Chapter 14
VALE
“Vale, don’t go far,” my foster grandmother shouts. I roll my eyes. I’m not a baby. I’m ten years old, and she still makes me come back before it gets dark in the forest. I don’t need to come back; I’m a dragon, and there is nothing in this forest that is bigger than me. Not even my brothers.
I keep running through the forest and let the scents of my surroundings calm my anger.
Kane is always in charge, and I hate it.
Maz is always joking and being a prick. Black is just grumpy, mostly because no one dares go near him.
I’m tired of all of them and the fact that we can’t do anything to change the town.
Shifters die, witches use us like shields in their war, and we are locked in this forest, watching the famous Bloodstone Academy tower over us all.
I follow the forest until I get to the cliff’s edge, a massive drop into the moody sea below. I press my hand against the magic barrier. It sears under my touch, burning my hand before I drop it when the pain is too much. “Why won’t they let me out of here?!”
“It is for your own good.” The air stills, and I freeze right along with it. A woman floats right outside the barrier on the other side, above the sea. Her face is covered by a long brown hood, and she smells like magic. Not like the witches but something more. “You know me as the enchantress.”
I take a step back. “How did you get here? They’re at war with you!
You can’t be here.” I shake my head as I face the witch who destroyed our world.
She is the reason we are kept here like lab rats.
This witch led to my parents’ deaths when I was only a toddler. I don’t remember them because of her.
“I see your future, Vale, and I curse you,” the enchantress commands.
Her magic shoots through the barrier, wrapping around me, gray and red, swirling, tightening around my arm.
Fire blasts out of my hands as I try to shift, but I can’t.
My dragon wails as my feet leave the forest floor.
It’s seconds before her magic slams into my heart, and I feel it shatter as her magic invades.
I gasp in pain. A silent scream leaves my mouth, but her words are loud and strong in my ears.
“When you fall in love, last of the Drexan dragons, the moment she feels it for you too, her heart will stop. Her death will end your curse. Your mate’s blood is your only key. ”
My hand shakes as I push the fucked-up memory away and continue writing notes in my planner on the current potion lesson.
I lay in the forest for the entire night before Black and Kane found me, and I told them I tried to escape the barrier and passed out.
How could I tell them the truth? Back then, I didn’t worry about it.
I was ten, and the idea of loving any woman was funny.
It’s not funny now. In the vaults, I lost control.
I went too far. I meant to keep her at a distance, and somehow I ended up with my tongue deep in her pussy.
I groan quietly, still tasting her even though it has been weeks.
The truth is, that distance has become a very big issue.
I highly disliked her when I first met her, hated her even because she was a reminder of everything I can never have because of my curse, but hate is a strong emotion.
It can easily become something else. I lied when I said no memories came back to me when we bonded—they did.
Not all of them, but the more I sleep, the more I remember of us.
I’ve realized I have been obsessed for a long time, long before I remade and spelled her father’s top to stop her crying and long before she walked through death magic to save my life.
I would have died, happily died, to make sure she didn’t get hurt.
Juniper risked her life for me, and I know that means she has feelings for me. I can’t let that happen.
I have to make her hate me any way that’s possible, without hurting her, because I can’t stomach seeing her upset, and I can’t let myself have her. It’s fucked up.
She doesn’t know all four of us are cursed by her mother. All four of us are cursed in a way that makes it impossible for us to live normal lives. But Black and Maz, their curses disappear around her. But mine, it will never do that. My curse will kill her, and I refuse to let it happen.
I doubt Kane’s told her anything about his curse yet and how his curse killed his family.
Her first foster family too. She’ll try to break the curses, do anything to help her bonded, because I know her.
She is brave, bold, and reckless about us.
I’d burn the world down for her, and I still would keep myself from her because of the curse.
She can never know, and my brothers will be wonderful mates for her.
She is my mate too. I push down the claiming thought, writing faster in my notebook.
I knew she was my mate right down in the dungeon when she appeared through the wall, and my dragon lost it, breaking the confines of my mind, desperate to get out and to her.
It took every inch of my control to push him back down, because he knew, just as much as I knew, she is our mate.
After potion class, the rest of the day is a haze, and my brothers are pissed at me because of what happened in the vault.
They don’t know what happened exactly, but they know I upset Juniper.
What else could I have done in that moment?
I lift my head and watch as her training gets better throughout the lesson, easily holding up against Black in self-defense, although he’s holding back on her.
They all do. They’re soft with her, gentle, and I don’t blame them.
