Chapter 7 Lindsay
SEVEN
LINDSAY
Sleep pulls me under like a current—warm at first, lulled by Raiden’s steady heartbeat and the soft brush of his tails. But the warmth twists, turns cold, and suddenly I’m falling.
Not falling.
Being pushed.
The memory surges up, warped and vicious, as though the Veil itself is replaying it on a broken loop.
The academy courtyard isn’t the sunlit space I remember; it’s shrouded in fog, the stones slick with something dark and oily that squelches under my boots.
Shadows writhe at the edges, not mine or Kael’s—hungry things with teeth that whisper my name in voices that sound like cracking bone.
Auron stands before me, taller than he should be, his platinum hair whipping in a wind that smells of decay. His eyes—cold as diamonds, yes, but right now, in front of me, they’re fractured, reflecting a thousand versions of me screaming back at myself.
“You should be careful who you trust, Lindsay,” he says, voice smooth and mocking, but it echoes wrong—layered with his father’s deeper timbre, as if they’re speaking as one.
His father is there, watching from the fog’s edge. He’s close, too close, his face a mask of sharp angles and cruel satisfaction. His eyes glow with the same fractured light, and when he smiles, his teeth are stained black, dripping shadows that pool at his feet and crawl toward me like living tar.
Auron’s hand, cold and unyielding, clamps on my shoulder. “The Veil will eat you alive,” he whispers, leaning in until his breath freezes my skin. “But maybe that’s what you deserve. For trusting the wrong people. Trusting me.”
I try to pull away, but my body won’t move.
The shadows at his father’s feet reach me first, wrapping around my ankles, pulling me down, down, into the stone that’s no longer solid but a swirling portal of endless night.
Auron’s grip tightens—painful now, his fingers elongating into claws that dig into my flesh, drawing blood that turns to ink and spills into the void.
“Be careful,” he repeats, but his voice cracks into laughter—his and his father’s, a chorus that echoes in my skull. “Or don’t. It’s more fun this way.”
His shove comes then, a violent hurl that sends me tumbling backward into the maw. The Veil opens wide, a screaming abyss of teeth and eyes and hands that grab, tear, and whisper, trust no one, trust no one, trust no one.
Fear chokes me—cold and suffocating, the kind that freezes your blood and turns your screams to silence.
I claw at the edges, nails breaking, but there’s nothing to hold.
Auron’s face hovers above, watching, his father’s shadow looming behind him as though he’s a puppet master pulling strings made of my own veins.
“You were always too trusting,” Auron says, and his eyes shatter completely, raining glass shards into the dark that slice my skin as I fall.
Falling.
Falling.
Forever.
I wake with a jolt, body convulsing, shaking so hard my teeth chatter.
Sweat slicks my skin, cold and clammy, and the shadows in the room feel too alive, too close, reaching for me the same way they did in the recurring nightmare.
It’s a twisted version of the truth that the Veil used to make me stronger.
Raiden’s arms tighten instantly—strong, warm, and so very real. His tails shift, wrapping closer, a living barrier against the dark. “Lindsay,” he murmurs, voice rough with sleep but alert, one hand stroking down my back in long, soothing sweeps. “Hey… I’ve got you. It was just a dream.”
The bond flares between us—golden, steady, a lifeline pulling me back from the edge. His calm floods through it, warm and unwavering, wrapping around my panic like sunlight melting ice. Safe, it whispers. Here. With me. Not alone.
I cling to him, fingers digging into his chest, burying my face against his neck. The shaking eases, breath by breath, as his presence seeps deeper—his scent grounding me and his heartbeat syncing with mine until the terror fades to echoes.
“Just a dream,” he repeats softly, lips brushing my temple. One tail curls gently around my wrist, thumbing a pulse point. “You’re home. You’re safe. No one’s taking you again.”
I nod against him, the words stuck in my throat, but the bond carries what I can’t say: Thank you. I love you. Don’t let go.
He doesn’t.
And slowly, the nightmare dissolves, leaving only us.
The next time I wake, it’s to pounding.
