Two dragons fly straight up above me, fire burning the tips of the academy and the witches along with them. Smoke pours out of the academy and into the forest, and the light from the flames makes the night look like a red storm. No one is leaving to tell the Umbral Authority about what is happening tonight. All of the children and people who cannot fight are hidden in the caves on the far side of the island, and they will be safe for a few days until we get the academy under control.
I stand outside the doors watching as shifters run past me, flooding into the castle. As Bloodstone Academy falls, Black and Vale are burning anyone that tries to escape. I wait to see if anyone comes out of the front door and tries to get to the broken bridge. It can be activated at the cliff by any witch, and it cannot be broken, only controlled by Bloodstone Academy. Juniper will stop its availability for use soon. Any moment now.
I hate not being right next to my mate in the middle of a war, and my dragon is itching for us to go to her, to make sure she is okay. Kane won’t let anything happen to her, but that thought doesn’t make me feel any better.
Tigers, wolves and snakes pass me in a hurry, flooding into the academy. Screams echo, and war has begun at Bloodstone Academy. There are so many other creatures, even a polar bear, running past me as the air fills with the smell of smoke from my brothers.
Aster comes running out the door. He should be on one of the doors with Winifred. “Have you seen Wini?” He grabs my shoulders, nearly knocking my glasses off. “She went missing. Something’s wrong with the plan. Wini wouldn’t do that! She was meant to have come with me by now.”
I think we are the only ones crossing the forbidden romance bridge between our races. I can see it in his eyes; he loves her. “I’m sure she’s okay, but I haven’t seen her out here. You’re her bonded. Find her in here.” I touch my chest. It’s where I can always find Juni.
His eyes drop closed, and I watch over us both, making sure no one sneaks up while he is distracted. I grab him as he suddenly keels over, clutching his stomach, and he shifts before I can ask him what’s wrong. His big wolf runs straight back into the castle, knocking me on my ass. Something must be wrong with Wini. Does that mean Juniper is in trouble? I feel for her in my chest, but we aren’t mated yet, not like her and Black. He is still burning the right side of the castle, and he wouldn’t be if she were hurt. He would feel it.
I cannot leave this position and let everyone down. I rise to my feet and hold my ground. Five witches run out, blood dripping off their hands. The five of them go straight for me, and I revel in it. Fighting has always been easy to me, especially when these witches can’t use their spells. Fire pours out of my hands as I walk closer. I burn two of them before they can get close to me, and the horrid smell fills my senses.
One of the witches has his powers and shakes the ground, knocking us all over before beginning a death magic spell.Fucker. I rush to stop him, burning and snapping the necks of the others who try to stop me. Just before he can finish the spell, I grab his throat and lift him into the air. Before he passes out, I lower him to the ground where he coughs and wheezes, unable to speak. I leave this last one kneeling in the bodies of his friends half-burnt, and I make him look at them. “Bow to the shifters, to me, and you survive.”
He glares at me as he painfully swallows before answering. “I would never bow to one of you. My own shifter turned her back on me in there! On me!” He chokes. “That bitch did this to me!” He lifts his arm, showing me a bite. “Bonded are not meant to do that! They are our beasts and?—”
“Your answer tells me everything I need to know about your opinion of shifters and your fate. For the record, we were never owned by you. Just enslaved…and now we are free.” Fire pours out of my hand around his neck, and he screams for a second before he’s ash in the wind. More witches flood out of the entrance, and I crack my knuckles before getting to work. An hour easily passes, and the piles of dead witches around me are a mess until finally no one else comes out for a moment. I pant, putting bloody hands on my knees.
A roar of pain cuts through the sky, and my eyes shoot up. Black? His dragon dives towards the ground with Vale hot on his heels. Has he been injured? Black crashes into the forest, knocking over trees before shifting back and running before he can bring himself to a stop. Climbing over the bodies, I rush to him as Vale lands and shifts back. “Are you hurt?” I grab Black’s clothed shoulders, something I wouldn’t ever risk before now, and shake him. As long as I don’t touch his skin, his curse can’t hurt me.
He is trembling and pale as he lifts his head. Vale runs to our side, just as confused as I am. Black sucks in a breath. “Something’s wrong with our mate. I think she’s dying. I can feelall of her pain, and I c-can’t breathe.” I grab his arm, Vale takes his other, and we drag him with us into the castle to find our mate.
If Juniper dies, I will go into death alongside her and drag her back to the living. She is my mate, my witch, and there is no world worth living in without her in it.
Chapter 20
The center of Bloodstone Academy looks like a room of red stars. Wait, not stars—glittering, glowing drops of blood. The floor is red rock, spiky, cutting into my cheek before I lift my head. My ears are ringing, and I think I fell down the stairs when that voice spoke into my head. I push down the sickness in my throat as I shakily climb to my feet and look around. It smells just like a damp rock cave, but the scent of blood, the metallic tang, is heavy. All I can see are red glowing stars, like a night sky in every direction, except for the small staircase behind me. It’s beautiful here, but the scent of blood and death makes me want to run out. My legs shake as I walk further into the room, knowing I have to do this to save everyone. To change things.
