And by God, she wanted to hear those words again.

She opened her mouth to press, but the moment she did, he slanted his mouth hard over her parted lips and—damn the man for being able to kiss a woman into a swarm of hormones buzzing about like drunken little bees!—in a few moments the only thing she was thinking about was the way he was touching her.

Silvan wasn’t a man given to lurking. Well, he hadn’t been until his sons had gone and taken mates, then it seemed he’d begun doing all sorts of things he’d not done before. Like eavesdropping on an embarrassingly personal and sizzling conversation between Drustan and Gwen that had ended with Silvan dragging Nellie off to bed. And wed to her a short time later.

He grinned. A damn fine woman she was too. Knew more about the Keltar than the Keltar knew themselves. In her twelve years as his housekeeper, she’d learned nearly every secret in their castle, including one not even he had known: a secret place that had been forgotten for nearly eight centuries, according to the last entry he’d read in the journal he’d found therein.

She said she’d discovered the underground chamber during a fit of spring cleaning a score of years ago. She’d not mentioned it because she thought he’d known—and besides, she’d added acerbically, that was when ye weren’t speaking to me. Silvan snorted softly. What a fool he’d been, denying his desire for her. So many wasted years.

Are you wasting yet more time, old man? a caustic inner voice inquired. Aren’t there still things you refuse to say?

He shoved that thought brusquely away. Now was not the time to brood on himself. Now was the time to focus on finding a way to save his son.

The contents of the chamber were the reason he currently lurked in the shadows of the great hall awaiting Dageus’s return. There were texts and artifacts, relics Dageus needed to see. The sheer volume of material in the underground chamber was overwhelming. It could take them weeks simply to catalog it all.

Silvan sensed his son before he entered the great hall, and began to rise, but at the last moment before the door opened, he heard a soft rush of throaty female laughter. Then silence that could only be filled with kisses. Then more laughter.

Soft, faint, but Dageus’s laughter.

He went motionless in a half-crouch above the chair. How long since he’d heard such a sound?

Och, the darkness was still there beneath it, but whatever had transpired this day had granted Dageus a merciful reprieve. He didn’t need to see his son to know that his eyes would be—if not golden—at least lighter.