Page 37 of Wicked Bonds (Serpentine Academy #1)
Thirty-Five
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Soren
The connection snaps tight like a wire around my throat.
One second I’m dumping my cup of atrociously sweet cider into the harvest arrangement beside me, the next Rose’s panic floods through the tenuous bond that has begun to form between us.
The bond I pretend doesn’t exist, the one that formed when I fed from her dreams and tasted something I shouldn’t have wanted to taste again. Then the alarms are ringing.
I’m out the door before the cup hits the floor.
For a terrifying minute I lose our connection. It’s just there, and then it’s not, but then it’s back again. Fourth floor dormitory. The knowledge slams into me with absolute certainty. Not her room, on the quad, but the forbidden floor where that pathetic ghost spends his days.
The night air hits my face as I burst outside, and that’s when I feel him, the vampire prince in his over-starched collar, moving as fast as me across the quad.
The bloodsucker must have sensed it too, like how he stalks Rose when he thinks no one’s watching.
As if I don’t notice him lurking outside her classes, following her like a lovesick hound.
“Fuck off back to your masters, dog,” I snarl as he falls into step beside me. We’re both running full tilt now, supernatural speed turning us into shadows that normal eyes could never see.
“I’m not going anywhere.” His voice is that aristocratic drawl that makes me want to rip his throat out. “Rose needs?—”
“What? You? The Coven’s favorite pet?” I vault over a stone bench without breaking stride. “She needs you like she needs a curse.”
“At least I’m not feeding on her while she sleeps.”
“At least I’m not handing her over to the Coven.”
We hit the dormitory entrance at the same time, shoulders colliding as we both try to go through first. The door frame cracks under the impact. Neither of us gives an inch.
“Move.” His eyes flash red for a second.
“Make me, corpse.”
We shove through together, racing for the stairwell. My connection to Rose feels stronger now that we’re closer, but it’s different, less stable.
We take the stairs three at a time. “She’s done something,” Lucien says.
“Something that’s going to get her killed, yes, I’m aware.” I grab the railing and use it to launch myself up half a flight. “Which is why I need to get there, not you.”
“To protect her?” His laugh is bitter as winter. “That’s rich, coming from someone who crawled into her dreams uninvited.”
“She didn’t seem to mind.” The words come out defensive, which annoys me. I don’t defend myself to anyone, least of all sanctimonious vampires.
“She was unconscious.”
“She pulled me in.” I wheel around on the second-floor landing to face him. “Her need, her desire, it called to me. I didn’t force anything.”
“You took advantage.” He’s right behind me, too close. “Just like you always do.”
“And what do you do?” I’m moving again, taking the next flight even faster. “Follow her around, document her every move for Wickersly, pretend you’re protecting her while you’re really just Wickersly’s dog?”
“I’m trying to keep her alive.”
“For them! So they can drain her properly over two years instead of executing her tomorrow. What a hero you are, Prince Lucien. What a noble fucking sacrifice.”
Third floor. One more to go. The connection to Rose stutters, flickers, and for a second I lose it entirely. She’s gone, completely gone.
Then she’s back, but different. No, that’s not right. She’s overlapping with someone else, someone from a different time, and the distortion makes my head spin.
“You feel her,” Lucien says. I don’t bother denying it. “What is she doing?” Lucien asks, and for once the mask slips. He looks as unsettled as I feel.
“Breaking reality, apparently.” I grab the door to the fourth floor. “Which is why we need to get there before Wickersly does.” I trust Lucien as far as I can throw him, but I can sense his honesty in wanting to get to Rose before Wickersly does.
We crash through the door to the fourth floor, and there’s Drake, standing in the middle of the hallway like he’s guardian of Valhalla. All he’s missing is the magical horn to signal the end times. His form oscillates between solid and translucent, more real than I’ve ever seen him.
“Where is she?” Lucien demands.
Drake’s expression is pure anguish. “Gone.”
“What do you mean gone?” I advance on him, letting my human mask slip enough that he can see the demon underneath. “Where is Rose?”
“She did it.” His voice is hollow, defeated. “She found the way to access the original contract. She’s not on this plane anymore.
There’s a book on the floor, pages scattered everywhere.
I can smell Rose’s fear and stubbornness, and that wild magic that makes her so intoxicatingly dangerous.
But she’s not here. The space where she should be is empty except for a faint wavy quality in the air, like heat rising off the asphalt on a hot summer day.
“Bring her back,” Lucien says to Drake, and there’s actual violence in his tone now. “Whatever you helped her do?—”
“I can’t!” Drake’s form solidifies as his anger rises. “Don’t you think I would if I could? I can’t reach her. I can’t even find her.”
I close my eyes and focus on the thread between us, the connection I’ve been trying to ignore since that night I fed from her dreams. It’s still there, but stretched impossibly thin, pulled across centuries instead of feet.
“I can feel her,” I say quietly. “She’s… God, she’s in 1692.”
Both of them turn to stare at me.
“The Salem Witch Trials,” Lucien says, understanding immediately. “The original signing.”
“She’s there. Right now. Existing in two times at once.” I open my eyes and look at the shimmering space where she vanished. “And if we don’t find a way to pull her back, she’s going to be trapped there. Or worse.”
“Worse?” Drake asks.
“She’ll cease to exist in either time,” Lucien says grimly. “Temporal paradox. She’ll be erased completely.”
We all stare at each other, three supernatural creatures who supposedly hate each other, united in one terrifying realization: Rose is beyond any of our reaches, lost in time, and we might have just lost the only person any of us actually give a damn about.