Page 54 of Wooing the Wiccan
Raðulfr is silent for a long moment. “I hadn’t thought about it,” he admits finally. “Not specific to you, anyway. I was just so excited to be with you, to spend every second I could get free in your presence, that I didn’t think about what our relationship would be like when we could be open about it.” He gets up, startling me, and crosses to a sideboard and opens one of the drawers. When he comes back, he’s holding a notepad and pen, and he sits closer to me than before, his leg pressed all up against the side of mine.
“Let’s do this the sensible way. No more secrets; only honesty. You tell me what you want, and I’ll do the same, and we’ll work out what’s going to be best for us both.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Raðulfr
I try notto hold my breath while I wait for Jared’s reply. The smile that spreads slowly across his face is exactly what I wanted to see.
“That’s a great idea. We’ll also talk about limitations, won’t we? Things you can’t do right now because of your job, but that might be on the table for later? And vice versa.”
The way he so clearly understands my situation makes me a little dizzy. All the fear that was swamping me earlier is gone, replaced by a low-key buzz of excitement. I don’t know yet how things are going to work out for us, but the fact that Jared wants it to makes me so wildly happy in a way I haven’t been since Ásta died. Before, even—those last years we were together were plagued by the anomalies. Now, my people are safeandI have someone to love. I’m giddy with joy.
“The first limitation is my security team,” I say, writing that down. “I’m sorry, but we’re stuck with them.”
“Hmm.” Jared’s brows draw together while he thinks about that. “We’re better off spending more time here, then. There’s not a lot of room at my place for them to hang around, and it’s not fair to make them sit outside like they have been. Even if I dokind of like the idea of Eoin being uncomfortable,” he adds with a chuckle.
I snort. “You’re not the only person to like that. You’ll have to meet Dáithí. He and Eoin are sort of dating, and he lives to drive Eoin nuts.”
“I like him already.” He leans against me. “I guess I should meet the rest of the security team too. Do they all hate me as much as Niamh and Eoin?”
“None of them hate you,” I insist. “They were worried that I was being impulsive, and they didn’t like the secrecy and risks, but I’ve been told they all like you, personally. Just not the situation. Ari—he was there when we first met—Ari thinks you’ll be good for me.”
“I’m glad to hear that. Not so glad that you were taking risks.”
“To be with you! I?—”
His laugh cuts me off. He’s teasing me, and I love it.
“Maybe I can convert the attic at my place into a space for your guards,” he muses. “Not that it isn’t nice here, but there’ll be times I’ll want to be at home, and it would be nice if you could still come over.”
“We can look into that. There’s no rush, though. They’ve all been crafting spells for warmth and comfort for a long time, and it’s practically second nature now.”
“A long time, huh?”
I glance sideways at his thoughtful expression. “Yes.”
“Longer than I’ve been alive?”
Ah. That’s where this is going. I lay the notepad and pen in my lap. “All but one have been doing it for longer than recorded human history.”
He blows out a breath, staring straight ahead. “Wow. That’s… a long time.”
I nudge him with my shoulder. “Ask me, Jared.”
Biting his lip, he shakes his head, then says very fast, “How old are you?”
Steadily, I reply, “In Earth years, almost nineteen thousand.”
His whole body jerks, then goes very still. “That’s… I don’t even know how to get my head around that number.”
I should have planned better for this conversation. “Is it a problem for you?”
“No. Maybe. No, it’s not. Hearing the exact number was a shock,” he admits. “It’s a lot. But I’ve already thought about this. Noah and the others said I should be thinking ‘thousand’ for your age, and I asked myself if I could handle being with a guy who was a thousand years old.”
I’m a lot older than that, but I don’t think now is the time to point that out. “And you decided you could?”
“Yeah. It’s not like if I was dating an eighty-year-old human, who was entering into the late stage of their life. You choose your mortality, the same as I will when I learn how.”
