Page 31

“I think you need to learn this time because you never fucking change!” He walks towards me through the fog of dust. He is too powerful for his age.

..how is he doing this? Magic literally hovers in the air around him like black diamonds, glittering in the smog.

“You’ve got too many bonded. If we get rid of this one, then the others will step into place just after that. ”

“RUN, HEX!” Vale roars, and he is cut off when a chain snaps around his mouth. His eyes are desperate as he looks at me, and I have to rip my eyes away.

“You can’t kill him!” I don’t move. I stay close to Vale, who is fighting the chains, but there are too many of them, covering his arms, legs, and body.

“I know the spell and I think I’d get away with it.

” I run to stop Lock, but he is too far, the whisper of a spell already leaving his mouth.

I barely make it two steps before magic explodes and the entire room shakes.

I slam straight through the door onto the other side, where I roll to a stop, coughing from the impact.

Lock walks out and looks for me. My eyes find Black, passed out on the floor with blood pouring from a nasty cut on his head, back to the open doorway where magic is dancing a death march in the air.

Black, swirling magic is in the air, bound to the room, but it’s death magic.

Forbidden magic.

One touch and that’s it.

Vale.

I climb to my feet and face Lock, blocking the way. Tears roll down my cheeks and I paint a confused look on my face. “You saved me.”

Lock, the fucking idiot, falls for it. His shoulders drop, and he walks to me, placing his hands on my shoulders. “I love you and everything is going to be okay. That dragon will be gone soon, and I will stay with you through it all.”

I smile before I punch him straight in the mouth and blood sprays across me.

Before he can react, I bring my knee up between his legs and he cries as I make impact and his knees slam to the floor with a bang.

Before he can fall further, I grab his hair and lift his head so that he is looking at me.

Rage is pounding in my body like a drug.

Blood is pouring from his mouth and all I can think is—good.

“When I’ve saved my bonded, I’m going to watch them burn you.

They are mine, they belong to me, and you do not get to kill them.

How. Fucking. Dare. You.” I lift my knee and smash it into his jaw, which cracks under the slam.

Before I step away, I pull my dagger out and point it at him.

“Say another spell and I’ll put this where the sun doesn’t shine. ”

“Don’t go in there, it’s death magic!” He snarls. I see him going to whisper, but I’m faster. I whisper a spell first, a new silence spell, and his eyes widen as his mouth disappears.

“Bet you didn’t know I make up spells. Good luck talking with no mouth, dickhead.

” I walk over and I slam my dagger into his arm.

He can’t scream, but he passes out. I turn on shaky legs and walk to the classroom, feeling the magic in the air, the wrongness of it.

Black magic is dancing through the air like lost spirits in a forest—glowing and beautiful—but death.

They are death and there is no way to stop them known to us.

The enchantress made up this spell and uses it in the war. It kills everything.

Vale.

His eyes meet mine in disbelief, in horror... and I think worry as I walk in. I whisper a spell at the chains to undo them one by one, beginning with his mouth. I need to be closer to do the rest. They are too strong, the magic needs touch.

“Fucking get out of here, HEX!” he screams at me.

“You know I don’t listen!” I shout back, fear making my blood feel cold as a black swirl of magic dances around my waist and continues through the air. Close. Too close. “I thought that’s why you hate me so much, Vale.”

I walk straight to him, every footstep shaky. He sounds broken when he speaks next, and it hurts my heart. “For once, just listen and leave. I can survive this.”

We both know he can’t. We both know it’s impossible.

When I get close, I throw myself on top of him and the contact is enough for him to pull at my magic, to strengthen his.

I whisper the undoing spell with him. “Get off me and let me protect you. Please, Juniper.” He has never said that word to me.

“Please don’t break me by staying here. Go away. Fuck, please.”

Please. Please. Please.

I can’t let him die, though.

My eyes are wet as I lift my head and touch his cheek. “No. You’re my bonded and we might hate each other... but I won’t let you die.”

“Hex, fuck, don’t—" Just as the last chain is undone on him, a swirl of black death magic slams into my chest. Time freezes as I stare into Vale’s *name eyes. The black swirl goes straight through my chest, through my heart, and back into the air.

For a moment, all I see are his eyes. All I see is his fear.

I’ve not felt pain for a long time, not really, but this?

I scream as pain rips through my body, digging into my bones and swimming through my blood.

I slam my hands onto his chest on instinct, a spell easily rolling out of my head, out of my memory like I’ve done it a thousand times, yet I don’t know it.

A life spell that shouldn’t exist. Instinctively, I pull magic from my bonded and red magic, like pure fire, bursts out of Vale’s chest into my hands.

Vale lets me drain him of magic, drain all of them as I whisper an endless, timeless spell.

The black death magic turns to ash around us and Vale doesn’t ask how. He doesn’t ask anything, as he scoops me into his arms. “I’ll never let them take you from me.”

He won’t be able to stop them.