Chapter 7 Two Sides Of One Coin #3
The last name emerges as question rather than certainty—my feelings toward the scarred vampire prince still complicated, still tangled in webs of betrayal and revelation that I haven't had time to properly sort through.
Gabriel's smirk grows in response to my confusion.
I frown, trying to process.
"I'll work on the forgiveness part," I mutter, acknowledging the difficulty even as I accept it, "but that's six, Gabriel."
His smirk only widens further.
Six bond mates.
Six men I've claimed or been claimed by.
Six threads connecting my soul to others who have become essential to my existence.
But he said seven.
A thought surfaces from the chaos of recent memory—impossible features that shift between configurations, eyes that gleam with knowing I don't understand, a presence that makes Cassius's shadows recoil in confusion because they cannot taste his essence.
The stranger who saved me…
My head tilts as the implication crystallizes.
"Oh Hell—"
Gabriel's hands land on my shoulders before I can finish the thought, his grip firm enough to demand attention.
"I love you, Gwenievere." His voice carries the particular weight of final words, of things that must be said before opportunity is lost forever. "My sister. My twin. My other half."
I open my mouth to respond, but he continues before I can interrupt.
"You'll be the one to deal with Elena... so work hard to figure out the final riddle to her demise, and remember—" He pauses, making certain he has my complete attention. "The key is wickedness, but at the expense of free will."
The key is wickedness, but at the expense of free will.
I frown, trying to parse the meaning behind the cryptic phrase.
Elena's downfall lies in wickedness? In free will?
In some combination of the two that I can't currently comprehend?
The riddle settles into my mind with the particular weight of important information I'll need to decode when this moment ends.
But there's no time to ask for clarification.
"I love you too, Gabriel," I whisper instead, because some things matter more than understanding, some truths transcend the need for explanation.
His smile in response is radiant—exhaustion temporarily forgotten, peace settling across his features like a blessing. For this instant, suspended between realities, between futures, between the selves we were and the selves we're becoming, we're simply siblings who love each other beyond measure.
"See you one day," he promises, "when we carry our crowns with pride and wickedness."
Tears track down his cheeks now, matching my own, catching the impossible twilight and transforming into liquid silver as they fall. But he's still smiling—still radiating that particular peace that suggests he truly believes in the reunion he's promising.
I have to believe too.
Have to trust that this isn't goodbye, just... see you later.
A pause in our shared story, not its ending.
"Oh," Gabriel adds, and something in his tone shifts—mischief replacing solemnity with speed that should have been warning, "and this is payback for being a bitch to Nikki."
I frown, the sudden topic change not computing.
"What do you—EEEP!"
The shriek that tears from my throat is entirely undignified as Gabriel's hands shove against my shoulders with force that sends me tumbling backward. The hill's edge was closer than I realized—or perhaps it moved while we were distracted, dreamscape rules asserting themselves with cruel timing.
There's a single suspended instant where I'm airborne, where gravity hasn't yet remembered I'm supposed to fall, where I can see Gabriel's grinning face silhouetted against the impossible sky.
Then I'm plummeting.
"GAbrIEL, YOU BASTARD!"
The scream echoes through the dreamscape as I fall, carried on winds that shouldn't exist, bouncing off surfaces that have no physical presence.
The Academy's golden gates rush up to meet me—or perhaps I'm rushing down to meet them, perspective impossible to maintain when reality itself has become suggestion rather than rule.
Gabriel's laughter follows me into the void.
The sound mingles with my continued shrieking as the dreamscape collapses around me, colors bleeding together into chaos, sensations flooding back with overwhelming intensity after so long being muted.
I can feel everything now—the wind tearing at my hair, the fear clenching my stomach, the bond marks blazing against my skin as they sense my distress and reach for their counterparts.
He pushed me off a cliff.
My own twin brother.
Payback, he said.
PAYBACK.
The golden gates are so close I can see individual symbols writhing across their surface, ancient languages screaming warnings I can't comprehend. The Academy beyond seems to be watching my descent with something like amusement, gargoyles turning stone heads to track my trajectory.
I'm going to die.
Again.
Because my brother has the worst sense of humor in any realm.
Darkness claims me before impact.
Not the gentle darkness of the dreamscape, but something more absolute—consciousness collapsing like a house of cards, every sensation vanishing into nothing with the particular finality of systems simply stopping.
The last thing I register is warmth.
Bond marks burning against my skin, anchoring me to men who refuse to let me fall into oblivion no matter how hard reality tries to claim me.
Cassius's shadow-starlight. Atticus's crimson devotion.
Nikolai's fae iridescence. Mortimer's dragon warmth.
Zeke's frost-touched care. Damien's complicated promise.
Six points of light in the darkness.
Six anchors preventing dissolution.
Six reasons to fight my way back to consciousness.
And somewhere, barely perceptible, a seventh presence I can't identify—watching from angles that don't exist, waiting with patience that transcends mortal understanding.
Seven.
Gabriel said seven.
Oh, I'm going to have words with that prince when I wake up.
Strong words.
Possibly accompanied by violence.
But first, I need to actually wake up.
The darkness presses against me from all sides, thick and heavy and absolute. I can feel myself suspended within it—not falling anymore, not moving at all, just... existing in the space between one heartbeat and the next.
Wake up.
Open your eyes.
Return to the men who are waiting, to the trials that remain, to the destiny you've been fighting toward since the moment you set foot in Wicked Academy.
The bonds pulse with encouragement.
The darkness begins to thin.
And somewhere in the depths of my recovering consciousness, I make a note.
A very specific, very detailed, very permanent note.
Gabriel pushed me off a cliff as "payback."
He did it while smiling.
He did it after a genuinely touching farewell that made me cry.
He is an absolute menace and I refuse to forget this betrayal.
The darkness continues to recede, reality asserting itself in increments—sounds first, then sensations, then the awareness of a body that exists in physical space rather than dreamscape abstraction.
I can hear voices.
Familiar voices, carrying undertones of concern and frustration and the particular tension of people who have been waiting too long for something to change.
My men.
My bond mates.
My... apparently six-sevenths of whatever configuration Gabriel was hinting at.
Consciousness drags me upward with the particular insistence of systems that refuse to remain offline. I can feel the crystalline chamber around me, the preservation fluid cradling my body, the magical monitors tracking vitals that are apparently changing in ways that warrant attention.
Almost there.
Almost back.
Almost ready to face whatever Year Four has in store.
But before I open my eyes, before I return to the chaos of existence and the complications of bond mates and the mystery of seventh presences and the threat of Elena's continued existence...
I make one final mental note.
Gabriel owes me.
He owes me in ways that transcend realms and academies and the fundamental laws of sibling relationships.
And I will collect.
Eventually.
When we both carry our crowns with pride and wickedness, I'm going to push HIM off something.
Something tall.
Something that will make him shriek the way I shrieked.
It's only fair.
The light of consciousness finally breaks through the last barriers of darkness.
I can feel myself approaching the surface, approaching wakefulness, approaching the moment when I'll have to face reality and all its complications.
But even as I prepare for that return, even as I steel myself for whatever awaits...
I'm smiling.
That bastard.
My bastard of a brother.
I love him, but I'm absolutely holding this against him.
Holding that grudge for at least one lifetime.