“Always,mea amica,” Rasmus purred in my mind.
Maverick sighed. “We don’t have a plan yet,” he admitted. “But Olaf thinks if we can lure Vane away from his stooges, we stand a better chance of taking him down.”
“Sounds good.” I beamed while inwardly panicking. I still had nightmares about being cuffed and strapped to a table.
“Instead of Raven, we could use Adam Vane to draw Tiberius out,” Maverick mused. “Adam is the oldest son, so it would cause problems if he chose to challenge Tiberius for the leadership seat on the Mage Council.”
Olaf nodded thoughtfully. “That could work.”
I stared at them, aghast. “You can’t use Adam!” Adam might not be my dad, but he had raised me, and the thought of putting him in unnecessary danger made me sick.
“I’d rather he acted as bait than you, little mate.” Maverick’s stern expression would have excited me under different circumstances, but I refused to let thoughts of my grumpy bear doing bad things to me be a distraction.
As a strong, badass witch with insane magic, I was better than that.
“Insane definitely covers it.”
I gave Kenji some serious side-eye.
“You should be supporting me in my mission to level up!”
“Just trying to keep you alive, witch. And goddess save us all, it’s a full-time job.”
How rude. It wasn’t my fault danger had a habit of finding me!
Like Glynda always said, I was simply unlucky.
A pang of sadness sent my mood plummeting even lower. I missed my best friend. She’d not been seen since the attack on the club. None of my mates knew where she was, and Farris the fucking fae was not answering his messages.
As the last person to be seen with my bestie, he was a person of interest. I hoped he had good protective magic because when I caught up with the slippery fuck, I planned to melt his ass.
“I suppose we could ask Adam,” I grudgingly admitted, mostly because I wanted to check on Fig.
“Good, then we have a plan.” Olaf seemed delighted, although I couldn’t figure out why. Asking Adam if he felt like being mage bait didn’t mean he would agree.
“Are you coming too?” I kind of hoped so, as a dragon that breathed literal fire might be useful.
“I must stay here and care for my young.”
“Um, young?” Did Olaf have baby dragons? I hoped not. That sounded way too dangerous. I pictured small dragons flying around incinerating everything and prayed for deliverance from such a fate.
“We rescued two dragon eggs from Vane’s laboratory,” Rasmus explained.
Dragon eggs were better than homicidal baby dragons, but I was still confused.
“But how do you care for eggs? Does it involve sitting on them?” I peered over at Olaf’s chair, trying to figure out whether he had two eggs under his ample ass. If so, he was showing no signs of discomfort. Maybe dragon eggs weren’t as big as I imagined.
Kenji flopped over dramatically with his legs in the air. “I have no words.”
“Oh, pet,” Zane snorted. “Olaf doesn’t sit on the eggs.”
“Then how does he care for them?” I huffed in annoyance, while wishing someone would just explain the logistics of caring for dragon eggs. I wasn’t to blame for my education having gaps. Like, massive chasms.
“The eggs look after themselves,” Olaf explained with a great deal of patience, considering my mates clearly thought I was an idiot.
“No thinking about it, witch. Look up dumb in the dictionary and you’ll find your name listed.”
“It was perfectly reasonable to think that!” I decided Kenji and I were having relationship counseling as soon as all this drama ended. It was clear to me that we had serious issues. Failing that, I’d ask one of the other kitsunes to take his place. I was pretty sure Kendall, Klingon, Kunton, or whomever would be more supportive than Kenji.
