Pulling someone from a vivid dream was a dick move, but if some mage asshole was manipulating her dreams for their own ends, I neededto 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.
40
Raven
My bear had disappeared. When Glynda and I arrived for our PT class, a wolf-shifter dude stood in the gym waiting for us. Naturally, all the wolves in the class cheered and whooped. I assumed they knew him.
The class went rapidly downhill after that.
The shifter had us doing laps of the outdoor obstacle course in the forest. For a brawny wolf shifter, leaping over giant obstacles, navigating rope bridges, and climbing trees was a breeze. For a puny witch, not so much.
The troll struggled too. He was strong, but also heavy. The poor guy snapped the rope bridge on his last-go-round. Landing in a bog saved him from serious injury while causing much hilarity among the shifters.
While I tried to treat all people fairly, I had decided I really hated wolves. They were all arrogant, abusive assholes. After an hour of mental and physical torture, I’d added several more names to my orange trumpet flower revenge list. Once I found the time to head backinto the forest at midnight to harvest the leaves, I’d be pushing the likes of Kain and Dagger up to the top of my hit list.
“I figured he’d bounce,” Kain snorted as he stood, hands on hips, watching the troll drag himself from the bog.
“Nah, my money was on him going splat,” replied Dagger. The two wolves fell about laughing while several of their friends watched with smirks on their faces.
I clenched my fists in anger while searching for the stand-in coach. Instead of supervising, he stood flirting with some shifter girl with huge tits and shorts so tight I could tell she’d not waxed lately.
Glynda appeared, panting and covered in sticky mud. She’d fallen foul of the last obstacle, like I had. Both of us looked like swamp monsters, although not as bad as the poor troll.
He dragged himself out of the bog and grimaced, ignoring the shifters cackling and pointing.
