Page 9 of We Steal The Flight

“I will protect her with my life and soul, for it is hers if she wants what is left of it.” Luke doesn’t look at me, but my heart clenches. He walks out, shutting the door behind him to give me some time with Aster. My bonded.

As my eyes lock onto Aster, I slide out of the bed, feeling only a wince of pain as I walk over to him and wordlessly wrap my arms around his chest, squeezing as tight as I can without hurting my injury, and he sighs, holding me back just as tightly. “Don’t say you’ll miss me, or I won’t be able to leave you.”

“You know it anyway, Aster,” I murmur into his chest. “It’s always been you and me.”

“You and me,” he repeats, lifting my face with his hands and softly pressing his lips to mine. “I love you. Don’t do anything to risk yourself.”

“I love you too, and I won’t.” I feel my eyes filling with unshed tears. “How do I go sit by a brother’s side who tried to kill me, in black mourning clothes, and cry like he means something to me after what he did?”

“The same way you’re going to let me go, knowing that I’ll always come back to you, my bonded, in every lifetime.” Aster’s voice is soft.

“In every lifetime,” I whisper, leaning up and brushing my lips softly against his one more time. He doesn’t take the soft kiss. Aster hardly ever does. He deepens it, brushing his lips against mine. I groan softly before letting go, because the longer I hold him, the longer and harder it’ll be. “If Juniper’s there, just tell her I love her and get here as fast as you can. Do something. Someone’s got to do something.”

“Stay close to Mentor Parker. He’ll protect you and don’t get stabbed this time when I leave.” He tries to smile and fails. We are both too traumatized to joke about it yet.

“No intention of doing so,” I murmur. “Don’t get caught leaving.”

“The Mindless don’t know the woods as well as we shifters do. We grew up here. The woods belong to the shifters,” he reminds me. “Be safe.”

He kisses me once more before going to the door and walking out, leaving it open.

I shove on my boots and pull on a black cloak over my shoulders before joining Luke in the corridor. He watches Aster walk down the steps before turning to me. Vale screams, echoing louder in the corridor before going silent. I hope he’s passed out; at least then he’ll be free from the torment for a short while.

We say nothing, but Luke’s fingers brush mine, almost trying to comfort me, I think. Luke and I head down the steps and through Bloodstone Academy. It’s nothing like I would usually expect it to be. No students walk around. Every hall is empty and silent. Mindless roar and crackle from outside every window, and there’s a feeling of doom, a deadness to the castle as we walk through it, heading to the healer’s quarters. When we get there, the healer greets us at the door. She lifts her glasses up her nose and frowns. “I’m presuming you’re here to see your brother, not for pain relief.”

“I’m fine. I barely feel it.” It’s a slight lie. I think I’ll always feel where he stabbed me. Mostly because I never thought he would. I knew he wasn’t a good person. Lock has never been. But there are lines you do not cross, and stabbing your sister is definitely one of them. “I just wanted to see him for a bit. Sit by his side.”

“Oh, it’s good timing. I need to go and speak to our leaders about more medical supplies. They want me to wake him up, but I don’t have the ingredients to even try.” Vale’s scream echoes once more, and all three of us look up. “I won’t be able to help them with their prisoner without more supplies either.”

“Don’t let him die,” I almost beg of her. “It’s not fair.”

She whispers back silently, “This cannot continue on forever. Death would be a mercy.”

“I will come with you to talk of supplies.” Luke nods at me. We have been drugging my brother with a sleeping potion for a good week and plan to continue for a long time. He won’t be waking up anytime soon.

She walks out the door with Luke, shutting it behind them, leaving me alone in the empty healer bay, except for my brother. A pile of bandages covers most of his skin. His hair has been burnt off. He was once…handsome, but not anymore. He got everything he deserved. I look at him and I expect to feel something for the only family member I have left. My mother’s dead. My father apparently is missing, and who knows if I’ll see him again.

I should feel something, but I don’t. Just emptiness when I stare at him. “Is it bad that I don’t care about you?”

I sit down in a chair at the end of my brother’s sickbed, and I pull a book out of my pocket. The Great Gatsby. My brother hates this book. Our tutor used to make us read it over and over again. It made him cry sometimes out of boredom. I’m sure he’ll appreciate it right now.

I smile a wicked grin before I start reading, hoping that he can hear every single word.

Chapter 7

It’s been two days since I woke up. Two days of healing the cuts on my back and of all of us trying desperately and failing to come up with a plan that doesn’t end up killing everybody here. Or just as worse, risking Kane and Vale altogether by going to Bloodstone Academy without a plan. The truth is, our plan has gone up in smoke, and I don’t have a better one now. This world has to stand for Kane and Vale, but that means we have to somehow beat an army of Mindless and witches. The Umbral Authority are going to win at this point, and I can barely sleep. Snowflakes softly fall down onto my cheeks as I sit on the snow-tiled balcony, a once-roof section of our house. Minnie stares at me with her pretty eyes as she rests on my knee. “Any chance you have an idea, little one?”

Of course, she hurries away, leaving a trail of tiny footsteps in the snow on her way back inside. I pull my cloak tighter around my shoulders, looking up at the glittering skies above, the millions of stars that stretch in every direction. They look like stars on Earth, but they are different. Stranger. I’m not surprised when I hear Maz and feel him coming closer. Maz climbs out of the hole in the attic and walks across the roof to me. He sighs, sitting next to me in the snow and watching the same sky as me. Heat radiates off his skin as we sit in silence.

“I couldn’t sleep again. I feel like something’s wrong and its more than missing my father’s shirt to sleep in,” I admit. “I need to go to Bloodstone Academy and see them both.”

“Did you know it was Vale who spelled the shirt?” My head swings back. Vale? The man who hated being bonded to me, spelled my shirt. I rub my chest, looking away for a second. I can only shake my head. I didn’t know… but I should have. He doesn’t disagree with me on needing to leave though. “I can’t explain it, but I feel it too. There is something wrong, but⁠—”

“We can’t leave yet,” I say, finishing his sentence. “They don’t even know I’m back, and I haven’t been able to thank Kane for saving my life. I was dying with the creature, and it was winning. The thing is evil and corrupt, and I was drained of my magic in moments. It killed my father, and it was going to end me too…then Kane took over. Kane didn’t care what it cost; he just didn’t want me to die.” I wipe my wet cheeks. “I have never had anyone on my side, let alone willing to die for me until now.”

“You have more than one person willing to die for you, Juni.” Maz nudges my shoulder with his, but when I meet his gaze, he is serious. “Kane, Vale, Black and I are brothers,” his voice echoes across the night sky. “We’ve been brothers in everything but blood since we were kids. The last of the dragons. The last of this world’s dragons, who everyone looks to, expecting us to make good calls and save them when shit hits the fan. They forgot we were kids, then teenagers, and fighting a race who didn’t care if we were dragons or not, because they are stronger and we were born to be slaves. It was always a lot of pressure everywhere we turned, but we had each other. We understood each other and helped level the pressure between the four of us. That was something, you know? It is family. Now there’s nothing I can do to help Vale and Kane. I can’t go after them, and I can’t risk getting trapped there myself when you need me. I’m not putting you in danger, and they wouldn’t thank me for it.”

I touch his glasses, pulling them off and sliding them in his pocket. I know he can see me, always me. His blue eyes trace over me as I tell him, “Bonded. Family. Loyalty. Love. Mates. We are all these things, and I have to believe we will be together again. Every time I’ve been separated from you, I remember that nothing can come between us because you are in my soul, my magic and blood. Whatever happens, we’ll face it as one. Like we have always tried to do.”