"...Really?" I whisper, a bit shy.
He smiles.
"Yeah. When we kiss, you... tend to attack my lower lip more. You are more raw and your lips are warm. Your fingers too. I like how you brush my hair with your fingers."
Gently, he raises his hand and pushes some of my hair behind my ear, his fingers giving me chills as they slowly slide down my skin. They go down, until he reaches my neck, holding me softly in his warm hand. We get a little bit closer, and it gets hotter in here.
"Your... smell changes a bit when we kiss," he continued. "It's like hot wood, and crackling fire. There's something a bit spicier too, like... I don't know. Just your lips."
I chuckle, and slowly, grab a gentle kiss from him.
"Just my lips?" I whisper.
He nods.
"Yeah. Just your lips... and I love whatever they taste like."
He smiles, and leans forward a bit more, hooking his hand around my neck to pull us closer.
Our lips meet again, for a longer, deeper kiss. Moon Goddess, his lips... I'm melting. I feel my heartbeat going crazy and all of my skin warming up again. A chill rolls down my spine, and his hot hand on my neck is terrifyingly nice too. We keep kissing, very gently. Perhaps he's afraid of hurting me. I do feel a little cut inside my lower lip, but I don't care. I just want Liam. More of Liam. More of my man. I missed him so much. I push the tray out of the way, and wrap my arms around his shoulders to lock him in with me. He is careful about each of his movements, and I do feel he's a bit stiffer than before. Finally, he pulls me onto his lap, and we resume our kiss, gently holding each other.
I don't care about any witches, any wolves, or any battles for now. I just want a few more minutes, just him and I kissing and bathing in the warm light of the evening...
Chapter 28
As expected, it's not that easy to convince Bonnie and the whole staff to let me out. I feel like a lab rat, they keep wanting to do more and more tests to study the amazing speed of my recovery.
I suspect the extra life little Mara gave me is also playing a part... I'd surely be dead if it wasn't for her. I already miss her, but I just hope she's in a better place now. Moreover, I'm happy to be back to myself. I can still feel my wolf inside, but it's... different from the witches’ voices. She's just there, like a presence waiting in the shadows. I will probably never be like the other werewolves. Clarissa wasn't one, although she probably had some werewolf blood and our wolf is only here because of little Mara, a survivor like me.
While we wait for my medical exams to be over, I take some time to explain everything to Liam. I'll have to tell Kelsi and Bonnie too when I get a chance later. I tell him all about little Mara, all the voices, how I trained during those hours I was trapped, and about my fight too, although he did see a lot of it.
"I need to know more about that curse thing," I explain, sitting on my bed. "There was something much darker than what Nephera could have conjured. For some reason, it was targeting me, little Mara, and Clarissa too."
"You're thinking that it's about witches? An ancient spell of some sort?"
I nod. Liam is sitting right by my side, his hand on my knee, gently caressing my leg with his fingers, although he's very serious and focused on our discussion.
"Very ancient," I nod again. "Little Mara talked about it as if it was... really, really old, and would be tough to undo."
Liam nods slowly, but I do realize that's really… not much to go on. We have no idea where to start, I feel like we've exhausted all our leads. Little Mara isn't here to help me anymore either... It's going to be very complicated. I sigh, looking down on our locked fingers, but just then, Liam chuckles and kisses my cheek.
"Don't worry," he whispers gently. "We'll be looking for answers together this time, okay? I'm sure we will find the truth soon..."
"Yeah."
I do hope so too, and the fact that we are now together, and nowhere near ready to leave each other, is a huge help. I manage to smile.
"If you can leave tonight," he resumes, "let's go to Nora and Damian's. You want to see the tree too, don't you?"
"Yes..."
It might be painful for the both of us, but I do want to see what happened to Sylviana's tree. Maybe I can do something about it, and Moon Goddess, I hope so because otherwise, it's going to be very, very complicated from now on... Seeing my frown, Liam gently rubs my leg.
"Don't worry," he whispers. "That tree probably wasn't meant to last anyway. I think Sylviana waited for the next witch to come... if she had seen you coming, which wouldn't surprise me either. We can just go see it later."
"Wait, so you haven't seen it either?"
He chuckles and shakes his head, holding my hand tighter.
