Chapter 34 Raven
Raven
Iwrote the last few words on my paper about the vampire royal family for Professor Dunton, who was rapidly becoming my least favorite professor, and tossed it on the floor. Everyone else submitted their work electronically, but I refused to admit to anyone I had a technology phobia.
The professor had expressed surprise when I gave him a handwritten paper on demons, but since he hadn’t marked me down for it, I assumed it was fine to continue doing it the old-fashioned way. Besides, I much preferred writing on actual paper with an actual pen than tapping away on a keyboard.
Kenji carried on grooming himself while I lay on the floor, staring up at my ceiling.
It had been a week since I rescued Kai and his friend.
Both of them had avoided me ever since. They’d missed our last gym class, which had worried me, but when I asked Glynda if she’d seen them, she said yes.
Naturally, this then led to an interrogation about why I cared, which had me wishing I’d perfected my poker face.
At least I could now shield my thoughts from all but the most powerful witches, thanks to my lessons with Miss Windborne. If I lost focus, my shields wobbled, but I could keep Glynda and most other people out of my head.
Not that I didn’t trust Glynda, I did; she was the sweetest person, and rapidly becoming my best friend on campus. However, I didn’t need her grilling me about all the confusing stuff going on right now.
Between Maverick, Zane, Alar-dick, Kai, and the weird dreams I’d been having most nights about a strange male in a windowless room, my head was a dumpster fire of epic proportions.
And Kenji still hadn’t told me why he kept leaving random valuables in my bed.
The longer I stared up at the ceiling listening to my thoughts, the more irritable I got.
“I can hear you spiraling,” Kenji muttered. “Please stop. You’re ruining my meditation.”
Ugh, he was so annoying. I was also sick of him shedding hair all over my bed and clothes. “Then leave?”
“Can’t. Dog’s been spotted in the area.”
I huffed loudly. “Why won’t you tell me what you’re involved in?!”
“I can’t. The mages might haul you in for questioning, and you would have no chance of resisting a truth spell.”
It was the first concrete clue he’d given me. “So it has to do with the mages?”
Flapping wings at the window distracted me. A large crow hovered outside, its beady eyes gleaming with intelligence. A sudden tug in my chest made me wince. The bird pecked at the glass and cawed loudly.
“You should let him in,” Kenji remarked. “I heard there’s a mage who has a thing about shooting crows down with magic.”
“Oh my stars, who?” I resolved to add that mage to my hit list. A list that already had way too many names on it for a nonviolent witch like me. Not wanting anything to happen to the crow, I quickly opened my window. The bird flew straight in and shifted into Zane.
Thankfully, unlike actual shifters, he kept his clothes when he shapeshifted. Although there was a small part of me that wished otherwise. I’d seen the incubus half-naked, and he was a fine male.
“What are you doing here?”
Kenji made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a laugh.
“I missed you too, pet,” Zane purred. Stars above, the incubus looked good in his fitted black shirt and faded jeans that hugged his muscular legs.
“You better not be pushing lust magic at me,” I growled while trying to ignore the sudden ache between my thighs.
Zane grinned. “No need, pet. If being close to me turns you on, it’s because I’m naturally irresistible.”
“Full of bullshit, more like.”
The incubus chuckled at my annoyed huff.
“I come bearing a gift.” He pulled an envelope from his jacket pocket, and I saw my name written in neat cursive handwriting using purple ink.
Willow always wrote me notes using purple ink she’d spelled to look glittery.
She knew how much I loved pretty things.
“Why do you have a letter from home for me?”
“I was in the admin office and I saw it on a stack of other letters for first-years. The headmaster doesn’t let first-years receive mail until the end of the first semester.” He winked. “I figured receiving it early might cheer you up.”
When I tried to snatch the envelope, the incubus lifted it above his head. Given he was well over six feet tall and I was shorter than the average witch, I had no chance of reaching it.
I pouted. “Please, can I have it?”
“I need a kiss first, pet.” Ugh. Still, it wasn’t as if I hated the idea of kissing the incubus.
Goddess knew I’d imagined it more than a few times.
Ever since he’d pinned me against a tree, I’d wondered what kissing him would be like.
Maverick had interrupted us that time, but my bear wasn’t here right now.
“Just one kiss?” He smiled before his gaze dropped to where my amulet rested in the valley between my breasts.
