The minute Mami began to clear the plates, Alexis rose to her feet and tugged Erich up after her. “I think we’re going to turn in early,” she announced cheerfully, wrapping an arm around her husband’s waist and guiding him away from the table. “We’ll see everyone in the morning!”

“Goodnight Alexis-san, Erich-san,” Urahara said as they left the room.

Alexis didn’t bother responding with more than an absent wave over her shoulder, too focused on Erich and the undercurrents she could sense in his spiritual power. The further they moved towards privacy, the more he relaxed and leaned into her, relief bleeding through to dominate her sense of him. She needed to determine where they stood with Urahara before any more time passed, if this was the result of their interactions.

(She would see that Urahara never made it back alive if she had to.)

Erich pulled off his house shoes the minute they were in the privacy of their own room, then sank to sit on the edge of the future and looked up at her with a small, warm smile. “Lexi?” he asked softly, reaching up with one hand.

“Beloved,” she murmured back, catching his hand in hers and sinking to sit at his side. She pressed a kiss to his knuckles and leaned into him, tucking her power around him like a blanket. “Will you tell me what happened?”

He shrugged, awkward and hesitant, and let her take his weight, his head settling on her shoulder and his eyes sliding closed. “He’s just… fascinated with me. I think he remembers more than we’d like, because he kept calling me ‘angel-san’.”

“You are a fascinating man,” Alexis quipped lightly, kissing his forehead before she rested her cheek against his head. A breath, another, and finally the tension began to drain from Erich’s body, leaving him loose-limbed and comfortable in her arms. It was always a pleasure to feel his trust, to know that he felt safe with her, that he trusted her enough to let her be the protector and guardian and warrior while he cared for their flock.

(The Great War had scarred her husband deeply, even decades and shed identities later.)

(Some nights she wished she had the strength to raze humanity to the ground.)

“Are we letting him go, beloved?” she asked, entirely serious. If Urahara was going to be a problem, she’d rather deal with him while he was injured and still had no idea as to their true strength.

“He… hasn’t done anything. Not really.”

Alexis hummed at the non-answer, combing her fingers through Erich’s hair as she turned what she knew over in her mind. “We are cousins of the fae. Being capricious is in our nature,” she reminded him gently. He’d buried much of himself to be a good soldier during the war, and sometimes that edge of soldier reared its head in unexpected ways. “If you want him gone…”

He chuckled and slid a hand up to cradle her chin, tilting both of their heads so he could kiss her. “I appreciate the offer,” he murmured against her lips, “but he’ll either leave us alone once he’s back in civilization, or he’ll run headfirst into Concealment. There’s no need to draw attention to the area by making him vanish.”

“And if he manages to puzzle his way through our spell?” Alexis asked. It had never happened to them specifically, but she knew it had happened before; with enough persistence, enough skill, the mutable maze that the spell gave birth to could be conquered. And once a person knew that Concealment could be worked around, further castings only served to delay the inevitable.

It was a time honored method of weeding out the uninteresting for a reason, after all.

Erich tipped his head in consideration, gaze distant and unfocused as he worked through her question. She didn’t rush him, just nuzzled his palm and waited, giving him the space he needed to consider more than just ‘what was strategically best’.

“I think… that would make him interesting,” Erich said at last, a touch of possession creeping into his voice. “He seems to be interested in me at least, and was not at all put out by discovering that I was mated. If he wants to try to convince either of us…”

“He’d need to prove himself to both of us,” Alexis finished for him, tilting her chin up and fixing him with a stare. Very few of their kind ever considered adding a third to their bond, much less a human, but it wasn’t entirely unheard of. That Erich was considering it meant that he’d seen something in Urahara that she hadn’t; her mate had never looked at another with desire since they began courting as young adults.

That he was doing so now…

Oh, she was curious.

“This all presupposes that he’s both curious and capable.” Erich smiled, a bare twist of his lips that spoke of dry amusement, and nudged Alexis back until she was laying down with him sprawled atop her. “I am rather putting the cart before the horse, after all.”

“But you are interested.”

“In the potential I glimpsed,” Erich admitted easily enough, nuzzling her neck and inhaling deeply. “He hides so much, and all I see is a glimmer here, a spark there… oh the potential of him.”

Every word he spoke, every drop of curiosity-interest-fascination that slipped free, suffusing his signature until she was almost drowning in it… every single bit of it made her want to sing. He’d been — they’d all been — motionless for so long, content with their slow days and easy lives, their comfortable routine of living alone with only Ren and Mami as out-flock companions.

Urahara felt like a breath of fresh air, like the scent of rain on the wind, sharp and bright and promising; whether the storm would arrive or not… it was something new, something different, an unexpected divergence from their routine.

“We’ll give him two weeks to return and conquer our first spell,” Alexis decided, smiling sharp-wicked-pleased up at her mate as she untied his kimono and slid her hands beneath his clothes and up his sides. “And if he doesn’t make it in time…”

“Then he can just forget about us entirely,” Erich said with a sharp smile of his own, eyes dark and presence weighted with intent. “But I think that’s enough about him, isn’t it? I think I have something more interesting right in front me. What do you say, love?”

“I would certainly agree with you on that,” she said airily, swiping a thumb across one of his nipples and smirking at the quiet noise that earned her. “Now where should I begin…”

He laughed and pressed in. Captured her mouth in a kiss.

Her mate was infinitely more interesting indeed.