Page 14 of We Steal The Flight

I shake my head, my lips tipped up with a smile. We make our way through the forest quietly, well aware that Mindless are close, but the spell that I cast works—a simple deflection spell. I feel the weight of the tarot cards in my pocket, of Minnie on the back of my neck, knowing that if worse comes to worst, I have them and their magic. I won’t be taken by the Umbral Authority again.

We get to the edge of the forest and quietly look around at Bloodstone Academy. The tall black walls are as imposing as ever, but now there are four witches outside, two at the doors at the back, and two more pacing up and down. Maz leans down, a spell leaving his lips. Ice trickles across the floor, practically unseen, before it gets to them. The four witches freeze, turn to statues in minutes, before the ice shatters, taking their bodies with it. They don’t even get a chance to scream, which is better for us. I would like to have given them a chance to see if they are actually on the Umbral Authority’s side, but we can’t risk being seen.

I won’t risk Vale. Maz nods once at me before we move out of the treeline and jog to the academy. I wince at the blood and ice on the floor as we step through it. The second we get inside, Maz locks the doors behind us, and we all turn to face the castle that has been a home to us for so many stolen years. The academy is silent and cold. The warmth of the gothic interior that I’m used to is gone, and there is a feeling in the air. I wonder if it’s the creature or if it is something more. For a second it is still silent, before I hear him. I hear Vale scream. “Vale,” I whisper his name, horror echoing through me and eating me alive. My body screams too, for me to do something. Anything.

A buzzing builds in my chest as fury and hate for the Umbral Authority burst through me. How dare they touch him? I can barely see anything through a red haze as I rush forward.

“Wait, no!” Black tries to stop me, but it’s too late—I rush around a corner, straight into a group of witches at the bottom of the steps, and behind them, at least twenty Mindless waiting to attack.

The witches at the front—I can’t see their faces hidden deep in cloaks—but they all turn, and so do the Mindless. “Hello,” I mutter as Black and Maz come to my side. I don’t need to look at them to know I messed up and we are in deep shit. “Well, they know we’re here now.”

“They won’t touch you,” Black firmly warns before facing the crowd. He rips his gloves off and curls a hand. “Come on, then.”

“What he said. Try us, dickheads,” Maz growls, getting ready.

Before anyone can move, a man in a hood jumps down from the top of the stairs. He rips off the cloak, drops it on the ground, and looks right at me. My eyes widen as I realize it’s Kane, even with some kind of spell smothering him from my senses. He smirks once before turning around, and magic like I’ve never seen explodes out of his hands. Trails of silver and blue fire strike through the air, burning through the witches and Mindless in one go, until they’re nothing but ash on the floor.

Everyone is silent as Kane turns, his eyes locked on mine again. I can only feel relief and something so much deeper as he closes the space between us. His hands sink into my hair, his lips are instantly on mine, pulling my body closer to his. “Fuck, it’s good to see you. Tell me you’re okay. Tell me no one hurt you.”

I won’t mention the fresh scars on my back right at this moment. “I’m okay. Tell me the same.”

His forehead rests against mine. “I can’t. It’s been a fucked-up couple of weeks.” Kane lifts his head and looks at Black and Maz. “Good to see you both, but you shouldn’t have come back.” He pats Black’s shoulder, smiles at Maz.

“Where did you get the power boost from, bro?” Maz ignores his warning.

“This.” Kane holds up a familiar watch and winks at me. “Turns out it can tap into your magic and boost it. It healed me and it shows me spells in my dreams.”

Vale’s scream cuts through us all. Kane looks up. “This morning, I finally got enough ingredients so we can get to the top floor, and I’ve undone all the spells. I was working on the door when I heard you. I’ve been trying to get to him without being caught myself, but the Umbral Authority finally left ten minutes ago. It’s the first time he is alone, and we can’t waste it.”

“I have family distracting the Umbral Authority. We don’t have much time,” I explain, and Kane frowns but leaves it for now. No one needs to be told twice, and we all run up the stairs, past our rooms and the bodies of witches Kane has taken out. Every step, I feel Vale closer and closer. By the time we get to the door, I can feel him on the other side.

Maz goes to touch the handle, and Kane grabs him. “I’ve tried to get in several times. It won’t let me, and the spell to break it will take hours, but…” Kane looks at me. “I think you can get in.”

“Why?” I whisper.

“I think you know the answer to that as well as I do. As we all do. Nothing in the world separates mates,” Black softly answers.

“Juniper, go in and get him.” Kane nods. “He might be a bastard, but he is our family. He is yours.”

Vale could be my mate.

I stare at the door, knowing the answer is there if I walk through it. Vale is my mate—the one that’s pushed me away, claims to hate me, tormented me, and I never knew why. But as he screams one more time, I know there’s nothing in the world that will stop me from getting to him.

I open the door and walk in.

Chapter 10

Iwalk into the room, and there is silence. The kind of silence that argues that something is very wrong and sends a chill down my spine. I blink at the bright ceiling lights and wince at the scent of fire and blood that smothers the room. Vale. The smell is coming from him. Vale is chained in the center of the otherwise empty room, and his arms are pulled apart, straining his dark, torn shirt. Five chains—one on his neck, two on his wrists, two on his ankles—tug at him and bind him to the walls where heavy cracks surround where the chains begin. Like someone has pulled at them a million times and failed. The heaviest of the chains is connected to a metal mask, linked to his neck, and it is forcing his neck upwards to stare at the ceiling.

There is magic in the room, a spell old and timeless…and dangerous. It sings around Vale and the room like a ship at sea.

“Vale,” I call to him, but he doesn’t even flinch. He doesn’t move and I doubt he can hear me.

The singing magic seems to notice me, though. Whatever magic it is, turns my way, and I know the logical thing to do would be to run. I don’t move. Whatever beauty I saw in the magic, it snaps and disappears, transforming into something else. The waves of white magic come snapping at me like snakes, wrapping around my ankles, yanking me to my knees. Vale screams again as the warm magic sinks into my skin, into my blood, and I’m suddenly thrown from the room into one quite different.

I gasp, blinking as I stare at the floorboards of my old bedroom, from when I was a kid. There are spots of blood on the usually clean floor, and I lift my head, fear crashing back into my chest as I see I’m in a memory of mine. I wince because this is something I don’t let myself remember very often. Why am I here? Why my memories? What was that spell? There are many parts of my childhood growing up with Melody that I blocked out to save myself from reliving them—from days where I was edged so close to death that it was a wonder I didn’t die or my mind did not break. I stare quietly as Melody grabs my bruised chin, lifting me up from where I’d crawled into a ball at the end of the bed.

“You will obey me,” she screams into my face. She would always scream at me because no matter how much she hurt me, I didn’t cry or scream out. I stopped feeling the pain she inflicted…I stopped caring about screaming because no one was coming to save me.