Shade grabbed my wrist, a thick cloud enveloping us before I could ask for details or even voice my approval, and a moment later, our meadow appeared. My shoulders immediately relaxed, the flowers and sunshine calling to my element. I wrapped my arms around him, breathed in his familiar peppermint scent, and sighed.
Just for a moment, I allowed myself to calm.
To release the last however many minutes or hours of chaos.
To exist in a world that was me and Shade, surrounded by the familiarity of home.
Only, I sensed another presence, one that had my brow furrowing in confusion.
That was when I realized Shade’s arms weren’t around me, his body stiff against mine.
I pulled back to study his eyes, noting the coldness lurking inside.Shade?
No reply.
My lips pulled downward as I tried to access our link and found it closed, just as he’d done before when keeping me out of his mind.
I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”
“I know,” he replied, his attention on something over my shoulder.
No, not something. Someone.
Because I could feel him.
The familiarity of his magic.
The hint of an ocean kiss.
The faint memory of several sleepless nights.
I turned slowly, already knowing whom I’d face—the white-haired male from my dreams. “You’re not real,” I whispered.
He stood leaning against a tree, his silver-blue eyes glinting with amusement. “We’ve had this discussion before, little star. And I suggested you reconsider that thought.”
I stepped backward into Shade, begging him with my mind to whisk us away from here, but other than place his hands possessively on my hips, he did nothing.
“Why are you here?” I asked, terrified of the answer, praying he said anything other than what I feared.
“Because this was where Shadow and I promised to meet for the exchange,” he replied, killing all my hopes.
How could you?I asked Shade. But our link remained closed, the willow stump doing the one thing he told me not to do only minutes earlier—he shut me out.
Zeph!I called, quickly opening another channel.
Silence.
But not in the same way as Shade’s.
Zeph felt…unconscious.
“What did you do?” I asked, shivering uncontrollably despite the warm sun overhead. “What did you do, Shade?”
“What fate required me to do,” he replied against my ear, his lips brushing my temple. “I warned you that you would hate me. Now you know why.”
“Because you’re working withhim?” But I didn’t even really know what that meant. This male had attacked the Academy, seduced me in my dreams, tried to trap me in the village, and now stared at me with almost illicit intent. “Who are you?” I asked him. “Why are you doing this?”
“I’m Zakkai,” he replied. “As to why I’m doing this, well…” He smiled, pushing off the tree to saunter toward me.
