Rowan went next, his large hand gently cupping her cheek as he pressed his lips to the other side of her face. “Lock your door,” he told her gruffly, though his eyes were completely soft. “Call if you need us.”
Jupiter rolled her eyes at his order.
Theo offered a warm, reassuring smile, leaning in to kiss her temple. “Sweet dreams, beautiful.”
Lucas paused beside the couch. He bent down and pressed a firm, decisive kiss to her lips, and she sucked in a quick breath and kissed him back.
I was the last. I stood awkwardly for a second, my hands tucked into my pockets, my heart doing that terrifying flutter. I hadn’t initiated physical contact with a woman in two years outside of the dream I shared with Jupiter. Not since Eliza. But looking at Jupiter, curled up under her blanket, carrying the weight of two worlds on her shoulders... I couldn’t just walk away.
I pulled my hands from my pockets and leaned down. She tilted her head up slightly, her eyes meeting mine. I brushed my lips against her cheek. Her skin was incredibly soft smelling like those damn pears.
“Goodnight, Jamie.”
“Goodnight, Jupiter.”
I straightened and followed the others out the door. Before I pulled it shut behind me, I glanced back. Jupiter was sitting exactly where we’d left her, her legs pulled up to her chest with Noodle now around her neck. She was staring into her half-empty mug of tea, her brow furrowed, looking so deeply thoughtful and utterly alone that it took every ounce of my willpower to close the door and leave her there.
The hard part was over. She knew our secret, and she didn’t leave. All that mattered was that she didn’t leave.
The End of Book Two
Book Three will be going
LIVE before August 2026
Epilogue
Jupiter
Nine mates.A cross-galactic portal.
My mind spun, trying to categorize and process the sheer volume of insane information that had just been dumped into my lap. Noodle shifted around my neck, his cool scales pressing against my collarbone.
‘Much thinking,’Noodle hissed softly, his tongue flicking against my cheek.‘Brain is loud.’
“You have no idea, buddy.”
I glanced at the clock on my nightstand. The glowing red numbers read 11:48 pm. It was late, especially considering everything that had happened over the last twenty-four hours, but there was no way I was going to be able to sleep with this tornado of anxiety tearing through my head. I needed the one thing that always managed to anchor me when the magical world threatened to pull me under.
I reached for my phone on the coffee table, my fingers trembling slightly as I unlocked the screen and scrolled. Ipressed the call button and brought the phone to my ear, listening to the steady ringing, praying she was awake.
“Jupiter? Honey, is everything okay?” My mom’s voice came through the speaker, thick with sleep but instantly laced with maternal panic. I heard the rustle of sheets in the background, and the faint murmur of my dad asking who was calling.
Just hearing her voice caused the tight knot in my throat to loosen, and a shaky breath escaped my lips. “Mom. I’m sorry to wake you up. I just… I really needed to hear your voice.”
“You never have to apologize for calling me, sweetheart.” I heard a door click shut—she’d stepped out into the hallway to give us privacy. “What happened? You sound exhausted. Did something else happen with Nightfall?”
“Yes. And no.” I leaned my head back against the couch cushions, closing my eyes. “It’s everything, Mom. Everything is happening all at once and I feel like I’m drowning.”
“Take a deep breath, Jupe. Start from the beginning.”
And so I did. I told her about Draco nearly dying from the neurotoxin, about the frantic, desperate portal I’d torn through spacetime to bring Lucas and Rowan to Dominion. I told her about the confrontation with Aiden in the classroom, the way my hand had stung after I slapped him, and the miserable, hollow feeling it had left in my chest.
“The guys at Imperium—the Stardust Shield—told me the truth tonight. They’re part of a secret society. The Order of Ophiuchus. They’ve been waiting for me for centuries. They believe that with enough power, I can open a portal back to the original zodiac home worlds.”
My mom was silent for a long moment. When she finally spoke, her voice was a hushed, incredulous whisper. “Go back to the home planets? Jupiter, that’s fairy tale stuff.”
“It’s not though, Mom. They have texts and artifacts that the Assembly suppressed. But that’s not even the craziest part.”A tear slipped out of the corner of my eye, tracking down my cheek. “They want me to merge the shields. They want Nightfall to transfer to Imperium, and they want me to bond with all nine of them to act as a massive magical battery to make the portal work.”
