They stepped into the basement of a building, the perimeter of the room cluttered, tables and shelves heavy with oddments cloaked by dustsheets. What Lia could see of the objects they were arcane in nature, jars labelled with spell components, talismans, athames, and all the pieces that a witch or warlock would need to create their spells.
She wrapped her arms around Raiden, pressing her face into the curve of his neck, breathing in the scent of him, absorbing the heat of his body against hers, the feel of his skin beneath the palms of her hands. His arms tightened around her in a fierce embrace, and he buried his face into her hair, kissing the crown of her head with a sigh of relief and homecoming.
“Are you alright?” He asked, the question barely audible over Tara and Alatar’s excited conversation as they clattered up the stairs.
“Yes. Just… So glad to be back with you.”
“Yes,” he set her feet to the ground and threaded his fingers through her hair, lifting her face to his. His kiss was gentle, but she could feel the tension in the muscles of his body, in the grip of his hands around her skull, in the slight shake to his arms.
“F-k Lia,” he scrutinized her face. “Holding onto you is like gripping sand. The tighter I grip you, the more I seem to lose you.”
“I am sorry,” she touched his cheek, feeling the bite of stubble against her palm. “I am sorry Raiden.”
“It is not your fault,” he pulled her back against him and buried his face into her hair. “It is not your fault, Lia.”
“I think my grandmother had a protection spell on the house, and used to ward me when I left it, to keep me safe because she knew,” Lia said against his chest. “When she died, the protection spell began to decay, and I was no longer being warded – and that is how Cael and those Wingless people were able to find me.”
“Can we put a protection spell back on you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know it if will work now that they know who they are looking for. At least the blood bond seems to have been broken now,” she added. “I can’t feel Lucian in my mind anymore.”
“I will thank that f-king winged would be rapist for that right before I kill him,” Raiden replied darkly. “Come, let’s see if Alatar has anything to eat. I am starving and you are nothing but skin and bones still.”
“Yes, I am famished,” she agreed with surprise. “I can’t actually remember when I last ate. Where are we, anyway?”
“Basement of Alatar’s magic shop. It was the only space big enough for a portal.”
He led her up the stairs by the hand and they followed the sound of Alatar and Tara’s voices into the kitchen. It was as dated as her grandmother’s house, Lia observed with amusement, the linoleum faded and scuffed showing the cork it was laid on, and the cupboard doors avocado green. There was a small table covered in a plastic tablecloth, the pattern on which she recognised from her childhood.
“We are cooking,” Alatar looked up from the fry pan he was stirring. “I am starving after casting two portals. It is a side effect of magic,” he said to Tara. “Witches and warlocks who use magic frequently are rarely overweight. Takes a lot of energy to spell cast, speeds up the metabolism, and burns through the carbs like nothing else.”
“We were just saying we were hungry,” Raiden sat at the table and pulled Lia onto his lap, unwilling to be parted from her. She leaned back against him, sharing the sentiment, and wanting as much contact as possible. She wanted to take him somewhere private, strip them both to the skin, and memorise every inch of his body, and, from the hard on that pressed up at her, she was not alone in that.
“So, what is next?” Tara asked from chopping vegetables which they were adding to the fry pan.
“Next?” Raiden looked up in surprise, his focus on other more physical things like his mate sitting upon his lap, and then he sighed heavily with resignation. “Yes, I guess we do have to think about what to do next,” he agreed. “I just want to take Lia back to my room and lock the door on the outside world for a week, but I guess that is not a possibility.”
“Not likely,” Tara was sympathetic. “Vampire war, Lucian hunting her, Elior with baby limbs in your den and all.”
“Elior with baby limbs?” Lia repeated in horror, certain she had misheard the werewolf.
“That sounded wrong,” Tara said. “He is not eating babies or tearing off their limbs. He had an arm and a leg torn off, and they are regrowing. They look like baby limbs. Eventually they will be proportional. It is a bit eww in the interim, though.”
“I am not sure what to say to that,” Lia’s eyes were heavy. She was exhausted, and the sheer comfort of Raiden’s body against hers was having a drowsy effect. Like Raiden, she wanted to eat, have a shower, and then lock herself into a room with him and sleep and make love until her craving for his skin against hers was sated.
“Don’t fall asleep,” Raiden murmured, picking up on the change in her breathing and the sag of her posture. “Eat something first.”
“Why is Elior in your den?” She wondered, leaning against him, and tucking herself against his chest, her head beneath his chin. From this position she could slide her hand under the hem of his shirt and lay her palm against the skin of his stomach, the small skin-to-skin contact comforting.
“Ah,” he shifted as Tara and Alatar brought the food to the table, leaning around her in order to eat. “That is complicated. Eat, Lia. You need it.”
She picked up her fork. Once she began to eat, her hunger struck with force, and she all but licked the plate clean before polishing off the glass of water that Tara put before her. Tara and Alatar watched her, their own eating paused.
“Wow, hungry,” Alatar commented in surprise.
“Can’t remember when I last ate,” she flushed embarrassed. “Oh, yes, actually I can…” In the fabric draped harem room. She remembered the gold paint beneath her fingernails and shuddered. “I don’t know how long ago that was,” she added, disorientated by the memory.
“I don’t know how long we were in the room with the cage, or how long I was with Cael… I know I was with Lucian for two weeks because your father told me… I think I have probably been expelled from the academy for being absent so long without excuse,” she was shocked by the realization.
“Oh, god,” she felt sick. “I became one of the girls on the posters. What happened to the other girls from Lucian’s harem, that Elior’s people took? What happened to my house? My fairy?” She felt panic rising, her breathing becoming labored and the food she had eaten sitting uneasily in her stomach.
Raiden pulled her back against him, murmuring comfort.
“Mum has been feeding your fairy,” Tara offered. “And Ethan boarded up your house.”
“Oh, thank you.” Those simple things helped. “That was kind of them. What about Paris? Oh, god, what happened to Paris? Is she okay?”
“Brock mated her last full moon,” Tara supplied. “I imagine they are still in their bedroom,” she added with a lascivious grin.
“She is fine,” Raiden added. “The pack looks after its own, Lia. Alatar, that protection spell on Lia’s house, is it possible to fix it?”
“I guess,” he wasn’t certain. “I would have to get someone in the coven to look at it. It is pretty advanced.”
“Do that, please,” Raiden said. “We think it helps hide Lia from the Wingless.”
“Probably should protect the bible anyway,” Alatar agreed.
“Bible?” Lia queried.
“Your grimoire,” Raiden told her. “Alatar says it is like a bible.”
“And covered in people skin,” Tara added cheerfully as she collected the plates.
“Oh,” Lia was repulsed. “I have spent my life touching dead skin?”
“That is what leather is, does it matter what creature it came from?” Alatar replied unbothered.
“Well, yes, it does,” Lia was disgusted. “Whose skin?”
“Probably the author’s skin,” Alatar began to wash the dishes. “It is an unusual thing to do, and I would be very curious to know why. You don’t just cover a book with your own skin without a reason.”