Chapter 197: Our future

The light tracing of his fingers across my skin pulled me back to reality. Opening my eyes, I immediately saw Magnus. He sat on the edge of the mattress, but instead of his usual shirt, he wore a dark long-sleeve that clung to his broad chest and powerful shoulders.

The sight felt unfamiliar, almost alien, and my heart missed a beat at the realization. In every slow movement—in the way his palm glided down my shoulder—hung a dense, barely perceptible bitterness.

His gaze was entirely too calculated. The calm steel of his gray eyes masked a surging avalanche of thoughts. Magnus remained silent, and within that ringing quiet, a sticky cocoon of panic began to coil around me. His parting words from last night flared in my head like an alarm. My pulse, sluggish from sleep only a second ago, spiked into a frantic gallop that thundered in my temples.

Something was wrong. The atmosphere in the house had shifted, growing heavy, thick with the scent of ozone, metal, and impending disaster. The air virtually hummed with tension.

"Magnus..." I rasped, trying to sit up.

He gently caught my waist, pulling me onto his lap with a single, fluid motion. He held me so tightly it felt as though he was trying to absorb me into his skin.

"Jane, listen to me carefully. The captain of the military police is waiting for me downstairs in the living room."

The words struck like a bucket of ice water. My fingers turned cold, instinctively clawing into the thick fabric covering his chest. A subtle tremor took over my body as my blood pressure spiked, making my ears ring.

"What has you so terrified, my soul?" He pressed me closer, tucking my face into the crook of his neck, his fingers gently massaging the nape of my neck to soothe my rising panic.

"What do you mean? They’re going to take you!" My voice cracked into an agitated whisper. The world around me started splintering at the seams, my emotions thrashing wildly. "Right now!"

"They will. But you have nothing to worry about. Calm down. They crawled out sooner than we anticipated—which is inconvenient, but hardly critical. We’ll handle this," Magnus said with frightening composure, pressing a soft kiss to the top of my head.

"You’re talking as if they won’t slap you with a traitor’s brand and try to crush you into dust! We’re a thorn in their side!"

I buried myself against his chest, frantically breathing in his familiar scent, desperate to imprint it into every cell of my lungs.

"Adam..." Magnus growled low in his throat, the vibration rumbling through his chest into mine. "Spilled everything to you?"

The Alpha cupped my chin, forcing me to tilt my head up. His expression was dead serious, a shadow of anger flickering in his eyes. I knew it wasn’t meant for me, yet a pang of guilt pierced my chest, instantly morphing into a wave of defiant heat.

"And he was right to do so! You would have kept everything hidden, leaving me utterly blind to the peril surrounding us both," I said, crossing my arms over my chest and meeting his gaze with unyielding defiance.

"With me, you are entirely safe. I learn from my mistakes, Jane. From now on, not a single parasite will slip past my guard." He bared his teeth in a predatory sneer that radiated raw, ancient power, making it abundantly clear that he had already engineered his next move.

"They’re taking you away now... What are we supposed to do? What am I supposed to do without you?" I choked out in a tight whisper, the suffocating anxiety in my chest growing heavier by the second.

Shifting slightly, I reached for the shirt discarded on the floor, hooking the fabric with my fingertips and pulling it over my head. Only then did I fully realize I had been sitting on his lap entirely bare beneath his heavy, unwavering gaze.

Magnus grunted softly, his warm palms instantly sliding back under the fabric. One hand settled over my lower abdomen, shielding our unborn child, while the other burned with intense heat against my thigh. I couldn’t bear the thought of letting him go. Every passing second of proximity was invaluable—yet each moment beside him, knowing I had to let him walk out that door, tore my soul apart.

"You do nothing," he instructed smoothly. "Time is the only factor right now. If the surviving elites believe they can dismantle me through official channels, I’ll crush their ambitions before they can take root. But tearing down a bureaucracy doesn’t happen in an hour. I’ll have to comply and play their game for a short while."

He pulled me into an embrace so fierce my ribs groaned under the pressure. Magnus possessed unwavering confidence in his own dominance, but doubts slithered through my mind like shadows in the dark. What if this was an inescapable trap? Desperate men stripped of their power were capable of any atrocity—from subtle poison to a blade in the dark of a prison cell.

"How long will this take?"

"Roughly two weeks."

"That’s so long... Do you realize that by the time this is settled, the weather will be freezing? And my dress won’t be able to hide the baby bump anymore," I stammered, realizing my words were nonsensical, yet completely unable to stop the nervous rambling about dresses.

"We’ll buy you a dress far warmer than that scandalous piece of cloth Sayan’s grandmother tailored," Magnus whispered against my temple. Slowly, reluctantly, his arms unwrapped from around me. "Jane... I love you."

The declaration struck me with physical force, making me feel genuinely sick with grief. The air vanished from my lungs, a constriction seized my throat, and searing tears pricked the corners of my eyes. I sat frozen on the edge of the mattress, watching his broad shoulders retreat toward the bedroom door. A single phrase echoed through my mind like a deafening war drum: I love you, I love you, I love you.

I love you...

I bolted off the bed, sprinting down the hallway in nothing but his oversized long-sleeve that barely covered my thighs. Magnus was already at the main entrance, his wrists bound in front of him by heavy steel cuffs.

An escort of armed guards in dark tactical uniforms hovered around him.

Sensing my approach, he turned the exact moment I reached him. Out of breath, I grabbed the collar of his shirt, yanking him down to crash my lips onto his in a frantic, bruising kiss.

"Alright, that’s enough. We’re on a schedule. Pull her off him so we can move," a sharp, abrasive voice barked from the doorway.

The guard’s command ignited a flash of pure, territorial fury within me, drawing an instinctual growl from deep in my chest right into the kiss. As Magnus made to draw back, I bit down hard on his lower lip, tasting the metallic tang of blood before breaking away. Staring up into his stunned expression, I whispered with fierce demand:

"You will come back to me. Do you hear me? Promise me!"

"Of course I’ll come back, my soul. How could I ever stay away from you for long?" He offered a low, dark smirk, leaning in until his heated breath scorched my ear. "Though I will certainly punish you for standing in front of other men dressed like this."

A rush of heat flooded my skin, but I slowly unclasped my fingers, letting go of his clothes. Magnus drew himself up to his full height, wincing slightly as a gust of freezing wind whipped through the open doorway. He cast one last scorching, possessive glance back at me.

"Don’t stand in the cold. Take care of our future."

And then he walked away.