MHHC Chapter 128

The Return

She scanned the space behind the knight with anxious eyes.

What had happened now? Something significant enough to delay their schedule? The knight must have sensed the unease in her expression, because he waved both hands rapidly in reassurance.

"It's nothing serious, Your Grace. Only that the slope ahead appears to continue much as it has been. I came to warn you so you wouldn't be startled."

"Slopes?"

"Yes. The frozen ground has thawed into mud in places, so we've taken an alternate route. We'll be passing through somewhat steeper mountain terrain than usual—though we should arrive all the sooner for it."

Having answered with a respectful bow, the knight stepped back several paces from the window, as though inviting her to see for herself.

Adelheid shifted to press closer to the glass, and the sight that opened before her drove all words momentarily from her mind.

A vast basin stretched below. The dark expanse of Regenbach Forest spread wide beneath the hillside, and beyond it lay the territory of Ansgar—its castle seated against the far mountain ridge like iron set into stone, immovable and absolute.

The moment she saw it, a groan of relief escaped her before she could think to stop it.

"A messenger was sent ahead to the castle roughly two hours ago," the knight added, his voice slightly softer now. "If we make good time, you could be home by evening."

Home.

In that moment, Adelheid felt a strange kinship with this knight she had only just begun speaking to. The place he called home was now her home as well.

The realization settled into her with unexpected weight. She turned back to the window, gaze fixed on the distant castle, and felt something she hadn't anticipated: how deeply she had come to love Ansgar, more deeply than even she had known.

A faint smile touched her lips.

"Please, hurry."

The pace quickened from the afternoon onward, once they had cleared the steepest part of the descent.

As they drew nearer to Ansgar's territory, scattered farmhouses began to appear at intervals along the road. Several wagons were purchased from the residents, enough to carry even the less severely wounded soldiers, and once that was arranged, the column was free to move at full speed.

Adelheid surrendered her carriage to Margaret, who was exhausted from helping transport the injured, and settled herself beside the coachman, letting the wind have her entirely.

Her hair came loose from its pins and lifted into the air around her, and the freedom of it was almost dizzying.

"Adele. Come here."

Valentin had returned from his patrol without her noticing. He guided his black horse alongside the carriage and spoke without preamble.

The animal that had once reared and balked at his approach alone now moved in perfect harmony with him, as placid as if it had always known him. Adelheid studied Valentin with a skeptical eye.

"…Are you certain that's wise?"

He regarded her with something troubled in his expression, then exhaled slowly.

"There's no other option. You gave your carriage to another person."

"To Margaret. Not 'another person.'"

"Yes. The person who attends to you."

He dismissed the distinction as though it were entirely beside the point and brought the horse to a stop, extending one hand toward her. She stared at him.

"You wouldn't even let me approach before."

"…It can't be helped. If I had known you were doing this, I would have turned the capital inside out to secure two carriages."

"And what exactly have I been doing?"

"You were smiling. Openly. Everyone around you had their eyes fixed on you and nothing else."

"…"

Adelheid closed her mouth, genuinely without an answer. It wasn't as though people looking at her cost her anything. More than that—she simply couldn't believe what Valentin was saying.

If there had truly been such attention directed at her, she would have been the first to feel it. She hadn't sensed so much as a single glance.

She continued to stare at him in silence, and he lowered his outstretched hand slightly, impatient.

"Come."

Around them, she felt the attention of the nearby knights shifting toward them, followed by the soldiers beyond. If she held her ground any longer, they would not be moving again before nightfall.

With no real alternative, Adelheid held out her hand. Valentin bent in one fluid motion, slipped his hand beneath her shoulders, and drew her up before him in a single swift movement.

The sudden elevation made her blink. Then a thin hood dropped over her head from above.

"What is this—"

"I can't very well tell you not to smile."

"So you've put this over me instead?"

"Yes. So go ahead—smile as much as you like."

She looked at him with an expression that plainly declared she could not believe what she was hearing. That he was being this petty. That this was real.

She leveled the most effective reproach available to her.

"The greed. Truly, there are limits—"

"Dragons are greedy by nature. Didn't fairy tales teach you that?"

He replied without a trace of self-consciousness, as though the accusation barely grazed him. She had suspected, but now she was certain. It was jealousy. Undisguised and entirely earnest.

She stared at him with something between disbelief and helplessness, and he narrowed his eyes into a smile—that particular smile, at close enough range that the tips of their noses nearly touched.

Her nape flushed without her permission.

Because when he smiled like that, Valentin looked nothing other than what he appeared to be: a young man of that age, bright and uncomplicated and wholly, startlingly alive.

"Ahem. Hmm."

She had been staring at him without realizing it when the sound of pointed throat-clearing reached her from somewhere nearby.

