Page 12

“Yes, and I’m fine.” I stop him before he begins his no doubt practiced speech to get me to talk to him.

I want to be anywhere but here. I’m not in any shape or form to be here, but I’m not telling him that.

He walked into my life and made me have feelings for him, possibly even love him, even though I clearly wasn’t his first. Those are things that meant something to me and I thought meant something to him.

I thought I was someone who meant enough to say goodbye to, to say something before disappearing.

Everyone leaves me. This is a fact I’ve gotten used to.

First my parents when they died and then him, and I bet I’ll have a long list as the time flies by.

It’s a fact of life that people like me don’t have people supporting them and sticking around.

My heart pangs for a second, but I push the pain down.

I have no family clan to have my back, to advise and show me the right way.

“I have to tell you about?—”

“Ah, there’s my wayward son, and you must be Juniper.

” An older woman’s voice interrupts whatever he was going to tell me.

Lock’s mother stops next to him, kissing his cheek.

She smiles at me, bright like Wini’s smile.

In fact, she is the spitting image of her daughter, but her hair is gray mostly except for the dark ends.

There is a large, circular, pure gold pendant resting in the center of her chest, the sign for the Umbral Authority, and her light gray outfit is a mix between a suit and dress.

“I am good friends with your foster mother.” Well, there goes wanting to know this woman.

“I do think the marriage proposal between you two is a brilliant idea. We do need to restore the Daygan clan. I knew your mother and father only briefly, but in my time here, we were students together and?—”

I blurt out one sentence. “What marriage proposal?”

“Didn’t your foster mother tell you? Oh, the silly goose, she must have wanted it to be a surprise.

” Goose? More like a feral cat who eats their young.

“She knew how close you were with my son and called me the second you got into the academy. I can just imagine your children now! Both of you are so beautiful.”

“Mom, come on, that’s a bit too much.” Oh, he speaks.

Lock and Wini tell her to calm down, but I’m stuck, feeling like my world is spinning out of control, but my feet won’t move, won’t let me run away.

The academy was meant to be freedom from an arranged marriage and the sinking feelings that came with imagining that life.

I’d rather die. How could Melody have known about Lock and me?

I didn’t tell her and I made sure we were never followed or seen.

Not that many people would be brave going outside the limits of the town, anyway.

Their mom is still rambling on. “But of course, the marriage will happen after the academy and your years in the war. You two can just grow close here. Especially now that you are very formidable with your bonded, Juniper! As my future family, I will stick up for you with my fellow council and make sure they take your future into kind consideration. We all will no doubt be meeting with you soon.”

She is warning me her protection is based on me accepting the arranged marriage.

I can tell she feels she has won when she looks in my eyes, but little does she know, I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure I never marry him.

Or anyone I don’t love. I remember enough of my parents and their true love to know what is real.

I want what I remember; I want someone I’m desperate about and makes my heart race when I look at them even if they scare me to death.

Dammit my mind wonders to them. My bonded.

Am I so fucked up that I only think of my psychopathic hot bonded dragons as the only attractive men I’ve seen here?

I just need to meet more witches that aren’t Lock or my forbidden bonded.

They hate me, so it shouldn’t be a problem to ignore the attraction.

I push that thought away really quickly before I end up dead.

A relationship with any of them is a death sentence, or at least a heavily punishable act.

She carries on talking, but everything feels like it fades. Marriage to Lock? This has to be the worst night of my life. Absolutely the worst night in my life.

Wini must see it in my eyes, see me spiralling into a pit of depression I’ve always fought to get myself out of. “Mom, maybe I should take Juniper to her room. It’s been a long day, and I think we both could do with some sleep.”

“Yes,” she agrees. “I will see you soon, Juniper.”

“See you around,” I manage to say, my mouth dry. Her eyes are assessing as I walk away with Wini, out of the crowds and into a quiet, empty corridor. I suck in a deep breath, and I’m tempted to scream and scream.

“My brother’s a dick. You can say whatever you want about him, and I guarantee I will have heard it before and agreed.

My mom wants the best for him, and your bloodline is all she sees.

I had no idea about the whole marriage proposal, but he probably did.

I’m just sorry.” She clears her throat and steps up to me, wrapping her arms around my shoulders.

It takes me a second, but I hug her back, sobbing into her shoulder for a long moment.

“If we both survive this, you can marry me to avoid my brother. Don’t worry, I don’t want your babies, and I don’t fancy you.

I firmly like men. We can live in a big house with girly shit and forget men exist except for when we are horny. ”

I burst into laughter. “Deal. You’re my kind of crazy, Wini.”

She laughs and leans back. “Come on, sleep will make all this seem a little less bad.”

Wini waves to the end of the corridor. “Are you okay? I know this is probably going to be difficult with what happened, but you’re alive. You’re fighting still, and that is something to celebrate, and it is worth celebrating.”

I know she is right, but celebrating what happened today feels like cheering at a funeral. “I’m not okay, but I’m coping enough. It can’t get any worse.”

The day is nearly over. I can have a bath and then sleep.

There couldn’t possibly be more to go wrong.

I’ve been accidentally bonded to men that hate me, put the dragon shifter race at risk of extinction, been thrown off a roof by my bonded who probably didn’t even care that I managed to survive it, and then found out that I’ve been given away in a marriage proposal with absolutely no consent on my part—and to my ex of all people.

I walk with Wini, my legs still shaking, and I feel exhausted.

She looks at me when we get to a row of steps.

“Dragons haven’t fought for us. No generations in the last hundred years have fought for the witches.

They’ve avoided bonds, and then they all end up dead, and now four of them are in the war.

This is big, this is life changing. Four of them with you could end this war.

Do you know what that means?” I don’t answer her, and she sighs.

“I know you feel under pressure and scared, but everything happens for a reason. Every move in our lives is guided by the goddess, and she did this. I know she did. She wants the war over.”

“I didn’t want this. I wanted to be someone normal,” I admit. “I wanted to make spells that helped the war. This is nothing like I imagined and planned out.”

“You still can be the smart witch, the dragon witch, and any title you earn here. Every witch in our history that is remembered began here. You can do that too.”

I know she is right; I know I should answer her, but all I want is to curl up in bed and not think for a good eight hours.

But somehow, the day is not done with me yet.

“You do know about the room change, right?” I stare at her, stopping on the staircase that leads to the rooms and close my eyes.

“Your bonded stay in a shared space, well, room, while you are at the academy. Usually, the academy just makes up a room to be in the room, so you should have five separate rooms in there and one big communal space. They worked out that bonds need to be close to each other as much as possible for the first few years. It’s not good for us to be that far apart. ”

“I can’t sleep in there with them. They’re going to kill me,” I snap. I know it’s not her fault, and I immediately feel bad for taking it out on her. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have snapped then.”

“Oh, they can’t kill you. They’d likely die too. There aren’t many stories of bonded surviving without each other.” She grins.

“Did I tell you one of them threw me off a roof?” We are at her door. She doesn’t know what to say as she stares at my face, waiting for me to laugh and say it was a joke. I don’t blame her. “Well, if I die tonight, you know who did it.”

“Good luck,” she chokes.

I pause, looking back. “I wish you were sent to the towns. I never made friends except your brother, and that didn’t work out well for me.”