Then there is Valeron Drexan. My rival. My enemy. The bonded I hated the most until I nearly died for him and I knew it wasn’t hate at all. It was something far more dangerous pulling me to the silver-haired madman who looks like a long-forgotten god made him in his image. Vale sneers at me. “Kill her. The Umbral Authority must have sent her.”
“Wait,” Kane commands. The leader. My childhood friend, who hates me and promised to never let anyone hurt me again. My legs feel shaky under the narrowed gazes of these men, and my heart pounds so loudly I barely hear Kane’s question. “Juniper Daygan, how the fuck did you know that spell to get in here past the witch guards?”
“Did you kill them? Put a hex on them?” Vale asks, in his normal taunting voice. The man breathes to piss off women, and he is good-looking enough that most women would beg for his time, anyway. “You don’t look like you could kill a fly, but perhaps you charmed them with your pretty looks. Tell us!”
Maz groans. “Stop scaring her. Maybe she is here to keep us entertained. You said it yourself; she is pretty. In fact, I’d bet my soul she is the prettiest witch I’ve ever seen.”
My cheeks brighten under their stares, and they fluster me so easily. We don’t have time for this. “No, I’m not your entertainment, Maz. No one knows I’m here. I used a spell to wall walk, but I didn’t quite get the spell right, so now I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. That’s my fault, though. I need to alter that spell a little before I use it again. I must have worded something wrong.”
“You made a new spell.” Kane figures it out. “Only the enchantress can do that, and look what she did to our world and our people. Mindless are the curse of new spells.”
“Well, she is my mother, so apparently it runs in the family.” I shrug a shoulder. Their mouths drop open, and all of them step away from me. “And who says she made the Mindless at all? Do you really trust anything that comes out of the mouths of the Umbral Authority? I’ve heard that liars can never be trusted to tell the truth.”
They all go silent, and Maz takes a careful step away from me, and that step hurts something beating in my chest. I didn’t notice how thoroughly they got under my skin, made me feel like we were in this world together and they cared for me. I forgot what it was like to be alone until I was forced to be again…and I don’t want to go back. I want them.
“We should kill you or use you to get to your mother and end the war if you’re not lying. She killed thousands of my people and yours. You are a betrayer, Juniper Daygan.” Vale growls low, taking a step forward, but Kane stops him with one hand on his chest.
“Trust me, we’re on the same page. I want the war over, but I know that telling anyone who I am is going to end badly. I know who I am because the Umbral Authority stole me from my mother when I was a child or a baby. I don’t know when exactly; I have no memories, not much of my childhood until I was with my foster mother, Melody. Which was when they started conditioning me to be everything they needed to fix their world and discard anyone in their way. They trained me, beat me, used me, did everything they wanted to me until I got here, to Bloodstone Academy, because apparently there was a prophecy. The prophecy hinges on me complying with them, doing everything they want. You’re part of it too, because you’remy bonded.” I pause when Kane, Maz and Vale look at each other.
Black stands, drawing all of our attention. “We don’t bond with anyone. Come on, darling, you’re pretty and smart with spells, but enough lies.”
I walk through them, passing them, right up to Black. He steps back, but I predicted he would do that. The others shout a warning, but I’m already right in front of Black, his hood falling back to reveal his beautiful, tortured eyes and handsome face. His brown hair is shaved at the sides, short at the top, and a crease builds in the center of his forehead. “Don’t,” he warns me. “You can’t touch?—”
“Yes, only I can.” I slide my hands around his, and he gasps in complete shock. The room goes silent as I touch his hands and smile up at him. “Hello, Black. You don’t have to be worried about your curse with me. I don’t know how it works or why, but you havealwaysbeen able to touch me.”
I curl my hand around his cheek. His eyes shut as he leans into my hand. He growls, yanking me to his chest, and looks down at me with pure confusion. “Why do you smell so familiar? How is this possible? Why does my dragon think you’re ours?”
“Because you’re my bonded, and I can touch you when no one else can.” I look over my shoulder at their shocked faces. “Doesn’t this proof give me five minutes of your time for you to listen to the truth?”
“I suggest we listen,” Black firmly commands them.
Vale shakes his head. “First time he can touch a girl and he’s already pussy whipped into listening to her madness. She is the daughter of the woman who cursed you, you fool!”
“My bloodline’s actions are hardly my fault!” I snap back at him. I blow out a breath when he smirks, letting me know he still loves to piss me off. I look at Kane, knowing if he agrees, then the others will. “Please listen.”
Black pulls me harder against him, like he is afraid I’m going to disappear as quickly as I came, and I don’t fight him. We have kissed several times, all messily interrupted by various people, but in every year, he has been mine. The two of us are like magnets, and I refuse to back away this year. My heart races though, being in this much contact with him, his arms wrapped around my waist, holding me to his hard body. “What are your dragons saying?”
They go silent, and that’s answer enough. Kane looks at me and nods. “Juniper, tell us everything. Right from the beginning.”
I do. I tell them everything I remember, everything I know is true and what was taken. I explain the story of the last three years, the bits and memories that I have. Parts of the years that we spent together, how we always bonded in the forest. Sometimes it was accidental; sometimes it was not. How we always got close…too close. How they ripped us apart every time with those tarot cards from the goddess and took our memories to reset the year.
When I’m done, they all stare at me in absolute silence.
I clear my throat. “I know it’s a lot to believe, but they changed things this year. They’re desperate now, and I don’t know why… I just don’t like it. They do not know that I remember. If they find out, they’re just going to wipe my memories again and make sure it sticks. I have to stop them before they use the tarot cards and fuck with our minds. I don’t know what saved my memories this time, but we can’t risk it. Maybe they’ve used it too many times on me. Maybe there’s something that I’m missing. I don’t know what it is, but I don’t foresee this year ending well for any of us if we don’t work together. I’ve got a plan.” An insane plan that likely won’t work. “A plan that will get every shifter out of the forest,and Bloodstone Academy will fall. There won’t be another year because there’ll be nothing left here for them to repeat.”
“And how exactly do you plan on doing that?” Kane finally speaks. “I remember you.”
“You do?” I lean closer. Please say one of them remembers me.Please.I hate that they are looking at me like I’m a stranger.
“Not from these years that you talk about, but from when we were children. I know you cannot be trusted.” My heart sinks. Of course that’s what he meant.
“I don’t remember our childhood, not really. I think they must have messed with my mind so much that my old memories are broken, but I know that we grew up together. I remember bits of it, just not what happened at the end, how I ended up with Melody and not with my first foster parents, who died. I know they died, but nothow. It’s weird to call them that because I’ve always seen them as my parents, and now I know that they aren’t really.” I pause. Should I tell them my father was a dragon and I’m a half-shifter? I want to tell them, but it doesn’t seem like the right moment. “It’s all so complicated.”
“Indeed, it seems like it,” Kane agrees, something flashing in his eyes. Will he tell me the truth? I doubt it when he doesn’t remember last year. Or the years before.
Vale doesn’t say a word, but he is practically shaking with anger, and I know he wants to refuse anything I’ve said and attempt to kill me.
Maz comes over to me. He runs his fingers across my cheek, leaving a wave of heat where he touched. “I remembered something in my dreams last night. We were sitting on the balcony edge overlooking the forest, talking about my past, and I wanted to kiss you so badly. I didn’t know you were real.”
