Chapter 7
It’s been two days since I woke up. Two days of healing the cuts on my back and of all of us trying desperately and failing to come up with a plan that doesn’t end up killing everybody here.
Or just as worse, risking Kane and Vale altogether by going to Bloodstone Academy without a plan.
The truth is, our plan has gone up in smoke, and I don’t have a better one now.
This world has to stand for Kane and Vale, but that means we have to somehow beat an army of Mindless and witches.
The Umbral Authority are going to win at this point, and I can barely sleep.
Snowflakes softly fall down onto my cheeks as I sit on the snow-tiled balcony, a once-roof section of our house.
Minnie stares at me with her pretty eyes as she rests on my knee.
“Any chance you have an idea, little one?”
Of course, she hurries away, leaving a trail of tiny footsteps in the snow on her way back inside.
I pull my cloak tighter around my shoulders, looking up at the glittering skies above, the millions of stars that stretch in every direction.
They look like stars on Earth, but they are different.
Stranger. I’m not surprised when I hear Maz and feel him coming closer.
Maz climbs out of the hole in the attic and walks across the roof to me.
He sighs, sitting next to me in the snow and watching the same sky as me.
Heat radiates off his skin as we sit in silence.
“I couldn’t sleep again. I feel like something’s wrong and its more than missing my father’s shirt to sleep in,” I admit. “I need to go to Bloodstone Academy and see them both.”
“Did you know it was Vale who spelled the shirt?” My head swings back.
Vale? The man who hated being bonded to me, spelled my shirt.
I rub my chest, looking away for a second.
I can only shake my head. I didn’t know…
but I should have. He doesn’t disagree with me on needing to leave though.
“I can’t explain it, but I feel it too. There is something wrong, but—”
“We can’t leave yet,” I say, finishing his sentence.
“They don’t even know I’m back, and I haven’t been able to thank Kane for saving my life.
I was dying with the creature, and it was winning.
The thing is evil and corrupt, and I was drained of my magic in moments.
It killed my father, and it was going to end me too…
then Kane took over. Kane didn’t care what it cost; he just didn’t want me to die.
” I wipe my wet cheeks. “I have never had anyone on my side, let alone willing to die for me until now.”
“You have more than one person willing to die for you, Juni.” Maz nudges my shoulder with his, but when I meet his gaze, he is serious.
“Kane, Vale, Black and I are brothers,” his voice echoes across the night sky.
“We’ve been brothers in everything but blood since we were kids.
The last of the dragons. The last of this world’s dragons, who everyone looks to, expecting us to make good calls and save them when shit hits the fan.
They forgot we were kids, then teenagers, and fighting a race who didn’t care if we were dragons or not, because they are stronger and we were born to be slaves.
It was always a lot of pressure everywhere we turned, but we had each other.
We understood each other and helped level the pressure between the four of us.
That was something, you know? It is family.
Now there’s nothing I can do to help Vale and Kane.
I can’t go after them, and I can’t risk getting trapped there myself when you need me.
I’m not putting you in danger, and they wouldn’t thank me for it. ”
I touch his glasses, pulling them off and sliding them in his pocket.
I know he can see me, always me. His blue eyes trace over me as I tell him, “Bonded. Family. Loyalty. Love. Mates. We are all these things, and I have to believe we will be together again. Every time I’ve been separated from you, I remember that nothing can come between us because you are in my soul, my magic and blood.
Whatever happens, we’ll face it as one. Like we have always tried to do. ”
“I’ll do anything I can to protect you, because you’re ours. You’ve always been ours.” He curls his hand into my hair. “I see you, Juniper, and you see me. Curse or not. Time stolen or not. We find each other.”
My heart skips a beat in a way only Maz can make it.
I lay my head on his shoulder. He wraps his arm around my waist. My back is pretty much healed now—sore, but not too bad—and being in his arms is so much better than sitting out here alone.
I watch the stars with him, wondering if Kane and Vale are watching them too.
“I have to go to them. I just…I know I don’t have the luxury of time for once.
