Chapter 150: What do you want?

Chapter 150: Chapter 150: What do you want?

~ Raven ~

Raven was still thinking about the Moonless Court when another thought made her sit upright.

"Oh, Goddess."

Cassian’s expression sharpened. "What?"

"The Dreamwalker."

"What about him?"

"We shouldn’t be talking about this."

Cassian looked at her for a moment.

Raven lowered her voice.

"He’s already been inside my head, Cassian. He’s seen things I never told him. If he gets in again, he could find out everything we just discussed."

"We don’t know that he’ll be able to get in again."

"And what about you?" she demanded. "He could enter your mind and find out from you instead."

Cassian settled back in his chair.

"I don’t think he’ll find my mind quite so easy to enter anymore."

Raven narrowed her eyes.

"Why?"

"Do you remember what Prymont said beneath the tree?"

She frowned, trying to work out what Dante had to do with any of this.

Then she remembered.

"His headache?"

Cassian nodded.

Dante had said his headache had disappeared while he was with her. More importantly, he’d mentioned that it had happened before.

Raven looked at Cassian.

"You think that was because of me?"

"I think it’s possible."

"Dante could have been feeling better for any number of reasons."

"Once, perhaps. But he’s noticed it happening repeatedly, and I’ve experienced something similar."

Raven frowned, waiting for him to elaborate.

Cassian continued. "The old accounts suggest that the Alpha Queen’s power could extend to her mates. If you’re carrying that power, it may be interfering with whatever the Dreamwalker is doing to us."

Raven considered that.

The idea wasn’t entirely ridiculous.

Her wolf had fought the Dreamwalker directly. If she possessed some ability that made it difficult for him to control her, perhaps it could affect the men bonded to her as well.

But there was something wrong with Cassian’s explanation.

"Hold on. If being around me makes it harder for him to get inside your head, why does he keep getting inside mine?"

"I didn’t say your presence makes us impossible to reach."

"You seem rather confident he won’t get into yours."

"My mind was already difficult to breach," Cassian said. "The training helped with that, but maintaining the resistance takes effort. It’s considerably harder when—"

He stopped.

Raven frowned. "What training?"

Cassian looked at her for a moment before settling back in his chair.

"Mental resistance is part of a Cardinal heir’s education."

"And who taught you?"

"Raven, the point is that I know how to defend my mind. Being near you seems to make it easier."

She studied him.

Raven considered pressing him but she hesitated.

Before she could ask again, Cassian leaned forward.

"Tell me what happened the last time the Dreamwalker entered your mind."

Raven gave him a look.

Changing the subject, are we?

She was tempted to call him out on it, but the Dreamwalker was the reason she’d started this conversation in the first place.

Besides, she had been wanting to tell Cassian what happened since waking up.

"He was waiting for me when I woke up," Raven said.

Cassian’s expression grew serious. "In your room?"

"No, that white place he keeps dragging me into. I could barely feel my wolf, and before I could figure out what was wrong, he appeared."

She shifted against the pillows, her stomach tightening as she remembered what happened next.

"He wanted answers, and when I wouldn’t give them to him, he started hurting me."

Cassian leaned forward. "How?"

Raven hesitated.

How was she supposed to explain pain that had made her willing to say anything just to make it stop?

"It was inside my head," she said. "I couldn’t move, couldn’t think. I kept begging him to stop, but every time I tried to get up, he did it again."

Cassian’s fingers tightened around the armrest.

"He made you beg?"

Raven looked at him. His voice had changed.

"I would have told him anything by the end of it," she admitted. "I didn’t even care what he wanted anymore. I just wanted him to stop."

Cassian went very still.

For a moment, Raven thought he hadn’t heard her. Then his grip tightened around the armrest until the wood gave a faint creak.

"Cassian?"

He loosened his fingers, although he didn’t look away from her.

"What happened after that?"

His voice was quieter now, but there was something about the way he asked that made Raven stop watching his hands.

"He used my memories against me," she continued. "Made me think I’d woken up in my room and that my roommates had come to apologize."

"Thalia, Tessa and Brielle?"

Raven frowned.

"How do you know all their names?"

"I know who you share a room with, Raven."

That was rather disturbing, especially coming from a man who had just admitted to investigating her.

