Chapter 17
Reagan
“Maybe you could say something to them,” Reagan proposed, tossing the letter across the table.
The morning after the first staff meeting with Varian, Cerridwen sat across from him in her lab, most definitely hearing the frustration in his voice.
Finnegan had returned from court with Malory’s list of time weavers and, along with it, the source of Reagan’s current vexation: an arranged schedule to meet his potential matches. And a deadline to choose one of them.
He’d always known this moment would come, that a Lord of five-and-twenty could not remain unbonded forever. Most had years to choose their partners carefully. He was given three months.
“Me? And what would I say?” Cerridwen asked, wearing that look that told him she already knew what must happen.
“Tell them I don’t plan to die anytime soon.” He sank back in the chair, pressing his fingertips to the inner corners of his eyes as though he could trap his irritation there. “Tell them progress is spectacular with just me. They can grant me one bloody year before I bond with someone.”
He was reaching, and they both knew it.
Sometimes, Reagan loathed his life. It was a blend of obligations and meetings and insufferable people. When his own stray desires crossed his mind, he had to crush them mercilessly. Desires were for people who had choices.
He should have been satisfied. The curse was broken, his access to mana increased by the day, and the tiresome question of whether his soul was virtuous enough to be spared had, mercifully, been answered. Yet satisfaction refused him.
Mountheim had become an unending chain of demands and expectations and after nine years as their Mage Lord, he wanted a reprieve. He wanted a fucking break.
He’d chosen this role once, out of duty to the ghosts of his parents.
Abandoning their legacy would have been worse than knowing their own son had burned their cursed bodies.
It might have been Elinor Reagan’s last disappointment in him, but not a surprise.
So he would endure and fight for it until Godric himself dragged him away.
Nine years later, he had managed to ruin and redeem the estate. It had to come first always. He’d learned that the hard way, so now he already knew he would have to attend the meetings with those women.
“Reagan, what did you expect?” Cerridwen asked quietly. “That man’s patience lasted seven years.”
“He didn’t do it for me,” Reagan muttered. The magister knew nobody would deign to be tied with a cursed man.
“Obviously not. But it’s hardly surprising they’re pushing you to fix it now.”
“Aisling is still ruling alone, and as far as—”
“Aisling bonded last week,” she interrupted tersely.
Reagan stilled, watched his best argument vanish before his eyes.
“You’re officially the last unbonded ruler in the country,” Cerridwen said.
That was it then. His options narrowed with every year. And Cerridwen, for all her proclivity to speak the hard truths, was patient now.
He leaned forward, voice dropping seven shades lower. “She won’t be ready in three months.”
Cerridwen examined her nails, exhaled, then met his gaze. “Then you fulfil your duty.”
He left her then and found Finnegan in the corridor, who fell into step beside Reagan as they made their way to the infirmary.
“What are you going to do?” Finn asked.
“We need more information,” Reagan answered. “And the best spies are—”
“Not about the Order,” Finn corrected, and Reagan took a long moment to respond.
They reached the glass window of the infirmary ward and paused before entering.
Inside, they found both sisters sitting on either side of their father’s bed. Soft, russet curls fell over Jane’s shoulders as she murmured something. Joy seemed to answer in that eased way she reserved for her sister.
Clearly, Jane provided some manner of calm for her. And for him, too.
“I’m still thinking,” Reagan said. He didn’t want to pressure her into this decision, especially since she was navigating too many uncertainties already.
His mother would have told him to speak up, to not draw out the inevitable. She had been plainspoken, unwilling to waste time or words. Reagan had inherited that directness, but this was different. Not everything could be practical; some things required tact and patience.
There was also the matter of Jane’s state of mind, which he should have considered sooner. Instead, he’d only realised it when he saw her panicking in the corridor, pale as death, shaking in a way that shouldn’t have surprised him.
She had grown up in a quiet human town, surrounded by simpletons and little violence. The violence she’d endured must have struck deeper than she let on.
He should have known. She had never faced pain like that before.
It drove his rage in a way that made Reagan wish he could break the Scions all over again. And be more thorough, Varian included.
He’d managed to set aside the murderous urge yesterday while they danced. Only years of learning to compartmentalise allowed him to set his own impulses aside and be there for her. Still, he’d downed an entire bottle to fall asleep.
