“Want me to take her back?” Killian asked as if bored with this conversation. I envied that he wasn’t winded at all.
The Dean glowered at him. “Excuse me?”
“Take her back,” he repeated as if the Dean hadn’t heard him. He glanced at the golden sword above her desk. “You can undo the bond. It’s still immature.”
My stomach dropped when the Dean shifted her weight as if considering the idea. Then she slapped the desk, making Jasmine and I flinch. “The riderbond is sacred, Killian. I don’t need to remind you of that. If you didn’t like your mate you should have come to me sooner. You know the rules. I break the bond only in dire cases, of which yours is not.” She cocked her head. “Where is this behavior coming from, Killian? And why in all the realms would you go on a Tunnel Raid?”
Killian straightened, then glanced at Jasmine.
Jasmine sighed. “I told him that freshmen and sophomores were allowed.”
The Dean frowned. “And you didn’t care to inform me of that earlier? He could have died. That was a Class 5 Tunnel disturbance.” Killian stiffened, but didn’t look at me. He had almost died, but he clearly didn’t want the Dean to know that.
Jasmine ran her thumb over the hilt of the blade at her side. It wasn’t a threatening motion, but I took note of it all the same. “I didn’t want you to send someone else to bring them in,” she admitted. “I had to tell him he could go order to get him off of Vivi’s trail. She was trying to escape, and honestly, I was going to let her.” She rubbed her temple as if she was about to get a headache. “I didn’t realize she’d run straight into a vortex like an idiot.”
The Dean considered Jasmine’s admission for a moment. “And why did you wait to reveal this to me now?”
Jasmine surprised me by grabbing my arm, making me squeak. “Because you had to see this for yourself. If I had told you earlier, I’d be grounded and I won’t let you play favorites with Killian or his chosen mate.” She yanked my sleeve up, revealing my burning birthmark. “You know what that is, right? You can’t tell me that you’re okay with Killian bringing someone like her here. Not after all we’ve been through.” The accusation was fierce, but it held a note of disgust to it as if Jasmine suspected the Dean was already well aware of my lineage.
I struggled to get out of Jasmine’s grasp, but the chick had the strength to fight Max Green on steroids. “Get off me!” I screeched.
“That’s enough,” the Dean snapped. She pointed at Jasmine and Killian. “You both have stall duty for a month.”
“But I—” Jasmine began, only to be cut off by the Dean.
“Out,” she said, the word so final that it made my jaw snap shut.
Jasmine glowered at the Dean before flouncing around and stomping out the door. Killian continued to ignore me as he gave the golden sword a longing look, then turned to follow her. The door shut behind them, making me flinch.
The Dean visibly relaxed and gave me what I imagined was supposed to be a friendly smile. “You’ll have to excuse them. They have a lot of responsibility on their shoulders. And Jasmine, well, I hope she’ll tell you her story one day.”
“What did she mean?” I asked, not able to hold the questions in as I rubbed the exposed mark on my arm. “Is it a bad thing… being what I am?”
The Dean gestured to one of the seats and waited until I sat down before speaking. “That’s a difficult question to answer, Vivienne, but I’ll do my best. You have the mark of the goddess and that can come as either a blessing… or a curse.”
I chewed the inside of my lip. There was definitely truth to that. On the one hand, my goddess blood had ruined Killian’s life when I made Solstice and manipulated him into becoming my mate—even if it had all been subconscious on my part. But then today in the Tunnel… I’d saved his life, too. “That sounds complicated.” I glanced up at the Dean, seeing my own pleading reflection in her eyes. “What does Jasmine know about me? What’s she so afraid of?” My guess was she had a thing for Killian and I was totally ruining it, but he hated me, so aside from the riderbond and all… there was no reason why I should stand in her way.
My stomach twisted as I thought of the innocuous idea of giving up what didn’t belong to me in the first place. I shoved my fingers under my legs to keep from picking at my nails.
The Dean sighed. “Perhaps she’ll tell you her side of the story one day, but you must understand that she lost her entire family at the destruction of wild dragon attacks.”
I gasped. “What? Really?” As horrible as that was, I certainly couldn’t be blamed for it. “What does that have to do with me?”
She stood and went to the bookshelf, running her fingers over the spines until she reached a leather-bound tome. She pulled it out and spread open the pages on her desk, pointing at a map with an island in the middle and tiny threads connecting to smaller circles. “This is Avalon, a place where those like you used to live. It’s the hub connecting all the realms together.” She ran her finger around the various threads as she smiled at me. “It’s a great honor, Vivienne, and it’s why I have high hopes for you. But those like Jasmine who have been personally hurt by the wild dragons blame those who were supposed to protect this hub. When we lost Avalon, many worlds
