CHAPTER 7
The world was crumbling, and I was falling, falling, falling.
Fate couldn’t be this cruel.
I’d made mistakes. Terrible ones. But this? Binding myself to the person who hated me most in the world? How could I possibly follow through with something so wretchedly wrong?
I couldn’t. I couldn’t.
Anything would be more tolerable than this. Literally anything.
My ears were ringing, but the crowd’s reaction to the pairing was strong enough to penetrate my shocked state.
“Blasphemy.”
“She doesn’t deserve that pairing!”
“It’s sacrilegious.”
“You can’t bind the Head Prefect to the stray!”
Oh, that one was definitely Blaze.
“Silence!” Professor Holt snapped, her brown eyes devoid of warmth as she glared at the student body and some of the other professors.
“The cauldrons have chosen, and it’s not our place to question that decision.
Now sit down and remain quiet. This ceremony is sacred, and we will all conduct ourselves respectably. Winter and Thorne, if you please.”
I didn’t know how I managed, but I left my seat and climbed the stage to stand in front of Professor Holt. She didn’t smile at me encouragingly this time, but her gaze softened as our eyes met. I was still too numb to do anything other than keep myself upright.
This wasn’t the first time I’d felt this way and probably wouldn’t be the last, but I was definitely having an out-of-body experience. Everything was crystal clear around me, but it felt like this was happening to someone else. It should be happening to someone else.
Despite feeling like I was hovering above my body like a ghostly specter, I felt Thorne’s large presence behind me and turned to face him.
Unable to stop myself, I glanced up at his face and immediately wished I hadn’t.
It was stone cold. He was stone cold. Every line of his body was fraught with tension, and when our eyes connected, he practically turned into a pillar of ice.
His hawk familiar wasn’t with him again, but all six-foot-five of him was plenty intimidating.
He squared off with me a foot away, his closeness forcing me to crane my neck back in order to maintain eye contact.
I would have liked nothing better than to look at my shoes instead, but instinct told me that would be a huge mistake.
No matter how uncomfortable it made me to stare into the face of pure hatred, lowering my gaze would prove to everyone here just how unworthy I was of this pairing.
But the longer I held his gaze, the darker Thorne’s eyes became. It was like peering up at an angry sky about to unleash hell on Earth. If I wasn’t still numb with shock, I’d be violently trembling right now.
The last time we’d stood toe-to-toe like this had been almost two years ago, and he’d been equally angry then.
His furious shout in my face—“I’ll kill you!
”—rang through my mind now, cutting through some of my fog.
Facing him again like this was suicide, but I couldn’t make myself look away. Couldn’t move.
I was trapped in his furious storm, and there was no way out but through.
Problem was, there was no way in hell I’d survive.
Still, I accepted the small dagger the chancellor handed me, barely feeling the pain as I sliced open my palm.
When I held out the knife to Thorne, he clenched his jaw so hard that I heard his teeth grind together.
Seconds ticked by and nothing happened. He stared at me and I at him, both of us stuck in a tense stalemate.
After a solid minute went by, he opened his mouth and spoke in a low tone, so low that I almost missed the words. “Pick again. Choose anyone but her.”
Those words shocked me to my very core, completely erasing any feeling I had left in my body. If the students had heard what he said, they didn’t react. The entire great hall was deathly silent as they waited to see what would happen next.
Thorne Hudson, the golden prince of Heartstone Academy, had openly rejected me in front of the entire school.
With the power he wielded from his family name alone, he might as well have just expelled me.
His words held the same weight as if he’d cast me from the witch community all over again. For good this time.
I should feel so many things right now. Hurt, embarrassment, anger. But I couldn’t feel anything other than a faint sense of relief. At least this way, I would be spared the humiliation of trying to bind myself to someone who could never vow not to hurt me.
He wanted me dead. I knew that much. And not being able to finish what he started two years ago would probably drive him mad.
Chancellor Grimshaw cleared his throat, and I prepared to hear the inevitable as he replied, “Choosing another would break the enchantment and put all the students who’ve sworn pactums in jeopardy.
One of your very own allies could reap the consequences of your decision, causing them to fail or worse.
This in turn will reflect poorly on you, Mr. Hudson, something I’m sure you don’t want after all you’ve accomplished here.
You’re Head Prefect. Is this the example you want to set for the other students? ”
Oh, crap.