Jane looked centred now, her panic well tucked away.
“You’re vibrating so much you’re going to shake the entire floor,” Finnegan muttered as they stood outside. “Should I go in alone?”
“You sound just like your uncles,” Reagan replied dryly.
Finnegan scowled. The mere comparison to them was enough to rile him, and the reaction almost amused Reagan enough to improve his mood.
“If you’re going to be a dick…” Reagan said, reining in the pulse of power curling under his skin. “Satisfied?”
It helped that Finn’s steadiness was contagious, enough to temper even the most volatile people. It was what made him an exceptional emissary, so collected that it was difficult to believe he came from that family.
“It may shock you, but I wasn’t trying to be a dick,” Finnegan said. “If you walk in there like this, you might unsettle the younger sister.”
“Are you still worried about her?” Reagan asked, deflecting. “Elaith thinks she’ll learn to control it soon enough.”
Finn shot him a sidelong glance, his mouth twisting. “Perhaps we shouldn’t only be helping her control it but understand why it happens like that.”
It wasn’t the first time Reagan had wondered why Joy could access such levels while Jane barely touched hers.
Several theories crossed his mind, the most likely being that those cursed rings had suppressed their power for so long they’d lost all sensitivity to it.
But while Joy’s lack of control left her unable to manage the raw power she could wield, Jane seemed to sever contact entirely, too guarded and cautious.
He thought he felt her power when she was the most untroubled, when it was clear she wasn’t trapped in her own head.
Those moments usually came when he laid her on her back, had her calling his name again and again as he buried himself in her.
Of course, those moments left him paying little attention to that particular aspect of her access.
If she had come to his chambers last night, he might have felt it again.
But Barracus had sent word that his prick of a cousin had been wandering near the Hall’s outpost after the short staff meeting.
Varian had needed to be escorted out. Reagan wished he could flay his cousin alive and steal back the hours he’d ruined.
Hours Reagan could have spent trying to sense Jane’s access again.
His blood thrummed at the thought, the image of her naked in his bed, the expression on her face when he touched her, the fierce furrow of her brows, the taste of her. Curses, the taste of her…
Finn took a wide step sideways, grimacing. “I don’t want to know what the fuck I just felt, but keep it to yourself.”
Reagan rubbed his fingers over his eyes and inhaled slowly. It was last night’s fault.
“You don’t want to know,” he muttered, and Finnegan scowled. “Come on.”
He moved toward the door as Finn rapped lightly before entering.
They lifted their heads from their conversation.
“I hate to interrupt,” Finn said. “Jane, may we speak with you?”
“I’ll be right back,” she said to Joy, rising from the bed.
Reagan forced his thoughts away from last night as Jane followed them into the corridor. Her dusty hazel eyes met his, glinting with something, and he wondered if her mind had gone where his had. If she was thinking of last night too.
“We retrieved Malory’s list of time weavers,” Finn said. “Madden’s on it.”
Jane frowned. “So Varian was telling the truth. It was Madden who interfered with your curse.”
“It makes sense,” Reagan said, folding his arms. “He’s operating primarily out of Ashenagth. If he could secure control of another estate, he would gain more land and more influence for the Order’s agenda. All he needed was a pliable heir to a title.”
“And your dear cousin was happy to oblige,” she muttered.
“Yes, but he lost that chance, and now they’ll be plotting something else,” Reagan went on.
“I don’t think for one minute that Varian told us everything.
I think the Order is moving quietly, but we don’t know toward what specifically.
We looked into Madden, but he’s careful.
Publicly, there are only mentions of partnerships and funding from other businesses that he is using to expand his influence. ”
“Some of it looks a lot like fronts for shady businesses,” Finn added.
“They don’t disclose much,” Reagan said.
“Madden’s family used to own a mining company years ago.
It supplied raw ores for alchemists to refine into energy-rich ingots.
” At her scrunched expression, he clarified, “Electrical power. More importantly, it relied on human labour. When that became forbidden, their costs soared, and they were forced to shut down much of the operation. It doesn’t run anymore. ”
“So that’s why he’s leaning on Ashenagth to fund the Order,” Jane said. “Maybe he was also hoping to get his funding from Mountheim.”