I’m happy for them. They found their mate, and there is nothing in the way.
I glance at the anklet shining on her leg, the M hanging down.
I pull the small package out of my pocket, a charm with a V on it and another charm with a black diamond, wrapped in red ivy.
I thought it might remind her of the academy she loves.
I’m a fool making these for her. I can never give her these mating gifts. I’m a fucking fool.
Standing up, I walk out of class. Kane calls after me, and I ignore him, stomping through the castle. I go up to a balcony that I like, and I sit on the edge to hang my legs over and look out at the forest. I crack my neck and watch the gray clouds litter rain across the trees.
“Do dragons like the rain? When you fly. Is it like a free bath?” I glance back as the headmaster, Mentor Parker, comes and sits next to me. He pulls his red cloak down, leaning back on his hands. “I’ve always been curious about that.”
“What the fuck do you want, Headmaster?” I snap. “I’m not in the mood. I came here to be alone.”
“Luke.” He corrects me with his real name, and I resist the urge to throw him off the balcony. “Yes, alone, just like you were in the vaults a few weeks back. Like the times you’ve been murdering my students and doing a shit job of cleaning up.”
“Keep talking and I will be killing a headmaster today,” I growl.
The idiot laughs at me. “You know I’m not a threat, so stop with that bullshit. You look like you need someone to talk to. Here I am. I’ve been on your side for a while, Vale. I’m not here to ask you to stop killing students, just to be more careful.”
“We’re not friends, so why are you helping?” I demand an answer.
“No, we’re not…yet. But I am going to help you.
You need my help with whatever you’re planning with your smart witch.
” He looks away from me and over the forest. “I want what is best for Bloodstone Academy and its people. Both witches and shifters. I’m on the side of the academy above all, and if your actions help, then I am on your side.
I gather from the hit list of witches you’ve taken out so far, you are picking powerful family heirs who openly hate shifters. ”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I narrow my eyes. I should kill him, but I hesitate. Killing the headmaster would attract a lot of attention to the academy, and we don’t need that right now. We have enough problems to deal with.
He pulls a pocket watch out of his pocket, and he holds it between us. “For you.”
“No offense, but I’m not looking for a gift from you.” I don’t take it.
Luke places it on the floor between us. Thunder echoes in the air. “Make a deal with me. It’s a gift, and it is in exchange for a promise of protection for someone.”
“Who?” I ask. “And why would I want this?”
“Winifred Venus. She lives through whatever you are doing.” What does Luke want with Winifred, the nosy friend of Juniper? The idiot doesn’t know she is already protected by Juniper and by us because Juniper loves her.
“Fine, but keep the pocket watch.” I look away. “And leave.”
“My father made me promise that I would give it to the last dragon of the Drexan bloodline. So you must take it,” he counters, and I pause.
“Why would a witch do that?” I demand.
“There are many secrets in the witch world, and I don’t feel like discussing them all with you right now, but I’ll tell you this.
The goddess had many items, not just tarot cards, that are very well known, but there was a pocket watch that had shattered glass in it.
Many people know about the glass, but not the watch.
My father said that he was told by his father and so on.
He was told that the small creatures right here in Bloodstone Academy stole the glass, and therefore the pocket watch lacks any power.
But if someone were to have both the glass and the watch, they would be able to jump between worlds. ”
“So it’s from the goddess.” I pick it up for the first time. Gentle swirls of silver trace over the gold metal, but it’s pretty simple. Ordinary. Looks like something you could buy in any junk shop full of old human trinkets. “It looks like trash.”
“So do the tarot cards until they are together, and then they are bursting with power. There was a third thing that was stolen from the goddess.” His words feel like a warning. How much does the headmaster actually know?
“And what was it?” I put the pocket watch into my cloak.
“Isn’t it time you started figuring it out, Vale? The answers are right in front of you.” He rises to his feet. “Stop pushing her away. Curses are always broken. You need to be one bonded team to win.”
“What the fuck do you know about that?”
“Curse or not, she’s your bonded. Some things are just meant to be.” He taps his temple. “I have a power that is a secret. I can read minds…and I see in yours, Vale. You are controlled by fear, and it will destroy you all.”
I watch the headmaster walk away, wondering exactly how much he knows and whether I should kill him.
How can he read minds? It would make sense how he knows so much, but he clearly isn’t telling the Umbral Authority.
I stand up and jump straight off the balcony, shifting mid-air.
None of my brothers like flying in the rain, but I do.
It washes away everything, including pain.