Page 20 of The Bound Zodiac

Jamie’s voice cut the chaos and pain, only barely. “Stop it! Rowan, STOP! You’re hurting her, she can feel it, you idiot!”

Rowan froze. All that weight sucking at my skull vanished in an instant. He looked at me like I’d stabbed him through the heart, the color draining from his face. His magic snapped closed so abruptly the pressure drop made my ears pop.

I dragged air into my lungs, the migraine fading, but the aftershock left me shaking. My sleeve was slick with blood and my vision wouldn’t focus.

“Fuck,” I choked out, and then Jamie was at my side, one pale scarred hand bracing my shoulder.

He didn’t say anything. Didn’t have to. His whole body was tense, the air around him shimmering with adrenaline and rage that wasn’t aimed at me. He glared at Rowan, who literally couldn’t look at me anymore. Horror carved deep lines into his face.

Lucas was already moving, grabbing the last two bane in a frozen tide while Phoenix and Theo slammed the containment cages shut. The entire crowd up in the gallery had gone dead quiet. The second the last bane stopped shrieking behind the reinforced bars, the wards around the pit glimmered and fizzled out, leaving us blinking in the sudden silence.

I was still kneeling, blood soaking my fingers. Every breath felt like broken glass, and the bond was wide open and raw, every bit of pain bouncing back and forth between me and my shield.

Rowan staggered back, face twisted in self-loathing. I could feel it from him. Not through the non-existent bond, but just from him. The agony of what he’d done. How using his power to dominate Percy had gone straight through the tether and fucked me over when I was already injured. If this hadn’t been a controlled environment, I could have easily been killed.

He was shaking, and looked like if he’d had any less pride, he would have thrown himself in front of a bus.

For one second nobody moved. Then Nightfall was on me, Percy hauling me to my feet with a hand under my elbow, checking my face for signs of brain damage. Aiden’s jaw was clenched so hard I thought he’d break teeth. Draco hovered just behind, his own wound sealed but not healed, silent as a ghost.

Theo shouldered past Aiden and pressed a towel to my arm that someone had given him from the sidelines, his magic a glowing warmth flooding through me, knitting the muscle back together in seconds. The pain went from stabbing to a dull throb. Jamie kept his hand on my back, not letting go, as if he was the only thing anchoring me to this body.

Rowan didn’t speak. He just stared at the floor, fists trembling.

Professor Saris’s boots thudded down the stairs. He gave the cages a once-over, then spat on the sand, unimpressed. “You boxed them. Didn’t lose one. But if you try that shite in the field, you’ll get yourselves slaughtered.”

We all knew what he really meant. The bond was open, but not complete. Stardust was locked out, coordinating by voice and body language alone, and it just wasn’t enough. We needed a mental link if we wanted a chance of making this work. We needed the bond.

Percy glared at Rowan, his own temples still beaded with sweat. “So what, you going to keep trying to give me a fucking aneurysm every time I step toward Jupiter?”

Rowan’s voice was rawer than I’d ever heard it. “I didn’t mean to hurt her.”

“Next time, maybe don’t try to flatten my skull,” Percy shot back, but even he didn’t have much venom left in him. He kept a hand on my shoulder, steadying us both.

Saris let the silence throb for a second, just to be a dick. “You want to run a ten-man shield, Black, you’d better figure out how to keep this from happening in a live attack. Or none of you are coming back in one piece.”

I wiped the blood off my arm and flexed my hand. The wound was sealed but hot, the skin around it red. I nodded at the professor, knowing that as gruff and stern as he was, he only wanted to make sure we were as strong as we could be out there in the real world. I’d seen plenty of what real world attacks were like, and shit like this was dangerous.

Theo dabbed at the edge of my sleeve that was soaked in blood. “You should shower off, love. Get some food into that belly before you pass out.”

I nodded, not even having the energy to be a brat at the moment. I got my fucking ass kicked, and all I wanted to do was crawl into a deep, dark hole and scream.

The other shield teams trickled out, shooting us sidelong looks as they went, full of judgment that we fully deserved. Professor Saris dismissed us with a flick of his fingers. “Rest up. Tomorrow we’re taking the shields outside the wards. If you want to see how fast you can die, by all means, keep this up.”

As one, the ten of us headed out, silent except for the sand crunching under our boots.

Back in the tower, the shower was blessedly hot. I stripped out of my training clothes, blood and sand stuck everywhere, and let the water batter me until my thoughts slowed to a crawl. My arm hurt like hell, but Theo’s work kept the skin from splitting again, and the muscle knit together nicely beneath. I scrubbed my hair twice, rinsed blood and dirt down the drain, and just stood there with my head leaned against the tile.

You’re a fucking mess, I told myself. An actual disaster. Couldn’t even make it through hour one of joint training without nearly dying.

After the water started to run cold, I figured it was time to get out. I wrapped a towel around myself and padded into my room. Noodle had taken up the entire pillow. He raised his head, tongue flicking. ‘You need a mouse.’

“That’s the plan,” I grumbled, then realized what he’d said. “Not a mouse though. Maybe a hamburger.”

‘Mouse burger.’

I scrunched up my nose at him. “That’s disgusting.”

I flopped on the bed, exhaling. The adrenaline was starting to wear off, leaving me heavy and kind of spaced out mentally. For a long second, I just lay there, eyes half-closed.