Chapter 6 #2
Fuck. I’d seen plenty of Scorpios throw up a shield before, but it was never solid.
Mostly they were simple magical barriers composed mostly of shadows or smoke.
Usually lecture-hall stuff, maybe a defensive dome in emergencies.
My mother could block a thrown book or stop a cup from shattering on the floor.
But this? Draco’s shield was solid. It flexed and moved with him, pulsing at his command, instantly adapting to the motion of the attackers.
Most Scorpios became scholars or historians. When a Scorpio decided to be a warrior, it was terrifying.
The bane tried again, lashing at the barrier. The second it touched, the shield seemed to ripple. The bane jerked back, limbs spasming and curling in on itself.
Draco’s eyes went flat and cold. He flicked his wrist, and the shield re-formed, the exoskeleton plates reorienting so they made a corridor, funneling the bane toward the nearest waiting containment cage.
For a second, the crowd above was silent. Even Professor Saris leaned in, watching with eyes wide and excited.
Two of the bane were already in cages, the next three were being herded like demonic cattle, and for a split second I could see it—the merged shield working exactly the way it was supposed to.
Rowan’s gravity was an anchor, Lucas froze them where they hovered, Jamie layered illusions so chaotic that the primal lizard brain of the bane didn’t know which direction to attack.
Theo and Phoenix were brute strength in the arena, Phoenix lifting and lowering and rolling the packed earth beneath us.
Percy, Aiden, Draco and Eris were on their game, working with Stardust as if they’d done it for years.
We got most of them boxed, no problem. Four contained, two more left. Then it all went to shit.
The smallest of the last two moved fast, darting between Theo’s blade and Phoenix’s sand snare. I pivoted to cut off its escape, and the moment I did, I felt the other one shift its attention straight for me.
Too late to dodge, a black talon whipped out and slashed deep into my upper arm. It was like being set on fire. I screamed, stumbling back, my starlight flickering wildly as my magic bucked out of my control. Blood sprayed across my sleeve, and pain erupted all the way to my fingertips.
I could handle it. I’d been hurt worse. But through the bond, I felt it detonate down the line, splitting through Nightfall’s concentration and collapsing every ounce of their fucking focus.
Percy was on me instantly. “Jupiter!”
“Get back, Percy—” I snapped. “Get the fuck back to your position until they’re all contained!”
He flinched at the power in my command through the bond, but of course he didn’t move fast enough, because Rowan barreled in from the left, eyes glacial and jaw set. He planted himself right in front of Percy, practically chest to chest.
“She told you to hold the perimeter,” Rowan growled.
Percy shoved him, eyes gone liquid red. “Get the fuck out of my face, man.”
Rowan’s gravity flared out, and I could feel it bearing down on Percy through the bond which was very much open at the moment. “If your Scorpio shield had done his job, she never would have taken the hit.” His glare cut past me, pinning Draco.
That did it. Percy’s rage spiked, incandescent and white-hot.
The two of them were so busy trying to prove which one of them was the Alpha Male Defending My Honor that the last bane nearly took Jamie’s entire arm off.
Only Theo’s snap reflexes closed the wound and hit the thing with a burst of healing-light so bright it stunned everyone for a second.
Meanwhile, I clamped my hand over my ripped arm, blood dripping through my fingers.
Rowan’s gravity had gone nuclear. He slammed it down on Percy so hard it buckled me through the bond, a migraine blooming to full detonation behind my eyes.
My vision whited out. Pain surged from the base of my skull, drilling straight through my brain and down my spinal cord.
I screamed, honest-to-god screamed, and dropped to one knee in the dirt, clutching my head. Every nerve in my body lit up.
It was such a raw, impossible sensation that for a split second I had no idea who was actually hurt. Was it me, or Percy? The whole bond went static, loud and wired and spinning so fast I nearly puked.
Jamie’s voice cut the chaos and pain, only barely. “Stop it! Rowan, STOP! You’re hurting her, she can feel it, you idiot!”
Rowan froze. All that weight sucking at my skull vanished in an instant. He looked at me like I’d stabbed him through the heart, the color draining from his face. His magic snapped closed so abruptly the pressure drop made my ears pop.
I dragged air into my lungs, the migraine fading, but the aftershock left me shaking. My sleeve was slick with blood and my vision wouldn’t focus.
