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“After dinner,” he decided.
“After dinner,” she repeated, nodding slowly. “Okay, we’ll talk after we put Gus to bed. Should I be worried?”
No, my love. I will make you so happy…
“It’s nothing to worry over,” he told her. “Only something good.”
That earned him another dazzling smile.
He stood there, dazed, while she wandered off with Gus, chattering to him about their day.
* * *
A few hours later, the house was fragrant with the scent of roasting meat and a crackling fire.
Jade was putting Gus to bed, leaving Rafe to fuss over the meal he had prepared for her, while he tried to imagine how he was supposed to tell her about the mate bond.
“He’s such a good boy,” Jade said as she stepped into the living room. “He went down without so much as a whimper.”
“He always has been,” Rafe said.
“How do you know?” she asked him.
He blinked at her.
But she was asking earnestly. He could see it in her eyes.
“I have been with him since he emerged from his pod,” Rafe said. “I was assigned to watch over him from his first breath.”
“So, he really has always been with you,” she said thoughtfully.
“That is why he has taken on my coloration,” Rafe pointed out. “Imberians have chameleonlike qualities. They adapt to fit their environment, which includes imprinting on their earliest caregivers.”
“How can you bear to leave him?” she asked. “It doesn’t seem right.”
“I’m not leaving him,” he said, feeling completely turned upside down.
Nothing she said made sense, and this wasn’t the conversation they were supposed to be having.
“I mean, I know you can’t leave now, because of Judge Gaxx,” she said. “But once we clear our names…”
“I have been assigned to watch over Gus until he reaches maturity,” Rafe said slowly, unable to believe that the girl didn’t know. “Twenty standard years.”
Her eyes grew wide.
“Really?” she asked him.
He nodded.
“That’s wonderful,” she said with a smile. “He deserves to keep his father close.”
“I’m not his father,” Rafe said. “Remember, the coloration is just because of our proximity. We have no biological connection.”
“I don’t have a biological connection to him either,” she said. “Are you implying that I’m not his mother?”
“Of course not,” he said, shaking his head.
“Then listen to yourself,” she said softly, approaching him with an intense expression in her blue eyes.
