Chapter 32
Raven
How fucking dare my mates make plans to murder my worst enemy without my input! Did they not understand I was now their badass bitch witch leader?
Waking up to discover they were having a strategy meeting had pissed me off big time.
Zane grinned when he caught me glaring at him. “I’m on your side, pet,” he assured me before placing me on his knee. “But I’m down for punishment if you feel the need to spank my ass.”
A hot flash almost incinerated my PJs, making me squirm in embarrassment as my mind played a film reel of what he’d just described.
“You have the concentration of a sun gnat,” Kenji said, “so why you think you have the skills to lead a dangerous mission escapes me.” Goddess, Kenji was right. Not that I planned to tell him. “Of course I’m right. I’m always right.” I glared at him but he was too busy licking his butt to notice.
My bear coughed and shuffled uncomfortably on his chair.
“So what’s the plan?” I snapped, yanking my thoughts back into line.
Rasmus flashed me a fang and winked. I got the impression he enjoyed it when I went into ballbuster mode. Well good. This was the new and improved me. Now that I’d unleashed my kick-ass magic and entered my badass era, I planned to take no shit from anyone.
Least of all my mates.
I led, and they followed.
“Always, mea amica,” Rasmus purred in my mind.
Maverick sighed. “We don’t have a plan yet,” he admitted. “But Olaf thinks if we can lure Vane away from his stooges, we stand a better chance of taking him down.”
“Sounds good.” I beamed while inwardly panicking. I still had nightmares about being cuffed and strapped to a table.
“Instead of Raven, we could use Adam Vane to draw Tiberius out,” Maverick mused. “Adam is the oldest son, so it would cause problems if he chose to challenge Tiberius for the leadership seat on the Mage Council.”
Olaf nodded thoughtfully. “That could work.”
I stared at them, aghast. “You can’t use Adam!” Adam might not be my dad, but he had raised me, and the thought of putting him in unnecessary danger made me sick.
“I’d rather he acted as bait than you, little mate.” Maverick’s stern expression would have excited me under different circumstances, but I refused to let thoughts of my grumpy bear doing bad things to me be a distraction.
As a strong, badass witch with insane magic, I was better than that.
“Insane definitely covers it.”
I gave Kenji some serious side-eye.
“You should be supporting me in my mission to level up!”
“Just trying to keep you alive, witch. And goddess save us all, it’s a full-time job.”
How rude. It wasn’t my fault danger had a habit of finding me!
Like Glynda always said, I was simply unlucky.
A pang of sadness sent my mood plummeting even lower. I missed my best friend. She’d not been seen since the attack on the club. None of my mates knew where she was, and Farris the fucking fae was not answering his messages.
As the last person to be seen with my bestie, he was a person of interest. I hoped he had good protective magic because when I caught up with the slippery fuck, I planned to melt his ass.
“I suppose we could ask Adam,” I grudgingly admitted, mostly because I wanted to check on Fig.
“Good, then we have a plan.” Olaf seemed delighted, although I couldn’t figure out why. Asking Adam if he felt like being mage bait didn’t mean he would agree.
“Are you coming too?” I kind of hoped so, as a dragon that breathed literal fire might be useful.
“I must stay here and care for my young.”
“Um, young?” Did Olaf have baby dragons? I hoped not. That sounded way too dangerous. I pictured small dragons flying around incinerating everything and prayed for deliverance from such a fate.
“We rescued two dragon eggs from Vane’s laboratory,” Rasmus explained.
Dragon eggs were better than homicidal baby dragons, but I was still confused.
“But how do you care for eggs? Does it involve sitting on them?” I peered over at Olaf’s chair, trying to figure out whether he had two eggs under his ample ass. If so, he was showing no signs of discomfort. Maybe dragon eggs weren’t as big as I imagined.
Kenji flopped over dramatically with his legs in the air. “I have no words.”
“Oh, pet,” Zane snorted. “Olaf doesn’t sit on the eggs.”
“Then how does he care for them?” I huffed in annoyance, while wishing someone would just explain the logistics of caring for dragon eggs. I wasn’t to blame for my education having gaps. Like, massive chasms.
“The eggs look after themselves,” Olaf explained with a great deal of patience, considering my mates clearly thought I was an idiot.
“No thinking about it, witch. Look up dumb in the dictionary and you’ll find your name listed.”
“It was perfectly reasonable to think that!” I decided Kenji and I were having relationship counseling as soon as all this drama ended.
It was clear to me that we had serious issues.
Failing that, I’d ask one of the other kitsunes to take his place.
I was pretty sure Kendall, Klingon, Kunton, or whomever would be more supportive than Kenji.
Literally anyone would.
Even that log sitting next to the hearth had shown me more kindness than Kenji.
“Only if it knocked you out before you spewed any more nonsense,” my not-kind kitsune muttered.
“I must stay with my eggs because they are extremely valuable and, from the cracks in the shells, close to hatching. There have been no new dragons born for two hundred years, and I take my role as the future generation’s guardian very seriously.”
“Well, good for you,” I beamed through gritted teeth. “May your eggs not get poached. Err, I mean stolen.”
Goddess save me, I needed to shut up immediately. If only Kai had woken up before I left and saved me from this embarrassing moment.
Maverick rested his head in his hands, his broad shoulders shaking. Whether that was because he was busy trying not to cry or because he wanted to kill me was uncertain.
“Um, now would be a great time to teleport back to the farm, right?” I jumped off Zane’s lap and headed to the door while praying a sinkhole opened up under my feet. Honestly, a portal to hell would be a blessing.
“Let’s go, mea amica.” To my eternal relief, Rasmus whisked me away before I succumbed to further incidences of foot-in-mouth syndrome. He truly was my favorite mate.