“Um…”
The bedroom door swung open to reveal an angry bear, saving me from a conversation I wasn’t in the mood to have.
“If you’vequitefinished,” Maverick snarled. “My mate needs sleep. I can sense her exhaustion, and taking more blood has only made it worse!”
“Jealous?” Rasmus propped himself up on one arm and smirked.
“Need a stake, care bear?” Zane quipped over Maverick’s shoulder. “There’s a broken chair leg downstairs that would do the job.”
I closed my eyes with a yawn. Stupid males. Maybe mating more than one of them was a bad idea. Oh well. They could figure it out. Maverick was right. I needed to sleep.
“You have terrible taste in mates,” Kenji said in my head. “They’re all idiots.”
“At least they don’t keep secrets from me,” I snarled back before slamming my shields down.
Silence was golden.
46
Zane
The residents of Thornville still hadn’t removed the Solstice decorations. Pretty lights twinkled in the trees along Main Street, and colorful garlands hung from every storefront, but I only had eyes for my witch.
She yawned as she stumbled along, her familiar at her feet. We’d landed an hour ago, but it was taking time to find a hotel with vacancies. We could have gone back to campus, but I’d made up a bullshit excuse about my magic reserves being low.
Not low enough to prevent me from teleporting us all back from Sitkavus, but nobody called me out on my lie. I wasn’t ready to go back to Starfall Academy. Not with the many problems that awaited us, not least how to conceal a centuries-old vampire from Montgomery.
“Why have we stopped here?” Alaric threw me an exasperated look. With each day that passed, the mage grew more bad tempered. Honestly, he was lucky I hadn’t teleported him intoa volcano at this point. I knew at least one bear shifter who’d celebrate if I did.
“Because I need to fuck my mate and boost my magic. Or you need to fuck our mate and let me watch. For the magic.” I smirked.
“Not happening,” he snapped.
“Best zap your dick then. May as well, seeing as how you refuse to use that little wiener.”
He got in my face and snarled. “There’s nothing little about my dick!”
I stared at his crotch. “Me thinks the mage doth protest too much.”
Maverick glared at both of us. “Quit it, for fuck’s sake.” He gestured at Raven, who leaned against the bloodsucker and yawned again. “Spread out and find a room. There must be somewhere in this shitty town we can stay.”
“There is one place,” I hedged while trying not to laugh. “But you might not like it.”
Maverick huffed out a sigh that told me he definitely wouldn’t like it. “Go on…”
“There’s a club I know that has rooms for its members, and I am a member.”
Alaric looked interested. “Club? How come I don’t know about this club?”
“Guess you’re not special enough, sparky.”Five, four, three…
Lightning blasted a nearby tree, sending a flock of birds screeching skyward. A few feathers floated down as the scent of scorched bird filled the air.
“Alaric!” Raven cried in horror, but the mage folded his arms, utterly unrepentant.
“Fuck you, asshole!” he hissed at me.
“What’s this club?” Maverick ground his teeth and counted back from one hundred as my pet sniffled at the sight of a deadbird lying in the snow with two smoking feet sticking up in the air.
