“I don’t care what you call us, daddy bear, as long as you accept I’ll be sleeping next to my pet every night.” I leaned in and whispered in her ear, “Were you a bad little pet while you were with the vamp?”
She flushed. “Um, I ate cake and bought some books…” Maverick inhaled, and his eyes glowed.
“I think you did a bit more than eat cake, little mate.”
When I lifted an eyebrow at the vampire, he smirked.
Raven opened her pouty lips to argue just as someone rang the doorbell. Loud chimes echoed through the house.
“Who the fuck’s that?” Maverick growled, his shoulders bunching.
I leaped off the chair, ready to teleport us away, but Rasmus cocked his head to one side and then said, “Raven’s guardian and the eagle shifter are here.”
I relaxed. Adam was no danger to my pet, although I didn’t especially like the guy.
“How did he know we were here?” Raven’s brow wrinkled as tension radiated from her at their unexpected arrival.
“I’m not sure, but I plan to find out,” Maverick replied, gently easing my pet off his lap. “Wait here while I talk to him. He better not have led the mages straight to our fucking door.”
“The wards must be weakening,” Rasmus muttered. “I think perhaps you are right, incubus. Once we hear what the mage has to say, we should leave here.”
“Can you take us to Europe?” my witch asked me with a hopeful smile. “I’d like to see Rasmus’s family estate.”
Damn, if only that was possible. I shook my head, not liking the way her shoulders slumped with disappointment.
“Sorry, pet, but we’d need to use the fae portals to travel that far, and until Farris answers his messages, we can’t access them.”
“Fucking asshole fae,” she grumbled under her breath. “I used Maverick’s phone to message him a billion times and nothing.”
“He’s a dick,” I agreed.
Raven nodded. “A massive dick.”
I smirked. “What’s that, pet? You need a massive dick? Well, you’re in luck.”
Her cute giggle warmed the cold, dead remains of my heart, but her amusement soon faded when care bear walked back into the ballroom with the mage and Alaric’s mother hot on his heels.
41
Raven
For as long as I could remember, Adam had been my rock. Memories of my mother had faded with time, but I recalled how much she loved him. Seeing Adam with Alaric’s mother felt wrong. It left me with a nasty taste in my mouth.
Even though part of me recognized he deserved to meet someone new, did that new love really have to be Alaric’s fucking mother?
I mean, as much as I enjoyed the stepbrother trope in books, I was not pleased at re-enacting it in real life. Not that Alaric was here. For all I knew, he’d dumped my ass and swanned off to the fae realm todiscover himself.
A bit like Glynda, who I was now certain had ended up in the clutches of a predatory rake called Farris.
Shoving down murderous thoughts about Farris the fucking fae because none of us needed a replay of how demonic shadow magic worked when I got pissed, I faced Adam with a smile.
“What brings you to our, um, humble abode?” Zane snorted, but I ignored him. “And also, how did you find us?” Maverick hadn’t told Adam where we were going because he said it was safer if nobody knew.
“I cast a location spell using your hair, Raven.” He moved to hug me, but I stepped back, and he sighed. “I’m sorry, my dear, that I didn’t realize how uncomfortable you were seeing me with Nula.”
“I’m not uncomfortable,” I lied. “Just surprised, that’s all.” Nula regarded me with a soft look in her pretty green eyes. Now that she’d fully recovered from the effects of wearing a spelled collar for years, her aura was brighter and more vibrant.
How anyone hadn’t figured out that Brianna, the queen witch bitch herself, was not Alaric’s mother beggared belief. Were they blind?
