Chapter 44 Maverick
Maverick
The hellhound lurched toward me, snarling jaws dripping with blood and saliva, red eyes glowing in the half-light. Two of his comrades lay in pieces in the clearing. One cut down by the incubus and his angelic blade. The other ripped apart by my bear’s claws and teeth.
Having to leave our mate so soon after claiming her was driving my bear insane. Shifters usually holed up with their mates for days after a claim. It took at least a week, often much longer, for the bond to settle.
Right now, I was half out of my mind with rage and pain. Rage because this hell-spawned scum had the audacity to stalk the forest within a mile of where my mate was, and pain because leaving her before the bond had had time to settle was agonizing.
Taking out my pain and fury on demons was doing nothing to sate my bear, but we couldn’t leave these creatures alive. Not with the campus so close.
I still wasn’t sure how they’d breached the wards.
But I planned to ask Zane once the last creature lay dead at my feet.
“A bit of help would be good!” the incubus yelled as a fourth hellhound crashed through the trees. I growled. The bastard could take care of himself just fine.
The hellhound less than ten feet away from me launched into the air with an unnerving shriek. Goddess, these fuckers were ugly. I dove and rolled at the last second, raking my claws along its exposed belly.
Hellhounds were hard to kill thanks to their leathery skin and insane aggression, but the belly was a weak spot.
My claws sliced through the hound’s flesh, exposing fetid innards.
Blackened blood sprayed all over my fur, some splashing on my bear’s snout.
He roared in anger as the demonic creature screamed and tried to bite his leg.
Just as savage teeth tore into my bear’s paw, a gleaming silver blade arced down and the hound’s head hit the floor with a hollow thud.
I wheezed under the immense weight of the dead demon’s corpse. The fucking incubus stood over me, blood dripping from his blade while laughing like a lunatic.
Zane pulled me free once I shifted back. It was hard to see which of us looked worse. Whereas I had hellhound entrails in my chest hair, he had brain matter stuck to his face like cold oatmeal.
“Goddess, I need a fucking shower. There better not be any more of these fuckers,” I grumbled.
He pulled a green leaf from a bush and used it to clean his blade while ignoring the mess on his face.
“Where did you disappear to while I was killing the second hellhound anyway?” The bastard had blinked away, leaving me to deal with two hellhounds at once. The fucker.
“There was someone I needed to talk to,” he said with a smirk.
My jaw dropped. “And that was the best time to talk to them?”
He waved his hand dismissively, apparently not bothered by the strip of bloody sinew that flew off and hit me in the face. I coughed and gagged before spitting it out. Goddess, demons tasted like ass.
“You had it all under control, care bear. I knew you’d be fine for ten minutes.”
“Stop calling me care bear!” I grabbed my shorts from where I’d stashed them under a bush and pulled them on.
A sudden storm had hit the area shortly after Zane vanished.
The wind had died down now, but once we left the cover of the forest, the rain fell in sheets, washing the worst of the blood from my skin.
I closed my eyes for a moment, relishing the feel of cold water on my overheated skin. It helped numb some of the pain of being separated from my mate.
“Was she okay when you dropped her off?” My poor little witch. She needed me. I’d not even had time to feed her before Zane stole her from me. Fucking incubus. He’d winked as he took her in his arms and blinked away. If he hadn’t proved useful in the forest, I’d have disemboweled the bastard.
“She was very happy when I tucked her into bed and gave her a goodbye kiss,” he taunted.
I lunged at him with a roar, but he blinked out of sight, only to reappear behind me.
“You need to curb those anger issues, care bear. Our little witch is a sweet-natured soul who won’t like it if you punch her other mates.”
“You don’t fucking deserve her,” I snarled.
His cocky smile slipped a fraction. “Nope, but fate likes fucking with us, so here we are.”
“What’s fate got to do with it?” The goddess chose soul-bonded mates. At least that’s what I’d always thought.
“Ah, fate. That fickle bitch.” Zane scowled for a moment before his customary psycho smile reappeared. “I don’t have time for philosophical discussions right now, care bear. Got places to be, people to fuck with. Laters!” Before I could open my mouth, he’d gone.
Goddess be damned, the incubus annoyed me. I had no clue why he even bothered pretending to be a student here. He seemed to treat the place like a fucking hotel.
While third-year students enjoyed a lot of freedom, Zane took the piss. Still, it wasn’t my problem. If he died while up to something, I wouldn’t shed any tears. And unless he’d sealed the bond with my witch, she’d get over it.
My bear grumbled at me, urging me to hurry the fuck up so we could track down our mate. We needed to cuddle and covet our mate to make up for leaving her. She might have understood my reasons for leaving her, but that didn’t make it right.
Claiming and leaving was not how a good bear treated his soul-bonded mate.
My heart ached when I realized Uncle Seamus would never get to meet my beautiful mate. He’d probably have behaved like an asshole about me bonding with a witch, but I knew, deep down, he’d have adored her.
Seamus had never paid attention to the bullshit about inter-species mating. He’d believed a bear should mate whomever he wanted, whether that was another bear, a wolf, or someone from a different species.
I pushed thoughts of Seamus aside and focused on my mate.
The bond between us hummed at a low level.
I couldn’t sense any anxiety or fear, which meant she was safe.
I’d shower, change, and then go find her.
Montgomery needed to know she was my soul-bonded mate, and that I’d claimed her, but first, I wanted her all to myself for at least a day. Two days if I was lucky.
This was nonnegotiable. As far as my bear was concerned, the rest of the realm could fall apart around us. He gave no shits. All he cared about was making our mate feel loved and cherished for as long as we both lived.