Chapter 4
Ihaven’t thought this all through. I mean, I should have.
I’ve had a whole day to think about it. But as I wind myself back through the castle, going lower and lower down the steps, I come to face a wall of witches guarding my dragons.
Two of them have their bonded with them, a huge emerald snake and a white fox that curls around one of the witches’ legs.
They don’t see me because of the invisibility spell, but they’re blocking the entrance to the dungeon behind them.
There is only one door in, and it is covered in markings that I don’t know, and I doubt I would be able to easily open it.
I can’t use the door. Carefully, slowing my breathing so they don’t hear me, I go back up the steps and to the small window I passed.
I don’t mind heights, but climbing out of a castle window and scaling the side of the walls isn’t going to be fun.
I pop the window open and edge out, holding onto the grooves in the brick and plastering my body to the black stone as the wind harshly blows against my back.
My cloak whips around me, and I unclip it, letting it fly away in the breeze before I begin to move.
It’s painfully slow, every small movement, until I get to roughly where I think they are, and I’m trusting the bond I still feel an echo of, even without the mark on my hand.
I can do this. I’m a powerful witch. I know a hundred banned and new spells thanks to all the years I’ve had to learn them alone.
I’ve always been alone. I’ve always had my own back, and the only people who ever stood at my side don’t remember me.
They are here, so close to me, and I have to get to them before everything cannot be changed.
The words to the spell escape my lips in a hushed whisper, the wind easily hiding the wisp of magic that races around me.
My power echoes in my chest like a phantom, and my hands shake as I keep going, testing a spell I’ve never used before.
This is so risky, I could pass out and die when I hit the ground below.
My heart is racing as the magic settles in my body and I slide through the solid wall like I’m made of nothing.
It’s easy to walk through the wall cavity, past the bricks and concrete, and the castle groans around me.
I fall through the wall and into the dungeon before the spell flickers out.
My breath comes out in pants as I collapse to my knees, the drain of that spell hitting me hard, and everything blurs.
I don’t think I got the spell quite right…my magic is drained. Dammit. I took too much without my bonded, and I’m now powerless…while faced with the most powerful shifters left in the world. Four shifters who are mine, but they do not remember me.
I lift my head as my eyes focus, my wavy hair pooling around my shoulders as I look at the four men staring at me in shock. I was once scared of them, worried they would set me on fire and hate me for eternity. Now…
Black is hidden in the shadows, his long cloak covering his face, hands nestled together on his lap, but I can see his blue eyes in the darkness, like beacons drawing me in.
Black Ashveil, the cursed dragon who cannot touch anyone but me.
I turn to the others, to Mazikeen Lycidas.
His hair is just as messy as always, the black locks falling into his glasses that hide his vibrant, ocean-deep blue eyes.
His shirt is unbuttoned, the fabric clenching as he leans back, showing off all of his toned body.
Maz flashes me a charming smile, but it’s fake, the smile he gives everyone so they don’t look closer.
They don’t see anything but the playboy, the funny shifter he wants them to see.
Black can’t let people close, and Maz keeps them close to hide the real him.
Then there is Valeron Drexan. My rival. My enemy.
The bonded I hated the most until I nearly died for him and I knew it wasn’t hate at all.
It was something far more dangerous pulling me to the silver-haired madman who looks like a long-forgotten god made him in his image.
Vale sneers at me. “Kill her. The Umbral Authority must have sent her.”
“Wait,” Kane commands. The leader. My childhood friend, who hates me and promised to never let anyone hurt me again.
My legs feel shaky under the narrowed gazes of these men, and my heart pounds so loudly I barely hear Kane’s question.
“Juniper Daygan, how the fuck did you know that spell to get in here past the witch guards?”
“Did you kill them? Put a hex on them?” Vale asks, in his normal taunting voice.
The man breathes to piss off women, and he is good-looking enough that most women would beg for his time, anyway.
“You don’t look like you could kill a fly, but perhaps you charmed them with your pretty looks. Tell us!”
