Page 92 of Witchbane

Nick nodded. “We understand. Maybe I’ll take Kiran for a walk. The woods are nice. I don’t even mind the cold.”

“Don’t go too far,” Liam said.

“Kiran’s not strong enough to go far. But we’ll stay close.”

Ari raced through the door, and Nick reached back to tug it shut, leaving me alone with Liam. I breathed a sigh of relief. I was home, right? This was all real?

“You are, and it is,” Liam agreed.

“You’re in my head.”

“Yep.” He tugged me down, wrapping his strong body around me. “Figured it was the best way to keep you close to me.”

“We’re naked,” I realized in that moment, the blankets the only thing that kept me from completely flashing Nick when he’d shown up. And Nick was here in our house.

“Everyone’s here. The whole pack, Nick and Kiran, and that’s going to have to change.” Liam sighed. “Too many dominants. Normally I’m not pissy about that. But it takes a lot of energy to keep my wolf from lashing out when Kiran gets demanding.” Liam looked at me, his gaze intense and needy. “Especially when it’s been a long time since I claimed my mate.”

The whole “claim my mate”thing made me instantly hard. I groaned. “I have such a kink for you.”

“Good. The feeling is mutual.”

I touched his hair, still scattered with gray, and wondered. “How long were you stuck in Underhill waiting for me to wake up?”

Liam let out a long breath as though pulling up the memory was painful. “I didn’t count. At first, I was a little mad without you. If not for Ari… I might not have made it at all. But having Ari, was like having a link to you, even if it was faint.”

“I didn’t mean to open a portal.”

“Yeah, we’ll work on that. Kiran and Nick seem to know a lot about portals. Neither of them can access them here.”

“But Underhill is gone. That means I shouldn’t have the power to open portals anymore, right?” Would Ari have taken that bit of power? But that couldn’t be right. I’d opened a portal after creating Ari, fallen into it and ended up somewhere the fae and vampires had found me. I’d also created a doorway to get me to the garage. Not a portal, really, but a rift in space and time.

“I suspect nothing is that simple. I was able to get us back here, but we wound up lost for a bit. Wandering between the courts set up in this world. That was an adventure I’ll have to tell you about someday. But they adore Ari there. Their space is magic, almost a woven tiny world within our world. So yes, Underhill is gone, but parts of it remain.”

“This is our court now? Like we are some kind of kings? You were already sort of a king, being alpha of the pack and all that.” Was I supposed to make it some magical space? I was kind of happy with it the way it was.

“Fae are territorial,” Liam said.

“So are werewolves,” I reminded him.

“You and your space, whatever it may be, are mine. This is our home. Our world really. Those odd worlds within woven magic, they aren’t our home. If we were stuck in some place like Underhill, we would likely create something similar to what we have here. That is what the fae have done.”

“Makes sense. I should tell you about my trip to the dark court.”

Liam scowled.

“I didn’t mean to.” But I told him about the cold and the giant man and the woman and even the obsidian dragon behind the throne.

“You’re certain it was the Volkov?”

“It was only a glimpse.” Maybe it had been a trick of my mind? I couldn’t stop remembering it. The expression on his face, and the change that I’d only seen glimpses of before all seemed real in my memory.

“We will have to make gentle inquiries.” Liam groaned and rubbed his face. “I think Wesley was blocking us to keep us from messing up.”

“How?”

“Because asking for things from the fae means we owe them. That’s a recipe for disaster right there. It meant they could demand things of you, like tying you to whatever fae they chose to control your power.”

“But isn’t there some fae counsel who dictate everything?”