Page 25 of All's Fair in Love and Magic

He stiffly sat down beside me an hour or two later with a box of food in his hand. I finished up what I was working on, and he handed me the box.

When his arm came into my sight, my eyebrows lifted.

“You’re steaming again.”

Liam grunted.

I was silent as I ate the fruit and pastry from the box. He was too.

I set the empty carton down next to me. “If you want to say something, just say it.”

“I can’t fly without you,” Liam gritted out.

I blinked.

That wasn’t what I expected to hear. At all.

“What do you mean?” I finally asked.

“Dragons have the same problem. It’s why they avoid taking mates. After heat starts, they can’t fly without their mate on their back. I can’t either.”

“Okay…”

“Imagine if you couldn’t use your magic without me holding your hand. It would make you paranoid when I wasn’t near, wouldn’t it?”

I considered it. “Probably, yeah. I can imagine it would be frustrating.”

“Very. You vanished. Yesterday, I could’ve tracked you down myself in a few minutes or less. Today, I was fucking helpless. Cecil could’ve had you.Anyonecould’ve had you. You’re my mate, and there’s nothing I could do to make sure you were alright. I don’t even have your fucking phone number.”

“I don’t have a phone, actually. Unless you count my burner. I tossed the old one so the coven wouldn’t be able to track me.”

“We’ll fix that tonight. What happened this morning is not going to happen again.”

“Okay. I’m going to hang out with Vera and Madison again, though. We’re taking a surfing class tomorrow.”

“That’s fine. I’ll go with you.”

I flashed him a narrow-eyed look. “No. It’s not a date.”

“I never said it was.”

“If you want to go, you’re staying on the beach.”

“How am I supposed to prevent you from drowning if I sit on the beach?”

“You’re not. That’s the point. You started a bond with me, but I’m still me. I get to be who I want and do what I want.”

“To an extent,” he said.

“That extent includes taking classes with my friends without you hovering next to me.”

“You barely know them.”

“I know them better than I know you, and I’m on my way to becoming yourmate. I don’t think you want to start getting into the semantics of this situation. Ultimately, you need me if you want to get these wards fixed, so you’re going to have to accept that you don’t get to make all of the decisions here.”

Liam’s entire body was tense, but after a moment of silence, he jerked his head in a nod. “I have a bungalow that I use for storage right now. We’re going to need to move there. If I can’t fly all the time, I don’t want to be trapped on the top floor of the tower.”

“A bungalow sounds nice. Is it closer to here, too?” I needed to ease up on the sass and stubbornness now that he hadn’t tried to argue against my personal freedom.