Chapter 105: Under the Moonlight

Reinhard had barely finished putting away the last of the birthday party decorations when a familiar blue window appeared in front of him.

[Investment Opportunity Detected.]

[Target: Emily Ashcroft.]

[Current Rank: D.]

[Current Value: E+]

[Objective: Spend meaningful personal time with the target and enjoy yourself together.]

[Difficulty Grade: D.]

[Success Probability: 90%.]

He read it once, then again, certain he’d misread it the first time. "...Enjoy myself?"

The wording alone was strange enough to make him laugh out loud. Every investment he could remember had been about helping Emily, fixing something, finding something, solving some problem tied to her recovery.

This was the first time the system had handed him an objective that was, as far as he could tell, actually about him.

The notification faded, and he leaned back in his chair with a small smile. If Akasha wanted him to enjoy himself, he figured he could at least make the effort, assuming the universe would let him for once.

He didn’t have to wait long. A few minutes later, Emily found him, leaning in the doorway with a smile that immediately put him on alert.

"Are you busy?" she asked.

"Not anymore."

"Good." She crossed the room and held out her hand. "Come with me."

He glanced at the hand, then at her face. "Where are we going?"

"You’ll see."

"That sounds suspicious."

"Are you saying no?"

"Of course not."

He reached for her hand, except before his fingers closed around it, she’d already closed hers around his first.

He paused.

It was such a small thing that most people wouldn’t have noticed it at all, but he noticed, the way a man notices the exact moment the ground shifts under him.

"You normally wait for me to do that," he said.

She glanced back over her shoulder without slowing down. "Then perhaps you should stop waiting for me."

"Interesting."

"What?"

"Nothing," he said, which was a lie, and they both knew it.

She led him through the mansion and out toward the garden without letting go once. The night sat quiet and the moon hung high over the estate, washing pale light across the flowerbeds and the new paths that had grown in.

Emily steered him toward a secluded corner where a small table had already been set, a bottle of wine, two glasses, and a plate of neatly arranged cakes waiting like evidence of a conspiracy months in the making.

He looked at the table, then at her. "You prepared all this?"

"Some of it."

"And the rest?"

"I’m improvising."

"You? Improvising?"

"Yes, me."

"I didn’t know you could improvise."

"I spent years adapting to things I couldn’t control," she said, pulling out his chair for him like she’d rehearsed the move in a mirror somewhere. "I think I’ve had enough practice by now."

That answer landed harder than she probably meant it to, but her smile kept it from turning heavy. He looked at the chair, then at her.

"You’re really doing everything tonight."

"Is that a complaint?"

"No."

"Then sit."

He sat because his legs agreed before the rest of him caught up. She took the seat beside him, where her shoulders were touching and then she reached for the wine. He could feel the warmth coming off her skin in the cool night air.

She poured his glass first and pressed it into his hand, her fingers lingering for a couple of seconds longer than the glass required.

"This is nice," he said, looking out over the moonlit garden.

"I thought you might like it."

"You thought about what I might like?"

"Is that so surprising?"

"Usually I’m the one doing that."

"Then get used to someone else doing it for a change," she said, and took a slow sip of her wine like she’d just won a small, satisfying war.

He didn’t say anything for a moment.

The moonlight sat along the line of her jaw, and she wasn’t asking him anything, wasn’t waiting for him to lead, wasn’t doing any of the small quiet things she usually let him do first. She’d brought him here.

She’d poured the wine.

She was still, somehow, holding half his attention hostage without lifting a finger, and the part of him that usually had something clever ready had gone strangely silent.

Emily reached over and picked up one of the small cakes, holding it toward his mouth, her eyes never leaving his.

"Are you feeding me now?"

"Yes. Is there a problem?" She asked in a teasing tone.

"Is this you seducing me? If it’s then you can be ab it bolder–"

Her cheeks warmed, visible even in the low light, but the cake didn’t move an inch. "My dear handsome husband, less talking and more eating."

Reinhard laughed before leaning in and took it from her fingers, and for one unfairly long second her hand stayed exactly where it was, close enough to his mouth that neither of them moved first. Then she pulled back, satisfied, like she’d won something she hadn’t even announced she was playing for.

"This is good," he said, once his voice came back online.

"I know."

"You made it?"

"Yes."

"Then I should compliment you more often."

"You should," she said, and ate the next piece herself before leaning back, slow and unhurried, until her head rested against his shoulder. He went very, very still.

He could feel exactly where her hair brushed his jaw. He could feel the rise and fall of her breathing against his arm. She wasn’t simply letting him hold her the way she usually did. She’d chosen this, chosen the angle, chosen the moment, chosen him, and the sheer deliberateness of it did something to his chest that no amount of combat training had ever prepared him for.

"What?" she asked, catching his silence instantly.

