Chapter 13 #2
Tempest students pretend not to stare, which they do terribly.
The branch flames overhead shift with the room's mood, color flickering uneasily where curiosity brushes against fear.
I feel exposed. Valerius walks so close his sleeve touches mine.
"You're doing it again," he says.
"What?" I ask.
"Touching your wrist." I drop my hand. He looks ahead. "Better."
"Stop watching me." I order him.
"I can't." He says softly.
My breath catches. His jaw tightens as if he didn't mean to say it. The bond flares. I look away quickly because heat is rising in my face, and the dining hall is the last place I can afford to blush because of Valerius Draven.
We reach the food tables.
Seren grabs a tray for me because she has decided I can no longer be trusted. Eli hovers beside her, offering terrible suggestions. Luc appears from nowhere, silent as a ghost, and inclines his head to me in a greeting that feels too knowing.
"Valentina," he says.
I nod. "Luc."
His pale eyes flick to Valerius, then back to me. "Interesting morning?"
Valerius's voice is flat. "Leave."
Luc's mouth curves faintly. "Always a pleasure." He walks away.
I stare after him. "Does he always know things he shouldn't?"
"Yes," Valerius says.
"Comforting." I say sarcastically.
"No." The almost-smile threatens again, and my chest does that foolish warm thing before I can stop it.
We sit near Seren's usual section, not at the Aether table.
That alone makes people whisper harder. Valerius Draven doesn't sit beneath the green Veil flame usually.
He doesn't choose a table halfway between branches because his partner has no branch flame of her own usually...
but today he sits with me, beside me. The hall notices.
I pick at the bread on my plate, too aware of his arm near mine, his thigh close beneath the table, the dark heat of him turning every ordinary movement into something charged.
Seren talks to Eli about their assigned bond exercise, mostly to fill silence.
Eli says something ridiculous about summoning rain indoors as a bonding strategy.
Seren threatens to drown him in tea. Their banter should distract me but it doesn't because Valerius is quiet. Too quiet.
I glance at him. He is not eating either. His gaze is scanning the hall, moving from doors to council tables to clusters of students lingering too long near us. Not resting. Not relaxing. Guarding. The word settles into me.
I look down quickly. Don't. His voice slips through the bond.
My fingers tighten around my fork. I don't look at him.
Don't what? I think before I can stop myself.
Valerius goes still. My pulse drops. Oh no. I didn't mean to send it but his gaze cuts to me. He heard. The air between us tightens so suddenly that the Veil flame above our table flickers red at the edges. Seren stops mid-sentence. Eli's eyebrows rise. I stare at my plate, mortified.
Valerius's voice enters my mind, darker now, controlled with effort. Don't look at me like I'm something better than I am.
My throat tightens. I turn to him despite myself. His face is cold, expression unreadable, eyes fixed on the hall as if nothing is happening but inside the bond, I feel the truth. Not words. A deep ache buried beneath all that darkness.
I think back before I can stop myself. Maybe stop acting worse than you are.
His eyes snap to mine. The connection between us flares. The dining hall blurs. For one second, there is only his stare, my heartbeat, and the impossible intimacy of speaking where no one else can hear.
Then a voice cuts across the table. "Well, isn't this touching." Mira. Seren's face goes flat.
Valerius doesn't move, but the air around him darkens. Mira Ardent stands beside our table with two Aether girls behind her. Her red-lined cloak is perfectly arranged, her dark hair glossy, her smile sharp enough to draw blood. Her gaze flicks from me to Valerius, then to the space between us.
"Is this a pity party for the powerless girl?" She looks in my direction.
Seren sets down her cup slowly. "Mira. I am begging you to develop survival instincts."
Mira ignores her. "Or is it something else maybe? Draven keeps a pretty little pet now?"
The word hits the table like poison. Pet, it hurts more than being called powerless. The hall quiets in pieces around us. My face goes hot. Valerius goes utterly still. It's the kind of stillness that comes before things burn.
Mira sees it and mistakes it for victory.
She leans in slightly, eyes bright with cruelty. "I suppose it makes sense. You couldn't get a real partner, Valentina. At least this way you can follow one around and pretend his power means you matter."
Seren stands. Green magic snaps around her hands. Eli catches her wrist, not restraining exactly, but grounding. "Seren."
"No," she says. "Absolutely not."
Mira's smile widens. She wants this. She wants Seren to react.
Wants me humiliated. Like she was two days ago.
Wants Valerius to deny me, to remind the room I am nothing more than an unwanted bond.
