“You’re supposed to be here learning, not drinking with fucking shifters,” he snarled. With a flick of his hand, he stole my bottle and deposited it out of reach.
“How do you know I was drinking at the shifter party?” I asked, curious despite my irritation.
“Because you stink of wet dog.” I burst out laughing. Okay, so he made a good point. The wolves at the party had stunk of musk and rain. Hell, Arron would stink by the time he got back. That dude loved fucking shifter females. He reckoned they went all night long and never got sore.
“They make strong booze,” I said with a shrug. “So why are you here?” It wasn’t like him to show up on a weekend night. Weekends were when he and my stepmother entertained their friends and business associates.
“Montgomery called me in about the shifter murders.” His lip curled in derision, and I almost smirked. My father thought shifters were beneath him, so being asked to consult on an investigation into the death of three shifters must have rankled him immensely. “He knows who did it but can’t prove it.”
I’d heard the gossip and seen an unauthorized photo taken at the crime scene. A friend of the two dead shifters found them in their beds. Both had died with expressions of terror on their faces, but with no physical injuries. It was clearly the work of an incubus who liked to scare magicals to death.
“Does it matter if they’re dead?” Unlike my father, I didn’t hold extremist views about species segregation, but I knew the two shifters who’d died were nasty pieces of work. Both had had sexual assault allegations leveled against them several times, but the charges never stuck.
Father half smiled. “Not to me, no, but I have to be seen doing my part. And as I’m the most powerful mage in the realm, that means examining the crime scene for evidence the investigators may have missed.”
“What did you find?” From his peeved expression, he gathered nothing useful, but I enjoyed drawing attention to his failure.
“Never mind that,” he said with a dismissive gesture. “I need you home next weekend. Brianna has invited the Blakes for dinner, and they want to discuss your engagement with Kinara.”Fuck my life. Kinara might be descended from one of the most powerful witch lineages, but the thought of tying myself to that bitch for the rest of my life made me want to throw myself into the nearest portal. Even a one-way trip to the demon realm would be better than marrying fucking Kinara.
“And if I’m busy?”
Father grinned. “If you can’t make it, I’ll find time to pay a visit to your mother.”
I swallowed hard. The last time I’d seen my mother, she’d been on the verge of death. Only powerful, and illegal, magic had kept her alive this long. My father refused to let her pass on because he didn’t want to suffer the pain of his soul-bonded mate dying, and also to keep me under his thumb.
“Fine. I’ll be there.”
It wasn’t like I had a choice.
26
Raven
Istood in a dark, windowless room. In the grate, a fire burned, sending bursts of sparks up a wide chimney. The stone floor chilled my feet, despite the heat emanating from the fireplace.
Candles burned in glass sconces on the wall, and a large animal-skin rug covered half the floor. A bookcase stood against one wall, filled with dusty leather tomes and stacks of yellow parchment sheets, while near the fireplace, two wing-backed chairs sat facing each other with a chess set between them on a low table. I didn’t know how to play chess, but a few pieces were in play, as if a game had started and never reached its conclusion.
I stepped away from the rug, even though the stone flags were unbearably cold under my soles. Knowing some poor creature had died to make a floor covering upset me. The thought of hunters chasing my bear made me want to kill someone, and my magic flared in response.
Taking a deep, calming breath and ignoring the rug, I cast a quick glance downward and saw I still wore the cotton shorts and tee I’d put on for bed.
Thank the goddess I wasn’t naked in this dreamscape. At least I assumed it was a dream.
Why had my dream brought me here anyway?
I didn’t recognize the heavy timber door to my left with a thick iron latch in place. Had my kitsune teleported me here somehow? I wasn’t sure if that was even possible, but I saw no sign of the cheeky familiar.
If this were a dream, it felt awfully real. Most of my dreams featured places and people I knew, quickly shifting from one thing to the next as my brain processed emotions and random thoughts. I was positive I’d never seen this room before.
I shivered and quickly pinched my arm, but nothing happened.
As my gaze swept across the room, searching for clues about where I was since this didn’t seem like a normal dream, the shadows slowly lifted, revealing a second door. Some instinct told me I needed to step through that door, so, ignoring the voice in my head that warned me I was about to step into a serial killer’s lair, I moved toward it.
The latch was old and heavy, but the door opened easily, with barely a squeak. As my eyes adjusted to the low light, I saw a figure lying draped in a blanket on a huge four-poster bed carved from a near-black timber. Beautiful carvings covered the exposed portions of the frame, telling a story I couldn’t make sense of.
The person on the bed had long, thick brown hair, which suggested they were female, but a large, distinctly unfeminine pale hand hung over the edge of the mattress, the skin so translucent I wondered for a moment whether they were dead. Then I heard a faint groan.
“Come closer, little witch.”
