Chapter 60

SEVEN.

I look into June’s eyes, drowning in the hazel depths and feeling more and more heated up. But I don’t want it to be a fast hazy affair that’s all heat and fire, quickly burning into ashes until there’s nothing. I want it to be slow.

I want to feel her until she’s all mine.

“Seven,” she whispers, her thumb tracing my lips and leaning closer.

I close the distance between us, pressing my lips on hers and pulling her close to me. I wrap my arm around her tighter, needing more and more of her. Her warmth and her scent wrap around me like a vice, and I find that I don’t want to get away. I want to stay in this for the rest of my life, nestled inside her like this.

She’s wearing nothing under the shirt, and just thinking about it is sending waves of lust all over me. As she parts my lips open with hers and slides her tongue in my mouth, I find myself lifting the shirt over her body until my hands make contact with skin.

Warm and soft and just… June.

She moans into my mouth as my hands trace her waist, going up until I can cup the curves of her breasts. My body is aflame. I can’t think of anything but my need to make her mine, and how amazing she feels under my hands. She touches me too, her hands a little shaky as she slides them under my shirt and feels up my chest. I’m drowning in her, and there’s nothing else to do but let myself feel the pleasure.

Everything about this is new and familiar. It feels like we’ve done it all before.

June tugs up my shirt, wanting to take it off. I break off the kiss for a moment, but something strange happens when I look at her face.

She looks… different.

Her features are a little messed up. At first I think it's just the dim light, but then I realize that she’s wearing a different thing. Particularly a silk dress that goes all the way down to her ankles. She’s smiling at me, and when I meet her eyes, I realize that she’s not June anymore, as closely as they look alike.

It’s the woman in the painting. The woman in my vision.

The woman that the first Salvatore trusted. The one who broke his heart and everything he held dear.

She smiles at me. I blink hard to get rid of the vision and come back to seeing June again. All the desire in my body has left, replaced with confusion and fear. But instead of the vision going away, it gets worse. Suddenly the room is engulfed in flames. There are people screaming outside the windows. And even with all that, she remains smiling at me, unbothered by it all….

“Stop,” I whisper.

I blink, and just like that, June is back with me, clutching my face with concern and peering into my eyes. “Seven? What’s wrong? Is everything okay?”

“Yes,” I mutter, shaking my head. “Must be nerves. I just… can we still continue?”

June just smiles softly at me, holding my face tenderly. “I understand being nervous. I’m nervous too. It would be my first time and I know it would hurt. We don’t have to continue, Seven. We can just save it when we both feel… not so nervous.”

“But I want to do it now,” I mumble like an idiot. “I don’t know what happened and I freaked out and now everything is ruined—”

My words get drowned by her soft laugh. She squeezes my face and kisses my nose. “Nothing is ruined. Now just hold me and let’s sleep, okay?”

“Okay,” I say at last, relieved that she thinks nothing is bad. But my heart feels like its going to leap out of my throat because of what I saw. I don’t even know what that’s about.

I close my eyes and wrap my arm around her as she turns around and starts to relax. But my mind is still awake, still churning out thoughts, and soon enough, Astro emerges with an air of formality and seriousness I never quite felt from him before.

“When a Dragon marked a Human, it brought forth the end of an era,” he tells me. “Disaster ensued. Everyone was in danger, Dragons and Humans alike. All because of a mark. All because of love. History has a funny way of repeating itself, and disaster always follows those who are involved. Tread carefully, young Dragon.”

* * *

The next few days have been… good.

So good that it got suspicious at some point.

After the night at the manor, I took June home. We kissed by the door of their house and she went in, welcomed by a giggly Tiffany who’s already asking about what we’ve done before she could even get into the door.

June remained happy for the rest of the week. She remained so sweet. We kissed in my car a couple of times but she never tried to elevate things. I still don’t know if that makes me feel bad or not, but I’m happy that she never showed a single sign of resentment because I wasn’t able to continue what I wanted to do that night.

Exams passed, and I did pretty well. Although it feels so strange to still do some normal things after all the supernatural stuff that I witnessed and participated in.

News about Charles and Patricia being missing has spread, and the school held a memorial for both of them in the forest, which is now once again open to everyone now that the culprit has been caught.

“He doesn’t say a lot,” Amelie told me when I asked him about the doctor and what he says when he gets interrogated. “He just says that it’s unfair for him to take all the blame when he’s not the only one who participated in it. But when asked who else is doing it besides him, he doesn’t say anything. Dad says that means he’s lying.”

I suppose it makes sense when she phrased it that way, but when I told June, she just said, “I believe him. There might be other people involved. That hospital should have closed down, but it’s not even being investigated.”

And she’s right about that. No big action is being done.

Nancy is still suspicious. She still avoids us. She refused to talk about how she found out and what she did to get to that conclusion. All she did was dismiss us with, “I just followed my gut.”

Well, that doesn’t help much. So June and I kept pestering her for the following days, asking everything about the whole sting.

But even after we cornered her, she still has the same thing to say.

It’s Friday today, and June thinks I’m off to practice fencing. I still feel bad about that lie, but at least I’m here now with everyone else, and we’re about to start.

Professor Venetia seems to be in a better mood. All the weight seems to have been lifted off his shoulders and he doesn’t really have a problem now. The disappearances have been solved and he was never questioned once. Although to be fair, June and I probably jumped the gun with our suspicion of him.

We’re gathered in the underground arena now. There’s a huge structure in the corner that has been covered with thick curtains. I can’t make out its shape, but everyone seems to be excited just looking at it. I’m more nervous since I have no idea what this man has cooked up, but I try to stay still as he clears his throat and calls for our attention.

“Dragons,” he says, clapping his hands together. “The Hunt is drawing near. The quest for the Crown is almost upon us again, and I can feel that one of us would take it this time.”

Cheers erupt in our circle. I don’t join, suddenly attacked by nerves at the thought of someone else taking the Crown but me.

“Today, we are going to train your reflexes and your reaction times,” he says. “We will encounter so many dangers when we set off to find the Crown, and we need to be ready when challenges come. We have to react fast, because our lives could be in jeopardy just from one second of delay.”

He moves over to the curtains and grabs the edge. “We have here just the thing that would test that.”

He pulls the curtains, letting it billow in the air before falling on the floor. In the distance is nothing but a huge opening. A tunnel. There’s nothing but darkness beyond, but wind is blowing from the other side, suggesting an exit.

My heart starts to beat fast when I see the pitch black. I don’t know why, but my instincts are screaming inside my head.

“All of you would have thirty minutes to find the end of this labyrinth, and I will be waiting on the other side with a prize for the winner.” Professor Venetia smiles, his eyes turning dark with mischief. “And I must warn you, Dragons. You won’t be the only ones in the labyrinth. I set up traps and dangers. Best of luck to all of you.”

With that, he snaps his fingers, and we all rush into the wide opening of the maze, engulfed in complete darkness.