“Fuck,” I choked out, and then Jamie was at my side, one pale scarred hand bracing my shoulder.
He didn’t say anything. Didn’t have to. His whole body was tense, the air around him shimmering with adrenaline and rage that wasn’t aimed at me. He glared at Rowan, who literally couldn’t look at me anymore. Horror carved deep lines into his face.
Lucas was already moving, grabbing the last two bane in a frozen tide while Phoenix and Theo slammed the containment cages shut.
The entire crowd up in the gallery had gone dead quiet.
The second the last bane stopped shrieking behind the reinforced bars, the wards around the pit glimmered and fizzled out, leaving us blinking in the sudden silence.
I was still kneeling, blood soaking my fingers. Every breath felt like broken glass, and the bond was wide open and raw, every bit of pain bouncing back and forth between me and my shield.
Rowan staggered back, face twisted in self-loathing.
I could feel it from him. Not through the non-existent bond, but just from him.
The agony of what he’d done. How using his power to dominate Percy had gone straight through the tether and fucked me over when I was already injured.
If this hadn’t been a controlled environment, I could have easily been killed.
He was shaking, and looked like if he’d had any less pride, he would have thrown himself in front of a bus.
For one second nobody moved. Then Nightfall was on me, Percy hauling me to my feet with a hand under my elbow, checking my face for signs of brain damage. Aiden’s jaw was clenched so hard I thought he’d break teeth. Draco hovered just behind, his own wound sealed but not healed, silent as a ghost.
Theo shouldered past Aiden and pressed a towel to my arm that someone had given him from the sidelines, his magic a glowing warmth flooding through me, knitting the muscle back together in seconds.
The pain went from stabbing to a dull throb.
Jamie kept his hand on my back, not letting go, as if he was the only thing anchoring me to this body.
Rowan didn’t speak. He just stared at the floor, fists trembling.
Professor Saris’s boots thudded down the stairs. He gave the cages a once-over, then spat on the sand, unimpressed. “You boxed them. Didn’t lose one. But if you try that shite in the field, you’ll get yourselves slaughtered.”
We all knew what he really meant. The bond was open, but not complete. Stardust was locked out, coordinating by voice and body language alone, and it just wasn’t enough. We needed a mental link if we wanted a chance of making this work. We needed the bond.
Percy glared at Rowan, his own temples still beaded with sweat. “So what, you going to keep trying to give me a fucking aneurysm every time I step toward Jupiter?”
Rowan’s voice was rawer than I’d ever heard it. “I didn’t mean to hurt her.”
“Next time, maybe don’t try to flatten my skull,” Percy shot back, but even he didn’t have much venom left in him. He kept a hand on my shoulder, steadying us both.
Saris let the silence throb for a second, just to be a dick. “You want to run a ten-man shield, Black, you’d better figure out how to keep this from happening in a live attack. Or none of you are coming back in one piece.”
I wiped the blood off my arm and flexed my hand.
The wound was sealed but hot, the skin around it red.
I nodded at the professor, knowing that as gruff and stern as he was, he only wanted to make sure we were as strong as we could be out there in the real world.
I’d seen plenty of what real world attacks were like, and shit like this was dangerous.
Theo dabbed at the edge of my sleeve that was soaked in blood. “You should shower off, love. Get some food into that belly before you pass out.”
I nodded, not even having the energy to be a brat at the moment. I got my fucking ass kicked, and all I wanted to do was crawl into a deep, dark hole and scream.
The other shield teams trickled out, shooting us sidelong looks as they went, full of judgment that we fully deserved.
Professor Saris dismissed us with a flick of his fingers.
“Rest up. Tomorrow we’re taking the shields outside the wards.
If you want to see how fast you can die, by all means, keep this up. ”
As one, the ten of us headed out, silent except for the sand crunching under our boots.
Back in the tower, the shower was blessedly hot.
I stripped out of my training clothes, blood and sand stuck everywhere, and let the water batter me until my thoughts slowed to a crawl.
My arm hurt like hell, but Theo’s work kept the skin from splitting again, and the muscle knit together nicely beneath.
I scrubbed my hair twice, rinsed blood and dirt down the drain, and just stood there with my head leaned against the tile.
You’re a fucking mess, I told myself. An actual disaster. Couldn’t even make it through hour one of joint training without nearly dying.