Page 32 of The Bound Zodiac

Tonight was the meeting with the Order. We’d been summoned to the deep chamber under the academy where they’d apparently been holding their secret cult meetings for centuries. Once we were approved by the Order, we’d be bringing Stardust into the fold. It was all happening too fucking fast. But I understood the urgency in a way. If we were successful, it could mean our entire species returning to the home worlds. This wasn’t the time to be a selfish prick.

A muscle ticked in my jaw. I wasn’t scared, but the thought of merging with five strangers was enough to make my skin crawl. I didn’t know them. I didn’t like not knowing what was coming. But Jupiter did. She trusted them. More than that, she needed them. If this was what it took to make her feel safe, to make her whole again, I’d do it. No questions. No hesitation.

CHAPTER TEN

JUPITER

We made our way through the old corridors at quarter to midnight. Stardust led the way, Phoenix at my right, Rowan at my left, the others fanned out behind. Nightfall followed, prepared for battle by the looks on their faces, even though I already told him the Order were the good guys.

We reached the Nexus chamber to find the sconces lit, and hooded figures waiting eagerly. Unease rippled through the bond as the guys looked around, probably feeling exactly how I felt the first time I was brought down here. Definitely cultish.

Elders in black, hoods up, faces shadowed, stood in a large circular formation. Tala was at the front, but I clocked Phoenix’s dad, Malakai, and Rowan’s grandfather’s old shield-brothers, along with Jamie’s uncles. A couple of the others I didn’t know by name, but the air hummed with their power. The weight of history pressed down on me despite the vastness of the chamber.

I wondered if anyone had ever stood here and not felt like they were about to be judged by the ghosts of a thousand dead gods.

“Jupiter Black,” Tala said, her voice amplified by the echo chamber. “Bring the bonded and un-bonded forward and speak their names.”

I stepped out into the center, the guys fanning behind me. My heart was hammering. My skin itched with anticipation, fear, and want as I tried to keep it together.

“These are the men who will stand as my shield,” I said. “Percy, Aries. Aiden, Leo. Draco, Scorpio. Eris, Gemini. Lucas, Aquarius. Rowan, Capricorn. Phoenix, Taurus. Jamie, Pisces. Theo, Libra.”

Tala’s eyes swept over them. “Do you know what is being asked of you?”

Nobody flinched.

Percy stepped forward. “We do.”

Aiden’s jaw tightened as he nodded. Then Draco, and then Eris.

Lucas’s was calm and respectful when he said, “We’re ready, Elder Tala.”

Rowan, Phoenix, Jamie and Theo each gave a single cut nod, not bothering to speak.

I felt the intentions like needles sinking into my skin, nerves on fire. For a split second, I wanted to bolt. There was no going back from this. Once nine threads tangled up in my head, that was it. No severing, no running, no more pretending I could be normal. Not that it was ever on the table to begin with if we were being honest.

Malakai stepped forward, lowering his hood. The torchlight caught silver in his hair, the old scars on his face, the look of someone who’d seen death time and time again.

“It must be now,” he said, and I knew he was right. The air screamed for the bond, the magic pulse thrumming through the chamber, the ancient magic awake and hungry.

Tala turned to me. “Axis, do you accept the burden?”

“I do.”

She nodded once, and suddenly the scrawling script on the stone below our feet began to glow, thirteen sigils lighting up in sequence until the whole chamber was ringed with blue-white fire. Even the elders seemed cowed by it.

“Warriors form a circle,” Tala ordered. “Axis at the center.”

All nine men moved into place around me. Each one stood in a cardinal position, the way the old world shields used to in the stories. I stood dead center, pulse hammering in my throat. I could feel all of them now. Nightfall, Stardust. The familiar, fractured ache of the old bond, and the probing, expectant tension of the new one waiting to be forged.

Tala began to speak in the old language. The sound of it was liquid, edged in starlight and blood, words older than any living memory. The chamber vibrated with it. I told myself that one day I would learn the language too so that it would never be lost again. If we were going to try to rebuild our lost worlds, then we should do it the right way. Which kind of sucked for me because I’d failed Spanish class three times in high school.

All at once, the guys repeated the phrase after Tala, their voices overlapping, each one layering over the other until it became a chorus. Magic rose in the air. It tasted electric, metallic, and sweet all at once.

I braced myself, but nothing could have prepared me for the sheer force of nine magical signatures slamming into me at once. It was like being struck by lightning, if the lightning was made of liquid fire, and it wanted to fuck me up from the inside out. My body seized, hair whipping around my head, skin blazing with silver light as the colors converged. My feet left the floor, toes hovering over the center sigil, and I heard someone gasp. Maybe it was me. Maybe not.

There was a split second there, when panic crawled up my throat and I nearly called out. Nearly begged them to stop before it became too much. The power flooding through my body hurt more than I anticipated. More than it had down in the Abyss when it was only four magical signatures forcing their way through me. Nine was borderline unnatural.

But I stifled that urge. Because why would I give up after coming so damn far? I’d already dragged their asses across an ocean and convinced them to accept the fact that I’d joined an ancient cult during my time here. What was a little pain compared to all the good our bond would bring to our people?