Chapter 29
Raven
Before being sent to Starfall (against my will, let it be noted), I’d rarely left the farm. Consequently, most of my knowledge of the wider world came from books, TV shows, and movies.
Adam had frowned upon us binge-watching human shows and movies, but whenever he went away on coven business, Willow and I watched whatever we could get our hands on. I loved anything romance and fantasy themed, while Willow was a horror fan.
As I stood on the threshold of a huge banquet hall, I was reminded of a human fantasy series we’d watched several seasons of, with dragons and all manner of fantastical beasts.
Oh, and a ton of gore and naughty scenes.
The name of the series escaped me, but I felt certain it had chairs in the title. A Game of Chairs?
The hall with the vaulted ceiling looked like it belonged in the series about chairs. Logs burned in two enormous fireplaces, one at each end of the room, while magical creatures of all types sat at long trestle tables filled with food and bottles of elkwine.
A low hum of conversation rolled over me while a firm hand pressed against my lower back.
“You need to eat, little mate. Let’s sit down so I can feed you.” My eyes pricked with happy tears. I’d missed my mates so much. Missed the way they each cared for me in their own ways.
Kai was the only one I’d not yet seen, but Maverick assured me he was fine. He’d told me there was a geothermal lake deep inside the mountain, and Kai had gone there to swim. I silently resolved to join him once my bear had fed me and brought me up to date on the latest gossip.
As Maverick nudged me toward a table, I scanned the room, searching for the vampire but unable to spot her. Perhaps she was blood-starved and dangerous. I’d have to ask Rasmus.
Kenji blinked into view as I sat down. He waited until Maverick fetched me a plate piled high with meat, vegetables, and bread rolls before he stole a sausage.
“I’m not sure I can eat all this.” After several days of little more than stale sandwiches, this much food was a lot.
“Please try, little mate. You need to rebuild your strength after…” My bear’s voice trailed off.
“After I killed all those poor mages?” I swallowed back a sob as my appetite vanished.
“Poor mages?” Kenji scoffed while swiping a second sausage. “The same mages who imprisoned you, fed you experimental siren sex drugs, and forced you to bond with the storm mage?”
“Okay, so when you put it like that,” I conceded. “But they were acting on orders from Tibs, so I’m not sure they are completely to blame.” The stinky mage definitely deserved his fate, however. That asshole had taken liberties.
Maverick tensed. “Describe him to me so I can check he’s dead.”
“Um, he smelled like a skunk shifter?”
“Dead mages always stink.” Kenji rolled his eyes and shoved a third sausage in his mouth. “All mages stink.”
“Um…Alaric never does…” Alaric smelled delicious. Like ozone and rain. My thoughts drifted to our time together, and my heart pined for him.
“The storm mage will come back, little mate,” Maverick reassured me. “And if he doesn’t, I’ll gut the bastard.”
“In a harem of red-flag, psychologically unwell mates, you are the common denominator,” Kenji helpfully pointed out. “I’d consider therapy when this is all over.”
Stars, my familiar made a good point. What if I was the problem here?
“Ignore the kitsune, little mate. You are perfect.” Kenji growled at Maverick and then blinked away, taking the rest of my sausages with him.
I pushed the plate back, unable to swallow another morsel. Being surrounded by victims of Tiberius Vane’s dastardly plans for world domination had killed my appetite.
“What’s going to happen to these people?” I asked in a low voice. A small wood sprite with pink hair sat sobbing next to a female troll who awkwardly placed a gray, scaly arm around the sprite’s slim shoulders and grunted.
To our left, three tiny females with cute little bunny ears huddled together.
Goddess, Tiberius Vane needed melting. And fast.
“Olaf is reaching out to his network to find ways of returning them to their villages.”
“Network?”
“He’s been working with the resistance for the last year to disrupt the traffickers.”
“But won’t these people be in danger if they return home?” And traumatized. Heck, I was traumatized after only a few days in captivity. The female vampire said she’d been held captive for years!
“There’s a lot to think about, but none of it is your problem, Raven,” my bear reassured me. “Let Olaf and his people figure the logistics out. Would you like a coffee, little mate?”
“I’d love one.” He kissed me on the cheek before heading for the coffee machine on a nearby table.
I sat back and let my mind process the last few days.
Not that it did me much good. Two more females walked in, arms linked.
From their fluttery wings, they looked like sprites.
Then I remembered the vampire female had mentioned there were kitsunes in the facility, and I realized Kenji hadn’t said a word about that.
“Kenji?”
My familiar blinked back and scratched himself vigorously, shedding fur all over the table. He looked darker, more black than gray. Was that because of my magic level up?
“Yes, witch?”
“The vampire I met in the, um, bad place, said there were kitsunes. Did you find them?”
Kenji stopped scratching and nodded. “Yes. My cousins were there. They are now free.”
I exhaled in relief. “Can I meet them?”
Kenji didn’t reply, but a second later, three kitsunes in various shades of gray pinged into view behind him.
“Oh my goddess, you’re all so cute!” They each blinked at me before Kenji rolled his eyes.
“Kyro thanks you for your compliment but says kitsunes are not cute.”
The kitsune with a white patch around one eye raised a paw before swiping a rasher of bacon from my discarded plate.
“Hi, Kyro.” He nodded. “What are the other two called?” It was so cool to meet Kenji’s family!
“Kento and Kasumi.”
I clapped my hands in excitement, prompting a few curious looks. “You guys could have your own reality TV show! At Home with the Kitsunes!”
