Chapter 96 — The Name She Said

Chapter 96: Chapter 96 — The Name She Said

~ Raven ~

"—which is exactly what I mean," Dante said. "You do it constantly."

"I do what constantly?"

"That little lift of your chin." He stepped closer, close enough that Raven had to tilt her head slightly to keep looking at him. "You do it whenever you’ve decided you’re not backing down."

Raven knew exactly what he meant and disliked that he had noticed.

The room was dim and warm, the light too soft for her to tell where it was coming from. Dante kept closing the distance between them, but Raven stayed where she was.

She wasn’t giving him the satisfaction of making her retreat.

"Get out of my space."

"You’re not in your space. You’re in mine." His eyes moved over her face, slow and unhurried, before settling lower. "You’re looking at my mouth."

"I’m not."

"You are. You’ve done it twice."

"I’m considering hitting it."

Dante chuckled, low and amused. "No, you’re not."

He was close enough now that Raven could feel the heat coming off him through her shirt. Dante was a stupid furnace of a boy who seemed to have been born without ever needing to understand the purpose of warmth.

"Go on, then." His voice dropped. "Say you don’t want this and I’ll go. Say it properly and I’ll walk out that door."

Raven held his gaze for a second longer.

Then she caught a fistful of his collar and pulled him down.

She kissed him first. That mattered, and she made damn sure of it.

For a heartbeat, Dante went still beneath her hands, surprise catching him before he could hide it. Then something changed. The teasing ease disappeared from him all at once, his hands coming up as he kissed her back with enough force that Raven felt the shift immediately.

Somewhere between one breath and the next, her back met the wall.

She couldn’t have said which of them had moved first.

Raven slid both hands into his hair and pulled, and the rough sound that broke against her mouth sent a quick thrill through her. She wanted to hear it again.

So she caught his lower lip between her teeth and bit down lightly.

She got it twice.

"Careful," he said, breathless.

"No."

The heat coming off him had gone beyond warmth. It lived under her skin now, soaking through the thin fabric between them until every breath felt like it belonged to him.

Dante’s mouth left hers and dragged slowly along her jaw, open and deliberate, the scrape of his breath raising every nerve it touched. Raven’s fingers tightened in his hair, not to pull him away—only to keep him there.

His lips found the soft place beneath her ear, then the long line of her throat. Her head tipped back against the wall before pride could stop it. A small, shaky sound escaped her. She bit it back at once, but the damage was done.

His hand tightened at her waist, fingers pressing hard enough to leave the memory of them. Raven dragged him closer in retaliation, one leg hooking around his hip. Dante caught her weight without effort, the movement crushing them fully together, chest to chest, hip to hip. Whatever sharp remark she’d been about to make died in her throat.

His mouth returned to her neck, hotter now, slower.

"Dante—"

He stopped just enough to breathe against her skin, the exhale a low, controlled burn.

"Say it again."

Raven’s pulse jumped beneath his mouth. She felt him smile against it.

"Dante."

A quiet, rough sound left him—half groan, half surrender—and his grip on her tightened until she could feel the restraint vibrating through him. Then—

"Raven."

She barely heard it.

Dante’s lips moved lower, brushing the hollow of her collarbone, lingering there as if he could drink the heat from her skin. Raven said his name again into his hair, softer this time, and felt the answering shudder that ran through him, deep and involuntary.

"Raven."

The voice came again.

Closer now.

"Raven, wake up."

Her eyes opened slightly.

That wasn’t Dante.

For one impossible moment she could still feel the press of his mouth, the weight of his body, the heat of his breath against her throat—while another voice threaded through the room, steady and familiar, pulling at something beneath the dream.

Raven frowned.

She knew that voice.

She knew—

"Cassian."

The room vanished.

Raven’s eyes opened.

She was flat on her back on a hard mattress, her whole body flushed and humming, breathing as though she’d run somewhere, and for several confused seconds the dream stayed close enough that she could almost still feel Dante’s mouth against her skin.

Then the white ceiling came into focus, followed by the sharp herbal smell in the air and the weight of a blanket over her legs.

Cassian Blade’s face was directly above hers.

He had her wrist in one hand, two fingers resting lightly over her pulse, and there was colour high across both his cheekbones.

Raven stared at him.

Cassian stared back for exactly as long as it took him to put whatever had slipped in his expression back where it belonged. Then it disappeared, leaving him blank and unreadable again.

What?

Raven stared at him while her thoughts struggled to catch up.

Then the dream came rushing back.

Dante’s mouth at her throat. Her hands tangled in his hair. The heat of him pressed against her.

Oh no.

Oh no!!!

Raven turned her head.

It got worse.

Dante Prymont was sitting in a chair three feet away, one leg stretched out in front of him with his arms folded across his chest, and he was working extremely hard at keeping his expression under control.

He was failing.

Nikolai stood on the other side of the bed with a cup of water already waiting on the table beside him, while Rowan Ashbourne remained near the door looking like a man attending something he had not been invited to.

All four of them.

Looking at her.

Oh, fuck no.

"Interesting dream?" Dante asked, the smug look on his face making it obvious he already thought he knew the answer.

"Shut up."

His mouth twitched.

Raven pushed herself onto her elbows, and weakness rolled through her so suddenly that she stopped halfway. Nothing actually hurt the way it should have after the forest, which was almost stranger. Her wounds were gone, but her body felt hollowed out, her muscles heavy and unreliable as though whatever had healed her had taken payment from everywhere else.