"Nothing."

"You’re staring."

"I am not."

"You are."

He looked away toward the garden, which was a tactical retreat and they both knew it. "You’re unusually affectionate tonight."

"Is that a complaint?"

"No."

"Then don’t ruin it."

"If you keep this up, I might not be able to control myself."

"Who said you have to?"

Reinhard trembled while Emily’s smile grew as she snuggled more against him. They stayed like that a long while, drifting through easy conversation, the birthday party, Lily’s chaos, Rhea’s ongoing campaign to recruit him as the Nephilim’s second manager, how long Lucien would keep failing to recruit Cassian for anything at all.

Emily laughed more than once, low and warm against his shoulder, and each time he felt it before he heard it, a small vibration against his arm that he was fairly sure was doing more damage to him than anything the Collectors had ever tried.

Eventually she lifted her head and looked at him, close enough now that he could count exactly how the moonlight sat in her eyes.

"You had fun tonight."

"I did."

"You looked happy."

"I was."

She reached up without warning and brushed a strand of hair back from his forehead, her fingers slow, unhurried, entirely too aware of what they were doing.

"What?" he asked, and his voice came out rougher than he meant it to.

"Your hair was messy."

"It was?"

"Yes." She fixed it again, though it clearly didn’t need fixing a second time, and let her fingers drift down to rest lightly against his cheek instead.

His heart slammed once, hard, loud enough that he was certain the whole garden could hear it.

She felt it.

Her lips curved slowly, and there was nothing shy left in the way she was looking at him. "Your heart is beating faster."

"Well I do have a very beautiful lover so close to me. It would be an insult if I was calm."

"Indeed it would, I’m glad my husband is normal." Emily lean close to his ear and softly nibble his ear. "Very glad."

Oh heavenly father...

Give me strength!

"...You’re enjoying this."

"A little."

"You’ve gotten dangerous," he said, and he meant it as a genuine tactical assessment.

"Maybe I’ve had a good teacher."

"I don’t remember teaching you these things... Especially the last one."

"You’ve been teasing me for the last few months. I was bound to pick something up eventually."

"Damn it... You’re right." He admitted, because there was no honest way around it, and she smiled, settling back against him with the quiet satisfaction of someone who had just rewritten the rules of a game only she’d known they were playing.

For once, nothing else crowded into his head. He simply sat under the moon with his wife’s hand in his, and the quiet of it filled every space he usually kept busy.

The wine slowly emptied. The cakes disappeared one by one. She kept holding his hand through all of it, her thumb occasionally moving against his skin like she couldn’t quite help herself, and each small motion landed somewhere he had no good defense against.

Then the familiar blue window reappeared.

[Investment Objective Completed.]

[D-Grade Investment Successful.]

[Calculating Returns...]

He glanced at it, considered opening it for exactly one second, and then Emily laughed at something he’d said and he looked back at her instead. The notification faded on its own. I’ll look at it later, he thought, and didn’t think about it again.

She caught the brief flicker of his attention anyway. "Something wrong?"

"Nothing."

She narrowed her eyes just slightly. "You’re sure?"

"I’m sure."

She studied him for one more second before letting it go. "Good." She shifted closer and settled her head against him again.

He smiled, genuinely, at the fact that Akasha had technically completed its objective while he’d done nothing but sit there and let his wife run the entire evening.

He’d accomplished nothing by any measure that usually mattered to him, and it had been enough anyway.

The garden grew quieter as the night went on. Eventually Emily looked up at the sky before turning back to him.

"We should probably go inside."

"In a minute."

"In a minute," she agreed, and neither of them moved.

After another stretch of comfortable silence, he looked down at their still-joined hands and tightened his fingers around hers. There was something he’d been carrying for a while now, something he kept setting aside because there was always a convenient reason not to bring it up.

Tonight, for whatever reason, felt different.

Not because the danger had changed, because it hadn’t. The Collectors were still out there. Silent Night hadn’t gone anywhere. The Baal Family’s interest in her hadn’t cooled one degree.

What had changed was him.

"There’s something I want to talk to you and everyone about," he said.

She blinked, then nodded. "Of course. What is it?"

He tilted his head, choosing his words with the care of a man defusing something. "Well. We’re being watched by several troublesome groups."

Her expression shifted instantly. "We are? When were we—"

"Not anymore," he said. "They were called off. It’s handled, for now."

She stared at him, working through it. "Could it have been a company or an organization that knew about me?"

"Yeah."

Her expression sharpened further. "Which one?"

"The Collectors."

She paused, then gave a small, unimpressed shrug. "Just those bugs? That’s not too bad."

His smile grew as he continued. "Silent Night."

Her expression changed fast this time but before she could say anything, he continued once more.

"Also the Baal Family."

Emily froze completely.

"WHAT?!"