Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
AIDEN
The admin building emptied into the main courtyard through a set of heavy oak doors that groaned on their hinges.
The afternoon had turned cool and overcast, the sky the color of wet slate, and the courtyard was mostly empty—a couple of second years hurrying across the flagstones, a groundskeeper raking leaves along the far wall.
The air smelled like fresh rain. Dominion’s air had smelled like the remnants of city smog. This place smelled like it had been growing for a thousand years and intended to keep growing for a thousand more.
I’d made it maybe ten steps across the courtyard when she materialized from behind the stone column to my left, and my whole body went rigid.
I’d known she was still here. Imperium had been hers for the last two years.
I’d been here for over a week and I hadn’t looked for her.
Hadn’t tried to find her room. Had walked the long way around the Leo tower on the off chance I’d run into her in the corridors.
Some part of me had been hoping she’d simply evaporate into the English fog and spare us both the effort.
No such luck. She was leaning against the column with her arms crossed, watching me with an expression I couldn’t read. My sister had always been the most striking of the three of them. Tall, blonde like me, with the same gold eyes that ran in the Reece bloodline. Our father’s perfect daughter.
“Aiden…”
“Eliza.”
We stood there for a moment, the silence stretching between us.
The last time we’d spoken had been at a family dinner in New York, three years ago, and she’d spent the entire evening making pointed comments about my drinking and the company I kept, and I’d spent the entire evening wanting to put my fist through the wall behind her head.
That was how it went with the Reece sisters. They’d been raised to be weapons, same as me, but they’d been raised to be the kind of weapons that smiled while they cut you, and I’d never quite mastered the smiling part.
“Dad mentioned you’d transferred.”
Another silence. The rain was starting. A fine, cold mist that settled on my shoulders and the collar of my jacket. She was studying me with an expression that was almost thoughtful, which was so unlike her that I found myself searching her face for the trap.
“How are you?”
I blinked. “What?”
“It’s a simple question.”
I stared at her. This was not the script. The script was: Eliza says something cutting about my life choices, I say something cutting about hers, we part ways with the mutual understanding that we’d both rather eat glass than share a room.
“I’m… fine,” I said, because I didn’t know what else to say.
“You look tired.”
“I am tired.”
She nodded, and something in her posture shifted, a slight relaxation of the shoulders, a loosening of the jaw. I’d seen her do that before, but never at me. Usually it was reserved for people she actually liked.
“I heard about what happened at Dominion,” she said. “With the—” She stopped. “I’m, uh, glad you’re okay.”
Eliza didn’t do sincere. Eliza did polite. Eliza was strategic. Eliza did the things that served father’s interests. That was the Eliza I knew.
She pushed off the column and stepped closer, and for a second I thought she was going to touch me—a hand on the arm, maybe, the way normal siblings touched each other.
She didn’t. She stopped at a careful distance and looked at me with those golden eyes that were so much like mine it was almost like looking in a mirror.
“I know we haven’t—” I watched her choose her words the way I’d watched our father choose his. “I know things haven’t been easy between us. Any of us. I-we’ve been talking. Carmen, Vera and me. Since you left.”
“Talking about what?” What could my sisters possibly have to talk about? It wasn’t like they enjoyed each other’s company any more than mine.
She glanced away, toward the far end of the courtyard, and I followed her gaze.
Jupiter was crossing the flagstones with Theo and Lucas, Noodle draped across her shoulders.
She was laughing at something Theo had said, her head thrown back, her dark hair catching the gray light.
Lucas walked beside her with his hands in his pockets, saying something I couldn’t hear, and she turned to look at him, and the smile on her face was the kind of thing that made my chest do something stupid and painful.
I looked away. Too long. I’d looked too long.
I could feel my sister watching me watch Jupiter, and I braced for the comment, the cutting observation, the raised eyebrow, the reminder that I’d already fucked this up once and had no business trying to win her back.
“She collects them, doesn’t she.”
I turned my head. “What?”
“Men.” Eliza’s mouth curved, but it wasn’t quite a smile. “Not that I blame her. The girl’s got skills, though it pains me to admit.”
