Page 73 of Those That Defy the Realm

HENRY

Walking into my newly finished bedroom at the ranch house, I take in as much detail as I can in a quick sweep. I love the fact that Claire has decorated this room for me. I want to check out each piece and give it the attention I should, but my body is screaming at me to not be standing upright any longer.

Collapsing onto my new bed with a groan, I hear Claire close the door before joining me on the sheets.

She lays down beside my frame on her side, one of her hands coming to my chest. I rub my palms to my tired eyes before tucking my hands behind my head. Being back here is easing some ache deep in my bones, seeing Rory again has eased the near constant headache I’ve had for over a week, but a persistent buzzing remains. I know it is from Ty being further away now than when I was in West Scotia.

The timing of his departure couldn’t have been worse for me, but I’ll cope with the strain if it means we get the Carnio pack on board.

And if his trip doesn’t get extended for any reason, at least I’d see him for a day before I had to get on another ferry and leave once more.

It may have only been a couple of months, but it feels like years. I knew being away from my pack, and my partners, would be challenging, but already my body is feeling a level of exhaustion I hadn’t been familiar with since the war.

“You should get some sleep,” Claire says. I open my eyes to see her head propped on an elbow, her worried gaze on my face.

“It’s a little early,” I reply, sunlight still peeking through the newly fitted window.

The upper floor of the ranch house had come along significantly since I was last in Froan. The out house had been completed and most of the pack were now settled into their rooms over there. The only bedrooms in the main house were for our leaders, plus Antares and myself as their inner most circle

Of the bedrooms left to do, Claire had pulled rank, as the interior designer and project lead—and because she was my girlfriend—that my room should be finished and furnished first so that it was ready for my trip here this week. Nobody had disagreed with her.

The main suite, for Rory and Ty, was mostly completed, but the flooring needed laying still and the furniture needed building from where it was still stacked downstairs. And Antares’s room was still awaiting decorating entirely.

“You’ve done a great job on the room,” I tell Claire as I really take in the soft colour scheme and wooden furnishings. There are soft greens the colour of woodland moss, and drawers and bedside tables made from rich dark wood that remind me of the last winter solstice. I’d already noticed the little things on my brief look around before I’d sunk onto the bed. The handrails in the walk-in shower in the ensuite, the drawer that pulls out from under my bed for my prosthesis when I remove it. The fact that all the lighting is wired to a few different panels, including a remote so I can alter the overhead lights and the lamps without moving if I’m not wearing my leg.

She’d chatted to me extensively about what I wanted, what would make my life that little bit easier, and had included it all without making any point of it. None of the adaptations stood out in the design. She’d incorporated them into the space, already making it feel like a haven.

When she'd asked about the colour palette, I’d insisted on having hers and Ash’s touch on the decor too. She'd picked up on my meaning, one that hinted at long term, and looked at me with an expression that I could not misinterpret. Love had shone in her eyes.

I know she and Ash have declared those three little words to each other, and I’d told Ash how I feel the moment I laid eyes on him in the Northern Isles. He’d teared up as soon as he opened his cabin door and saw me sitting on his sofa, having arrived a few hours before him, thanks to my girlfriend's idea that I catch the ferry the day before so I could surprise him. He’d leapt into my lap and I’d told him just how much he meant to me as I held him close. Before he’d fucked me senseless.

Claire looks at me with that warmth in her eyes again now.

My plan had been to tell her in a similar way to how I’d told Ash, as soon as I saw her in person, as opposed to through a screen. I was done putting it off when I’d been sure of my feelings for months. The only reason I hadn’t said it yet was because I thought it should be done during some special moment. But when our moments were currently snatched days here and there, I realised it was the gesture that would make the moment memorable.

But Claire hadn’t greeted me at the docks alone. Rory and Antares had been with her. And we’d ended up spending a few hours with them after we got back to the ranch. My bond to Rory was grateful for that time, and it was great to catch up with Antares as well. But my heart just wanted to get my female alone so I could make sure she was truly doing okay after Ash’s departure, and so I could declare to her just how deeply I had fallen for her.

Now, tiredness has kicked in but I know I won’t sleep until I’ve got this off my chest. Clasping her hand on my left pec with my own, I wonder if she can feel my heartbeat accelerate under her fingertips.

“I love you.” I say it loud enough to be clear, soft enough that the words are made of the feeling and with enough conviction that she knows I mean them, and that the feeling isn’t something sudden or fleeting. They’re words said like I was telling her my name, or that the sky is blue. It's a fact. Unchanging. Significant. “I need you to know that I love you.”

Claire shifts, removing her hand from mine. I have a second to panic that she doesn't feel the same about me. I’ve not had a single insecurity about entering a relationship with more than one person until now, but I didn’t think about the option that her heart only belongs to one of us.

That second is completely unwarranted, for Claire only moves so she can straddle me. Even with both of us fully clothed, her weight coming down on my hips has my cock stirring to life. She places both hands back on my chest and meets my eyes.

She leans forward, some of her weight coming onto her palms. Waiting until her lips are a breath away from mine before she speaks. “I love you too.”

The kiss she delivers is soft, a gentle claiming that warms my entire body and pushes down the pain.

My hands roam up her thighs, curve over the gentle swell of her ass, and up either side of her waist, coming to a stop on her lower ribs.

We continue kissing for minutes, hours, I have no idea. But she doesn’t move to progress our activities. Eventually, we have to break for air and she raises up, sitting back in my lap.

“As much as I would love to have you inside me right now, I think you need to sleep.”

I shift my hips to show her I’m not that tired but honestly, even that movement sets off the protests in my muscles once more.

Claire’s lips purse as she reads my expression. “Come on, we can snuggle in bed, and we can do more in the morning.”