out on the battlements to watch a meteor shower. I glance over at him, feeling all warm and fuzzy on the inside, only to find him already watching me, a soft smile lighting up the hard planes of his face. So I’m not the only one remembering that night.
“So, wanna tell us why we’re in the planetarium, Macy?” Flint asks.
She gives him a huge grin. “Well…I was practicing how to build portals with Mr. Badar, our Lunar Astronomy teacher, because I figured we might need one to get back to campus after the Boneyard. Anyway, Mr. Badar was demonstrating how to build a portal leaving campus instead of just returning, and so he built this one…” She holds her hands wide like she’s revealing a magic trick. “And he left it up so I could come back and study it!”
“Way to go, Macy.” Flint offers her a high five, and now we’re all grinning.
“Only thing is that portals tend to move a few inches with the rotation of the Earth, so this one could have moved.” She points to a corner in the room. “Last time I saw it, it was over there.”
I turn and take a few steps back, so I can see around the telescope to where she’s pointing, then scream as I feel myself falling, falling, falling for the second time in less than a week.
96
Get Fanged
No matter how hard I try to right myself as I tumble through the vortex—determined not to make the same mistakes this time—I end up falling out of the sky and flat on my face. It turns out, hitting the ground hurts even more than slamming into the planetarium stage did, and it knocks the breath out of me.
Still, I scoot along the ground, trying to get out of the way of the portal before someone else comes shooting through after me. Sure enough, I still haven’t managed to take a full breath before Jaxon lands on his feet nearby. The jerk.
“Are you okay?” he asks, crouching next to me.
I nod as my lungs finally start working again. “One of these days, you’re going to need to teach me how to do that without nearly dying,” I gasp.
He grins. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Seconds later, the portal drops Macy out—and she, too, manages to land on her feet. It’s a shakier landing than Jaxon’s, but that’s not saying much, since I’m pretty sure the moon landing was shakier than his.
I look around and realize we’re in the forest beyond the cottages. I wish I could see a bit more as I wait for everyone else to make it through the portal. But it’s dark and there isn’t much to see.
Once everyone arrives, Flint and Eden change into their dragons. Flint lowers his head and I’m just about to climb on the way he showed me—much to Jaxon’s chagrin—when we’re suddenly surrounded by about twenty Circle guards in their black uniforms—several of whom have partially shifted into their werewolf or dragon forms.
The others—vampires and warlocks—stand shoulder to shoulder with them. And every single one of them looks like they mean business.
“You need to come with us,” the vampy-looking one with the most stripes on his shoulder says.
Jaxon steps forward, gives him a sardonic look. “You know that’s not going to happen, Simon.”
The fact that Jaxon knows his name surprises me, until it registers that these are his father’s guards. “The king has given orders that anyone trying to leave campus be detained and brought to him immediately,” the guard responds.
“My father doesn’t get to make those decisions at Katmere and you know it, Simon. The Circle doesn’t run this school.”
Jaxon takes another step forward, angling his body so that he’s blocking as many of us from the guards as he can manage, while also keeping me firmly behind him.
“Yes, but I take my orders from your father, and I will follow them. He thought you and your mate might be too afraid to show up tomorrow, so we’ve been on the lookout for you all night. And here you are.” He doesn’t finish the sentence with like the cowards you are, but his voice says it for him.
“We’re not running away,” Jaxon tells him in the most reasonable tone I’ve ever heard from him. “We’re out here practicing for the Trials tomorrow. My mate was nervous and wanted to do one more practice session.”
“Well then, I’m sure the king will understand when you explain it to him.” Simon grins coldly.