It takes me a second of walking before I find it. The center. It looks like a glowing sphere of red liquid, and it’s dripping blood onto the floor. It’s disgusting. The smell of metal is thicker here, and somehow I know it’s alive. This is where the voice came from, and I’m not sure how my spell will react to this thing. It will work; it has to. “I will bend to you and your spell. You are not the first to bind me here, infant of both races, but you are the one I wish for.”
My head pounds at the sound of her voice. “Who bound you here first, then?”
The screams of the Mindless still reach me down here, and I fight every instinct not to run up and get Kane and make sure he’s okay. I need to do this. All of this is pointless if I can’t put a barrier up around Bloodstone Academy. They’ll just come here and slaughter us.
“Once, there were five witches, all from powerful clans, who came here to study. They found me in the Bloodstone Forest, and they named me a mutation of a small creature. Something powerful and wrong. They took me to this castle and kept me down here, figuring out I needed blood to give them power. They took from me and fed me small creatures to begin with. They fed me shifters when the small creatures hid from them.” I swallow down the disgust, needing to hear more. “Of them all, I preferred one more than the others…the witch with the name Daygan.” My clan. “She was smarter and far more powerful than the others due to her blood. She gave me a drop of blood in exchange for power, and I fed. I poured power into her, and the others found out. They thought she had betrayed them, and the fallout shook this world.”
“The Umbral Authority are these witches, and the one you liked was my mother. The enchantress…” I figured it out easily.
The blood creature speaks again. “You are like her in many ways. Smart. Powerful. Dangerous. Yes, they were the witches who trapped me here over a thousand years ago. They made their clans keep the secret of their eternal life and, with the help of the goddess’s treasures, they had control of this world. Your mother was trapped with me for hundreds of years until a shifter dragon found her. He bonded with her in the forest, along with two others, and they ran. When I sensed your birth, I spoke a prophecy. I saw you here, Juniper Daygan, and knew you would end my pain. The Umbral Authority hunted you, and they havenever stopped. They will not stop until you and the enchantress are dead. They know you’ve come to end me.”
I pull the spell out of my pocket and kneel in front of this creature. “I will end your suffering, but first I need control of the academy. This spell will bind you to me.” It says nothing, and doubt echoes in my chest. Should I do this? I don’t trust this thing or its stories. The Mindless roar behind me, and I think of Kane fighting them alone, of Wini injured and my other bonded outside fighting. I think of Rue, who they killed for daring to speak against them. I begin my spell and close my eyes, chanting in Latin and letting my power flood this chamber.
“With your blood, you need not try to change me. End me, Daygan child, and stop this. Your fate is not here.” She breathes into my ear. “Tell me, young one. Is your life worthless?” I ignore it and keep going. Keep chanting the spell. I don’t dare stop; I’m so close now. “Every spell for control needs a sacrifice, and this I will take from you as there are no others. Your mother knew this, and your father was the sacrifice meant to keep you safe. He died right where you kneel, and it changed nothing. You were stolen, and a mother’s cry echoed throughout the worlds.” My father died here?
Tears pour down my face as the last word leaves my lips and the creature’s magic slams into me. The sphere, writhing with magic like tentacles, wraps around my waist, pulling me to it, flipping me over so my back’s pressed against the warm sphere. My arms and legs are spread out, and I scream.
“L-let me go!” I dizzily plead. “I can free you, just…l-et…” I can’t breathe, I can’t finish the sentence. Stars dot across my eyes, and the room spins. “KANE!” I try to scream his name, but it comes out like a whisper. The room fades in and out, and it’s not long before Kane runs down the steps, blood dripping off his clothes.
“No!” he shouts, rushing across to me, and he is bounced back by a flash of red magic. Kane fights for me, again and again, but nothing works. He doesn’t get close enough.
“Kane,” I whisper, barely able to lift my head to look at him. “You need to do the spell. Call the enchantress. She’s our only hope. We need help.”
“Okay. Okay.” I feel amusement from the creature, its feelings mixing with mine as it drags me to death. It already took my father, took many lives, and my mother must be able to help stop it if it told me the truth.
Kane growls before he pulls the spell out of his pocket. We worked on it together, along with the spare potion. He throws the potion on the floor and begins the spell. Just before he finishes, Fasrah laughs. Kane turns and we both see her hobble down the steps. “You’re a fool. Are you trying to call the enchantress here? Do you think she will stop us? She couldn’t at Juniper’s birth, even with the death of a dragon. We still took her baby. She’s not in control, and she never has been. Our army will wipe your names from existence and still win in the end. They will come for what you did here. My death will stop nothing. I’m only one member of the Umbral Authority. The rest will come for you?—”