Hard, rhythmic, furious—like someone is trying to break the door down with their fist instead of magic.
Raiden’s body tenses beneath me instantly, tails tightening in reflexive warning. A low growl rumbles in his chest, vibrating against my cheek where I’m still curled against him. His arms lock around me, protective, possessive, but he doesn’t move to answer it.
Not yet.
The pounding stops for half a second—then the door flies inward.
Raiden surges upright, dragging me with him so I’m shielded behind the broad wall of his back. His shift ripples—human mostly, but claws fully extended, tails flaring wide like a blazing fan. The room fills with the scent of scorched fur and barely-leashed fire.
Lord Tsukino—Raiden’s father—stands in the ruined doorway, robes immaculate despite the destruction, auburn hair pulled back in a severe knot, golden eyes blazing with the same fury I’ve seen in his son but colder, crueler.
“You dare,” he hisses, voice slicing through the air like a blade. “You dare defile clan honor with this—this human—in the middle of a sacred conclave?”
His gaze drops to my throat. To the fresh, raw bite mark, framed by the dark shadow-veins the Veil left behind. His lip curls in disgust.
“Marked. By my own blood.” The words drip venom. “You’ve thrown away everything—your lineage, your duty, your future—for a half-breed abomination who reeks of the Veil.”
Raiden’s growl turns lethal. “Get out.”
His father laughs—short, harsh, humorless.
“You think you can command me, boy? After you’ve shamed us all?
The elders felt the bond snap into place.
They felt you waste your power on her. The Council will hear of this.
They’ll demand her containment—or her destruction.
And you’ll be the one who handed her to them. ”
Fear flickers through me—not for myself, but for Raiden. For what they could do to him if they decide he’s too compromised to keep.
I shove the blanket aside and stand.
The shadows at my feet surge upward like living smoke, coiling around my calves, my waist, my shoulders—forming a dark, flowing robe that clings and moves as though it has a heartbeat of its own. The air thickens with the scent of night-blooming flowers and ozone.
Raiden’s father’s eyes widen.
I step forward, chin high, shadows flowing around me like a queen’s mantle.
“You will not speak to my mate that way,” I say, voice calm and cold, carrying the echo of the Veil itself. “You will not threaten him. And you will not threaten me.”
He sneers. “You think your little tricks scare me, girl? You’re nothing but a—”
I don’t let him finish.
The shadows explode.
They lash out like whips—black, shimmering, and unstoppable—wrapping around his wrists, his ankles, his throat.
Not choking. Not yet. But I’m seconds from choking the life from him.
How dare he threaten Raiden; he needs to learn his lesson.
The Veil magic surges through me, hungry and pleased, feeding on his arrogance, his rage, his certainty that he still holds power here.
His eyes bulge as the magic wraps tighter around his throat. He tries to summon foxfire—bright flames flicker at his fingertips—but the shadows swallow them, snuffing them out like candles in a storm.
“Leave,” I say, each word a command. “Now.”
The shadows tighten even more in warning. He staggers backward, choking on a snarl.
One final shove—hard, deliberate—and the Veil flings him out into the corridor. The door slams shut behind him with a thunderclap, wards snapping back into place, stronger than before, laced with my power now. They aren’t to hold my mate now, but to protect him.
Silence.
Raiden turns slowly, staring at the sealed door, then at me.
His mouth twitches.
Then he laughs—low at first, then loud, rich, and delighted. The sound fills the ruined room the same as sunlight breaking through clouds.
“Gods,” he breathes, golden eyes shining with awe and pride and something dangerously close to worship. “You just threw my father out of his own academy wing like he was yesterday’s trash.”
I let the shadows settle, coiling back around my ankles like obedient pets. And I stand there naked in front of him. His eyes heat with desire, and I smile.
“I’m a badass who knows her own power now,” I tell him, stepping closer until I’m pressed against his chest again. “And I’m not afraid to use it.”
He cups my face with both hands and kisses me slowly. When he pulls back, his forehead rests against mine.
