Page 51 of The Bound Zodiac

“Yep!” Now there was a massive smile in her voice. “A ton of the prominent shields are going. I guess they’re pulling out the big guns to introduce you guys.”

I groaned, securing my hair into a long braid. “Of course they are. Well on the bright side, we have four months between now and the gala. That’s plenty of time for me to get taken out by the bane so I don’t have to go.”

“You’re hilarious, have I ever told you that?”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

JUPITER

I woke to screaming. Not my own. It was coming through the bond. I sat up in the dark, one hand pressed flat against my sternum where the thread was pulled taut, and I didn’t have to reach for it to know whose it was. Jamie’s thread was the one that always felt like an abyss of grief. Right now it was a riptide. A current dragging him under.

I was out of bed before my brain had fully caught up. My feet hit the cold stone floor, and I didn’t bother with slippers, didn’t bother with a robe. I was already moving through the door, down the narrow corridor, past the landing where Percy’s door stood shut and silent. The bond was screaming in my chest, and I let it pull me, following the thread like a lifeline.

I didn’t knock. I just pushed the door open and let myself inside. He wasn’t screaming out loud, his mouth was clamped shut, his jaw locked so tight the tendons in his neck stood out, but the sound coming through the bond was deafening. A boy’s voice. A sixteen-year-old’s voice, screaming for someone who wasn’t coming.

He was thrashing, his body was caught in the sheets, tangled and fighting desperately, his fists clenched so hard his knuckles were white even in the dim light filtering through his window.

I knew this nightmare. It was the one he had over and over again, sometimes potent and sometimes just barely manageable. The night his parents died in front of him, and he couldn’t do a single goddamn thing to stop it.

I crossed the room in three steps and climbed onto the bed. The mattress dipped under my weight as I slid in behind him, pressed my chest against his back and wrapped my arms around his torso. I pulled him tight against me. He was shaking, every muscle in his body rigid, vibrating with the effort of fighting something that wasn’t there.

“Shh,” I whispered against the back of his neck. “Jamie. I’m here. You’re here. You’re safe.”

His breathing was ragged and broken by hitches that sounded like sobs he was choking back even in his sleep. I held him tighter, one hand flat against his chest, feeling his heartbeat hammering against my palm. I pressed my forehead between his shoulder blades and let the bond hum between us, feeding calm into the thread the way Tala had taught us.

It took a long time. Long enough that my arms started to ache, and my cheek went numb against his spine. But slowly, the rigid tension in his body began to ease. The thrashing stopped. The screaming in the bond faded to a whimper, then a whisper, then nothing at all.

He went still for a moment, and then he breathed in a long, shuddering inhale that filled his lungs for what felt like the first time in minutes, and his hand came up and covered mine where it rested against his chest. His fingers were cold and still trembling.

“Jupiter?”

“Yeah, Jamie.” I didn’t move. Didn’t loosen my grip. “I’m here.”

He turned in my arms, and I saw that tears had tracked down both cheeks, catching the faint light from the window, and his green eyes were red-rimmed and glassy.

He closed his eyes. “I’m sorry. I try to keep it contained. I⁠—”

“Don’t.” I shifted closer, until there was no space left between us, and pressed my palm against his cheek. His skin was hot under my hand, feverish almost, and damp with tears. “Don’t apologize. Not for that. Never for that.”

His eyes found mine in the dark, and something in them shifted. He kissed me. It was soft. So soft it barely qualified as a kiss. Just the press of his mouth against mine, his lips still wet with tears. I could taste the salt of them, the heat of his breath. My hand was still on his cheek, and I felt his jaw work under my palm as he kissed me again, a little harder this time, a little less careful.

I kissed him back. I couldn’t not. His mouth was warm and so goddamn careful, like he was afraid I’d pull away, and the thought of him being afraid of anything after what he’d just lived through made something in my chest ache.

When he pulled back, his eyes were still wet, still red, but the grief had been pushed aside by something hungrier.

I brushed my thumb across his cheekbone, catching a tear before it could fall. “Let me make you feel better.”

His breath stuttered and his eyes went dark, not with grief this time. I moved before he could answer. I swung my leg over his hips and settled on top of him, straddling his waist, and the sound he made, almost a groan, went straight through me. His hands found my hips, fingers digging into the fabric of my pajama pants, and I could feel him hard already, pressing against me through the thin cotton.

I reached down and pulled my nightshirt over my head in one motion. The cold air hit my skin and I heard his breath leave him in a rush. His eyes dropped to my chest, and the look on his face was reverent and hungry.

Jamie was a virgin. In the waking world, at least. Months ago, in the dream world, I’d had him in my mouth, had felt him come apart under my hands, had watched his face as pleasure obliterated everything else. But that was a dream. This was real. This was his body under mine, his hands on my skin, his eyes looking up at me like I was the only thing in the universe that mattered.

“Are you ready?” I asked. I needed him to know this was his choice, that he could stop this at any second, and I’d climb off him and hold him until the sun came up and never mention it again.

He laughed, his green eyes flaring bright in the darkness, and the sound was so deep and raspy that my belly flipped several times. “I’ve been ready since the moment I laid eyes on you.” His hands tightened on my hips.

My hands found his, and I guided them to my breasts, and the sound he made when his palms met my skin was enough to make me wetter than ever. He was tentative at first, careful, almost, like he was mapping me. But when I rolled my hips against him, and he felt how slick I was through the thin fabric, something shifted. His grip tightened. His thumbs found my nipples and pressed, and the bolt of pleasure that shot through me made me gasp.