Page 64 of All's Fair in Love and Magic

“Nothing.” I went back to sketching.

“Clove,” he warned.

“I’m fine,” I insisted.

“Is heat causing you pain?”

“No. I told you, I’m fine,” I repeated.

He growled and scooted closer, until his side was pressed up against mine.

It took everything I had not to grin.

Considering the way he’d forced me to be his mate, a few little tricks to get him to figure out how I wanted to be treated seemed totally fair.

Especially after our blunt conversation hadn’t changed it permanently.

“Does that help?” he asked.

“A little. Thanks.”

He nodded.

I gave it a few more minutes. He was definitely looking over my shoulder, reading my messy handwriting and taking in the sketches I’d done.

“What does that one do? You didn’t label it.” He pointed to the base.

“That ignites the rune. Every piece has it. It’s not necessary to label it, because I don’t need the quick reminder to figure out what I’m missing to make the rest of the rune work.”

“Hmm.”

Liam kept studying the rune.

I moved a little more, changing positions to make it seem like I was uncomfortable again.

Liam growled under his breath and leaned closer, draping his arm over my shoulders.

Letting out a soft breath of feigned relief, I refocused on my rune. The movie was still playing, but I didn’t particularly care.

It was terrible, but I was totally going to train Liam to stop giving me space.

“What is it missing?” he asked me.

“I’m not sure yet.” I went over the parts silently. “I’ll probably need to rune something to figure out if it works. Like a dog tag on a chain. Do you have anything like that?”

“I can find it. You shouldn’t do magic today, though.”

“If I don’t go out and work on the wards, everyone will think the vampires beat me.”

Liam scowled. “They’re dying. No one thinks they won.”

“I do. They caught me off guard in a restaurant.”

“That was my fault, not yours.”

“You’re insane if you think you can protect me every minute of every day, Steam.”

“I’m your mate.”