Chapter 36 Raven
Raven
Kai’s expression changed the instant I admitted I wanted him. He pulled me through the water so fast I forgot to breathe.
Being able to breathe underwater confused my brain, but while my rational mind struggled with the idea, my body absorbed oxygen from the water regardless. Which was just as well, or I’d have drowned.
Kai must have had better eyesight than me because I couldn’t see a thing in this cavern, even with all the glowing plant fronds. He tugged me upward, and a few seconds later, we emerged into a smaller cave.
A whisper of air tickled my damp skin, but it was too dark to see where it came from. It took a few seconds for my lungs to remember to function normally again, but then I inhaled sharply, picking up the scent of smoke and something else I couldn’t name.
Kai’s tail shifted back into two muscular legs. With a low growl, he pushed me down onto a bed of thick green moss. A hard, erect cock pressed into me, nudging my opening.
“Tell me you want this,” he rasped. When my gaze slid down his chest, I saw the rune on his pectoral glowing brightly.
From my merman’s fevered expression, he was on the verge of losing his mind. The thought of Kai’s ironclad control shattering pleased me.
“Yes, I want this,” I confirmed, although as a shifter, he could probably smell my arousal.
“I’ve never…done this before,” Kai admitted, looking down at me with an anguished expression. “Forgive me if it’s no good for you.”
My heart broke a little. My poor, shy, sweet merman. Even while gripped by a mating frenzy, he worried he couldn’t satisfy me.
“I love being with you,” I told him as I wrapped my thighs around his waist. The feel of his cock nudging my entrance made me whimper. He slid an inch inside with a low groan, and my back arched as I tried to pull him deeper, desperate for more friction.
The rough bumps on his shaft rubbed me in all the right places, like the metal accessories in Zane’s cock had, and I whimpered louder as he pressed further inside me.
“You feel so tight and hot and perfect.” The look of wonder on Kai’s face made me swoon with happiness. He surged the last few inches, and we lay locked together, both of us panting.
“Oh my goddess, please move!” Pressure slowly coiled tighter inside me. A dam on the verge of bursting. This was more than an orgasm. It was as if our magic had merged into one and needed an outlet or we’d both explode.
Kai withdrew and then thrust hard. His expression morphed from wonder to agony as the urge to complete the bond took hold. He scraped his teeth along my neck and rutted into me, lost to the mating frenzy.
The pressure in my core spiked until, with a white-hot flash, I fell apart.
I heard Kai yell before sharp teeth sank into my neck.
A biting pain seared the skin on my left breast, triggering a tsunami of pleasure before my magic blasted out and up, turning the cavern into a raging inferno.
When I opened my eyes, panic dug its claws into me as flames licked the rocks around us and steam billowed from the boiling pool behind us.
If I didn’t do something fast, we’d burn or boil alive!
An image of Alaric’s scowling face entered my mind, and I sucked in a shaky breath.
Focus, Raven.
For once my magic obeyed immediately, and seconds later, the fire died, leaving nothing but hot steam and a few glowing rocks above our heads.
I tried to move, but Kai and I remained locked together.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, his cheeks flushed purple. “The barbs on my cock will keep me locked inside you for a while.”
“Um…” It felt kind of nice, pleasurable even. So I smiled. “That’s okay. We can cuddle for a bit.”
The spot above my left breast stung. When I peered down, I saw a small tattoo on my previously unblemished skin.
“Oh, um, that’s my mating mark.” Kai looked even more embarrassed, if that was possible. “I’m so sorry. I should have explained all this to you. Fuck, I’m a terrible mate.” He closed his eyes and buried his face in my shoulder.
“It’s fine. I really don’t mind.” I stroked his hair and smiled to myself. I’d always wanted a tattoo, and now I had one!
Kai had fallen asleep next to me. Maverick threatened to kill him when we finally emerged from the water. Zane hadn’t congratulated us either. But after some sweet talking from me and a lot of tears when that failed to work, the three of them had come to a truce.
Albeit a shaky one.
Maverick’s reaction to the fresh bite mark on my neck and my new tattoo had led to more growling and stomping around.
Honestly, I was over stupid males and their ridiculous tantrums. I was also sore and exhausted. Two rounds of sex and some swimming thrown in for good measure, while great in some ways, had worn me out.
All I wanted to do was sleep for a week.
Maverick disappeared once I’d settled down between Kai and Zane and he knew I was safe. He’d shifted into his bear and gone to guard the tunnel exit to make sure nothing tried to eat us.
Kenji blinked into view as I lay on my back staring at the darkness above my head. At least it was warm in this cavern.
“Where have you been?”
“You don’t need to know,” my familiar replied. He dropped a watch on the floor of the cave before dragging my jacket next to my pack and turning it into a nest.
“Whose watch is that?”
Kenji ignored me while I silently seethed. “Why do you refuse to tell me anything? We’re supposed to have a close, loving bond.”
“It’s safer if you don’t know.”
If he’d been closer, I’d have fried his ass with magic.
“If you get arrested, I won’t bail you out,” I muttered.
Once again Kenji ignored me, and a few seconds later, he started snoring.
Goddess, he was annoying.
I lay still for a while longer before my thoughts returned to the vampire. He was close. I could feel the faint connection between us pulsing away in my chest. If only I knew a spell that would show me exactly where he was, I could go there now.
I hoped he wouldn’t suck any of us dry. Zane had explained that a starving vampire lost all control when a blood source got close. In the past, vampires had caused carnage when imprisoned and starved. The ones who escaped had gone on killing sprees before their sanity returned.
Nobody wanted to risk waking Rasmus and triggering a massive atrocity. While Maverick could probably immobilize a weakened vampire, there was no point in taking any unnecessary risks.
My bladder twinged.
I fidgeted for a few minutes before crawling away from Kai and Zane. After casting a small magic light, I padded over to the far wall and peed behind a rock.
Just as I pulled my pants back up, a sharp tug in my chest made me jump.
“Little witch,” the vampire’s voice whispered in my head. “So close.”
“Where are you?” I didn’t know if he could hear me, but it was worth a try.
“Follow your magic.”
Well that made no sense. My magic was temperamental at best of times. I had no faith it would show me the way to Rasmus’ secret hideaway. But what did I have to lose?
I walked back over to the tunnel entrance and stood still with my eyes closed.
For ages, I felt and heard nothing. Only Kenji’s snores and Kai muttering in his sleep.
Just as I was about to give up, something in my chest pulled.
So slight I almost missed it. Like a feather brushing across the back of my neck.
I focused hard, channeling the mage’s lessons about picturing my magic as strands in my chest. One of those strands glittered like rubies as it spun out from behind my ribs and floated through the air toward a side tunnel off the main one.
The cave system branched off in multiple directions, and there might be dozens of tunnels leading who knew where.
If Maverick were here he’d yell at me for putting myself in danger, but this felt like the right thing to do.
So I let the thread guide me, feeling like Theseus following Ariadne’s trail through the labyrinth, all the while praying there wasn’t a minotaur lurking somewhere inside this mountain.