Finally, I lowered my hips, and he groaned against my chest.
“My darling Jane, you’re my home.”
I kissed him again, my arms wrapping around his neck as he lifted me by the thighs, moving me along his length. Our breaths came ragged, panting.
Instinct, or some nameless feeling I didn’t seek to understand, didn’t dare to, whispered the same unrelenting words through my mind.
He felt like home too.
CHAPTER 27
The celebration of Reagan’s twenty-fifth birthday was near, but he couldn’t have looked more detached from the thought of it.
Tension gathered beneath his skin like a living thing. He had grown quieter with each passing day, sometimes vanishing from the Hall altogether. To where, I didn’t know, and I didn’t ask. Not when I had seen the quiet warning in his eyes.
We still spoke over dinner and in my room at night, as if we were circling a dark wall in the centre of a room. I tried to hide my concern and frustration at the secrets he kept.
I had been hoping for our next liaison, wanting to gain more experience as an emissary. But there seemed to be no new opportunities to work or visit other places.
Today, it was just the two of us in the training room.
“It’s a ward bound to you. It should keep any charm from compelling or hurting you. Except mine, of course, since it’s my own ward.”
Reagan had told me there was no infallible layer of protection, but some were harder to break, especially when the density of mana was higher, like his.
“Your rune scar won’t shield you from everyone. I, for one, know how to circumvent runes. It’s not common knowledge, at least. It’s complicated. But if that happens, or if something happens to the ward, the best protection you have is knowing how to recognise when someone is targeting you. You might have only seconds to sense if someone is trying to slip into your mind or compel you to do something you don’t want to.”
I reined in my disappointment that the Algiz on my thigh could not protect me from everything.
“How will I know?”
With his palm facing upward, he let a sliver of his mana hover above his hand, the white tendril circling his finger. “There are signs. If you smell this...”
A metallic scent, like copper with a hint of sweetness, coated my tongue. I wrinkled my nose as I nodded.
“Or this.”
The light vanished, and for a heartbeat, there was nothing. Then a dull ache surged between my temples, faint at first but growing. He stopped.
“If you feel anything like that, or sudden numbness, someone might be targeting you. You can’t let your guard down, and you need to be quick in sensing it.”
“All right,” I said, keeping my voice deliberately light. “Please don’t do that again. Our run earlier was headache enough.”
He frowned. “This is serious. You need to hear what I’m telling you.”
“Of course this is serious. I understand that.” I sighed. “Why are you so worried today?”
His words were sharp. “I’m focused. You need to do the same. You’re not in a position to be careless.”
The sting of his words pressed down on me, and I bit back my retort. He was just stating the truth as he saw it, but it still struck a nerve.
As if I wasn’t doing enough, wasn’t trying hard enough to be prepared, or wasn’t taking it seriously.
“Are you wearing the embroidered clothes yet?” he asked, his focused gaze sweeping over my outfit as if he were already displeased with the answer.
I swallowed, my tone clipped. “Not yet.”
“You should be wearing at least one by now, Jane.”
