Chapter 3 #2
“My love,” he said, setting his big hands on her shoulders, only compassion and no exasperation in him now.
The simple words held a world of meaning.
With Bria sleeping peacefully between them, sheltered in the circle of his loose embrace, Nic felt herself settle.
The three of them together in this quiet early morning, the manse not yet awake, rain pattering outside…
It seemed possible that all could be right with the world.
“Let’s try solving this conundrum via a new path,” he suggested.
“We all agreed to wait. We’ve been waiting—”
“For weeks!” she interjected. “Soon it will be two months.”
“Right. For a long time, but we never defined what we were waiting for.”
She supposed that was true. “I guess for things to settle down.” Like Bria, she thought, looking again at her adorable healthy daughter.
“Yes, for Bria to get a bit older. For you to heal from childbirth.”
“For someone to contact us,” she pointed out. “To find out something, anything.”
“Which is what set you off this morning. That we haven’t heard anything from any of them.”
“Yes! I thought that Han and Iliana would at least have sent word. If we could find out what’s so blasted important in those hidden archives from House Phel, we’d have negotiating power with the Convocation. But House Harahel isn’t—”
“I know, I know.” He breathed a quiet laugh and squeezed her shoulders. “House Harahel isn’t communicating. How about this? We agree that going to House Elal is a bad idea for anyone at all.” He paused meaningfully. “Don’t we?”
She nodded reluctantly. He knew her well enough to suspect that she’d been in part scheming about a way to sneak off to Elal and speak to her father personally, perhaps visit with Alise to assess her sister’s wellbeing for herself.
It pained her to think of leaving Bria, but the baby was old enough now to not need her mother every moment—and Bria had a veritable entourage of people wanting to cuddle, carry, and feed her.
Nic had even worked out a kind of a plan for traveling to Elal.
Only knowing how panicked Gabriel would be to discover her gone had stopped her.
Well, that, and that it wasn’t a watertight plan.
Watching her now with his keen black gaze, Gabriel dipped his chin knowingly.
“I understand how very difficult it’s been for you to wait all this time.
I want you to know I appreciate it. That you’ve held back for so long shows me that you love me more than any words could. ”
She swallowed back the sudden tears. “I do love you.”
“I know. And I love you.” He flexed his fingers on her shoulders. “And because I do, I say let’s go to House Harahel.”
“Really?” Her heart lifted with such incredulous hope that she realized just how heavily inaction had weighed on her spirits.
She was not a person who was accustomed to letting others take action; Nic had always wanted to grab a situation with her own two hands and wrench it into the direction she wanted.
Arguably, she’d gotten herself into trouble that way—what with trying to escape her arranged marriage, an unwanted pregnancy, and the future designed for her by the Convocation—but ultimately it had all worked out.
And look at her now, with a loving husband and wizard, a very much wanted child, and more control over her fate and future than she could have imagined.
“It’s about time we paid a social call on some high houses in the neighborhood.”
She arched her brows. “House Harahel is hardly in the neighborhood, and they are definitely not in the social whirl. No one pays them courtesy visits.”
He smiled innocently. “Too bad I’m such a Phel outcast that I don’t know these things.”
Laughing, she shifted Bria and extracted a hand to lay on his chest, right over his heart. “I appreciate this. I really do. This—you, Bria, and me—matter so much, but Alise is important to me, too. I’m more than a wife and mother.”
“More than my familiar?” he teased with an arch look.
She flushed at the reminder of some of their early arguments. “More than that, too.”
“You’re also your own person, Nic,” he said firmly. “I’m well aware that you need to be part of what Alise, Cillian, and the others have been working on.”
“Yes. I can’t know that I could be doing something and am… not.”
“It matters to me, too. Not just for House Phel’s future, but for the Convocation. You once said I was the sort to knock myself brainless against the wall of their detestable social norms. I’m on board for a way to tear down that wall while keeping my skull intact.”
She had to smile. “Always the idealist and iconoclast.”
He picked up her hand in his and raised it to kiss her fingers. The sensual brush of his lips gave her a shiver as he spoke against her skin. “I may have ulterior motives. For a tame and safe visit to the high house of archivists and librarians, we can leave our darling daughter contently at home.”
With her fingers still caressed by his clever lips, Nic’s blood heated and her breath caught. They hadn’t had sex since Bria was born, Gabriel solicitously insisting that her body health. “What ulterior motives?” she asked breathlessly.
“I’m thinking about some time with my favorite lover,” he murmured. “How are you feeling?”
“Asa says I’m healed.” The wizard healer had pronounced her fit for “any and all activities” some time before, but Gabriel had wanted to wait a few more, just to be sure, and wouldn’t be swayed—to her great frustration.
“Yes, I know. But how are you feeling?”
She tamped down her impatience with his obdurate ways. Once Gabriel had fixed on a direction, he couldn’t be swayed. “Ready to spend some time with my favorite lover,” she replied huskily.
“Good,” he rumbled, passion making his voice deeper. The clouds outside had cleared, she realized, the spiky silver motes in the air vanishing back into formless moon magic. “Let’s begin the competition for who gets to take care of Bria while we’re away. It’s going to be a feeding frenzy.”
“So true. But it should be your parents. They wouldn’t forgive us otherwise.”
“All right, but they have to move into the manse, where they’ll have the best protection.”
“I’ll let you tell them that,” she said with feeling.
“Coward.”
“Guilty.” She cuddled Bria closer. “It’s going to be hard to leave her.”
“Changing your mind?”
“No.” She needed a chance to step out and be someone besides a mother again. Taking steps to help Alise and attack their many problems was a great way to start. “Let’s leave today.”