Page 54 of Tangled Fates

I wanted to push her against the wall of the cave and take her. Body heat? I could generate much more heat with the friction I wanted so desperately between us. However, as Raven pulled away and headed toward the back of the cave, I knew it wasn’t appropriate. There were some things, even between fated mates, that needed to stay private.

But fucking hell, as I watched her snuggle back down between a sleeping Hudson and Dean, I wanted nothing more than to take her as my own.

Over, and over, and over again.

Until she pledged her future to me, forevermore.

18

RAVEN

“Oh, come now, gentlemen. Are we really going to debase ourselves with such childish antics?”

A bearded man with a crown atop of his head stepped out of the shadows. “Who knew that such beauty would encompass such hard-ass tactics.”

The woman with flowing blonde hair and rosy red cheeks simply smiled. “And here I thought you’d enjoy my tactics.”

The man grinned. “I enjoy many things of yours. But, this isn’t one of them. My men are doing the best that they?—”

The woman’s breathtaking face fell flat. “The best of your men isn’t enough, then, if this is all they’re going to give me.”

The two people stared off in the red wood room, with the woman placing her hands on her hips. She was positively radiant, with sleek blonde hair and twinkling blue eyes that shimmered whenever her face moved. Her porcelain skin looked like it hadn’t been marred and abused by years of sunlight, and the crimson red dress that clung to her slender features held captive the bearded man’s gaze.

She was gorgeous in every way possible.

“Mm-mm! Mmmmph! Nrmgnmph!”

I heard a muffled voice and the image at the forefront of my mind shifted. It was almost as if I were in the dream, gazing around at the surroundings. It hurt to move, though. Every time the scene attempted to shift, it felt like I was being pummeled in the back by a baseball bat.

Where in the hell was that muffled voice coming from?

“My king? Your claws, please.”

I watched as the bearded man jutted out his hand, placing the gargantuan appendage within the delicate palm of the blonde-headed woman’s hand. She closed her dexterous fingers around it, holding tightly as she brought forth a little tin. You know, like one of those mint tins people always carried around. Except, when she opened the top, she dipped her hand into some sort of cloudy substance.

Before rubbing it all over the man’s hands.

“There,” the woman said as she dropped one of his hands and picked up the other, “this should help. Next!”

One by one, the men in front of her exchanged places. She stood put, with her shoulders rubbed back as that muffled voice grew in the background. I kept my head on a swivel, trying to figure out what in the hell was going on.

How was I so aware in the middle of a dream?

After multiple men had come forth to have their hands doused in Vaseline, or whatever the hell that shit was, the woman closed the tin. She raised her hands into the air, still twinkling with the salve residue. And as she began to chant, my eyes widened.

She was casting a spell.

And I knew that none of it would be good.

“Spirits of the world, come to me. Heal our sick and tend our lame. We call to you for unfettered grace during our time of need. But above all else, no matter what, adorn their soaked claws with death.”

All at once, everyone’s hands began to glow. The men rejoiced, high-fiving one another and jumping around as if their favorite football team had just won the Super Bowl. I watched in horror as the men bragged about all of the wolves they’d kill with those claws. Their poisonous claws that would slash through their air and take their heads right off.

I whipped my gaze back toward the woman, trying to get a better look at her. Trying to commit her to memory while I was still asleep. But when I laid eyes on her, I found her standing behind me.

In the shadows.

“Hello there, Raven,” she said lowly in my ear.

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