“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.
Chapter 15
Ifeel like I’m shakier than a leaf as I stand at the edge of the forest and watch Black’s dragon plod its way through the forest path towards me. The trees around him shake with each stomp of his massive claws, which dig into the muddy ground. His dragon, pitch-black with shining yet sharp scales, leans its head down to my level. It’s Black Ashveil, my bonded and my mate. Not a big ass, scary dragon who looks ready to eat me for dinner. His dragon is a beast, there is no denying it, and I am naturally wary of him. Black had walked into my room on a Sunday, when I usually don’t do any lessons, to demand that I needed to learn to ride my bonded while the storms had stopped.
Thankfully, Lock was in the shower and I escaped before he came out and said no. Sneaking off with my dragons has become harder and harder recently. Lock is always on my case, and it’s annoying. Black reminded me on the way down here, as I scoffed a muffin from Maz, that the curse of being a dragon rider won’t apply to me because of my dragon blood. But still, theideaof riding is one thing. Climbing on the back of a gigantic dragon is a completely other thing. Even though I know it’s Black and I know he won’t hurt me, a primal fear still echoes down my spineas he lowers his body, his head thumping onto the ground in front of me, his wings splaying out across the mud.
My heart is beating so fast that it physically hurts in my chest as smoke pours out of his nose and slithers around me in waves as he huffs. “All right, all right.”
I carefully make my way across, past his giant neck and down to his shoulders. I was given clear instructions on how to climb onto a dragon, where to sit on his scales. Lessons that they remember reading about from years ago when there were still riders, but still, something makes me pause. I look at the scales I need to climb, and tell myself I can do this. Pushing my cloak back, making sure I won’t trip on it, I begin to climb. My muscles ache as I climb higher and higher, past his leg, up his shoulder, where his strange warmth makes me feel comforted. I feel the heat through his scales, and I wonder if I’ll get cold at all when we are in the skies. His heartbeat is like a drum pounding against my skin. When I finally get onto his back, I crouch down and crawl until I find a dip between his shoulder blades. I sit down in it like he told me, leaning forward, gripping onto the scales tightly.
“I’m ready, Black.” I tell him, even though I am definitely not. “Please don’t drop—” I scream as he jumps, his giant wings pounding into the air as he lifts us straight off the ground and into the waiting, clear sky. The screams continue to rip out of my throat as he lunges higher and higher before finally settling into a glide just above the clouds. I cautiously pry my eyes open, scared that I’ll fall at any moment, but Black doesn’t let me fall.
We easily ride together, almost like it’s natural, like this is just how it is meant to be. He drifts, drops us in and out of the clouds, which feel like nothing. They still brush against my hands, my face, into the sun setting far above the sky. Drops of orange and red just splintering out of existence as the moon takes over. He dives back down after a good hour, slow andsteady, and I know he’s taking it easy on me. I’ve seen the dragons in the sky, the craziness of them, how they fly and dip and control everything. He’s definitely taking it easy on me.
