Chapter 44
Jane
“Does this change things?”
He studied my face with an intensity that made it hard to move, the quick bobbing of his throat the only sign he had heard me.
Reagan drew back, arms loose at his sides. “Jane…your father… I cannot do anything about that.”
I blinked, taken aback by the way he read my question, when asking it had already taken more courage than it should have, especially after days without seeing him. “I know,” I said, eyeing the faint crease between his brows. “But it’s not… I don’t have to lose you too. Not anymore.”
His chest expanded with a silent inhale. “You were right before. Becoming Lady puts a target on your back. You can access mana now, which means you can stay. But it might take years to reach the strength you want.”
To wield as he did. It might not even happen, but that I knew. What instigated a litany of questions was hearing him sound so unsure.
I wondered if he had changed his mind. If that was the reason he’d kept his distance.
“All true,” I murmured, more certain than I expected, “but I’ll be a target either way. Until now, I wasn’t convinced I was mageborn. I just felt like a tired fraud playing with low magic. Like a harried witch.”
A human playing with runes and relics. Not really a hybrid born, not to them.
“But this is proof. True proof,” I went on. “And now, I have every reason to confront the people who would place a target on my back.”
It was a fair assumption that my mother had died because of them. Hiding hadn’t worked for her.
And yes, I was afraid. But I was angry too. So angry at the lies that had kept us from understanding ourselves. My terrible nights of sleep, Joy’s episodes of struggling to control her flux. They all had a reason, and they could have been prevented.
The power lit in my veins was smouldering now, and I welcomed the burn if it meant I could stay.
Reagan looked torn, shaking his head. “I will never forgive myself if something happens to you again.”
Conflict creased the lines of his face, yet some warmth had entered his eyes in the span of this conversation.
We had so little time to decide, being forced by the terms imposed outside of these walls in matters that would change our lives.
If he’d made his mind about this, I would respect it, but not before giving him all the information.
Still breathing hard, I reached for the lapels of his velvet jacket, letting my fingers rest there, feeling his rapid heartbeat.
“I don’t expect it will be easy nor am I expecting you’ll still take me now.
You have stronger prospects than me. But, if you still want me, then I need you to know that I want you.
I want to be the person who gets to love you and help carry your burdens. ”
A tremor coursed through him. In a breath’s moment, his hands cupped my face, eyes intent on every inch of it. Phantom hands brushed my shoulders, my pulse, pulled me closer as he towered over me.
“If we do this, there is no going back,” Reagan said, low, steady. “So you need to be ready for a burdened life with a cynical prick with a beast familiar.”
I pursed my lips, a smile tugging at them, while my heart raced at those wretched words. “How about you make that proposal a little bit more appealing?”
Reluctant amusement gleamed in his eyes as he blinked, half of his face the colour of a dusk sky from the fire.
“But—” Reagan exhaled. “There will be no one else but you. There will be nothing that can keep me from you. There’s no place in this world where I wouldn’t find you. And I won’t let you go again.”
I didn’t want him to. In fact, I wanted to be closer, my grip unyielding on his jacket, holding him to me. My chest rose, yet I couldn’t form a single coherent thought.
“Do you still want me?” he asked.
I understood the stakes and felt almost a vain thrill at what it would mean to rise to the level required of me. To succeed, to defy every expectation and prove every doubt wrong. And to do this meant I could have him.
“Yes. I want you. I’m choosing you,” I said. “Are you sure about me?”
His ice-blue eyes were on my mouth while his thumb swept over the lower lip. It was the lazy smile that eased the pounding in my chest.
“I chose you a long time ago.”
And then his mouth was on mine, hard and fast, reminding me of everything we’d been missing.
He tugged me flush against his chest and lifted me, my arms slung around his shoulders as he carried me not to the door, but to the plush blue couch. Reagan laid me down, and I was pulling my sweater over my head, discarding it onto the floor. Needing to feel as close to him as I possibly could.
I joined him in working at the buttons of his shirt, our hands eager and rapid, his fingers fumbling with one as my shoulders shook against the couch.