Adelheid came back to herself with a jolt and moved to settle properly. But this was her first time riding a horse directly, not in a carriage. The shift of the animal's muscles beneath her thighs caught her off guard, and she had no idea where to hold on.

"Here. Hold tight."

Valentin caught her wandering hands and wrapped them around his waist.

She sat with uncertain posture, gripping his sides, drawing her legs together so as not to impede the horse's stride.

When she tightened her arms around his waist, a sound came from above her—something suppressed, constrained, not quite a groan.

She heard it clearly, and she tightened her arms anyway. The one who had chosen this discomfort was Valentin. Not her.

The hood he had placed over her head was rendered useless almost immediately. The moment the horse broke into a gallop, her hair was streaming in the wind again.

The column swept down the hillside and cut across Ansgar's territory at full speed. From the distance, the call of horn instruments carried back to them—the sentinels recognizing their lord's return.

"Open the gates! His Grace has returned!"

Banners rose. The gatekeepers shouted over each other as they hauled the great doors open. The residents of the territory broke into cheers to welcome the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess home.

Adelheid noticed, with a feeling she had no name for, how different this was from the day she had first arrived in Ansgar—and something old and quiet stirred in her chest.

She would have liked to slow down, to take it in. But Valentin did not slow at all. He drove his horse forward without hesitation.

At the center of the castle, servants and butler had lined up to receive him. As they dismounted, Hermann came forward at once and bowed with practiced precision.

"Welcome home to Ansgar, Your Grace. And Your Grace." He straightened. "A welcoming banquet has been prepared in the great hall—"

"Later."

Valentin—who had grown notably quieter since somewhere during the journey—acknowledged the greeting with barely more than a glance, then gathered Adelheid into his arms with sudden urgency.

"Va—Valentin!"

She gasped, threw her arms around his neck to catch herself, and stared at him in undisguised shock.

Hermann looked after them with an expression caught between bewilderment and professional discretion, and wisely said nothing.

The pace up the stairs was swift—nearly a run. Adelheid could only blink in bewilderment, face burning, before she dropped her gaze entirely.

Because this was precisely the sort of thing that invited a very specific kind of speculation from the household staff.

"Why are you doing this all of a sudden—"

"…"

"Please, put me down. Valentin."

He walked forward as though her voice did not reach him, eyes fixed ahead.

She could not tell whether he had become well enough to sustain contact, or whether he was still as dangerous as he had warned. The atmosphere suggested the latter—and yet, strangely, she felt no fear at all.

Instead, the moment she recognized his state, something she couldn't quite name rose in her chest—something expectant, something quiet and waiting. Adelheid caught herself and bit down hard on her lip.

'I've lost my mind.'

While she was still catching up to her own thoughts, Valentin turned without hesitation down the corridor that led to the bedchamber.

He pushed the door open without warning, and several maids who had been lighting the hearth gave startled cries at the sound.

They looked up, saw Adelheid and Valentin, flushed crimson, and hurried to gather their things and file out of the room.

"Valentin, I—"

He set her down on the bed, with a fraction more speed than gentleness. She was in the middle of worrying that the wind had made a disaster of her hair when he spoke, his voice low and urgent.

"Bind me."

"…I beg your pardon?"

She looked up at him, mouth open.

She wasn't certain what she had just heard, or whether the words had been some trick of her own imagination.

Even as Adelheid stared at him in open astonishment, Valentin brought his sleeve to his mouth and tore the remaining button free with his teeth, and gave the order again.

"Use your magic. Bind me. Adele."

Please.

The word landed against her ear with desperate weight, a bruise forming where it touched.

Only then did she notice what she had somehow missed: he was shaking. His entire body, a fine and constant tremor. She had been too preoccupied, too distracted by everything else to look carefully until now.

His brow was drawn tight, his expression a study in pain. Cold sweat tracked down the clean line of his jaw and fell, a single drop, to the floor.

"After last night, I thought—since we were together and it was fine—I thought perhaps a short time of contact would be—"

"…"

"Adele. Please. Before I—before I hurt you."

His voice dropped another register, something subterranean settling into it.

Scales had begun to surface along his skin. His canine teeth had sharpened to points.

This was not desire. It was closer to starvation.

Worse than a beast in heat. She had heard him say it. Now, for the first time, she understood exactly what he had meant by it.

And she understood something else as well—how desperately, how entirely, he wanted her.

Adelheid reached out and covered his eyes with her hand.

Robbed of his sight, the solid expanse of Valentin's chest heaved beneath labored breath. With her other hand, she reached carefully, gently, and rested her palm against his shoulder.

"Tell me, then. What I need to do. From this moment—how to—"