I won’t use the tarot cards to steal more time, and I won’t let anyone take my memories.
This is the best chance we have had to be free, and I will figure out a way to get us all together again.
It’s selfish that my first thought is saving my bonded and not finding a way to protect the people here.
They deserve freedom just as much as we do.
The Umbral Authority are powerful, and they still hold the academy, but their grip on this world is slipping. ”
“You never give up.” His words warm my heart even in the cold air.
“It’s one of the things I loved about you from the beginning—that you never gave up.
Even when Vale embarrassed you in front of that entire training room, you stood tall and unbroken.
I wanted to punch him for that move, but there was just determination on your face.
Then you hexed all his weapons like a fucking genius, and I knew from then on, no one would compare to you.
You’re smart, beautiful, determined and brave.
The goddess had blessed me with you as a bonded. ”
“Kane said he’d never seen Vale beaten at anything.” I chuckle as my cheeks warm too.
“You came to me, showed me what it was like to see, and never once judged me for any of the stupid mistakes of my past. I could live a million lifetimes and never once deserve a bonded like you.” I lift my head to look at him, feeling his words in my chest. In my heart.
“Even when I was having these crazy flashbacks of kissing you in my dreams and…I’m connected to you in a way I could not explain.
You had every right to keep me at a distance, but you didn’t. Why?”
“Because I think Black’s not my only mate,” I whisper.
“Your curses don’t affect me because I’m your mate.
Black could touch me from the beginning because of the mate bond, and you can see me, only me, because of it too.
Kane’s blood could have killed me before, and it never has done…
The truth was there for us all along, Maz.
I’m more than your bonded—I’m your mate. ”
I lean over, climbing onto his lap. He moves his hands up the side of my waist, brushing over my ribs and up to my jaw.
“I knew it from the moment you were hurt in training,” he tells me. “I felt the bond…and you are my mate. I didn’t want to scare you with the knowledge, and I knew my smart witch would figure it out all on her own.”
“Now that I’ve guessed…” I brush my lips across his, feeling him tense under me. “Make me your mate.”
The rain finds us before he even kisses me.
It comes without warning—one moment the night air is thick with snow, the next the sky simply opens up and pours, cold and relentless, soaking through my clothes in seconds.
I gasp at the shock of it. Maz doesn’t even flinch.
He just looks at me through the downpour, rain running in rivulets down his face, his jaw, the column of his throat, and something in his expression makes my breath catch in a way that has nothing to do with the cold.
“We should go inside,” I whisper.
“Probably,” he agrees, and doesn’t move an inch.
Neither do I.
The abandoned town sprawls out below us, lights smearing through the rain, blurred. Up here, it feels like the rest of the world has simply ceased to exist. Like there is only this rooftop, this rain, and Maz staring at me like I am the only thing worth looking at.
He closes the distance between our faces slowly, his hand coming up to brush the wet hair behind my ear, his thumb tracing the line of my cheekbone. His touch is so careful. So deliberate. Like I am something he has been waiting a very long time to handle gently.
“Juniper.” Just my name. Just that, in that low, rough voice, and I feel it all the way down.
“Don’t say something sensible,” I warn him.
The corner of his mouth curves. “I wasn’t going to.”
He kisses me while the rain hammers down around us, and I stop feeling cold entirely.
His hands slide into my soaking hair, cradling my head, and there is nothing tentative about the way he kisses me—it is thorough and deep and consuming, like he is making absolutely certain I understand what this is.
What we are. I grip the front of his shirt with both fists and kiss him back just as hard, rain streaming down both our faces, pooling between our lips, and I have never in my life felt less inclined to be anywhere else.
When he pulls back, we are both breathing harder than we should be.
“I’ve been yours for so long I can’t even imagine you being mine,” he says against my mouth. Rain runs over his lips as he speaks. “I’ve wanted you so badly, for so long, that even letting myself want you as my mate seemed risky because I do not deserve you.”
“I know,” I whisper. “But, Maz, you deserve me. So much more than I deserve you back. I want you as mine, as my mate, and for us to face this war as one.”