Chapter 8 #4
“You felt us trying to convince our bodies to want them!” Percy shouted, his voice cracking.
Tears were mixing with the rain on his face.
“I wanted to get you out of my fucking head so badly. In that moment you were a traitor. I thought you were manipulating me. I thought… I thought if I could fuck you out of my system, I might be able to breathe again. But I couldn’t.
Not that I even tried very hard. None of us could do it.
We probably wouldn’t have even gone through with it even if our bodies had let us, which was impossible, because all I fucking wanted was you.
I only want you. Even when I thought you betrayed us, I tried to come up with reasons why I could forgive you.
I told myself I had to make you hate me if I ever had a chance of getting past it.
But every time I closed my eyes, it was you I saw.
Every time they touched me, it made me physically sick.
Fuck, Aiden couldn’t stop puking every time a woman came close to touching him!
Eris spent three days in the infirmary after Melissa tried to kiss him and he puked his guts up all over her and refused to eat. ”
I glanced at Eris, who was glaring at Percy before looking my way.
“It’s true, lass,” Eris stepped forward, his eyes so hollow and utterly haunted. He looked like a ghost of the man I used to know. “I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I can barely string two thoughts together without hearing your voice. We’re dying without you.”
“That is not my problem. Your inability to function without the bond you betrayed is not my burden to bear! And right now, with how angry I am, your presence in my life is a massive fucking liability. You distracted me in there! You almost got me killed!”
Aiden let out a strangled sound at that, taking a step back and gripped his hair. He was breathing hard, and Draco had to place a hand on his shoulder to steady him. For just a microsecond, something inside me wobbled.
“I am telling you to leave,” I said, dropping my voice to a trembling whisper. “Go back home. Go back to Dominion. I deserve to feel peace, even if it’s temporary. I have fought for my sanity every single day since you destroyed it, and I am not going to let you ruin it for me now.”
“I just want to fix it,” Percy pleaded, softer now. “We just want you to love us again.”
I let out a harsh, bitter laugh, taking one step back.
“Maybe I fell for you too fast. Maybe I allowed the emergency axis bond to warp my perception of you and make me think I was in love.” I looked at each of them, letting the coldness seep into my soul.
“Maybe all I really felt for you was desire, and I was just stupid enough to mistake it for love.”
“No,” Aiden snapped, shaking his head, water dripping from the long golden strands. “No, baby, don’t say that. We don’t believe that. You know that’s not how this went down.”
“What do you really know about me, Aiden? What do any of you actually know about me? You believed I was a sociopathic mastermind based on a few fake messages. What do you even love about me, aside from the fact that I get your dick hard?”
Percy opened his mouth, the rain plastering his dark hair to his forehead. He was scrambling for the words, reaching for some perfect combination of syllables that would magically erase the last month and a half of my life.
I didn’t let him find them. I didn’t want to hear whatever desperate excuse or hollow declaration of love he was about to weaponize against me. I turned my back on him, my boots splashing heavily in the freezing puddles, and started walking toward the waiting armored transport.
“Jupiter, wait!” Percy yelled. “Fuuuck, please!”
I heard the heavy, frantic splash of his boots, followed immediately by the others. They were running after me. They actually thought they could just chase me down and drag me back into their suffocating gravity.
Rage ignited in my veins. I spun around, throwing my hands out in front of me, and unleashed my wrath.
Starlight magic erupted from my palms in a blinding, searing torrent of silver-white fire.
It struck the wet pavement directly between us, vaporizing the rain instantly in a massive hiss of steam.
The asphalt cracked and bubbled under the intensity of the heat, creating a blazing, scorched trench of cosmic fire that separated me from the Nightfall Shield.
Percy skidded to a halt just inches from the flames, throwing his arms up to shield his face from the blistering heat. Aiden, Eris, and Draco slammed into a stop right behind him, their faces illuminated by the eerie, silver glow of my magic.
“Cross that, and I’ll aim higher next time. I am done playing with you.”