I’d expected a jab, maybe a warning. Instead, Eliza just watched Jupiter cross the courtyard with a look I couldn’t place. Not envy, but not exactly warmth either.
Eliza glanced at me one more time, gold eyes sharp as a scalpel, and then she was gone, heels echoing against the wet stone as she crossed into the admin building.
Across the square, Jupiter had stopped, watching the interaction. I didn’t need the bond to know she had questions, but I felt the flicker of her attention anyway, a gentle nudge, not a push.
“You good?” Her voice in my head, the silver warmth of her magic threading through.
“Yeah.” I shrugged, resettling my bag on my shoulder. “She wasn’t… as much of a bitch as usual.”
A low mental laugh. “I’m proud of you for not throwing her off the staircase.”
“Tempting,” I said, but then realized I didn’t actually mean it.
I joined their little group, and we continued through the courtyard, heading for the dining hall.
It was early enough that the place wasn’t full yet, but the instant we walked in, heads turned.
Whispers chased along the tables, skipping from one group to the next like brushfire.
Nine shield mates… or potential mates as far as anyone else knew. It was a fucking spectacle.
Jamie and Theo had already claimed a section of table, and Phoenix and Lucas were flanking them. I locked eyes with Percy, who jerked his chin at the only empty chair next to Jupiter as she circled and took her seat.
She was dead center, as usual, a black hole in the middle of a galaxy, pulling every fucker in the room into her orbit.
Across from me, Lucas was in full command mode, organizing some kind of shield schedule with Theo and Phoenix, but my attention kept drifting back to Jupiter.
He was the unofficial leader of Stardust, as Percy was ours, so I let them deal with the admin bullshit that I couldn’t be fucked to care about.
No, I just spent my time staring at Jupiter.
Her hair was loose, black as midnight, falling over her shoulders and down her back.
Every time she turned her head, it shifted, catching the light, and I had to physically force myself not to reach out and touch it.
She was laughing with Jamie about something, her mouth soft, eyes bright, and the sound of it made the bond thrum.
I remembered the last time I’d touched her, really touched her. Before everything burned down around us. Before the four of us shattered it and lost her for good. The only time I’d been inside her, we hadn’t even made it to a bed. The memory was branded on my brain.
It had been angry. Desperate. A punishment, not lovemaking.
There’d been no gentleness, no time to worship her the way she deserved.
That’s the thing I regret most. She deserved so much better.
I wanted to lay her down, kiss every inch of her, tell her a thousand times that I’d never let anyone hurt her again, not even me.
I wanted to apologize with my mouth, my hands, every piece of me that could still feel something.
Instead, I sat at a table full of men who all wanted the same thing and tried not to lose my shit every time someone else made her laugh.
Theo cracked a joke about the last training session, and Jupiter snorted, almost choking on her drink. “If Saris says ‘teamwork makes the dream work’ one more time, I’m going to portal him to Mars.”
Percy was tense, arms folded, his attention kept drifting to Jupiter, the way mine did.
Draco was quieter than usual, eyes hooded, but the slight flush on his neck told me he was thinking of something wholly inappropriate.
Something was going on with Draco, but he was being tight-lipped.
Eris was shoveling food like he hadn’t eaten in days, which probably meant he was more nervous than any of us.
Jupiter seemed fine. Half the room was staring at us, but she just picked at her plate and pretended not to care. Maybe she was nervous too, but if she was, she hid it better than the rest of us combined. This was the first of many meals we’d share as one large group.
Tonight was the meeting with the Order. We’d been summoned to the deep chamber under the academy where they’d apparently been holding their secret cult meetings for centuries.
Once we were approved by the Order, we’d be bringing Stardust into the fold.
It was all happening too fucking fast. But I understood the urgency in a way.
If we were successful, it could mean our entire species returning to the home worlds.
This wasn’t the time to be a selfish prick.
A muscle ticked in my jaw. I wasn’t scared, but the thought of merging with five strangers was enough to make my skin crawl.
I didn’t know them. I didn’t like not knowing what was coming.
But Jupiter did. She trusted them. More than that, she needed them.
If this was what it took to make her feel safe, to make her whole again, I’d do it. No questions. No hesitation.