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 laboured 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.”
Lia shuddered. “A person used their own skin to bind the book.”
“If you take Lia back to your house, Rai, Elior will know,” Tara observed as she dried the dishes for Alatar.
“I probably don’t have a job anymore, so he probably won’t care where I go,” Lia fixated on Elior’s name. She looked at Tara’s face and then twisted to see Raiden’s. “What?”
“Elior believes that your blood made Lucian stronger and faster,” Raiden said gently. “And wants the same in order to heal and win the war.”
“That is what you meant when you spoke with the Wingless. That is why they are after me.” Her heart raced and she knew that the two werewolves at least could hear it. Raiden stroked his thumb over the back of her hand. “Because of what my blood does to vampires? My grandmother was right,” she added incredulously. “She always told me that our line was hunted by the Wingless, and I thought…”
“Yes, Lia.”
“They are not going to stop,” she said with panicked despair. “Not while my blood makes vampires stronger and faster. The vampires will keep chasing me, and the Wingless will keep trying to kill me.”
“We will work it out,” Raiden assured her firmly. “Don’t be afraid, Lia.”
“I wonder,” Alatar said hesitantly, and they all looked at him. He swallowed and shrugged. “Well, I was just thinking that if Raiden turns you, you will be a werewolf. I wonder what that will do? It has never been done before, right? That might change the attributes of your blood.”
“That is true,” Tara looked hopeful.
“We will find out next full moon,” Raiden decided. “What to do in the interim, is the question?”
“Can’t you just bite her now?” Alatar suggested.
“I have never heard of anyone being turned except on the full moon,” Tara was dubious. “I am not even sure it works.”
“When I turn Lia, I will do it right, under the full moon,” Raiden stood, setting her onto her feet. “I think we will go to Lia’s.”
“My house?” Lia was surprised.
“We will make a bed in the turret room,” he explained. “Alatar said that the protection spell was withdrawing towards the book, so hopefully it is still protecting the turret room, and that door is pretty well hidden. Without the blood bond, Lucian won’t know that you have returned. We will try to keep it that way for the time being, until we have had a chance to sleep and recover. Tomorrow, we will work out what to do next.”
“That is a sensible plan,” Alatar agreed.
“I will bring the car closer,” Raiden said. “Stay here with Alatar and Tara.”
“Alright.” It made her nervous to see him walk away, however. She watched Alatar and Tara put away the dishes into the cupboards, amused to see that the shelves were lined with newspaper, as her grandmother had used in her house. She realized that Alatar presented her with an opportunity that she might not get again. “Alatar,” she said, flushing.
“Yeah?”
“Do witches go on heat?”
His expression blanked. “I don’t… I don’t know. Warlocks don’t, ah…”
“Yes,” Tara replied with amusement. “All women go on heat, usually around ovulation. Even humans. Wolves can smell it. If you don’t want to attract unwanted attention, there are ways of hiding it. I will tell you all about it when it gets to that time, if Raiden has not knocked you up by then.”
“But, like…” Lia brushed aside the comment about being knocked up. She cringed. “Really on heat.”
“Yes,” Tara giggled. “Around twenty, you go through a period of really ramped up sexuality designed to attract a mate. I killed about three vibrators when it happened to me, and that was also being sexually active.”
“Really?” Alatar was paying avid attention, a grin tugging at his lips. “I have never heard of it. Happy to help out, by the way,” he slid a flirtatious look at Tara. “If the vibrator isn’t up to the job.”
Tara snickered. “It is not exactly something we advertise, or all the alphas and betas would be driving us nuts. Most of us know how to hide it, and it does ease off when you are in your mid-forties, according to my mum. I imagine it is the same with witches. I don’t think vampires would have it, they are sort of biologically frozen, after all. Humans have it, but not as strongly as werewolves, or at least, not that I have come across, and they are sort of oblivious to those things, so I have smelt them on heat.”
“Cael said that I was on heat,” Lia said, certain that her cheeks were as bright red as the design on Alatar’s tablecloth. “When I first met Raiden. Would it like… influence him?”
“Beside wanting to f-k you really badly?” Tara considered. “He would be feeling that due to the mate bond, anyway. But influence him to take you as a mate? I don’t think so. Maybe Cael’s people are more open about it,” she added thoughtfully.
Maybe, Lia added, they were also more sensitive to it, because Cael had used it as an excuse to almost f-k her on the kitchen floor. At least it would no longer be a problem now that she and Raiden were sexually active, and she should be well past ovulation… She frowned. How long had it been? She felt the shock like a blow. She and Raiden had never used any contraception…
And then a horrifying thought occurred. Had Lucian used protection?
