Page 46 of Heartflame

Mate. The word kept circling back, unavoidable as gravity.

I’d spent the entire evening with Quill flying him over the sleeping town, sitting across from him in that coffee shop while he talked about his family and his dreams… And every second of it felt like confirmation. This was right. He was right. We were right together in a way that defied logic or reason or better judgment.

But there was a problem, one that gnawed at me even as I soared through the starlit sky.

My grandfather didn’t know yet. And more importantly, Quill didn’t know we were mates. He had no idea what the mate bond meant, what it would mean for him to be tied to me for the rest of his life while I watched him grow old and eventually... eventually leave me behind.

The thought made my stomach clench painfully.

I should have told him. Should have found the words somewhere between the coffee and the stars. But every time I’d opened my mouth to try, I’d chickened out. What was I supposed to say? “By the way, Red, you’re my one true mate and we’re biologically hard-wired to be together forever, but also you’re going to die and I’m going to live for centuries, so buckle up for some serious heartbreak?”

Yeah, that would have gone over great.

I landed on a cliff overlooking the mountains, my wings folding against my back as I shifted into a half human form. From here, I could see the faint shimmer of the wards. Somewhere in there, Quill was probably already asleep, his mind blissfully unaware of the cosmic joke the universe had played on us both.

And that wasn’t the only problem. I stared out at the forest, my mind racing with everything that was going on. The Purity Front was still out there, probably still testing the wards, still planning their next move. That much was clear from the breaches we’d been experiencing. And my grandfather was worried enough to tell me to keep everything a secret for now. The world felt like it was balancing on the edge of a knife, about to plunge into chaos. But with Quill I felt better than I ever had in my life. Despite all the danger surrounding us, I was happy and content. I never wanted it to end.

For now, all of that could wait. All I cared about was my mate and taking care of him in any way I could. Because, if I was being really honest with myself, it wasn’t just the mate bond at play anymore. I was falling for Quill. Hell, I might’ve been in love with him already.

I sat with that realization for a long moment, letting it settle into my bones like something inevitable. Love. Real love, not just the biological imperative of the mate bond, but actual genuine feeling for the person Quill was. His stubbornness and his brilliance, the way he cared so deeply about things even when he pretended not to, the vulnerability he only showed me in the dark.

I was completely and utterly fucked.

A sound from below caught my attention. The snap of a branch, followed by the low murmur of voices. I tensed immediately, my dragon senses sharpening as I tried to pinpoint the source. The forest floor was dark, but my night vision was excellent. I could make out shapes moving between the trees. Multiple shapes. Nobody was supposed to be out here.

My blood ran cold.

I shifted fully, my body expanding into my true form as I launched myself from the cliff. The wind caught my wings as I descended, silent as death, until I was close enough to see what was happening below.

Undead.

I could smell the rotting flesh immediately, wafting up on the breeze in a putrid cloud. There were dozens of them, maybe more, moving through the forest in what looked like a coordinated effort. Their movements were jerky and unnatural, their skin hanging loose on their frames like clothes that didn’t quite fit.

But how were they here in the first place? Necromancy was a dead magic. There wasn’t a single spell book in existence that contained necromantic magic anymore. My tutors only touched on it briefly during my studies, just long enough to say that it had been destroyed at the peak of the dark ages. Since then, not a single dead creature had been resurrected by magic.

Until now apparently.

And they were moving toward Widdershins. Toward the wards. Toward Quill.

But I didn’t panic. Not yet. The wards were still up, the same ones my grandfather personally oversaw. And they’d held every attack at bay thus far. The undead were fragile, they would just shatter against the wards.

I could still feel the mate bond pulling at me, demanding that I go back, that I protect what was mine. But I forced myself to stay still, to observe, to understand what I was dealing with.

The undead moved with purpose, their rotting stumps carrying them closer to the academy. My stomach twisted. It had taken no small amount of magic to raise these creatures from the dead. Someone had paid a terrible price to work that much necromancy at once and had sent them here specifically to test the wards again.

Or worse. To break them.

I needed to report this to my grandfather immediately. But first, I needed to know how many there were and what direction they were headed. If they managed to breach the wards while Quill was asleep in his dorm, if they got anywhere near him...

The thought made my scales prickle with rage.

I counted as many as I could from my vantage point. There were at least sixty, maybe more hidden in the deeper shadows of the forest. They wore the tattered remains of clothes, and some of them still had wounds that should have been fatal. Whatever necromancer had raised them hadn’t bothered with making them subtle or even remotely human-looking anymore.

Whoever was leading the charge was getting bolder. More desperate. And they’d brought far greater numbers this time.

I launched myself back into the sky, my wings beating hard as I raced back toward campus. The flight that had felt so peaceful just moments ago now felt agonizingly slow. Every second I was away was a second the rest of those things were getting closer to the wards.

When I landed at the northern perimeter, I shifted back into my half human form and stepped through the wards without an issue. I needed to call my grandfather, to let him know what was happening. But the crystal ball was still in my room and I had maybe five minutes before the creatures reached the wards. I had to make a choice.