Cassian was waiting. He spent much of his life doing that. Sending messengers, writing statements, giving commands—all from his study, from the safety of his stone castle, waiting for what came next. It was only in his fur that he didn’t have to wait.

He heard Regan’s arrival but remained pointed towards the horizon. The air had shifted. Everything had changed, and nothing had changed. They were still king and Huntsman, master and servant. But she was also now alpha female, a powerful and majestic creature with an authority and equality that Cassian could sense even in his skin.

He could feel her eyes on him. He responded by turning his gaze down, head shifting ever so slightly. She might have been stealing glances, but he gazed.

When Cassian’s gaze shifted to her Regan drew closer to him like a magnet. Her eyes were still wide and hopeful—the needful creature that she was—but her posture was different. Regan stood taller, like she belonged at Cassian’s side, not that she simply happened to be there. Distant veins of amber crackled in her eyes, the fire that had lit the night before still burning somewhere in the dark.

“It had to be done,” Regan said—quiet, but sure. It was not a bid for affirmation, not an apology, but a statement of certainty she felt to the core. What she’d done to Alys wasn’t personal—it was inevitable. Yes, it would have been preferable for Alys to not have been hurt so badly, but it was the result of the problem that had brought them here to begin with: Alys was no longer the best to serve Cassian, and she had failed to see it even when reality had its teeth at her throat.

It was good that Regan did not seek affirmation, for Cassian would offer her none. He didn’t hold the same certainty she did, but he had also never been in her shoes. He likely never would. Perhaps one day he would turn someone and that pack member would seek his position. Perhaps. Only when that day came would he know what had to be done.

Without confirmation nor condemnation, Cassian only let his eyes linger a moment longer before turning his attention to Skia once more.

Regan felt the same twinge she’d felt at Cassian’s dining table. She was accustomed to Cassian’s taciturn nature; sometimes she tolerated it, other times found it comforting, but ultimately it was a mode of operating entirely contrary to her own. She was a witch always dancing on the edge of recklessness. She was inclined to speak before thinking, to act on feeling rather than logic. Her challenge to Alys was evidence enough of that.

So, unwilling to let silence fall between them, Regan tried again.

“Will she be alright?”

With some, Cassian welcomed silence. With others he wordlessly begged for it. Still others, he didn’t mind to hear their voices filling the gaps his own left.

“Yes.” A quiet assurance. Because Cassian would have gone to any length to ensure his witch was properly healed up, especially after being attacked by his huntsman. It didn’t compute for humans. If this occurrence leaked it would look terrible for both women—and for him. For their wolves, however, this had been the only way. But no one knew…well, everyone knew about Alys, but hardly anyone knew about Regan and Cassian. For now, he intended to keep it that way.

“And you?” He followed after a pause, looking down at her again. The question wasn’t just about her wound. It extended to her person.

Regan would have liked it if her question were motivated solely by concern for Alys’s welfare, but it wasn’t. Selfishly, perhaps, of equal concern were the questions her injuries might bring. And at a time when there was no shortage of inquiring minds that wanted to know just what secrets the King’s Witch had been keeping. And if someone sought a peek behind the curtain, Regan and Cassian would be next in their line of discovery.

But for now, that was a problem deferred to another day.

Regan’s eyes turned up to Cassian’s in all their absurd wonderment. At his question, a strange expression came over Regan’s face. Before, her answer might have been a simple one, but not now? Things had changed; Regan could feel it as an animal senses a change in the seasons and the coming warmth of spring. And that change had slackened her control over her tongue which was, admittedly, loose to begin with.

“With all this…I just—I just want to be what you need,” Regan said quietly, cheeks reddening as if she were preemptively embarrassed by her own words, “Because I need you. Maybe things will settle out with time, but now? If I’m not near you, I want to be. It’s constant. And potentially insane, I’m not sure.” Regan ran a hand through her hair, sighing a little. “But yeah, I’m alright. If you’re alright, so am I."

Cassian looked down at her as she looked up. How could he not? There was a tug there, undoubtedly, a sense of knowing and understanding and familiarity. A connection. She was his, of his pack, and how easy and special it was to be able to tip his head and look down at her unreservedly. A tension had developed between them, a palpable one, but not a bad one. A dangerous one, some might say.