The embarrassment vanished immediately.

"Brielle."

"Alive," Nikolai said at once.

Raven looked at him.

"The Velkarin have been treating her since last night. Her hand was badly damaged, but she’ll use it again."

Raven frowned. "What the hell is a Velkarin?"

Nikolai blinked, then seemed to remember who he was talking to.

"Healers," he said. "The Order of Velkarin. They’re specialist healers. Valerius uses them for injuries ordinary healing can’t handle."

"Right." Raven looked back at him. "So she’ll use it properly?"

There was the smallest pause before Nikolai nodded.

"It’ll take time and a lot of work, but yes."

Raven let out a breath.

"Everyone else?"

"Everyone who went into that clearing came back out." Nikolai hesitated before adding, "Four are still serious. Marchmont hasn’t woken up yet. Holt woke this morning."

Raven let her head fall back onto the pillow.

For a second she saw Garrick again, barely standing and still telling her to run.

But everyone had come out.

That was enough for now.

She opened her eyes again and found the four of them still there.

"Why are all of you in here?"

Dante leaned farther back in his chair and laced his hands behind his head.

"Blade carried you out," he said pleasantly, "after you called him your mate in front of the entire academy."

Something shifted behind Raven’s eyes.

The memory came back before she could stop it: Cassian’s white hair falling across his forehead, black blood dried along his jaw, his wolf staring out through those pale eyes while something inside Raven recognised him with a certainty she still couldn’t explain.

Then came her own voice.

Mate.

Raven shoved the memory down so hard her ears rang.

"I don’t remember that."

Cassian’s fingers lifted from her pulse.

Across the room, Dante’s eyes narrowed just slightly, and Raven realised too late that her face had already betrayed her. His gaze moved toward Cassian for barely half a second before he shrugged.

"Suit yourself."

"You were delirious," Cassian said.

Raven looked at him.

There was a faint colour across his cheekbones, but the raw worry she’d seen in the clearing was gone. His expression had closed again, calm and unreadable, as though none of it had ever slipped through.

His gaze passed over her face once, checking her pupils, her breathing, the general fact that she appeared to be conscious and functioning. It was clinical enough that Raven almost wondered whether she’d imagined the worry she’d seen in him before losing consciousness.

Then he straightened.

For one second, she thought he might say something about the word she’d used in the clearing.

He didn’t.

Cassian simply turned and walked toward the door.

Raven watched him go.

"Cassian—"

She had no idea why she’d said it.

He paused with one hand near the door.

Only for a fraction of a second.

Then he opened it and left.

The door shut behind him.

Dante was looking at the ceiling again, still smiling faintly, except his jaw had tightened along one side.

His eyes flicked toward the closed door once before returning to nowhere in particular.

Raven noticed.

She also decided she had enough problems already.

She closed her eyes again, and immediately the trance returned.

The black-haired girl, eight or nine, standing in front of something with her arms spread, blood on her mouth, getting back up every time they threw her down.

The masked man’s wrist.

The skull split by a broken crescent.

The same mark Raven had seen on one of the attackers in the clearing.

The beautiful man swinging the girl around while she laughed.

Her little hands crushing his cheeks while he let her.

And the woman.

Raven could remember her hands, the dark sleeve, the line of her shoulder, but every time she tried to reach higher the memory became blank.

Whose was that?

She had no answer.

She didn’t know who the girl was, who the man was, or why the woman had been hidden from her. More importantly, she didn’t understand why breaking something inside herself had opened a door onto what looked like somebody else’s life.

"Rivers."

Rowan had moved away from the wall.

Raven opened her eyes.

He stood at the foot of the bed with his hands at his sides, looking like a man carrying something he would much rather have left outside.

"I owe you an apology."

Raven raised an eyebrow.

"I misjudged you."

She waited, expecting the rest.

Rowan drew in a breath.

"Thank you for saving Seren."

That was apparently all of it.

No speech followed. No request for forgiveness, no sudden attempt to pretend everything between them had changed because she had saved Seren. Rowan simply gave her the apology and the thanks, then left the rest where it was.

For once, Raven appreciated the lack of decoration.

"All right," she said.

Rowan nodded once and stiffly walked out.

Which left two.

Nikolai came around the side of the bed.

"How do you feel?"

"Like someone emptied me out and forgot to put everything back."

"That sounds about right."

He leaned closer and lifted the back of his hand toward her forehead.

Raven pushed it away before he touched her.

Nikolai stopped.

There had been too many hands on her in the forest. Too many people grabbing, dragging and pinning her down, and now there were too many people standing too close to the bed.

Her skin reacted before her manners did.

"I’m fine," she said. "You’re all crowding me."

Nikolai withdrew his hand and looked faintly wounded.

"Water?"

Raven eyed him.

"...Yes."

He picked up the cup and passed it to her, letting her take it herself. Her wrist shook slightly from exhaustion, and when he noticed, he put two fingers under the base of the cup just long enough to steady it before taking them away again.

Raven drank.

The water was cold and tasted of nothing, which at that moment made it perfect.

Dante still hadn’t moved from his chair. He’d stopped pretending the ceiling was interesting, though, and every so often his eyes went back to the door Cassian had used before returning to Raven.

She finished the water and handed the cup back to Nikolai.

The room stayed quiet for a few seconds, long enough for Raven to become aware of how exhausted she was again.

Then the door opened.

The Headmaster stepped inside.