what did you think you’d get out of it?”
His hand came up, brushing lightly along her cheek before settling at the back of her neck. “What Ihopedto get out of it was simple.” He held her eyes. “Your safety.”
Her lips parted slightly. “Oh, Magnus…”
“And something else,” he added quietly.
She stilled.
“The moment I saw you standing in that room, I knew two things.” His thumb moved slowly against her skin. “First, that the Donatis had no idea what they actually possessed.”
A small, disbelieving sound escaped her.
“And second,” Magnus finished, his voice deepening, “that if I didn’t remove you from that house that night, I would regret it for the rest of my life.”
Silence settled between them for a moment.
“What I should’ve told you the first morning,” he said more quietly, “was that you never owed me anything for it.”
Elia’s grip tightened in his shirt. “You made that clear.”
“Eventually, but not right away.” His gaze held hers. “That was my mistake.”
The honesty moved through her like heat striking cold stone. She’d lived for years in a house where no one admitted to being wrong about anything.
“I know the difference,” she said, “between what you did and what they did.”
“Yes. But you shouldn’t have had to work that out alone.” He reached for her hand and turned her palm upward, tracing the shield Brand with his thumb. “What you experienced from the beginning, in that drawing room before you even knewmy name. That was yours. The bond named it. It didn’t manufacture it.”
Something loosened in her chest. She breathed through it slowly. “And what did you experience?”
“The same,” he admitted. “Long before I had a name for it.”
She set her palm flat against his chest. His heart beat beneath her hand, steady and hard andreal.
“I remember a word you used,” he said. “By the pool, reading the contract. You said you didn’t have the experienceyet.” He pressed her hand more firmly against him. “You had a life before the Donatis took it apart. Law school. Acareer. Work that was yours. Iwant you to finish what they interrupted. Whatever that requires, wherever you need to study, whatever it costs. That isn’t negotiable.”
Her eyes burned. “You’re not going to ask me to disappear into your life?” shesaid.
“I’m asking you to build yours. Alongside mine.” His thumb traced her knuckles. “Those aren’t the same things.”
