Page 97 of Burdened Bonds

“Yeah, I do. Of course I do.”

“Me?” I say, pointing to my chest.

“You really think I didn’t?”

“I don’t know. I think I annoy the crap out of you most of the time.”

“Yeah, you do,” he says with a grin.

I whack his shoulder. “Don’t do that. Go back to the love bit again, I liked that bit.”

He wraps his arms around my waist and kisses the tip of my nose.

“I love you, Rhianna Blackwaters, more than anything else in this world, in this galaxy, in this universe,” he tips his head up towards the ceiling, “more than all the stars in the heavens.”

“Wow,” I say, utterly dumbfounded.

Stone tips his head forward and smirks at me. “You know you can say it back.”

“Of course, I’d have to mean it,” I tease.

“It generally helps.”

I kiss him, whispering against his mouth. “I love you too, asshole.”

And I mean it. I really do.

I findboth Winnie and Pip gone when I tiptoe back into the bedroom another thirty minutes later. I also find my clothes have somehow been miraculously cleaned and I am mighty thankful to be pulling on clean panties. Once I’m dressed, I follow my nose and discover everyone else already in the kitchen.

Azlan and Stone have spread an ancient-looking map over the countertop and Winnie has laid Pip out on the table, examining him closely.

“Did you clean my clothes?” I ask her.

“Nope,” she says, not looking up from Pip, “he did.” She points to Renzo who’s sitting on a kitchen chair, his feet resting on the tabletop munching a piece of toast.

“Where did you find the food?”

“There’s a freezer in the larder, working under some magical spell,” Azlan says. “Eat something.”

I nod, taking the chair next to Pip and helping myself to a piece of buttered toast from the stack in the center of the table. I bite through the bread, moaning a little as the butter sinks onto my tongue. It has three out of four pairs of eyes swiveling my way and I chew and avert my own gaze towards Winnie.

“Does he seem any better?” I ask her hopefully.

“No,” Winnie says, stroking her hand along Pip’s torso.

“It’s been days,” I say. “Surely he should be better by now.”

“My middle sister, Petunia, once accidentally hit my youngest sister with her magic during a fight. It took Alice a week to work that magic out of her system and she was pretty sick the entire time.”

“But,” I say, suddenly finding it hard to swallow my toast, “she was okay afterwards, right? There was no lasting damage.”

“No lasting damage. She was perfectly normal.”

I tickle Pip’s snout and he murmurs slightly but his eyes don’t open. I continue to pet him as I finish off the last few bites of my toast and lick the butter off my fingers, glancing up to find Renzo staring at me darkly.

“What?” I ask.

“You like buttered toast.”