Thorne’s nostrils flared, evidence that he was not happy with the chancellor’s words. It wasn’t blackmail, per se, but awfully close. If Thorne refused to bind himself to me, he could kiss his pristine academic record goodbye.
One second, the dagger was in my hand, and the next, yanked away as Thorne used it to savagely slice open his palm.
Then, with no warning whatsoever, he grabbed my hand.
I immediately felt a sharp zap at the contact, powerful enough to drive the numbness away and force me back into my body.
As the electrical current streaked up my arm, fear pumped through me.
All he had to do was crank up the voltage, and I was toast. Literally.
Electrocuting me would definitely save him from having to pair with me.
In fact, I should have expected him to do this.
Stupid. I’d been stupid to even come up here.
“You must stay away from Thorne Hudson at all costs.”
Stay away. Stay away. This was dangerous. Dangerous.
With my heart hammering inside my chest, I tried to pull away.
Thorne’s grip ruthlessly tightened, and he jerked me closer, so forcefully that I stumbled forward a little.
We were inches apart now, close enough that I could no longer maintain eye contact.
Close enough that I could smell him. Fresh, wild, and sharp, his scent was like burnt matches mixed with ozone.
My gaze dropped to his chest mere inches from my face, putting me at a clear disadvantage, but it allowed me to see just how upset he was.
Each ragged breath pushed his chest out, stretching the fabric of his white shirt taut.
I glanced down at our locked hands next, noticing how white his knuckles were from how tightly he held on.
He might have a stone cold personality with a face to match, but his large hand was shockingly warm.
It felt like holding a live wire, one that could burn me at any second.
His skin practically buzzed with energy.
It was buzzing. No, it was shaking, forcing mine to shake as well.
Or maybe mine was shaking his. Either way, hot blood escaped our sealed palms, dripping onto the stage below.
I assumed it was his since I’d only made a small, shallow cut.
Realizing he’d cut himself too deeply, I felt a little twinge in my chest, something that felt a lot like guilt.
Dear ancestors, I was hopeless.
Here I was, about to make a binding oath with my greatest nemesis, and I was feeling sorry for him.
Not only that, I felt responsible for his injury.
He wouldn’t be in this turmoil right now if any other name but mine had been picked.
I’d been the cause of his anger and pain two years ago, and I was the cause of it now.
But it was too late to back out. Chancellor Grimshaw was speaking again, reciting the pactum oath that we were to repeat.
So far, every pairing had been successful.
The students hadn’t just spoken the words; they’d meant them.
When it came to magic, intention was everything.
Words were empty without the will for them to succeed.
Which was why I was certain, certain that our pactum would fail.
Thorne would never willingly bind himself to me.
We recited the oath in unison anyway, and I couldn’t help but doubt my own intentions as I uttered the words.
The last thing I needed was to be stuck with Thorne for the next year.
I could practically hear Gran shout that he would doublecross me somehow.
He wanted to kill me. Kill me. Then again, what better way for me to keep my enemies close?
At least he wouldn’t pose as much of a threat to me with a pactum looming over his head.
Maybe. Possibly.
Oh, who was I kidding? Thorne would never, ever bind himself to—
“The oaths ring true!” Professor Holt announced rather proudly, snapping me from my thoughts. I glanced over just in time to see our slips of paper disintegrate in a poof of green smoke.
Before I could fully realize what that meant, Thorne ripped his hand free and stormed off the stage.
I watched him go, descending the stairs at a much slower pace in case my legs decided to give out.
Blood still dripped from his injured hand, and he noticeably flexed it, whether from the pain or to rid himself of my touch, I didn’t know.
Instead of returning to his seat, he stalked on past and yanked open the great hall doors to disappear from sight.
Perched on the back of his seat, his hawk familiar lifted into the air and took off after him with a powerful flap of his wings.
Whispers filled the great hall as the students took in the highly-charged scene.
Riku started to leave his seat, but Oz grabbed his arm and gave him a subtle warning shake of his head.
Dear ancestors, this was bad. Really, really bad.
If I didn’t have a big enough target on my back before, I sure did now. I’d made the Head Prefect storm from the room not once, but twice in under twenty-four hours. Anyone who wanted him as an ally—which was everyone in this room—would be thinking of ways to earn his approval.
What better way to prove themselves worthy of an alliance than to free him of a pactum he so clearly didn’t want?
And the only way they could do that . . .
Was by killing me.