40: Small Conclusions

**Raegan**

I looked beside me to see my mate's eyes open and staring at me filled with unshed tears. I smiled awkwardly.

"What?" I croaked out.

He took the candle from my hands gingerly and set it at the base of the altar, still burning, before he smashed his lips against mine in a desperate and passionate display of his inner turmoil.

I cupped his face in my hands and kissed him back with fervor. I could feel his tears rolling down his face and onto my cheeks and chin. They burned me and seared into my very essence. Tears of my own met his and mingled with them as his tongue licked my lower lip in an attempt to get me to open my mouth and give him access.

When I didn't he groaned, "please, Raegan."

I swallowed thickly, trying to process his request.

"Open," he whispered, his voice sounding torn and melancholic.

I parted my lips and he quickly thrust his tongue into my mouth and explored it relentlessly.

His hands gripped either side of my neck and craned my head back to give him better access to me.

I moaned into our kiss, and he pulled back to trail kisses down my cheek to my jaw and then to his mark.

"I love you, Raegan," he murmured reverently, placing another soft kiss on his mark, "I love you more than words could ever explain to you, and I will love you with every beat of my heart and every breath in my lungs. My love for you will chase me into the afterlife until you join me, and even then it will not fade. I need nothing more than you in my arms. Than your scent in my lungs. Than your taste on my tongue. I would beg at the feet of Hades himself if it meant catching a simple glimpse of you. My world begins and ends with you, Raegan, and you are my heart, my life, and the very marrow in my bones." He professed while pressing his forehead against mine. I cried quietly as his words settled within me.

"Ditto," I croaked out lamely.

A smile broke onto his lips, making him part with the devastatingly gorgeous severe look that he had donned a moment ago.

"I just professed my undying love to you, and you respond with 'ditto'?" He snorted.

I nodded, grinning up at him through my tears, "you're the romantic between us, you're the one with the words."

He laughed loudly. That robust and whole laugh of his that melted me entirely. "Since when did we decide that?"

"Since just now," I giggled and wiped my face with the backs of my hands.

He reached up and helped me wipe my face with the sleeves of his sweater. I kissed his palms gratefully every time they got close to my mouth.

When he was finished, I returned the favor and as I did he met my gaze once more.

"I don't need children with you to feel complete in our love, Raegan. Our love is me and you. Just us. We don't need to have our own pups to make it whole when it already is whole. That would just be sprinkles. I would love it, yeah, but *we* are not contingent on it. I'm happy to name Johnny or my niece our heir and call it a day if pups of our own isn't an option. I love our people, and I want our kingdom to go into the right hands but those hands don't need to be little us'es." He smiled softly at me, holding my hands still against his face.

I nodded, swallowing thickly again. "Okay," I managed.

He kissed my forehead and then the tip of my nose and then we sat back and waited for the prayer candle we'd lit to go out.

When it finally did, I felt something in me release. With the final flicker of the flame, I let go of the worry for something I couldn't control. I would put what I could towards having a family with Coal, but if it didn't happen organically then I couldn't let myself feel responsible for it. Goddess or no Goddess, higher power or no higher power, some things are meant to be, and some things just aren't.

That was just how it was, and I was going to accept it.