She gave him a suspicious look, but Cassian was still waiting for her to continue.

"Anyway, I believed them for a while, until Brielle started acting strangely and the whole thing fell apart. The Dreamwalker was there the entire time, pretending to be them."

Cassian’s jaw tightened.

"And how did you get away?"

"My wolf caught him. He tried to escape, but she wouldn’t let go, and I managed to fight his hold on my mind."

"You restrained him?"

"For a little while. He eventually got away, but before he did, I felt something from him Cassian."

"What?"

Raven looked at Cassian.

"Fear. He was afraid of me."

Cassian’s expression changed.

"Not just because my wolf had caught him," she added. "There was something about me that frightened him, although I still don’t know what it was."

Cassian sat back, considering what she’d told him.

"I was right about the drug, then."

Raven frowned. "What do you mean?"

"You were already weakened when he entered your mind. I think that’s why he managed to overpower you so easily this time."

Raven’s irritation returned as she thought about Celeste and the others. They’d put her in that condition to humiliate her, and the Dreamwalker had taken advantage of it.

"So what happens when he comes back?"

"I don’t know exactly," Cassian admitted. "But you managed to fight him off while you were drugged. If your resistance is getting stronger, he may have a much harder time reaching you now that you’re recovering."

Raven wanted to believe him.

She could still remember how helpless she’d felt when the Dreamwalker was hurting her, and the thought of going through it again made her stomach turn.

But she also remembered his fear.

Whatever he had discovered about her during their fight, he hadn’t liked it.

She wasn’t about to forget that.

Raven looked at Cassian again.

"You said the Alpha Queen’s power could protect her mates. Does that mean being near me is enough to keep the Dreamwalker out of your head?"

"I don’t think proximity alone would make me immune to him. But the records suggest that the protection becomes stronger when the bond is completed."

Raven suddenly became very aware of how close he was sitting.

A fully completed bond.

She knew what that involved.

And judging by the way Cassian was watching her, he knew perfectly well what had just occurred to her.

"Are you suggesting that we should complete our bond?"

"No."

Raven raised an eyebrow.

"That was quick."

"I’m explaining what the records say."

"Of course you are."

Cassian’s eyes narrowed.

Raven looked away before he could see her smile.

It was ridiculous that she could spend the better part of a conversation worrying about a Dreamwalker and still find herself thinking about kissing the man sitting beside her bed.

Her wolf, apparently delighted that her thoughts had returned to Cassian, stirred again.

Oh, behave.

"Raven."

She looked back at him.

"I’m not asking you to do anything," he said.

"I heard you the first time."

"Good."

She studied him for a moment.

His expression was serious now, but she couldn’t quite forget how he’d looked earlier when he realized what her identity might mean.

And there was still the matter of those four mates.

Raven glanced toward the window, remembering the passage she’d read in the library. She had rejected the Blackthorn twins because they had spent years treating her as though she had no right to decide what happened to her own life.

Finding out that she might be the Alpha Queen wasn’t going to change that.

"Cassian, those records you’ve been reading..."

"What about them?"

"Do they say the Alpha Queen has to accept every mate she’s given?"

His expression changed.

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"The records describe the bonds. They don’t say anyone can force you to accept them."

Raven looked at him.

She hadn’t expected him to answer quite so firmly.

"Good," she said. "Because I’ve already had enough of men telling me what I’m supposed to do with a mate bond."

"I know."

She was about to leave it there when she noticed that he had gone quiet again.

Raven studied him.

He’d admitted that he believed they were mates. He’d spent weeks researching what that connection might mean, and now he was telling her that completing their bond could make it harder for the Dreamwalker to reach him.

Yet he’d been very quick to insist he wasn’t asking her for anything.

Perhaps he was simply trying not to pressure her.

Or perhaps he’d decided that having to share her with other mates was more trouble than he wanted.

Raven didn’t particularly like how much the second possibility bothered her.

She looked at him for another moment before deciding that she’d had enough of trying to guess what was going on inside Cassian Blade’s head.

"If I’m really the Alpha Queen," she said, "and you’re really one of my mates..."

Cassian looked at her.

Raven held his gaze.

"What do you want, Cassian?"