Chapter 39 Zane
Zane
The bear’s threat to maim me if I dared touch the witch was him blowing smoke up my ass. I didn’t need the bear’s permission to touch our mate. She was mine as much as his. If he didn’t like sharing, that was a him problem. I had no issues sharing. Not a single one.
It had been two days, and Maverick had still not returned to campus, but despite my offer to help, I knew he could handle things. And if he got injured, well, that gave me extra time with our mate.
I’d arrived in her room via the cracked open window to find her thrashing around in her bed, mumbling shit about a ring. It was pretty fucking obvious she was in the middle of a vivid dream. Not even stroking her face woke her.
The more I listened to her one-sided conversation, the more I realized this was way more than a lucid dream. So I grabbed her shoulder and yanked her upright.
Pulling someone from a vivid dream was a dick move, but if some mage asshole was manipulating her dreams for their own ends, I needed to know. Dream walking was one of my father’s many talents. Sadly, not one he’d passed to me, but I knew how it worked.
“Who’s dream were you in?” Dream walking into the wrong person’s head might put her in danger. Besides, I knew exactly how fucked up someone like Tiberius Vane was, so the thought of my sweet little witch inadvertently stumbling into one of his sordid nightmares made even me feel like vomiting.
The Mage Council leader had some seriously twisted kinks, and he loved to inflict them on females who weren’t strong enough to fight back.
If he ever got hold of Raven, I’d make him regret the many sick things he’d done over the years.
The only reason he still drew breath was because he used powerful wards to keep me out of his head and home.
But I was a patient guy. One day, when he least expected it, I’d end the bastard.
And I’d fucking enjoy every moment.
“What do you mean?” She looked confused by my question, her hair all rumpled from sleep. My gaze slid down and lingered on her tits. The top she wore did very little to hide her curves.
“You were dream walking, pet. Where did you go?” Raven sat up and rubbed her eyes, still confused.
I sometimes forgot she lacked knowledge about the basics, thanks to her less-than-stellar education.
I’d checked her file in the admin office and discovered she hadn’t attended school before coming here.
No doubt she’d received some sort of education – she wasn’t illiterate, after all – but nothing like she would have had if she’d been to a regular magical high school, like the rest of the students here.
I guessed the only reason she had ended up here was her unusual power reading. The mage who found her must have decided it was better to be safe than sorry.
“Um, I’m not sure.”
I shifted closer, enjoying her warm cherry scent with sweet notes of musky arousal.
My dick twitched, but I locked my impulses down.
Thanks to an abundance of horny shifters on campus, my magic reserves were overflowing, and as much as I’d love to make my witch come by any means necessary, finding out where she’d been dream walking was more important.
“Who were you talking to?”
She lowered her gaze and pulled the covers up to her chin. The gold and ruby ring on the fourth finger of her left hand caught my attention. Before she could hide it, I snatched her hand out from the covers and pulled it closer for a better look.
I recognized the ring. The runes engraved in the metal told me exactly which family it belonged to.
“Why are you wearing the Dvorak crown prince’s ring?”
“Because Rasmus Dvorak gave it to me. If I don’t reach him soon, he’ll die.” Her eyes grew watery with tears. I had a sudden urge to lick them up, but she sniffed and wiped them away with her wrist, letting me see how the rubies on the ring caught the light most beautifully.
Beautiful like her.
I frowned. Like the rest of the vampires, the Dvoraks were supposedly dead. Victims of the bloodborne virus.
“Tell me exactly what he said,” I demanded. If the prince hadn’t perished, other powerful vampires could still be alive. And if they were, Tiberius Vane was living on borrowed time.