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The light on Adelaide’s palm vanished as she slumped forward, and Regulus caught her shoulders. “Adelaide?” When she didn’t respond, he pushed her hair away from her face. Her eyes were closed, and her head lolled to the side.
“Adelaide!” Lord Belanger shoved Regulus aside and pulled his daughter into his arms. She slumped against him, limp and unmoving, her eyes still closed. Belanger rested the back of her head in the crook of his arm. “Ad, wake up.” He glared at Regulus. “What happened?”
“She healed my arm, then started healing my ribs.” Regulus touched his ribs. He suspected they were still cracked, but as usual, her magic had numbed the area. “She started looking ashen, and her eyes went all unfocused, and then she swayed and she...passed out.” Tendrils of dread threaded through Regulus’ heart.
“She shouldn’t be using her magic at all!” Lady Belanger crouched between him and Adelaide and took Adelaide’s hand.
“Wait, wait, Adelaide is a mage?” The wiry man with mousy brown hair Adelaide had called brother crossed his arms. “Since when?”
“Mages are born, so forever,” Lady Belanger said, her voice rising. “We kept it a secret for her protection.” She gave Regulus a look that could kill. “To prevent things like this! Like everything that has happened since she met you!”
He ducked his head. “The sorcerer would have found her whether she met me or not. Whether she kept her magic secret or not.”
“I’ve half a mind to have you thrown in the dungeon, you—” She added several words in Khast that were clearly not complimentary.
Lord Belanger cleared his throat. “Tamina, this anger isn’t helping.”
“There’s a sorcerer now?” the brother shouted.
They all ignored him. Regulus sat up and shifted to see around Adelaide’s mother. Adelaide’s lips were parted, and her chest rose and fell in gentle, rhythmic breathing. She looked peaceful, if exhausted. Please be okay.
A guard walked in and saluted Lord Belanger. “My lord, Nolan Carrick has escaped.”
Regulus leaned back against the couch, dread replacing his relief. Their best chance had been to take Carrick while he was weakened. He remembered the fury and precision with which Adelaide’s mother had thrown those knives and felt a growing discomfort about her current disposition toward him.
Lord Belanger nodded. “Double the guards. Make sure everyone knows what Nolan Carrick looks like. If he approaches the castle, attack to kill, but proceed with caution. He is a monster, not a man.” The guard bowed and departed, but Belanger’s last words cut Regulus to his core.
He had also born that mark. He had also benefited from strength, speed, and immortality granted by sorcery. Was that how Adelaide’s parents saw him? A monster, not a man?
“She needs taken to her room,” Lady Belanger said.
Belanger moved to stand, still holding Adelaide. He grimaced and dropped back down. “My back... I can’t lift her. Landon, give me a hand.”
The brother’s eyebrows lifted. “Me?”
“No, I’ll carry her.” Regulus knelt next to Lord Belanger and moved his arms under Adelaide’s legs and back. Something metal and sharp pressed under his chin and he froze. He looked at Lady Belanger out of the corner of his eye. She held her dagger to his throat, her mouth curled down. “Tell me why I should trust you.”
“Because Adelaide trusts me.”
“Tamina,” Belanger said gently. She looked at her husband without lowering her blade. “Adelaide intends to marry him.” His expression was unreadable. “I haven’t decided if I’ll allow that, but he’s right. She trusts him. Maybe don’t kill the man your daughter wants to marry just yet.”
The tip of the dagger pressed into Regulus’ skin and he tried to control his breathing. After a moment, she lowered the dagger. “All right. But if I determine you have tricked or hurt my daughter in any way, if you are anything less than the man Adelaide deserves, I will slit your throat without a second thought.”
“I understand.” He picked up Adelaide. Thanks to Adelaide’s magic, his ribs didn’t hurt, but they would doubtless complain about this later. Her head rolled onto his shoulder. “Which way?”
Lord Belanger stayed behind to talk to his son while Lady Belanger led Regulus to Adelaide’s room. He hadn’t been thinking about how large the castle was when he decided to carry her, but he wasn’t about to let her out of his sight. And he disliked the idea of Landon, who appeared to hold little affection for his sister, carrying her.
The pain in his ribs returned faster than he had hoped, although not as bad as before Adelaide started healing them. She must have undone at least some of the damage. Still, to his irritation, his lungs soon burned, but he pressed on. He had done fine before his bond to the sorcerer, he could manage fine now. Besides, he was used to pain.