“Lia, are you alright?” Tara was concerned by the expression on her face.
“Alright,” Raiden walked back in. “Everyone ready? Lia?”
“I am fine,” she said, pushing back the sudden nausea that rose in her, and her skin crawling. “Let’s go.”
She lay in the rear of the 4WD so as to be out of sight in case any vampires were watching the house and stared up at the vehicle ceiling as the streetlights slid through the windows, flickering the cab in various hues. Was she pregnant? Maybe not, she told herself. Her periods had always been irregular, and she had lost weight during her time with Lucian which could also affect regularity.
But it was possible. And what did that mean? If the baby was Raiden’s, it had been forming whilst she was under the influence of vampire blood. Could that have harmed it? If it was Lucian’s… The very thought horrified her. If it were Lucian’s she did not think she could… No, she pushed the thought away. It had to be Raiden’s. She just could not tolerate the thought of it being Lucian’s.
If she were pregnant, would being turned into a werewolf harm it?
She needed a pregnancy test, and some time with the grimoire to see if it held any useful information. She sighed heavily. Neither would be easily achieved with Raiden in the turret room with her, he was bound to notice if she started searching pregnancy or popped to the shops to pick up a test or twenty.
The car pulled up, and she could see the side of her house through the window. It was worse than she had imagined, and she stared at it in shock. “It looks like it has been condemned.”
“It isn’t as bad as it looks.” Raiden assured her. “We will fix it in no time, Lia, once this is… Well, I will go in and unlock it. And look around whilst I do so to make sure there is no one who will see,” he added in an undertone to Tara.
Once he was out of the car, Lia crawled closer to the back seat where Tara was seated.
“Tara,” she whispered. “Don’t answer.” Tara turned slightly in the seat and gave her the side eye indicating that she had heard, her werewolf hearing keener than Alatar’s. “I need a pregnancy test.”
Tara grinned.
The rear door opened. “Alright?” Raiden asked as he picked her up. He didn’t wait for a reply, striding to the front door swiftly, leaving Tara and Alatar to close the car door behind him. He carried her straight into the walk-in-robe. “Stay here a moment, until the front door is locked and Alatar and Tara are gone, okay?”
“I would love to have a shower,” she said.
“Yeah, we will do that.”
From the tone of his voice and quickness of his answer, he could smell Cael on her, she thought, and it was probably driving him insane, as Lucian’s scent had done.
He went back out to secure the door behind Alatar and Tara and she looked at the bedroom assessing the damage. The window was boarded shut, and someone had picked up the glass from the floor and bed. There were blood stains on the carpet from her feet, and vampire blood on the wallpaper near the door. The curtains were torn and tangled, as was the bedding.
She couldn’t imagine sleeping peacefully in that bed again.
She selected clean clothes from the shelves.
“They are gone,” Raiden returned to the room.
“You don’t have clean clothes to change into.”
“That is fine,” he shrugged. “Tara will bring me some tomorrow. Where is your spare bedding? I don’t think we can use anything in here.”
“True. There is a cupboard in the laundry…”
“I will get it. Stay in here. If you hear anything, go into the turret, and close the door behind you,” he didn’t wait for a reply. She took her clothes into the bathroom and started the water knowing that it would take time to heat after not being used for a while and watched him make trips with all the spare bedding from the laundry up the stairs.
She undressed, kicking the dress into the corner, and slid under the water, eager to wash Cael from her skin. Raiden finished making the bed as she finished shampooing her hair, and she watched him through the water-splashed glass as he undressed.
The bruising was yellowed and faded, she noted, he was almost healed. When he stepped into the spray, she reached out for him.
“You are so beautiful,” she told him.
He grinned, a flash of white teeth. “Isn’t that my line?”
She laughed, feeling the heaviness of the past weeks ease within her, banished by the rightness of being with him. She took the soap and ran it over him, from shoulders, down his arms, across his chest, and down the other arm, enjoying the rise and fall of his muscles. He watched her, his eyelids heavy and his eyes smouldering beneath the golden shimmer of the Other. He was hard, but he made no move to reach for her, content to let her touch him.
“Turn around,” she murmured and trailed the soap over his back. He leaned back into the spray to wet his hair, and she rubbed shampoo into it, stepping back so that the tiles were cold against her back whilst he rinsed it off.
He turned again. “Are we ready to go to bed?” He asked her, his voice husky.