“Just one,” he confirmed before leaning in until our lips were almost touching, but not quite. “But I didn’t say where, now did I?”
“Hey! Impressionable juvenile kitsune right here! I’ll need trauma counseling if you do sexy things.”
Kenji’s loud complaining in my head was enough to break the trance the incubus had me under.
“On the lips or get lost,” I told Zane. “My familiar said he will file a report with witch HR for sexual harassment otherwise.”
Zane snorted. “Really? The same familiar I saw inside a mage sex club the other night?”
My eyes nearly popped out of my head in surprise before I turned toward Kenji.
“Is this true?”
The little shit vanished, leaving nothing but a cloud of white hairs floating in the air.
“Alone at last,” Zane purred. “So which lips?”
He cupped my jaw, rubbing his thumb across the seam of my mouth. I shivered, even though it wasn’t cold. Now that Kenji had fled, there was nothing stopping me from kissing the incubus.
Other than Maverick.
“I shouldn’t let you kiss me,” I admitted as he leaned back in.
“Why, pet?” He seemed curious rather than annoyed.
“My bear…” I said before remembering nobody was supposed to know about Maverick and me being mates.
“The bear’s not your only mate.” Wait…what? My stomach dropped. That made no sense. Yes, shifters sometimes formed harems, but I wasn’t a shifter. Stars, did he mean I was one of several females in Maverick’s harem?
The thought of my bear being intimate with other females made me want to vomit. And also smite them with fire magic. The floor beneath my feet smoldered. Smoke rose in little spirals, but Zane seemed unperturbed.
“What do you mean?”
“Calm down, pet.” Zane smirked, not at all concerned about me exploding in a fireball of jealous rage. He took my hand and placed it on his chest. “Can’t you feel it?”
I could feel many things. Namely, his firm pectoral muscles, and when I slid my fingers lower, the lines of his abdominals. The magical tether between us tightened the same moment the amulet burned my skin.
“Yes,” I admitted, still confused about what, exactly, I could feel.
“We’re soul-bonded, sweetheart,” Zane whispered against my mouth before he claimed me as his own.
This was no gentle kiss. Nothing like when Maverick kissed me; he treated me like a precious, fragile gift, one that might break if he pressed too hard.
Zane pushed me back until I slammed into the wall with a thud. His fingers threaded through my long hair, digging into my scalp so hard I whimpered. But the bite of pain only made the kiss hotter.
He consumed me. Stole every last thought in my head. Without meaning to, I wound my arms around his neck, needing to get closer. To feel every inch of his hard body against my curves.
Was this an incubus thing? Did they have the power to push past a person’s natural reserve until they craved nothing but mindless pleasure?
The rational side of me tried to intervene, to remind me this male was dangerous. But my body didn’t care. It wanted more.
Zane’s hands left my hair and slid down my body. I gasped when his thumbs brushed over my aching nipples. Since all I wore was a loose tee, it took zero effort to bare my breasts.
“No,” I tried to protest. This was wrong. But he ignored me. Rough fingers stroked my curves, testing their weight before a hot, wet mouth found my nipple and sucked. His teeth grazed the pebbled tip, and I cried out.
“Oh!” He sucked and caressed me before lifting me so my core aligned perfectly with the hard length bulging behind his zipper. I rocked against him, desperate for release.
“That’s it, take what you need,” he purred against my breast before sucking my nipple back into his hot mouth. I ground down against him and came hard, my whole body splintering apart in ecstasy.
The amulet burned and fire magic exploded outwards, filling the room with sparks. For long, endless seconds, the ache in my chest eased as if sated, but then it returned with a vengeance.
I cried out as the pain ripped through me. It felt like my magic wanted to punish me for not completing the mate bond.
He was right, and I knew it. I’d read up on soul-bonds the previous night, and what he said made sense. Soul-bonded witches experienced erratic magic outbursts until they completed the mate bond. Not fully mating Maverick and Zane was likely why my magic had become so volatile.
It had never been this bad before.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that meeting my bear at the market was when my magic first went crazy. Before then, it had always acted sluggishly. Like it was hiding. Or suppressed.
But not anymore.
It behaved badly around Alaric too. Did that make him my mate also? Stars above, I hoped not. That mage didn’t deserve a witch like me. Besides, he acted like I was the most irritating and useless witch he’d ever met. Hardly a great start to any relationship.
Nope, the mage was not my mate. I refused to accept him as a mate.
I deserved better.