Maybe part of me expects him to. Maybe that's why the pain cuts before he speaks because I know his cruelty.
I know his pride. I know how much he hated being chosen with me in front of everyone.
Valerius rises. Slowly. The entire dining hall seems to hold its breath.
Mira's smile falters, then steadies. "What? Did I insult your property?"
The branch flames overhead flicker black. Valerius steps around the bench. The movement is graceful. Terrifying. He stops beside me, I look up at him, confused and burning with embarrassment.
His eyes are on me. The hall disappears in the weight of his gaze. He doesn't ask out loud, he asks through the bond. Mine?
My breath catches. Are you mine? That's what he means. Not mine as possession. Not his mark. Not property. A choice. My heart slams so hard I feel it in my throat.
Mira is waiting to twist whatever happens into another knife.
The bond hums between us, steady and hot, and Valerius is looking at me like he will not move an inch closer unless I let him. Like even in front of everyone, even with rage burning through him, I still get the choice.
My answer slips through the bond before fear can stop it. Yes.
Valerius's eyes darken. He bends and kisses me. The hall vanishes. Everything vanishes. There is only his mouth on mine. Warm. Careful for one impossible second, as if he'ss still giving me time to pull away but I don't. My hand lifts without permission and grips the front of his shirt.
The bond explodes.
Gold heat rushes through me so fast I gasp against his mouth.
Valerius's hand comes to my jaw, his thumb brushing my cheek, and the touch sends a shock down my spine.
The kiss deepens— intense enough to make the world tilt.
He tastes like smoke and winter. My thoughts become his...
Mine. The word tears through the bond, dark and fierce and terrified.
This time, I don't pull away from it. Something answers inside me, bright and reckless. Yours.
Valerius goes still against my mouth. Only for half a breath. Then a sound leaves him—low, barely there, swallowed by the kiss—and his hand slides from my jaw to the back of my neck like he is holding himself back from pulling me closer in front of the entire academy.
For one heartbeat, the whole dining hall glows gold snapping my eyes open.
Gasps erupt around us. Valerius breaks the kiss instantly.
His forehead hovers near mine for one shaken second, his breath uneven, his fingers still at the back of my neck.
I stare at him, lips parted, heart racing. He looks as stunned as I feel.
Two seconds later his face is already becoming Valerius Draven again but through the bond, I feel the crack. The want. The fear. The shock. He felt it too. Whatever happened in that kiss was not just a kiss.
Mira makes a tiny sound. Valerius turns his head slowly. His hand drops from my neck, but he stays beside me.
His voice is calm when he speaks. That makes it deadly. "Say she's nothing again." Mira is pale. The entire dining hall is silent. Valerius's eyes darken. "Say pet again." She says nothing. "Good," he says softly. "You listen."
No one moves. Then he looks at the room.
Not at anyone specific. Everyone. "If anyone is confused," he says, "Valentina Starling is not my pet. She is not my charity. She is not a joke the Flame played on me."
The bond mark burns beneath my sleeve. His voice lowers.
"She is my bonded partner. Show disrespect to her again, and you answer to me." The words shake through the hall.
My breath is still trapped in my chest.
Valerius sits back down as if he didn't just set the dining hall on fire without summoning a single flame. I remain frozen. Seren's mouth is open. Eli looks delighted beyond reason. Luc, somehow present at the edge of the room, watches with a faint, knowing smile.
Mira turns and leaves so quickly her friends have to hurry after her. Sound returns slowly. Whispers first. Then chairs. Then the entire hall erupts into frantic, muffled chaos.
Valerius reaches for his cup with a hand that looks steady but it's not. I can feel the tremor through the bond. I stare at him. He doesn't look at me. My lips still burn. Inside me, the word 'yours' echoes like a bell.
Seren drops back into her seat. "I leave you alone emotionally for five minutes."
"I'm sorry," I whisper.
"Sorry?" She looks between us. "Val, I am going to need several hours and possibly a diagram to understand what the fuck I just witnessed."
Eli leans forward. "I thought it was excellent."
Seren points at him. "You're not helping."
Valerius says nothing. He keeps looking straight ahead, jaw tight, as if facing the dining hall is easier than facing me. Maybe it is because I don't know how to face him either.
The kiss sits between us, alive and burning.
Not romantic in the simple way stories make kisses sound.
This was a line breaking. A secret slipping.
A soul answering and everyone saw only the outside of it.
No one else heard mine. No one else heard yours.