Page 4 of Love Me Forever

Sébastien’s chest squeezed

“-if I didn’t want you to marry me.” Remus smiled, although it was a little tense like he thought Sébastien would say no. “When I mentioned us joining our Kingdoms together, I meant it. Now that we have peace, I want nothing more than for us to be husbands.”

He was asking. Sébastien hadn’t ever dared to imagine anyone asking him to marry. Not with the Regent alive and so heavily shadowing his life. His fingers threatened to shake as he opened the box. Tucked in the center of a piece of tightly coiled silk lay a gold ring with a thin band. The diamond on top twinkled in the light from the window.

Remus’s sword had been one thing. A ring meant they’d truly stay together. Sébastien wasn’t a notch in the bedpost or thingto play with and discard. At least not in Remus’s eyes. Maybe he could hope for once and not endure the opposite.

He noticed Remus was wearing a plain gold band.

“Yes,” he forced out even though he almost expected Remus to take away the box and say it had been a joke.

“I’m not leaving you again.” Remus took the ring out of its silk bedding. “It was my Mother’s. Father said I could give it to whoever I married in the future, and I could wear his. I remembered at the last minute that her hands were thin and delicate, and it wouldn’t fit you. I couldn’t come here with a ring that was too small. It needed to be resized, and I had to guess.”

Sébastien’s throat tightened as Remus slid it onto the proper finger. It fit. It wasn’t just any ring either, and he couldn’t believe he’d been given an item with such sentimental value.

“She’d want you to have it,” said Remus.

He was about to kiss Sébastien again when the dove fluttered to his shoulder and stuck out his leg. “Reply?”

Remus chuckled. “No.” He held out a hand so the dove could hop onto his finger, and he held the bird close to his face for several seconds while he pictured where he wanted it to go, and the dove stared at his forehead. “Run along. Er, fly along.”

The dove fluttered toward the window and disappeared into the spring morning.

“He can go back to Rowland. As for us-” Remus hugged Sébastien who felt something hard pressing against his leg.

“Is that your sword or are you happy to see me?”

Remus laughed. “I am happy to see you. I’m not going back to Rowland without you either. I’m staying with you, and later, we can figure out things like where we’ll stay, joining the Kingdoms, if we’re going to have kids, and things like that.”

“It hasn’t been that long. Are you sure Rowland doesn’t need you?”

“I know, but I’ve got a Master Steward now at home that I hired, and he can deal with certain things. Nothing is pressing, the Kingdom is stable now, and he can send me things I need to do or sign. It’s not entirely ideal, but it’ll work in the meantime until we get more settled. I doubt you want to live in this house for the rest of your life, or even the next several years. We can plan that later.”

With the way his hands were rubbing Sébastien’s hips, it seemed like he had something else quite urgent on his mind. Sébastien rubbed his back.

“Let’s go for a ride.” Remus drew back to look at him.

“Right now?”

“Why not? We’ll have time for plenty of rides, and we can start now.”

***

Tom was by the door when they stepped outside, and he grinned. “Am I to take you to jail for being late?”

Remus put an arm around Sébastien. “I think he forgave me. We’re taking Whisper out.”

“Do you need me to come?”

“We’ll be fine.”

“I think Remus can protect me from outlaws,” added Sébastien. Remus had saved him from Satan before. Bandits would hardly be an issue, not that Tom knew the truth about what happened when the Palace had collapsed.

Tom’s eyes went down to the diamond ring on his hand, and the gold band Remus was wearing, and surprise flickered on his face. He had to have figured Remus and Sébastien were closer than friends. In fact, most must have guessed since Remus had stayed for so long, and before he’d left, they’d been sleeping in the same bed. The servants had surely blabbed whenthey noticed that. Perhaps Tom had trouble seeing Sébastien married.

Whisper had the fenced-in backyard to roam around in plus a stall with a covering for when it rained or snowed. He always came to the gate every day when Sébastien went to see him. A guard took care of his feed and water, but Sébastien didn’t go a day without spending time with him, and he’d ridden him during winter since the snow hadn’t been too bad.

At the sight of Remus, Whisper whinnied and pranced toward the gate.

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