He caught my look. “Enjoying that?”
“Immensely,” I said. “Watching you lose a battle with buttons is very funny.”
He shed the shirt, and all humour gave way to heat as I gazed at his chiselled chest, at the wide, muscular shoulders looming above me, the corded arms bracketing my head. The power thrumming around us was as clear as my own pulse, cool and dense, like being enveloped in cedar-scented morning dew.
“It wasn’t the buttons,” he murmured, and his mouth found mine again.
It wasn’t a gentle kiss. It was relentless, famished. His hands glided down my arms while mine clutched his waist, tugging him closer to feel his weight against me. He yielded slightly, his tongue plunging so deep it made my head spin. For this, I would gladly surrender all my senses.
I dug my fingertips into his lower back, silently urging him on. Reagan dragged my bra aside, letting my breast brush the cool air just before his hand cupped me, fingers rolling and pinching. I moaned, arching into him, feeling his lips curl against mine.
My own thoughts repeated, Yes. Yes. Never apart. Never again.
He brought my thighs around his waist, aligning our bodies until his length pressed against the spot throbbing between my legs. Groaning, he pressed harder, every solid part of him grinding against me, each press bringing me one step closer to molten heat.
“Here?” I murmured, my breath catching as his mouth dipped, lavishing attention on my breasts. “In a room anyone could walk into and catch us? I thought I was meant to be the Lady of this estate.”
He stilled, doubt flickering across his face.
I muffled a laugh and angled my chin toward the door. “At least ward the room, so I can be as loud as I want for you.”
Reagan didn’t smile, as if he were already past humour. The ward quickly sealed us in with a muted thrum.
“Then let me hear you,” Caedmon said, his mouth coming down to bite my breast.
A whimper tore from me at the scrapes of his teeth, my attention reducing to the wild feeling of them nipping my flesh.
Distantly, I felt his hands slide to my feet to tug off our shoes.
The soft thud of boots echoed, mingling with the faint crackle of the mantel.
He undid the buttons of my trousers, giving me a warning look before every fabric vanished from below our waists.
His hardness pressed against me, the friction setting fire coursing through my veins. I couldn’t wait any longer. I pushed at his shoulders until he sank back against the couch and I straddled him. Reagan’s chest rose sharply beneath my hands, warm and taut.
Firelight threw us into shadow, yet I could still see his eyes, ravenous and intent, tracking every inch of me.
I reached behind me for the clasp of my bra, my hips grinding slowly as I worked it free.
Reagan hissed between his teeth, his hands cupping my backside, his fingers flexing hard on the cheeks, like he wanted to control my every motion.
I lifted my hips, aligning us before letting him slide in. More. More. Reagan cursed. And then we were moving faster, thrust after thrust, until I was nothing but heat and skin and moans.
Reagan surged upright in a blur, his face flushed, his overwrought nerves evident in his rapid breathing. His hands clamped around my hips, holding me down so I felt every single thrust.
My hands cupped his nape as we held each other’s gaze, and somehow, it felt more intimate than ever, as if we were stripped bare to each other in every sense of the word.
The choices lay before us, and we made them together.
I chose him. I would choose every ordinary moment with him just as willingly as the chaos.
A gasp tore from me, and he slowed.
“Don’t stop,” I whined.
The hand on my hip tightened, anchoring our rhythm once more. “Thank the Grimoire.”
The shock of him, the depth of him, sent rippling pulses through my hips.
Heat built to a breaking point and shattered. I rode the waves with my face buried in his neck. Reagan grunted, his grip bruising as he stilled beneath me and shuddered.
Feathers shimmered in blinding light behind my closed lids, intertwining with a horned shadow shaped like a great beast. The forms, so different yet drawn inexorably together, faded until only darkness remained.
I had no words, only the exhaustion that weighed heavily on my eyelids. He tucked me against his side, something solid beneath my cheek, something soft drawn over me. When sleep came, it was dreamless and restful.