Page 9 of Witchbane

I took it and flipped it over to read the label, nodding after a minute as I approved of the ingredients. “I’ll try it. Let me finish my tea.”

He wrapped his arms around me from behind, leaving my hands free to refill the pot and set out an extra cup. “Seb.”

“I’m sorry,” I told him automatically. “I shouldn’t have left you with them.”

“It’s fine,” he promised. “I’ll convince them to leave in the next day or two.”

Good. I could hide out here until then.

Liam’s hug tightened and he put his face into my shoulder, then mumbled, “Your mother will need to see you.”

“She doesn’t even like me.”

“I think she likes you in her own way. Probably not the way most of us think mothers should. Not all that unlike Elaine, actually. But if Korissa can put up with her mother, you can put up with yours. You’re the adult here.”

“Jerk,” I said without heat.

“Your jerk,” he promised. How was it that something stupidly unrelated could turn me on? He gave me a husky laugh. “It’s me. Everything about me turns you on.”

“Arrogant much?” I complained, though it was completely true. He kissed me and I sighed into his lips, and sank into his embrace. Without him, I really did flounder like a fish. All the running and self-doubt drove me insane. Where did I find strength and stability without him? Would I have ever stopped running?

He pulled away to open the bottle and dig out a few pills. “Sleep instead of sex.”

I groaned. “Do I get a vote? Sex is better than sleep any day.” At least sex with him. Before him I could have lived without.

“Not when you haven’t slept properly in weeks. We can have wake-up sex. You like wake-up sex.”

“I like you,” I said. Didn’t matter when the sex happened, as long as it was Liam.

He gave me a smug smile.

“Jerk,” I grumbled at him again, then swallowed the pills and resumed sipping my tea. He tugged me toward the bed, helping me undress as we went. “Thought we weren’t having sex?”

“You sleeping in your clothes always makes me think you’re going to run.”

“Not without you. Not on purpose at least,” I said.

“Good.”

“Did you really ban the pack from talking to Al?”

Liam groaned. “Is this the conversation you want to have while we’re in bed together?” He stripped too, leaving his undies and mine.

He tugged back the blanket, holding it open for me to crawl under it with him. I let out a long sigh because he was a furnace to my always cold body and I clung to him like an octopus.

“I don’t want Sean and Dylan to be unhappy. If Al is a thing for them…”

“I have a bad feeling about that guy,” Liam admitted.

“Only because he’s a vampire who knows me.”

“Vampires in general are bad news.”

“Have you known a lot of them?”

“A handful. I don’t think it’s a Sean, Dylan, and Al thing as much as a Sean and Al thing.”

I thought about that for a minute. Sean and Dylan were supposed to get married. The traditional kind that I was against for myself. And if Al had put an end to that, maybe it wasn’t a good thing? I frowned, worried now about my friends.