Page 30 of Witchbane
After a while the black edges grew to begin tunneling around the sides of my vision. I blinked a few times, trying to clear the fog. Did Liam feel that? Was it him? Had I upset him?
“Seb?”
I heard him call for me. Knew he had stopped and turned, reaching for me, but it all felt like slow motion, a little like my brain was on a stunted replay. “Liam?” I said, my voice sounding sluggish and odd.
He pulled me into his arms. He felt like fire. Hot and warm, blazing with heat that shoved back some of the dark edges and a little of the fog. I frowned trying to clarify my thoughts.
“Fuck,” I whispered. “You’re like fire.”
“You were supposed to tell me if you were tired or cold.”
“Always tired,” I told him, basking in the heat of his arms. “Always cold.” This bite of icy chill was worse than usual. His hands ran over my face, feeling hot enough to burn. “Wow, you’re warm.”
“And your skin is like ice. I’ve got to get you warmed up.” He shrugged off his pack before stripping me of mine. Then he pushed me back against a big tree trunk and unzipped my jacket.
“Naked isn’t warmer,” I said thinking my balls would shrivel up in this cold, if they hadn’t already. But I thought of Liam and I naked together and realized warm was good. “Oh, that kind of warm is good.” I reached up to weave my fingers through his hair and guide his lips to mine. He let me, always pliable to my will in a way I never thought an alpha could be. His mouth on mine felt like heaven, and for a moment I thought of taking more of his warmth, like the kitsune inside me needed it, only I was full. Overfull, really, not with heat as my skin still prickled with cold, but energy.
It was an odd realization, like I should have noticed it before. The heaviness I felt, the reason food didn’t sit well and I ate like a bird, was because the kitsune was overfull, and I couldn’t release it. Like when you’d eaten too much and one more bite would make you race for the nearest toilet, only this wasn’t coming back up.
Since I couldn’t use the energy in my human form, it was useless to me, not sustainable, but the side effects transferred through, making me sick. And everything the doctor said suddenly made sense in a much more serious way. Without releasing the power the kitsune had consumed, it would destroy me, and was draining my last bits of strength. Liam’s fear a reality. Fuck.
When I’d been in Underhill, it had felt somewhat the same. I’d refused to release my kitsune, fearing it would attract Underhill’s attention, while trapped with Nicky. Something had unraveled my control then, forcing the release of the monster. Did I need that to happen again? What did that mean for Liam and the pack when what I’d become was so dangerous that Underhill itself had cast me out?
My heart raced with worry, while the darkness began to edge into my sight again, and I wanted to scream. With Liam holding me, wrapped around me, searching for answers with me, the terror of it all didn’t feel overwhelming. He was my tether, keeping me grounded and focused. I had hope that we’d figure something out.
Hope. Another amazing thing my mate gave me.
The world churned a moment, spinning as I tried to stay upright though feeling as if I were tilted in Liam’s arms. He wouldn’t let me fall, but everything sort of turned upside-down for a second. A dark ripple of ice moving closer. Almost like we were being watched. Followed even.
Was it my kitsune? Was it waiting to break free? Pounce and kill my mate? I hoped not. I wasn’t sure what I could do to stop it.
I let myself fall into Liam’s kiss, trying to find the ground in his touch, and explored the warmth of his mouth. I wanted to revel in the feeling of his hands on me, hot enough they almost hurt. I couldn’t lose him. Couldn’t imagine hurting him, though the kitsune didn’t seem to care much about that. Those faded and broken memories of that transformation, before the forest god had locked my form, were of hunger and rage rather than mate and love. The kitsune had been too far gone to care.
Should I open a portal and jump through without Liam? Save him from the beast that needed to be released? I wasn’t sure there was any other way, but his touch, his kiss, reminded me how badly I needed him. Were there any good options left?
Liam rubbed his hands over my face and chest, caressing and moving slowly like he could awaken my icy nerves with only his touch. “Whatever you’re looking for is lower,” I teased him between kisses.
“Yeah?” He gave me a partial grin as he unhooked the button on my jeans. He pressed his palm into my growing erection, over my jeans, and I wondered how it was possible to still be hard when I was simultaneously frozen and exhausted.
“I swear I’ll be dead and still saluting you,” I grumbled at him.
“Prefer you alive,” Liam said as he nipped my lips and pressed his hips into mine, pushing me back against the tree. “I can set up the tent and we can do a proper warm-up.”
“Keep doing what you’re doing,” I said. “It’s helping.”
“Mhmm.” Liam laughed a little, his lips finding my neck and tracing a path of warm goosebumps over my skin. The heat of him began to warm me, oddly starting at my back, like the tree behind us was on fire, but that couldn’t be, right?
I glanced up, knowing the trunk I was against was huge, but having to assure myself it wasn’t on fire. When I peered into the leaves with the vague bits of blue sky leaking through, it wasn’t birds or even squirrels I saw, but a face.
I screamed and shoved Liam away, falling at the feet of a face I’d only seen in recent dreams. “Fuckity fuck fuck fuck!” I cried, heart pounding. Liam pulled me into his arms, trying to steady me back on my feet, as the giant tree began to move. “You’re seeing this, right?” I asked my mate, and his gaze was intent on the tree.
His gaze was focused upward too, mouth agape. Guess my mate had never met a forest god in his long life either.
Cracking wooden limbs and the swooshing of leaves rolled around us for a moment and I realized it was a bit melodic, like laughter. If trees could laugh. Liam tugged me back a few feet, keeping his arms tight around me.
The tree bent in our direction. Not a tree. The body was simply that wide and dark, with hooves on his feet, but hunched as he was, he’d appeared to be a tree. I could make out parts of him from memory now. The branch-like antlers, the glowing eyes, and the giant moss-covered face. And we’d been making out while pressed to his body. How creepy was that?
“Forest god?” Liam asked me for clarification. Like there could be more than one Ent-like creature from storybooks.
