Page 44

Three years later

Luca double-checked his pack once more, making sure he had enough clothes for the trip. Trousers, shirts, underwear, socks, and a carefully rolled up picture of Rannoch that Noe had drawn not two weeks before. To the surprise of none, his husband was a decent artist for landscape drawings. Made sense, considering he had to design things and drawing them out on paper was step one. Luca wanted to bring the picture along to show the children he would adopt.

Well, hopefully adopt. That was the point of the whole trip.

After three long years, the fortress and surrounding walls were built. The fields were all laid in, the barns erected, and all of his people had sturdy new homes to call their own. Luca and Noe were in the perfect position to adopt a whole passel of children. Luca had firmly put his foot down on no more than four, but even he could admit that if they found a family of siblings totaling more than that, of course he’d take the lot. He wasn’t made of stone, after all.

Noe came through their bedroom door, fetching something from the wardrobe. “Raincoats, just in case. We are in the rainy season. You have everything?”

“I do. Just double-checked. Are you packed?”

“With this, I am.”

They were actually set to leave just after breakfast, but both of them had woken early, too excited to sleep in. Even Luca’s checking of his pack was just excitement and nerves. He’d packed last night. And he’d double-checked last night too.

This dream had been so, so many years in the making. Finally, he was on the cusp of realizing it.

With orphanages nonexistant in Bhodhsa, they were traveling into Scovia in order to adopt. Noe had written to three different orphanages, in fact, and gotten a positive response along with a list of available children from one. It was there they would start their journey. Hopefully they’d be home again within a fortnight, a month at most, but Luca was determined he wouldn’t return home without children.

Noe put a hand to his back and urged him to the door. “Then let’s go.”

“You’ve got your letter from the orphanage?”

“It’s in my pocket.”

Even as Luca followed him out the door and down the stairs, he kept wrestling with a nagging feeling. “I keep feeling like we’ve forgotten something.”

Noe stopped dead on the stairs, a foot from the bottom, and peered over his shoulder. “Did you think to grab your seal?”

“Fuck!” Luca thrust the pack into Noe’s hand and immediately turned, running back upstairs to his study. Without the seal, he couldn’t officially sign any of the paperwork to adopt the children, much less make them his heirs. At the top of the landing, he realized the obvious and turned back around to call down, “Did you get yours?”

“Of course!”

Noe never missed anything, did he? Amused, Luca shook his head and retrieved the seal from his desk, then beat hasty feet back downstairs.

In the short minute that took him, Noe had put the pack on the wagon and had already mounted his horse. They’d travel by horse most of the way there and back. The wagon was for supplies and luggage on the way there and to help transport the children back to Rannoch. They had a guard of a dozen men for the trip to stave off any bandits along the road, which should do very well.

Luca mounted his stallion, blowing out a breath and trying to steady himself, as it was still a multiday trip ahead of him. He couldn’t help his excitement, though. Catching Noe’s eye, he saw such excitement reflected back at him. Noe was beyond joyous to reach this point too. He took Noe’s hand in his and bent enough to graze the knuckles with a kiss.

No words needed to be said between them, as that look and exchange were enough. Joy shared was joy doubled, after all.

Then Luca turned, checked that his guards were ready as well, and gave a satisfied nod. “Roll out!”

Luca had children to meet and love, and he absolutely could not wait.