If her look hadn’t done the work on it’s own, the words that flowed from her mouth did. Oh, to be that free, to be able to speak what was there without remorse. Cassian couldn’t. He didn’t. But he appreciated when those around him did.

Regan stood close enough for his reach to be minimal but catch her. He didn’t move quickly, but slowly, hands subtly coming to rest at her hips as she spoke, unless she moved or disrupted them. It wasn’t romantic—that is, it had potential to be, of course, but in that moment it was more intimate than anything, still toying the line between platonic and sexual. A gentle touch, a closeness that validated the words coming from her lips.

“You are what I need.” He assured her, dark gaze ever clouded with mystery, words that seemed apparent still somehow not. “We are all right.” It was an assurance.

Cassian’s words were few, so whenever they were offered Regan eagerly snatched them up and held them tight. Physical closeness was an equally precious offering, so when Cassian’s hands rested on her hips, she stepped to close the space between them. Unless he pulled away, her hands would slip up to the sides of his face and the feverish warmth of her skin would sink into his. Regan too danced in that liminal space where companion could bean one thing or another. And when she reached for Cassian, she wasn’t quite sure which she was reaching for.

Either way, Regan breathed deeply, trying to fill the well of longing in her chest with each breath before it drained. “Alright. Good,” Regan took another breath, smiling a little, “Fair warning then, you might not be able to shake me for a bit after Cambria. But I’ll do my best to lurk quietly.”

Trying to make Cassian laugh, or at least smile, was a pursuit she had yet to abandon.

It was a pursuit she would need to continue. He didn’t laugh or smile at her words, remembering the weight of her task in that kingdom.

“Do not take yourself lightly there.” He warned. “Above all, return.” There was a command to set at the top of the others. Regan would have no problem understanding that. If she needed to abandon the mission then she was approved to. Cassian would not have her dying for Cambrian justice.

Regan’s smile wilted, not out of disappointment but a desire to match Cassian’s tone. He was right, of course: capturing the governor would be no small feat and would require all of her attention in the coming days. Her conversation with Norah had been conclusive enough—her findings communicated with Cassian. It raised the stakes certainly, but did not alter the reason for the mission: no one under Nevermere’s rule was above the law, not even the priestess. But, perhaps more powerful than the weight of the mission’s importance was the desire to please him. Regan didn’t want to have to suffer another failure before Cassian—particularly now having finally seized the place at his side. But his order was taken as one: come back alive, above all else.

“I won't and I will,” she nodded, responding to each question. dropping her hands from his face to rest against his jacket.

It was a guarantee, a promise, and Cassian fully expected her to keep it. His gaze held hers a moment longer, perhaps conveying the seriousness of the command, or maybe she’d see a glimpse of the sentiment behind it. Either way, it was short-lived, and the moment passed away as his focus returned to a different topic.

“You must speak to Alys.” It wasn’t a request.

Regan stiffened. She knew an order when she heard ones but that didn’t stop the reflexive reaction of self-preservation from surfacing. Alys was the last person she wanted to see, and no doubt the feeling was mutual. The thought Alys might retaliate was not far from her mind. But, like it or not, she and Alys were tied together. By pack, by kingdom, by shared history. If there couldn’t be understanding, at least a truce had to be reached. If not alliance, then at least they needed peace.

Regan’s eyes left Cassian’s, dropping to stare at her hands where they rested on his jacket. They fiddled with the collar for a moment before she relaxed and nodded. Of course she would.

“Do you—did you, uh…” Regan cleared her throat, still staring at her fingers as they fussed nervously, “Do you love her like she loves you?”

Cassian watched Regan’s face. He knew exactly what he was asking, but it didn’t matter. It needed to be done. Just as establishing a new hierarchy had been something needed to do. The hard part in all this was that they were human, too. Both sides of their forms needed to be settled.

Her fiddling hands were seized before she relaxed them, his own closing over them to silence their movement. To teach them to be controlled. The thing he’d been teaching Regan since he’d turned her. He would remove them from his jacket and leave them resting at her sides.

Her question was a good one. A timely one. One he didn’t hesitate to respond to.

“No.” It begged clarification but that was never something Cassian offered freely.