Lady Belanger pulled back the thick blanket on Adelaide’s four-poster bed and Regulus laid Adelaide down as gently as possible. She didn’t even stir as he moved her head onto her pillow and brushed her hair away from her face. He kissed her forehead, then winced at the hissing intake of breath from Lady Belanger. He kept his heated face turned away from her by pulling the covers over Adelaide.
“All right, that’s enough,” Lady Belanger said. “Out.” With a sigh, he turned away from the bed.
“Reg...” He spun back, bending over Adelaide. Her eyes fluttered as she tried to keep them open. “Regulus.”
“I’m here.” He pulled her hand out from under the covers and clasped it in his own. She wrapped her fingers around his hand and shifted, moving over on the bed.
“Don’t leave me.”
“I won’t.” He rubbed her hand. “I promise.”
Adelaide’s eyes drifted shut and her breathing deepened. She still clung to him. He sat on the edge of the bed, unwilling to extricate his hand.
Lady Belanger cleared her throat. “You can’t stay here.”
He bit back his initial response. I’ve spent the last several days and nights with your daughter unattended, I’m not going to do anything untoward now. Might not help his case much. “She asked me to stay.”
The door opened with a quiet squeak of the hinges, and Lord Belanger peeked in. He frowned at Regulus before stepping inside and closing the door behind him. Lady Belanger crossed her arms.
“He won’t leave.”
“She asked me not to,” he repeated.
Lord Belanger raised a brow.
“She was half asleep,” Lady Belanger protested.
Lord Belanger continued to survey them without speaking. Regulus focused on Adelaide. She looked serene. Unworried. And beautiful as ever.
“He’s in love with her; of course he won’t leave.” Regulus looked up. Adelaide’s father looked resigned.
“Hmph.” Lady Belanger gripped her braid. “I always feared she’d fall for someone like you. All stubbornness and passion with a warrior soul and a stupidly self-sacrificial heart.”
“I’m very unsure if you’re insulting me or complimenting Lord Hargreaves,” Belanger responded with a grin.
“Both.” She sighed and cut a disgruntled glower toward Regulus. “She needs someone to tame her wild spirit, not encourage her recklessness and put her in more danger.”
Regulus frowned. “With all due respect, my lady, Adelaide doesn’t need tamed. She’s as dangerous as the nickname you gave her.” He combed his fingers through her hair spread across her pillow. “She’s a shiraa. Like a tigress, she shouldn’t be caged. She’s perfect as she is.” He looked back at Adelaide’s parents. “And I love her. I’m going to marry her.”
“The last man who said that viciously attacked us in our own home,” Lady Belanger said, but most of the venom had vanished from her tone.
Regulus clenched his free fist against his leg. “I would never hurt Adelaide or anyone she loves of my own free will. I would gladly die for her.”
Belanger tilted his head, regarding Regulus with a thoughtful expression. “What if I challenged you to a duel?”
“What? Why?” The ache in his ribs increased as he tensed.
“For getting my daughter enslaved to a sorcerer, even temporarily.” Belanger folded his arms and narrowed his eyes. “For putting her in a situation where she suffered pain and could have died. For letting a sorcerer take her magic. For calling her reputation into question by appearing with her after several days, alone.” Belanger shrugged. “Take your pick. I have more reasons to challenge you than not to at this point.”
“Please.” Regulus swallowed back the knot in his throat. “Don’t.”
He couldn’t argue. Even though he did everything under compulsion, even though he had tried to keep Adelaide as safe as he could when he didn’t have the choice of saying no, he had still done all those things. His shoulders sagged.
“Whatever punishment or recompense you see fit, I will do it. Put me in the stocks, order me lashed, tell me what payment you want. But don’t challenge me.” He let his head fall. His chin rested against his chest. Exhaustion weighed him down. “Because I will accept, but I won’t fight you. I won’t harm my love’s father.”
“I won’t give you my blessing.”
“Then I’ll have to earn it.” He met Belanger’s stare and squared his shoulders. They stared at each other for what felt like a small eternity, but Regulus refused to be the first to look away.
Lord Belanger’s expression eased into a smile. “I like him, Mina.” Regulus let himself relax and shifted to ease the growing pain in his ribs.
“Of course you do.” Lady Belanger flung her hands out to her sides. “He’s too much like you!”
“You like me well enough.” Belanger moved behind his wife and wrapped his arms around her, leaning forward so his head was next to hers. “Come on, piahre. Leave them be.”
“But—”
“You’ll send for us when she wakes?” Belanger asked. Regulus nodded. “See?” He led his protesting wife out of the room and closed the door behind them.
Regulus waited only a couple minutes before he laid on top of the comforter next to Adelaide, careful of his ribs. Adelaide burrowed into his side in her sleep.