Maz groans. “Stop scaring her. Maybe she is here to keep us entertained. You said it yourself; she is pretty. In fact, I’d bet my soul she is the prettiest witch I’ve ever seen.”
My cheeks brighten under their stares, and they fluster me so easily.
We don’t have time for this. “No, I’m not your entertainment, Maz.
No one knows I’m here. I used a spell to wall walk, but I didn’t quite get the spell right, so now I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck.
That’s my fault, though. I need to alter that spell a little before I use it again. I must have worded something wrong.”
“You made a new spell.” Kane figures it out. “Only the enchantress can do that, and look what she did to our world and our people. Mindless are the curse of new spells.”
“Well, she is my mother, so apparently it runs in the family.” I shrug a shoulder.
Their mouths drop open, and all of them step away from me.
“And who says she made the Mindless at all? Do you really trust anything that comes out of the mouths of the Umbral Authority? I’ve heard that liars can never be trusted to tell the truth. ”
They all go silent, and Maz takes a careful step away from me, and that step hurts something beating in my chest. I didn’t notice how thoroughly they got under my skin, made me feel like we were in this world together and they cared for me.
I forgot what it was like to be alone until I was forced to be again…
and I don’t want to go back. I want them.
“We should kill you or use you to get to your mother and end the war if you’re not lying. She killed thousands of my people and yours. You are a betrayer, Juniper Daygan.” Vale growls low, taking a step forward, but Kane stops him with one hand on his chest.
“Trust me, we’re on the same page. I want the war over, but I know that telling anyone who I am is going to end badly.
I know who I am because the Umbral Authority stole me from my mother when I was a child or a baby.
I don’t know when exactly; I have no memories, not much of my childhood until I was with my foster mother, Melody.
Which was when they started conditioning me to be everything they needed to fix their world and discard anyone in their way.
They trained me, beat me, used me, did everything they wanted to me until I got here, to Bloodstone Academy, because apparently there was a prophecy.
The prophecy hinges on me complying with them, doing everything they want.
You’re part of it too, because you’re my bonded.
” I pause when Kane, Maz and Vale look at each other.
Black stands, drawing all of our attention. “We don’t bond with anyone. Come on, darling, you’re pretty and smart with spells, but enough lies.”
I walk through them, passing them, right up to Black.
He steps back, but I predicted he would do that.
The others shout a warning, but I’m already right in front of Black, his hood falling back to reveal his beautiful, tortured eyes and handsome face.
His brown hair is shaved at the sides, short at the top, and a crease builds in the center of his forehead.
“Don’t,” he warns me. “You can’t touch—”
“Yes, only I can.” I slide my hands around his, and he gasps in complete shock. The room goes silent as I touch his hands and smile up at him. “Hello, Black. You don’t have to be worried about your curse with me. I don’t know how it works or why, but you have always been able to touch me.”
I curl my hand around his cheek. His eyes shut as he leans into my hand. He growls, yanking me to his chest, and looks down at me with pure confusion. “Why do you smell so familiar? How is this possible? Why does my dragon think you’re ours?”
“Because you’re my bonded, and I can touch you when no one else can.” I look over my shoulder at their shocked faces. “Doesn’t this proof give me five minutes of your time for you to listen to the truth?”
“I suggest we listen,” Black firmly commands them.
Vale shakes his head. “First time he can touch a girl and he’s already pussy whipped into listening to her madness. She is the daughter of the woman who cursed you, you fool!”
“My bloodline’s actions are hardly my fault!” I snap back at him. I blow out a breath when he smirks, letting me know he still loves to piss me off. I look at Kane, knowing if he agrees, then the others will. “Please listen.”
Black pulls me harder against him, like he is afraid I’m going to disappear as quickly as I came, and I don’t fight him.
We have kissed several times, all messily interrupted by various people, but in every year, he has been mine.
The two of us are like magnets, and I refuse to back away this year.
My heart races though, being in this much contact with him, his arms wrapped around my waist, holding me to his hard body. “What are your dragons saying?”
They go silent, and that’s answer enough. Kane looks at me and nods. “Juniper, tell us everything. Right from the beginning.”