Page 46 of Vathia
My heart clenches. “I’m so sorry, Little Dream. I needed some space to clear my head and control myself. I was struggling with what the dreams showed me about your time in Shalo. Not to mention we were all alone in the castle—besides the staff—and the mate bond snapped into place. All these depraved thoughts were going through my head, and yet you didn’t remember me. You didn’t remember me when I spent two decades missing you. I never truly left you alone, though.”
She cocks her head to the side. “What do you mean?” she whispers, searching my face with wide, almost innocent-like eyes.
“Whenever you came looking for me, I was there in the shadows watching you. I couldn’t truly stay away, and maybe that makes me as bad as Jesper. I never meant to hurt you,Ravina. I would never purposefully do that, but I wasn’t sure if I could trust myself. Especially after having you pressed against me for two days on dragonback.” I push a tendril of her reddish-brown hair behind her pointed ear before cupping her cheek again. “Can you ever forgive me, my Dream?”
She takes a deep breath and presses her face into my hand. “I forgive you. But no more making choices for me when they involve me.”
I raise my brow and smirk. “Would you have listened to my reasoning without your memory, or would you have stabbed me again? Not that I’m complaining.” I wink.
She laughs, shaking her head. “Who knows—you didn’t try.”
I laugh with her. “Very true. I promise to try from now on.” She nods, satisfied, so I continue with a wide smile stretching across my face. “You know what we should try next?”
She leans down and grabs a throw pillow before whipping it at me, and I catch it. “If you say something like ‘you want to ravish me in all these plush, cozy blankets’... you know what, I’m not even mad. I can’t stop thinking about that night either,” she states boldly.
My throat constricts as I try to keep all the blood from rushing south. “I was going to suggest trying to enter Jesper’s dreams., If I’m going to ‘ravish’ you anywhere for the first time, it’s going to be in the waking world where everyone can hear you scream my name.”
My gaze narrows on her throat as it bobs. “I suppose I can wait. Visit Jesper’s dreams… is that what you said? How would I do that?” she asks, as she leaves the comfort of the cozy alcove to come stand next to me.
Her body slides up against mine and it’s torturous. Every part of me wants to wake and blink to her room, waking her with my tongue between her legs.
“Aemon? Are you in there?” she teases, poking the center of my forehead.
I clear my throat. I’m regretting trying to be responsible and work on training, but I know I couldn’t live with myself if something happens to her because she wasn’t prepared. “Yes, sorry. It’s basically the same thing as what you did with the pillow, but this time I want you to search for Jesper. You should be able to close your eyes and reach out to the familiar sleeping consciousnesses around you. When you find Jesper, let yourself fall, and when you open your eyes, you should be in his dream.”
She laces her fingers through mine, and as I feel her body being pulled toward Jesper, I follow. I open my eyes and groan, because of course this is where Jesper’s brain goes when he’s sleeping. Before us is Jesper and a dream version of Ravina. Their bodies are tangled together to the point I don’t know if it’s even possible for them to separate. They seem to have melded together in the throws of passion.
Ravina—the real one—gasps and Jesper pops his head up and notices us before looking down where dream Ravina has faded, leaving only a messy bed and a very naked Jesper. With my next breath, I summon him some clothes to spare not just my eyes, but my poor mate’s.
“What are you two doing here? Did you want to join?” he asks rolling onto his side with a waggle of his brows.
“I was just teaching our dear mate how to use her dream magick. I figured your dreams would be the safest to visit,” I tell him while smothering a laugh. “But I think we may have intruded. What do you think, Little Dream?”
She opens her mouth to answer but her form vanishes. She woke up. Something isn’t sitting right with me—she should be dead asleep.
“Wake up, and get to Ravina’s room,” I tell him before forcing my own body up.
A scream rends through the air, coming from Ravina’s side of the wing. I don’t bother to get dressed as I blink across the distance.
Someone else is in here.
The form is on top of my mate, strangling her with one hand while the other holds a blade poised above their head. With the size of his frame, it’s obvious that this fae is male. The silver glints in the moonlight as the attacker goes to plunge it into her heart. Nero is cawing up a storm, diving at the intruder who seems to not care about the bird attacking him. My shadows react before I do, swiping the blade away and binding the assassin just as Jesper comes barreling into the room. I storm over to where I have the male bound and rip off his mask, not recognizing who it is.
He spits at me. “Just let me kill the bitch. I’ll give you half the coin that was offered for her head.”
“Who the fuck sent you?” I snap, tightening the shadows and I watch as the male’s face turns purple.
“If you think I’m going to talk, you have another thing coming.”
“She’s alive,” Jesper calls over to me. “Knocked out but alive. There looks to be some sort of sleeping dust on her face.”
A part of me relaxes knowing my mate is okay, but the other part is out for vengeance. Although I’ll need answers before I wipe this motherfucker off the face of the realm.
“Stay with her. I’m taking this one down to the caves. Take her and Nero to your room and send Killian down to me. We are going to have a long, fun night,” I grin as my bloodlust rises past my calm exterior. No one hurts what’s mine and gets away with it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“WAKE UP, RIDER. Someone has attacked your mate,” Zaddro hisses, causing me to jerk awake.
