Chapter 35 Zane
Zane
The bear stepped out of the shadows when I shifted back beneath Raven’s window.
His fist clenched and a low growl rattled the nearby window as he inhaled deeply.
I reeked of her. The scent of her pleasure clung to my jeans, my fingers, my mouth.
If she hadn’t threatened to burn me alive, I’d have happily stayed all night long, drinking from the well of her arousal.
But she’d lost her shit shortly after coming. An atypical reaction, for sure, although I hadn’t taken it personally. I usually fucked off the minute I’d topped up my magic reserves, but something in me craved her presence.
Mostly my magic.
I normally steered clear of emotional entanglements. Feelings were anathema to me. Feelings led to attachments, and attachments were painful.
Goddess knew my father had learned that the hard way. And he’d paid the ultimate price.
“You better not have fucked her!” The bear’s chest rattled in a deep growl as he tried to push me back against the stone wall. I snorted.
“No, but I did make her come with my mouth on her juicy little tits.”
The bear didn’t like that one bit. Stupid jealous asshole. Fucking male shifters were all the same: possessive and unhinged around their females, not a rational brain cell between them. No wonder the mages looked down on them almost as much as they did every other species.
The bear grunted unhappily when I shoved him back. His anger tasted like ash in my mouth, but I swallowed it down. While lust was my preferred poison, I wasn’t averse to feeding on rage. Pain too.
Pain tasted exquisite when extracted nice and slowly from a victim.
Would Raven enjoy pain with her pleasure? I had a feeling she might. It was something to explore when I visited her next.
I grinned at the bear while licking my lips, enjoying the way his eyes spewed fire in my direction.
“I left her satisfied. Does that piss you off, bear?”
Fur rippled down his arms and his eyes glowed, a sign his inner bear wanted to burst free and tear me to pieces.
The dumbass bear could try, but he’d fail miserably. I wasn’t afraid of him. And besides, the bear knew as well as I did hurting me would hurt our mate.
“Yes!”
I sympathized. Yeah, honestly, I did. If the bear outed himself as her mate before they’d sealed the bond, the school would toss him off campus. The way things were going, inter-species mate bonds would soon be banned.
The problem with enforcing a ban was that separating a bonded pair could kill them in the early stages, so the council had to be careful. But until the bear claimed her, they were both at risk.
I, on the other hand, was not at risk. The council could say and do what they liked; it wouldn’t keep me away from the witch if I chose to be with her.
And for now, I did choose her.
The huge shifter stepped back. I watched as he scrubbed his jaw, amused at his inner struggle to keep the bear contained.
“Aren’t you curious about why the little witch has more than one soul-bonded mate from different species?” I asked him once he’d calmed down.
“Shifters often have harems,” he replied with a dismissive shrug before listening to make sure there were no other students lurking around. “Come on, we can’t talk here.” He strode off toward the forest, and since I was interested in his take on the situation, I followed.
We reached the trees before I voiced my thoughts again. “Shifters have harems, yes, but witches don’t.”
“Two mates is not a harem,” he scoffed.
“She has more than two soul-bonds.”
The bear stopped dead. “What?”
His reaction surprised me. I assumed he’d figured it out, but clearly not. Typical shifter. Not all that bright.
“There’s at least one more. Possibly two, making four in total.” The fourth was merely a gut feeling. I’d have to watch him a while longer to be certain.
“Who else?” The edge in the bear’s voice made me smirk. Ah, shifter jealousy: the gift that kept on giving.
“Alaric Vane.”
“Tiberius’ son?”
I nodded. “Don’t you think it’s strange that a witch of unknown origin would be soul-bonded to three of the most powerful magicals in existence right now?
” He frowned as my words sank in. “I am the only incubus left. Vane is an extremely powerful storm mage, more powerful than his father, although Tiberius doesn’t want anyone to know that.
And you, care bear, are one of the strongest shifters, I’d wager. ”
The bear folded his arms and stared at me in surprise, not disagreeing with my assessment of his strength.
“How do you know about Vane?”
I winked but remained silent. He might be the witch’s soul-bonded mate too, but I didn’t trust him yet.
“I have my ways. So are you the strongest shifter?”
He shrugged. “Possibly. Who knows? I’m stronger than my father, for sure. The largest bear of my generation aside from my cousin, but he’s missing. There could still be dragon shifters out there, though. Nobody knows.”
“Doubtful.” I contemplated telling him about the fourth mate. Was it worth provoking another jealous hissy fit? Why yes, it was.
“She might also have a bond with the merman.”
The bear’s jaw dropped in surprise. “What the fuck?”
“Yeah. I’m not certain of that, but he’s definitely drawn to her, and vice versa.”
“Kai Seathorne, the crown prince of the merpeople, is her mate?”
I blinked in surprise. It wasn’t common knowledge who Kai was, so I had no clue how the bear had found out. He must have contacts I was unaware of. Interesting.
“This means she has a bond with the most powerful males of all four species.”
“Yep, and if the vampires were still around, there would likely be a fifth mate too, which means something bigger is at play here. Fate has brought us all together for a reason. I’m not sure why, but I think we need to put our differences aside and look at the bigger picture.”
Although I usually preferred to work alone, something told me the increase in demon activity was linked to the witch. I’d killed another demon last night, which made four demon sightings within a few miles of campus in the last week alone.
If the demons were after the witch and given all the demon sightings only began when she arrived on campus, I suspected they were, she was in danger.
“We need to talk about demons,” I told the bear once he’d finished having a meltdown about the merman being the witch’s fourth mate. Honestly, I wasn’t sure why he had an issue with sharing the witch, but he better get over it real quick. Jealousy wasn’t an attractive trait in a male.
Caring is sharing was my motto.
The bear shifter groaned. “Fuck. I need a drink before we talk about shit like that.”
“Got any moonshine?”
He nodded, and I grinned.
“Lead the way, care bear!”
“If you fucking call me care bear again, I will rip your fucking head off, mate or no mate.”
“Try it, care bear. I dare you,” I taunted. It was now obvious to me that sharing a mate with an angry bear might be more entertaining than I’d first realized. The shifter had anger management issues, which made him exceptionally easy to antagonize.
Fun times lay ahead. Fun for me anyway.
I snickered to myself as I followed the bear through the dense, dark forest.
The poor fuck had no clue what sharing a mate with an incubus entailed. And he was about to find out the hard way.