Free Succubus Revealed by Richelle Mead Page B

yourself for running off with me while they need you so much.”
    “So, what? You’ve made my choice for me?” he asked. There was a playful note to his voice, despite the deadly seriousness of the topic. “Are we breaking up?”
    “No! Of course not. I just . . . I just want you to know that I don’t expect you to come with me. Do I want to be with you? Yes, of course. But I love your family, Seth. I love all of them. My happiness . . .” It was strange, speaking those words. My happiness . For so long, I’d been miserable. Happiness wasn’t even a concept I’d imagined for myself in ages. “My happiness isn’t worth theirs.”
    He leaned down and brushed his lips against mine. “What about mine?”
    I stared in astonishment. “Are you saying you’d abandon them and run off to Las Vegas?”
    “No,” he said firmly. “I would never abandon them. But there must be some middle ground here. Some way that doesn’t involve sacrificing us or them. We just have to figure it out. What we have is too important. Don’t give up on us yet, okay?”
    I hugged him, losing myself in the sweetness of his warmth and scent. My heart had lightened a little at his words, but I still didn’t want to get my hopes up. There was too much at stake, still too much that could go wrong.
    “I love you,” I told him.
    “I love you too.” He squeezed me tight and then kissed me again before pulling apart. “Now. Let’s go watch that movie and pretend to be social so that we can leave early.”
    “Why?”
    “Because if you’re going to Vegas this weekend, then I want to get you home and get some quality time in tonight.”
    I grinned and put my arm around him. “Does ‘quality time’ mean what I think it does?”
    “Yes,” he said, as we walked back to the living room. “Yes, it does.”
    “Well, then, you know that’s against the rules.”
    “Rules that you made up,” he pointed out.
    “Rules that are for your own good,” I corrected. “It’s not time yet. Remember, we have to ration ourselves.”
    It was part of the conditions of us getting back together. Keeping strictly platonic before had strained us, so this time, I’d agreed that some sex was okay . . . even though I cringed at the thought of how each act, no matter how small, would take away some of his life. Seth had told me he didn’t care, that he’d take any risk to be with me. I was still cautious, and he’d yielded to me to set the schedule for our rationed sex life. I still wasn’t entirely sure what constituted proper rationing in this situation, but something in my head said we should have sex only every few months. I hadn’t told Seth that, though. It had been one month since the last—and only—time we’d had sex since getting back together as a mortal and a succubus, and I knew he was getting restless. It was especially difficult for him because although he respected me, he also didn’t think such caution was needed when he was the one who faced the dangers—dangers he swore he didn’t mind.
    “Not tonight,” I continued.
    “It’s practically a special occasion, though,” he told me. “A big send-off.”
    “Hey, I didn’t say we couldn’t do anything,” I replied. “Just not as much as you’d like to do.” One thing we’d inherited from our chaste days was a set of several creative workarounds, mostly involving doing unto ourselves what we couldn’t do unto each other. “The question is, is there going to be a problem with your houseguests?”
    “Not if we’re quiet,” Seth said. After a moment, he shrugged. “Scratch that. I don’t care. Let them hear.”
    I scoffed. “Oh, yeah. So that your mom can come break down your door with her baseball bat.”
    “Don’t worry,” he said, kissing my cheek. “She’s no match for you and that dictionary.”

Chapter 6
     
    F ortunately, no dictionaries or bats ever came into play, and Seth and I spent a pleasant night together. He sent me off that weekend in a good