Kenji looked at me like I’d had a mental breakdown, while his cousins paused in their quest to clear my plate.
“Why would four super-intelligent kitsunes want to seek external validation from a bunch of braindead TV viewers?”
“Um, because you all have names beginning with K, like the Kardashians, and they’ve made a freaking fortune from reality television?” Okay, so it all started with a sex tape, but I decided not to mention that. Eww.
“I have no words.”
All four kitsunes looked at me and then at each other before shaking their heads. Brilliant. It seemed all kitsunes were as judgmental as Kenji.
Maverick reappeared with a coffee. He nodded at the kitsunes, who each nodded back. Good to know they respected my bear but not me.
I huffed in disappointment. “My cousins are commiserating with me,” Kenji shared while demolishing a pancake. “They are thankful for not being bonded to a mentally-challenged witch.”
I turned my back on him, silently wishing the goddess had gifted me Fig as my familiar, not Kenji. “Be grateful she didn’t,” Kenji scoffed. “With less than five brain cells between you, I can guarantee you’d both be dead by now.”
How rude. Fig was very intelligent for a pig!
“Don’t let him wind you up, little mate,” Maverick whispered, clearly having heard Kenji trash-talking me. “He’s only teasing.” Somehow, I doubted that, but I elected to take the high road and not bite back.
“Where is Fig?” I gasped at the realization I’d not seen him.
“He’s with your guardian, little mate. Perfectly safe.” Phew. Maybe once things settled down, I could go collect him. I missed my cute little pig.
When I finished my coffee, Maverick tugged me to my feet and escorted me from the dining hall.
“I need to see Kai,” I whined, feeling more down than ever after Kenji’s non-motivational chat. I didn’t think a reality TV show with kitsunes was such a terrible idea. It might help human-magical relations!
“I know,” Maverick replied, either oblivious or choosing to ignore my meltdown.
He wrapped his hand around mine and led me through a hallway and down a steep, winding staircase. The deeper we got, the warmer the air became. It reminded me of the cave system where we’d found Rasmus.
My legs ached by the time we arrived at the entrance to a cavern filled with mage lights and the faint smell of sulfur from the mineral content in the water.
We reached the water’s edge just as Kai swam to the surface.
“I’m going back upstairs to talk to Olaf. Look after our mate.” Kai nodded. Maverick dropped a gentle kiss on my mouth and left me alone with my merman.
I stared at the dark pool with trepidation.
“Please join me,” Kai said with a shy, hopeful smile.
Even though the water still scared me, I knew I needed to be brave. Kai’s swimming lessons had helped reassure me I wouldn’t drown if I relaxed. My body floated just fine when I wasn’t panicking.
Kai averted his gaze as I stripped off my borrowed pants and sweater.
I had no underwear here. Zane had claimed there were no panties or bras to be found, which I didn’t quite believe, as I knew he was more than capable of teleporting to any town and picking some up for me.
But it wasn’t a battle I felt like fighting. Not today.
The warm water licked my skin as I gingerly climbed down the steps into the water. Kai took my hand and then swam with me across the pool until we reached a ledge on the far side.
“You can sit here,” he said before shifting back and taking a seat next to me.
“Are you alright?” Unlike my other mates, he didn’t revel in the violence and bloodshed.
“I’m just pleased you’re safe,” he replied. “That’s all I care about.”
“For now.” Tiberius fucking Vane was still out there. Until the rest of the magical world found out how evil he was and held him accountable for his crimes, none of us could relax.
“The mages can’t reach you in this castle.”
“Not even Alaric?” I silently prayed to the goddess he’d come back to me. Maybe then the hole in my chest would heal.
“Alaric is welcome. But nobody with bad intentions can get through the wards.” Kai seemed certain about that, which reassured me.
My merman must have picked up on my sadness because he moved closer and pulled me into the curve of his shoulder.
“I saw what would happen when your magic unleashed, and I’m sorry I couldn’t stop it,” he said. “I know how it feels to take a life, even if part of you thinks that person deserved it.”
“I didn’t mean to kill them,” I admitted. “The shadow magic is sentient. It reacted to my anger when the mages tried to hurt my mates. I had no control over it.” And that was what worried me the most.
What if a server in a shop pissed me off? Would my magic explode and annihilate an entire town as vengeance for being shortchanged?
If I couldn’t get a grip on my new magic, maybe I needed locking up—for everyone’s safety.
I chewed my lip. Sure, orange wasn’t my color, but I could make it work. Perhaps if I dyed my hair green, I’d start a new trend.
I half expected Kai to push me away after my unpleasant revelation, but he seemed unfazed. Maybe having a murderous mate was par for the course in the mer kingdom. I supposed with the bitch queen on the throne, Kai had probably seen way worse than the aftermath of my murderous shadow magic.
“Shadow magic comes from the demon realm, so perhaps you need to talk to your father. He can teach you how to wield it.”
“Talk to Nymon, the psychopathic king of the demon realm, who’s been sending his legions to attack us?” That sounded like a terrible idea, even to me, the reigning queen of terrible ideas.
“He’s going to continue sending demons until he gets what he wants, which is an audience with you, his long-lost daughter.”
Okay, so Kai talked sense. But what if my deadbeat dad snatched me back to the demon realm and refused to let me leave? I made that point to Kai, but he shook his head.
“You are a child born of both realms, so you should be able to move between the two without hindrance.”
I sighed. Demon attacks had increased in both frequency and ferocity, so maybe Kai was right and the only way to stop them was to talk to daddy dearest.