Chapter 11
To no one’s surprise, the castle helps us, opening a new door to a quiet corridor and leading us to another door that leads straight out into the forest. Thankfully, we only run into a few Mindless as we run through the silent forest, with Vale slipping in and out of consciousness.
I make everyone stop every ten minutes, and I make Vale take a healing potion in the moments he is awake.
We only risk stopping for a minute, as it’s too silent and whatever Lyra did for a distraction has to be done now.
She was going to meet us at the caves when she was done.
I feel like the dark trees and even darker shadows watch us as we run fast until we’re finally deep in the caves and Black tells us we can stop as we are past the protective spells.
Maz and Kane gently put Vale down against the cave walls, and I kneel at his side, brushing away his messy silver hair from his face.
His dark eyes blink open at me. “This is real, Hex?”
“Yes. Real.” I pop the cap off another potion. “Drink this. You’re already looking less pale.”
“You never fussed over me half this much. I’m fine,” he grumbles, but he takes the potion and drinks it in one go.
Maz pats his shoulder. “You don’t look fine, fucker. We have been worried.”
“Thank fuck we got you out.” Kane rubs his face. “I hated every moment I couldn’t get to you. I’m sorry.”
Vale shakes his head. “I made my choice, and it was nothing I couldn’t handle.” The darkness in his eyes tells me otherwise. The torture has shaken him up, and I want all of the Umbral Authority dead for it.
All of us are silent for a long moment. Kane breaks it. “We can’t leave here. Bloodstone Academy island. I tried…” He gulps once. “But it felt like every step into the sea was a dagger in my chest until I had to turn back.”
“I know about the spell.” I look at Vale. “Why did you do that spell in the first place? What spell was it?”
“What happened, man?” Maz asks next.
“It was for you. For the curse,” Vale slowly explains after drinking the potion.
He’s starting to get a bit of color back into his face now.
I pull out the little vial that my mother made for him and hand it to him.
He sighs, but he drinks it too. “It was to bind your life to mine, in case…well, fuck, you know it all.” He looks at Maz and Black, who are confused.
“I was cursed too, and my curse was for Juniper’s heart to stop if she fell in love with me. I made the spell to save her.”
“Clearly, it backfired,” Kane adds, but there is no tension in his voice. He doesn’t blame Vale and neither do I. Spells are messy and complicated when dealing with life and blood.
“I don’t know why. I thought it would only link Kane’s life to mine, but it was like the castle itself got in the middle.
That thing down in the basement—it messed with the spell, weaving magic through the spell and altering it.
I never felt any power like it, and then soon it was too late.
I couldn’t hold on to the spell, and I had to let go.
It was going to take both our lives, and when it finished, it bound us to the academy and saved us both.
That thing wanted us to stay, and it won,” Vale growls.
“It didn’t win,” I mutter, pinching the bridge of my nose. “We should all rest until Lyra returns.”
“Who is Lyra?” Vale questions.
“I’m going to spy on what’s going on outside. Give you guys a bit of time to explain it all.” Maz kisses the top of my head before stretching.
Kane looks at me for a moment before turning away. “I’ll come with you, Maz,” Kane says. “We still have to talk, and I want to know who Lyra is too.”
“There are a lot of trunks with clothes, and there’s a shower room back there. We built in bedrooms and various things for people that needed to hide,” Black tells me. “Why don’t you help Vale get to the shower? I’ll get some food going for all of us. We could all eat after using that much magic.”
“Thank you, Black.” I nod in agreement.
“Do you need help standing?” I offer Vale, even though he is so huge I might just collapse if I tried.
He smirks and my heart patters. “No, I’m good, Hex.
” Everyone goes their own way, and I stay close to Vale’s side as he walks to the back room, knowing the way.
The back cavern is a dome full of bunk beds and trunks lining the walls.
I open a few before finding clothes that would fit Vale, and he finds towels in another trunk before heading to the back of the room. I follow, stepping into the bathroom.
“I’ll leave you—” I offer, putting the clothes on the vanity.
“Please don’t. Just stay with me,” he asks, a hint of pleading in his tone.
“Okay,” I answer simply. I shut the shower room door behind me and lean against it as Vale moves around, flicking on the warm yellow lights.
There are two toilets, two sinks, and one huge shower block with several showerheads.
He flicks them all on with a whisper of a spell, and the cold water turns instantly warm.
“I’m surprised you’ve got any magic left after everything you’ve been through,” I admit.
“Those potions are good.” He rips his shirt off, and I wince. All over his chest are dozens of scars—some that have healed, some not, and all are recent enough that it makes me hate the Umbral Authority even more.
Vale looks over his shoulder, somehow sensing my unease. “When your memories didn’t work, they tried whipping and daggers.”
I push down the sickness rising in my throat. “I’m sorry. What were they asking from you?”
“They wanted to know where you were. They wanted to know exactly what happened down in that basement. Of course, I told them all to fuck off. I’d rather die than give up anything about you,” he snarls.
“Vale,” I whisper.
“They only want to get to you. Anyone else is just in the way, and they would have used me against you. I was planning to die, Hex. Die or I’ll find you myself.
Never once did I consider letting them use me against you.
” He starts to undo his belt for the shower.
My cheeks burn as I avert my eyes, hearing the denim hit the floor.
