Page 16 of Starlight Mates

I run, knowing I don’t have a choice. I don’t have any weapons on me. I can’t…I can’t let my monster out here. There are too many people. It’s too dangerous and Onyx is here. It would consume him too. Gods, I can’t kill him or any other innocents. I run as fast as I can towards a random clothing shop and through it, to another street behind where there are a few bodies on the ground. I try not to look at them, to have to mark them as more innocents who died because of me. I tug open the door to the shop next door and slide in, rushing to the middle of the store.

I hear a whimper and look down to see a bundle of Nexus kids hiding in a corner of the store behind mannequins. Shit. I can’t let the Vian find them; kids are too easy targets for them. “She’s in here. I can smell her Nexus.”

Tracker. Great. I duck down, but I have time to see two male Vian step into the front of the store. Their hoods have fallen off, and they both have shaved heads with number tattoos all over their skin, marking them as hunters. How did they get into this city? I thought it was meant to be safe. Blaring alarms finally start going off around the city, and I sense magic in the air. I hold my finger up to my lips and tell the kids to be quiet.

When I spin, my eyes widen as Onyx sneaks into the store from where I came in, still fully clothed, and he grabs me around the waist to pull me out, but I push at him, pointing at the kids. He grits his teeth and goes to stand to fight these two off on his own, but I grab him. They are stronger than the others, and who knows what powers they have? They could explode and take all of the kids’ lives with them.

If I’m pushed too far, my monster will come out to play, and an explosion would be a blessing. I glance at his arm wherehe’s been stabbed with something, and my Nexus blanches, demanding we fix its mate. Protect. Blood pours down to my waist where he is still holding me, and he lowers his hands. He is pale, and I know his Nexus is struggling right now not to shift and protect me. I have to do something. “Keep them safe and I will stop them. I won’t let them hurt you, Gwen.”

“Just stay still and be quiet.” I grab his hand and link our fingers together, letting one of my most used powers spread out around us, morphing us until we just look like mannequins in the corner of the store.

Onyx’s eyes widen as he takes in the magic. How clear it is and how he has learnt another secret of mine. The Vian walk right past us, and one of them picks up a mannequin, throwing it into the wall. “Fuck, we can’t leave without her.”

“We failed and if we stay longer, they are going to capture us. We need to leave,” the other snarls at him. They run out the back door, and only when I’m sure they have left, I let my power drop. Onyx sits down, breathing out slowly. “You have your dad’s power to make people look like…”

“Not the same. He could make people look like others on the street, but I can make a small area look like my surroundings,” I explain. “My dad’s magic was limited to touch, but I can make a small room morph into whatever I want someone to see for a short time.” There’s no point hiding this from him.

“You’re a more powerful version of his gift,” he proudly answers, and I hate that pride in his eyes. “Something good he did for you. Despite every other choice your parents made.” I step away from him. He knows nothing about my parents. “You have two unique powers. That’s interesting.”

Shit, he’s seen more of my powers, and if he sees anything else, he’s going to know that I’m lying about everything. Nexus never have more than two powers. It’s impossible. I’mimpossible. When he figures out that I have endless power, he’s going to know exactly what my secret is.

Then he will hate me.

Chapter

Nine

Idon’t get to work in the first week. In fact, none of us do anything but read books on Nexus history in our rooms whilst Annie’s dad issued a lockdown on the entire city while the rangers searched for the security breach. Annie had a few phone calls from her dad, who sounded stressed because the Vian haven’t breached the walls in years. The last time was when only one sneaked in, but he never killed anyone. They killed five people in that attack, two more barely survived, and they haven’t been caught. Onyx killed seven of them before he got to me and is being hailed a hero of Starlight by Annie’s dad, but he was injured, and he needed to recover too. He went straight to a healer after dropping me off at the academy, and Finnegan silently escorted me to my room.

Then left five silent rangers outside the doors to watch me.

Annie yawns, knocking me out of my thoughts. “Finally, we’re allowed to go back to normal lessons. I was getting a little stir crazy, and it didn’t help that I can’t leave the academy to see my mate,” she huffs. “Phone calls are not enough.”

“We both might regret wanting to leave this room when we go to Aleksander’s lesson first.” I wince. Something about him bothers me more than the others. Hollis is angry, Onyx is tryingtoo hard to be my friend, and Rhodes is sweet, which is just going to get his own heart broken. Finnegan is the only one I cannot figure out, and I would prefer to just avoid him.

It’s been fun to be roommates with Annie and be trapped with her for a week while we did homework given to us. I wrote fifty pages on a star in the sky I found, and now I’m a pro at the boring history of the first known war of the Nexus. Outside of studying, we had fun sharing our favourite music with each other, including belting out a hit that our twelve-year-old selves fangirled over.

The only time I wanted to jump out of the window was when I had to listen to her FaceTime her mate and be so in love. It’s unfair that love like that is real. He calls her non-stop to check how she is. Apparently, he was locked down in his house, and he wasn’t allowed to attend his sports university where he plays for a big team. Other than their phone calls, it was normal, just hanging out. Something I really didn’t get on the run, and I kind of enjoyed myself.

But reality is outside the door, and I can’t pretend it isn’t anymore. Annie hands me my boot I lost, and I tug it on before doing up the laces. “Smile, you look like you’re walking to your grave. He is your Nexus mate bond. He can’t kill you even if he wanted to.”

“Hollis proved killing me would be too easy. That embarrassing me is more fun,” I remind her. “And he pales in comparison to how scary Aleksander is.” I don’t think I can take another lesson like Hollis’s, even though I’m well aware that I’m pretty much going to have no choice for the rest of the week.

“Well, at least tomorrow we have Tutor Rhodes,” she reminds me. “You said Rhodes was nicer, right?”

“Yeah, he is,” I admit. “I haven’t seen him since he said he’d go shopping with me and then bailed out for a work emergency.”

She shrugs. “He runs the emergency and foster animal shelter that his mum opened before she passed away. My dad is a friend of the animal shelter’s owner. Rhodes goes to a lot of the higher up functions with the owner to raise money for the shelter or encourage people to adopt animals.”

“Animals don’t like my Nexus, so working there isn’t going to end well,” I mutter, even if I’m a little impressed and want to see this shelter.

She frowns my way. “Oh, my Nexus loves them. She has a weird complex of liking animals that worship her.” She chuckles. “My mum has a tiny dachshund, and my bear loves to make me shift to show the barking dachshund who is boss. It’s weird.”

“Who wins, the dachshund or your Nexus bear?”

“The dachshund every time. My Nexus is a teddy bear at heart,” she admits with a grin. That doesn’t surprise me. “Let’s get to this lesson.”

It’s easy enough to follow the map in Annie’s phone to the back of the castle. The older rangers flood the academy, and the crowds are hard to get through, but everyone just seems happy to be finally outside their rooms. Aleksander’s lesson is held in the gymnasium. It has a wall of glass that overlooks the cliff side and the stormy sea below. The other wall is all steel, layered with different weapons clipped to every inch of it. Every kind of weapon that I’ve ever seen. Axes, bows, swords, daggers. None of them call to me, but I find Annie staring a bit too hard at the swords.

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