They stood frozen on the other side. The flames reflected in their devastated eyes, and even though my heart was shattering all over again, I didn’t regret it.
But for one moment, I looked into a pair of violet eyes, and something twisted in my gut.
Out of the four of them, Draco was the only one who never even attempted to touch another woman. Was I being unfair to him?
Lucas was waiting by the open rear doors, tracking the Nightfall Shield over my shoulder as I approached. He didn’t say a word, just extended a massive, armored hand. I took it, letting him pull me up into the dim, red-lit interior of the bay.
Rowan, Jamie, Theo, and Phoenix were already strapped in, their weapons stowed, their faces grim and watchful. Lucas climbed in right behind me and slammed the heavy metal doors shut, plunging us into the secure, fortified belly of the vehicle.
“Go,” Lucas ordered the driver through the intercom. “Get us back behind the wards.”
The engine roared to life, the vibrations rattling up through the floor as the transport surged forward. I stumbled slightly as the vehicle turned sharply, but Rowan’s hand shot out, catching my hip and steadying me until I could drop into the empty seat beside him.
The adrenaline crash hit me the second my weight settled onto the bench.
My vision swam, the edges blurring into static as the fiery itch of my Aelari healing continued to knit my shattered ribs back together. I leaned my head back against the cold metal bulkhead, closing my eyes and forcing myself to take slow, shallow breaths.
Noodle slithered out under the seat where I’d left him behind for his own safety. ’You burn bright, little star.’
Tears pricked my eyes as I brought his little head up and kissed him between the eyes. “I love you, Nood.”
“Here,” Theo said gently. I opened my eyes to see him holding out a clean, dry towel. I took it, pressing it against my face to wipe away the mixture of rain, sweat, and darkmatter ash that coated my skin.
“Your ribs,” Jamie said, frowning at my chest. “Are they set?”
“They’re healing,” I said, wincing as the transport hit a pothole. “The bone is mostly fused, but the muscle tissue is still knitting. It’ll ache for a few days, but I’m fine.”
“You took a direct hit,” Phoenix rumbled from the opposite bench, his sheer size making the armored transport feel small. “You shouldn’t have even been able to stand up, let alone scorch the earth.”
“I’m harder to kill than I look,” I said, forcing a weak smirk.
Lucas was glaring. “What they did back there... engaging another shield in the middle of an active incursion zone. It’s a court-martial offense. If the Assembly gets wind of it, Nightfall will be stripped of their ranks.”
“They won’t get wind of it,” I said, resting my head back against the wall. “Because I’m not reporting it. And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t either.”
Rowan let out a low growl, shifting his broadsword so it rested against the floor. “They endangered civilians, Jupiter. They endangered you. They completely broke protocol because they couldn’t handle their own bruised egos.”
“I know. But if the Assembly strips them of their ranks, they’ll be recalled for trial.
I don’t want them punished by a bureaucratic council.
I want them to have to live with the fact that they ruined the best thing they ever had, and there is absolutely nothing they can do to fix it.
A trial just gives them an excuse to play the victims. I won’t give them that. ”
Rowan’s jaw ticked, but he nodded slowly, accepting my reasoning.
“The wards are close,” Lucas warned, his voice dropping an octave. “Brace yourself.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, gripping the edge of the metal bench so hard my knuckles turned white. I visualized the massive, diamond-hard wall of starlight I had built in my mind. I reinforced it, pouring my exhaustion and my lingering rage into the foundation, sealing every possible crack.
The transport crossed the threshold of Imperium’s ancient magical boundary.
The change was instantaneous. The frantic, desperate battering of Nightfall’s emotions against my subconscious was suddenly muffled, like someone turning down the volume on a blaring radio until it was nothing but a low, distant hum.
The wards of the academy wrapped around me like a heavy, protective blanket, shielding me from the full weight of the axis bond.
It was still there, still painful, but to a manageable amount.
I let out a long, shuddering breath, my body sagging against the restraints.
Jamie nudged me. “You’re safe, Jupe.”
“For now…”