Underwear, shoes, socks…all of it falls away.
I hear him get into the water. Then his gravelly voice echoes. “Come in with me.”
It’s a question, one laid bare between two people who literally just ripped their memories apart, surrendering everything.
I could say no. He wouldn’t judge me for it.
I could walk out, but I don’t want to. I pull my cloak off first, and it drops to the floor.
I feel him watching me as every piece of clothing comes off, until I’m wearing nothing.
I undo my braid, letting my messy, wavy hair fall around my shoulders.
When I turn and look at him, his eyes are glowing—somewhat his dragon, somewhat him.
I walk closer, trailing my eyes up and down his body.
He is a stunning man. Ripples of muscle cover his body, and there isn’t a part of Vale that isn’t toned.
I don’t let myself dare to look below his waist though.
He turns, his dark eyes tracing over me and making me feel like the shower water has turned up a million degrees.
I know it hasn’t, but it feels that way when my enemy looks at me like this.
We used to hate each other, or love each other, or something maddening in the middle of it all.
“Come here.” His voice—the deepness of it—makes my knees weak—as I step up to him under the hot spray of the shower. His hand sinks into my hair, gripping my neck and pulling me in for a deep kiss.
I want some control, because when I’m with Vale, it always feels like a battle. “Show me what it’s like to be yours,” I whisper, and the words feel less like surrender and more like a dare.
Vale goes very still against me, his eyes flashing with his dragon.
For a heartbeat, he only looks at me, his jaw tight, eyes unreadable, that familiar storm-dark expression fixed in place as if he could glare his way through the dare.
This moment between us is everything and will end with us being mates.
It is unspoken but there. He knows it too.
It would have been easier, perhaps, if he had looked triumphant. If he looked smug, or hungry, or anything simple. But Vale has never been simple, and the look he gives me now is the very reason I fell in love with him and want him as my mate.
“You know what you’re asking for, Hex?” he asks.
My pulse jumps. “Yes. I’m asking to make my enemy mine.”
His mouth twitches, not quite a smile. “There is my Hex, always weaving her spell over me.” He closes any space between us, and the air between us collapses into nothing.
Vale’s fingers find the dip of my hips as he kneels, and there is nothing careless in the way he strokes his massive hands down my thighs before digging them into my soft skin and parting my legs.
His gaze tracks every inch revealed, and the heat in it makes my skin feel too tight for my body.
I have spent months telling myself I hated the way he looked at me—too sharp, too smug—and he was such an asshole to me.
It was always as if he could see every weakness I would rather die than confess, but he never let me far out of his sight.
It was always more than a bonded mark; it was this tugging us together.
Hate and love. Witch and shifter. Bonded and mates.
I look down at Vale, and he looks at me like he wants to lose for once.
His mouth brushes the bare curve of my hip before he sinks his face into my pussy and licks me. I cry out, my legs going weak, but his tight hands hold me up. He is relentless and unforgiving as he fucks me with his tongue, over and over, until I’m crashing into a mind-blowing orgasm.
“Look at you,” he mutters against my pussy. “You taste so fucking good.”
I dig my fingers into his hair. “And I want more. I don’t need you on your knees, Vale. You’re mine, and I’m yours. I love you.”
The words land between us, heavy and perfect.
His eyes fill with tears as he stands up, and Vale kisses me.
He lifts me up in his arms, pressing me against the shower wall as I wrap my legs around his hips, and he reaches between us, lining up his cock with my pussy.
Vale’s hand wraps around my throat, where I know he is going to bite me for the mating. “Last chance to back out, Hex.”
“Never,” I whisper.
“I fucking love you, Juniper.” He slams deep into me with one thrust, and I cry out in pure pleasure as he fills and stretches me.
There is nothing gentle about how Vale fucks me at first, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.
When he draws back, it is only far enough for him to watch as he slides his cock straight back inside me.
My pulse is racing as my orgasm builds with every deep thrust. “I don’t want this to ever stop.”
His eyes darken. “Fuck, Juniper. I could be inside you for years, and it wouldn’t be enough. I will never get enough of you.”
That, more than anything, nearly undoes me.
One of his hands pins mine beside my head, his fingers threaded with mine, while his other hand holds onto my ass as he thrusts into me again and again.
“Still want me?” he asks, voice rough and deep. His lips find my neck, his teeth tracing my sensitive skin.
My breath is uneven, and I’m so, so close to crashing into pleasure. I know what happens with a mate bond. I know how good this is about to feel. “You know I do.”
“I want to hear you say it,” he demands.
“I want you as my mate,” I whisper to him around a moan. “You’re mine.”
“And you’re mine,” he replies against my neck before sinking his teeth into my neck.
The pain is a pinch, only for a second, followed by orgasm after orgasm, as our souls and bodies become one.
I cry out his name, feeling him fill me with his come only seconds later, and his groan echoes loudly in my ears.
The mate bond clicks into place as if it has always been there between us, as Vale still kisses me like he has a grudge against the entire world but not me.
Never me. We kiss for what feels like hours, content just to be together, and when we part, I stare at the mate mark covering his heart, matching the same one I have now.
“My mate.” He cups my face and kisses me again, this time sliding right back inside me where my enemy has always belonged.