Page 15

I was so tiny, short at that point, all gangly legs currently covered in blood and messy hair. Blood drips from my shoulders down my arm, from the poison she poured down my neck—one of the potions she regularly liked to use when I’d disobeyed her. It caused hundreds of slow cuts to appear across my body, and it was excruciating. I stare at the version of me I push down, the one who looks so brave but in truth was so scared. I wish I could go back and save myself. Stop Melody. Do something.

I know Melody’s dead now, no one is ever going to hurt me like this, and this is just a memory.

“Stop hurting her!” Vale screams, throwing himself at Melody, but he just goes through her and crashes into the wall. This place isn’t real. He falls to his knees. “Stop! Stop! Fucking stop!” He repeats it over and over again, his hands covering his face like he can’t bear to watch before tugging at his hair with his eyes closed tight.

“Vale,” I whisper, my voice catching on a sob. This is why he was screaming…because he had to see my childhood and what Melody did to me.

His head snaps to the side, looking around until he finds me. I step out of the shadows, walking closer. He just stares. “How did you survive this and still smile?”

“Because the moment I gave up, she won, she broke me,” I whisper. “And I felt, deep in my soul, there was someone waiting for me to find them. A family. My bonded…my dragons. You.”

He shakes his head. “You’re not here… I’m imagining the only woman I want, although I must say this is better than what I just saw. This is probably a new spell.”

“Vale, it’s really me, here to get you out of this. That was just a memory.” My heart pounds.

“It’s yours.” His voice is gravelly and broken.

“Yes, it’s my past.” I turn from Vale to look at the child version of me, who is silent. She doesn’t beg Melody to stop. In truth, I can’t even remember what I did when I was a child to upset Melody and make her do this. Most of the time, I hadn’t actually done anything wrong. Everything was a punishment for her.

“There are so many of these times, and I see them over and over again. They showed me them all,” Vale breathes. “You never ask anyone to save you.”

“I would ask you now,” I admit.

“How? How are you smiling at me?” Vale demands with a soft growl.

“Because it’s my past, Vale, and I have a future outside of these memories.” The edges of the memory begin to crack with white light, and I feel my mates, their magic attacking this room. The spell is going to break. Vale never looks anywhere but at me as I walk to him. “We can leave this place…”

I stop in front of him. His hands are still in his hair, and he looks pale and shaky but still Vale—still ridiculously handsome, stunning, even as much of a mess as he is right now. I reach up and touch his hands, unlinking them and holding them in my grip. The minute I touch him, the room around us swirls and shakes, changing until we’re in a forest, and there’s a boy standing on a cliff. I watch as someone pretending to be my mother appears in a burst of light, but it’s not her. I know it…and yet she looks familiar. The woman in a big cloak leans down, her dark magic exploding around the child, drifting into his mind and into his heart. The boy screams.

“What is happening here?” I ask, gripping Vale tightly.

Vale catches my wrist. “It was when I was cursed,” he tells me. “And before you ask, I was cursed so that the first person who loved me—particularly you—will die. Your heart will stop.”

I cover my heart on instinct. “It’s not stopping—it’s why you pushed me away from the very beginning.” The truth hits me dead in the chest. “Vale,” I whisper, moving closer. “Oh, Vale…you fool!” I push his chest slightly. “I think I’m your mate. Curses don’t work on mates. It’s why Black can touch me. It’s why Maz can see me. It’s why Kane—he doesn’t realize it yet, but his blood can’t hurt me. My heart has not stopped yet, and I think I’ve been in love with you for a long time, Vale. You can tell me you don’t feel the same way, and⁠—”

“No,” he stops me. “I made you my enemy so I could keep you close, so that I could just have some small part of you, even if it was hate. I told myself it was enough, but that was bullshit—it wasn’t. I’ve wanted you from the moment we met, and fuck, I was angry about it. Jealous. Mad. I thought fate had been cruel to me and showed me what I could have but couldn’t at the same fucking time. I’ve loved you ever since you walked into a room full of death magic to save me.”

I lean up and kiss him. He groans against my lips, his hands roughly digging into my hair, pulling me against him like he can hardly believe that we’re doing this. I grin against his mouth, happiness pouring into my heart. I wish he’d just told me from the beginning, but the stubborn bastard never would have done that. The room shakes around us as the spell finally breaks, as the memories fade, until we’re back in that room with the chains and I’m on my knees. Kane finally slams the door open behind us as I lift my head up.

“The spell’s broken,” Kane growls, sweat pouring down his face. “That was a bitch of a spell…what did it do?”

“Showed him the worst parts of my past and his too.” I look at Vale, who is slumped and passed out. “But it’s Vale…they were never going to break him.”

“I’m just glad we’re getting out of here,” Maz grumbles, walking in.

We each take turns breaking the chains. It takes me a few tries, a few spells, to realize which one it is before we manage to break them and get Vale free. Vale is groggy as both Kane and Maz lift his arms onto their shoulders.

“I’m here,” I tell Vale, touching his hand. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Black looks in from the doorway. “We need to leave. There are Mindless coming into the castle. Whatever distraction there was, it’s ending.”

“I know exactly where we can go,” Kane tells us before leading the way, and I shut the door on the past once and for all.

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?”