A moan echoes out of my throat as I arch my hips up into him, wanting more. This feels so, so good. I sink my hand into his soft hair, tugging him closer to me, and a growl echoes in his throat as he devours me.
“Fuck, you taste so good. I could eat you forever. I’m going to.” His words vibrate against my clit, and my moans grow louder. Vale licks and teases me, his hands squeezing my thighs and holding me down as he explores. He knows what he’s doing. He teases, punishes me, I think, for not telling him earlier. Over and over, never letting me come. I’m breathless, sweating by the time he goes back up to my clit and moves faster, flicking his tongue side to side. I moan hard as I come on his face, my hands clenching his hair so tightly, my moans turning into a scream as I see stars. The silence spell swallows the sounds, leaving them just for me and him.
He looks up, his hair messy and his lips slightly swollen.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
His smile is gone in an instant. He blinks, backing away from me. “I think they’re gone.” He wipes his hand over the back of his mouth.
“Vale?” What just changed?
“Come on. Let’s take the food to the villagers,” he coldly answers.
Did I do something wrong? “Was that bad for you? I’m sorry?—”
“Don’t think that bullshit, Hex. Of course it wasn’t bad…nothing about you ever could be for me. It’s not you; it’s a me thing.” He rubs his face, and I hope he realizes how much of a shitty thing that is to say. I wish he would explain that more, but it’s clear he isn’t going to.
“Vale, what the hell?—”
“I won’t kill Lock yet, but he’s a dead man walking, and you will tell me if anything else happens with that fucker.” He grips my neck. “That was the sexiest, most delicious thing that I’ve ever seen and tasted in my life. It’s just you’re not mine. This won’t happen again, Hex.”
With those heart-shattering words, he turns his back on me. I feel tears prick my eyes for this bastard as I pull my clothes back on, grab my sack of food and storm out. Vale silently follows, and he doesn’t say a word.
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 becauseshe 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, theMhanging down. I pull the small package out of my pocket, a charm with aVon 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.”