“I’m the luckiest bastard alive,” he murmurs. “Bound to a woman who just bitch-slapped the head of my old clan with magic and didn’t even break a sweat.”
I smile again, this one small and fierce. “Damn right.”
Then the smile fades.
I take a breath.
“I need to face the Council,” I say quietly.
“They’re going to come for me—harder now that they know I’m back, stronger, and fully bonded to you.
If I wait, they’ll corner us. They’ll try to take you away.
Take all of you from me, and I won’t let that happen.
If I go to them, they will do what I want them to do. ”
“We can face them together, all of us.”
I shake my head, pressing my palm over his heart. “Not this time. They need to see who I am now that I know what I am.”
His gaze darts between mine, searching for something. “What are you, exactly? What did you learn in the Veil?”
I hold his stare for a long beat, letting the question settle between us. The shadows at my feet stir lazily, as though they know the story too and are waiting for their turn to speak.
“I’m not just part human anymore,” I say quietly. “I never really was. Not fully.”
His brows knit. He doesn’t interrupt, just waits—patient in the way only someone who’s already given everything for me can be.
“The Veil isn’t empty,” I continue. “It’s alive.
Old. Older than the academy, older than the bloodlines the Council worships, older than the curses they hide behind pretty words.
And at its heart—at its very beginning—there was something that slipped between realms the way water slips through cracks.
No name. No form that stayed the same. Just…
hunger. Curiosity. A need to feel what the other side was like. ”
I swallow, the memory rising in my throat.
“It found my mother.”
Raiden’s breath catches. His tails twitch once, curling tighter around us both.
“She wasn’t supposed to be there,” I say. “She was human. Brilliant. Reckless. Chasing legends about bloodlines and portals the way other people chase degrees. She got too close to a fracture. And it—the monster—saw her. Wanted her. Pulled her through.”
My voice drops lower.
“It kept her for years. Not cruelly, not exactly. It… studied her. Learned her. Let her walk its endless dark until she forgot what sunlight felt like. And when it had taken everything it could from her mind, her memories, her fire—it gave her something back.”
I touch my own chest, right over my heart.
“Me.”
Raiden’s eyes widen, the gold flaring brighter.
“The creature conceived me inside her. Not like humans do—not with biology or with love. It used her body as a vessel, her will to continue living as a spark, and poured a piece of itself into the mix. When I was born, it let her go. Slipped her back through the Veil as though it had never happened. She woke on the other side with no memory of the years she’d lost… and with me.”
Silence stretches.
Raiden’s hand finds mine, fingers threading through mine until our palms press together—his warm and steady, mine still chilled from the memory the monster gave me.
“So you’re…” He searches for the word.
“Part of the oldest thing in the Veil,” I finish for him.
“Its daughter. Its echo. Its… heir, maybe. I don’t know what to call it.
But when I went through the portal that day—it recognized me.
It didn’t try to break me. It welcomed me, excited I had finally come back.
He showed me everything. Taught me how to pull the shadows like thread, how to make the dark listen when I speak. ”
I lift my free hand. A thin tendril of shadow rises from my palm, coiling around my wrist like a bracelet before sinking back into my skin.
“The shadows are a part of me. Not like Kael’s shadows that he can order to do his bidding.
I only have to think of something to make it true.
That’s why the Council is terrified,” I say softly.
“They thought I was some kind of mistake. A half-blood anomaly they could control. They didn’t know I’m the daughter of the thing they’ve spent centuries trying to seal away after they couldn’t control him either. ”
Raiden exhales slowly, the sound rough with awe and something fiercer—pride. It eases something inside my chest. He’s not pushing me away or putting up walls between us. He still loves me.
“You’re not just powerful,” he murmurs. “You’re the fucking source.”
I smile again. “Damn right.”
He cups my face with both hands, thumbs stroking along my cheekbones.
“And you’re mine,” he says. “The daughter of the oldest dark, and you chose me.”
I lean into his touch. “I chose all of you. Nolan’s light. Kael’s shadows. You’re the only things that keep me human enough to care about any of this. I might be mad at Kael right now, and we have some things to talk about, but I love all of you.”