Faunus was staring at him with so much warmth in his eyes, Teddy knew he’d feel it for the rest of his life.

And that slid through him like silk too.

Teddy moved from changing into borrowed sleep pants, splashing water on his face and washing his mouth out in the antechamber, to the bedchamber where Faunus was not wearing sleep pants, or anything, and lounging on top of the bed.

Teddy felt himself stir at the brilliance of the spectacle before him, but he did not give into that feeling.

He moved to stand at the foot of the bed, and he looked to his lover.

“Moira sorted, dinner at the royal castle with the King’s Counsellor done, everyone bedded down under velvet and Dellish wool, now we must talk,” he declared.

“Yes, it was my place to tell her she was coming with us because she belongs to you and you belong to me, so she belongs to me. No, you will not be finding a dwelling in which to live with her, for you will be living with me. She can live with Nyx and Lorenz, or Saturn, if he wishes this, and she takes him. Or we will find somewhere else she likes that is comfortable and close to us, for I know you and you will not let me fuck you like I like with her down the hall. Now, come to bed so I can fuck you like I like to fuck you.”

Teddy didn’t let that stir him either (though this was proving more difficult).

“That wasn’t what I wanted to talk to you about, though now I wish to discuss all of that.”

“There is nothing to discuss, it is done.”

And again, he could not find an artist or a teacher or a spice vendor.

No, for him, it was a highhanded warrior.

Teddy chose where to start and did that.

“I’ll be living with you?”

At his question, Faunus exited the bed and walked to their antechamber.

He was gone but moments before he returned.

And when he returned, he had something with him that Teddy had completely forgotten, but seeing it in the now made Teddy draw in a great deal of air.

And hold it.

His journal.

Faunus resumed his lounge in the bed, head and back to headboard, long legs sprawled, and tossed the book to the end, close to Teddy.

“You are in love with me,” he announced.

By the gods.

“You read it?” Teddy whispered, aghast.

In the gift of the pages of the book that Lorenz had given him, he had written everything.

About his father and mother.

The first stable boy he took up his arse.

Fenn and the Go’Doan and how he had lost his way in The Rising, confusing lust with love, misinterpreting manipulation for affection.

How he had treated his acolytes.