Fractured Fates (The Arrow Hart Academy #1)

by Hannah Haze

Immediately, the aura of his magic fills the air around him, shimmering in a way I’ve only ever seen once before. Like a litany of stars soaring around his body.

“I’ll keep you safe,” he says. I want to close my eyes and believe him. It would be nice to be safe. It would be nice if someone kept me safe. This past year has been so hard. I’m tired. Tired of running and hiding. Tired of fighting and scrapping. Tired of trying to stay alive. Tired of being alone.

She smells like fucking sunshine. It has my blood buzzing again.

“It’s the way things have been done for the last fifty years, and it’s brought stability and peace to our country. Before this system, the world was chaotic.” My aunt taught me to never buy bullshit like that. If something sounds too good to be true, she said, it usually is.

making her caramel eyes dance. I stare at her, that tug straining in my stomach, my blood so hot it’s scorching. I grip the edge of the door. “Get out before I kiss you,” I snarl through my teeth. She stops laughing and looks at me. Her cheeks pinken.

“Kiss me back,” he murmurs again, this time with more of a growl, half way between a plea and a command.

“That’s it, pretty girl,” he whispers and I open my eyes to find him staring right at me.

“Will I see you again?” I ask him. “No,” he says, eyes trained straight in front of him. “No, I don’t think that would be a good idea.” And as I watch him sail away, I wonder how it is possible for my heart to feel so elated one moment and so fractured the next.

For a long moment, I think it’s her. The color of the eyes, the angle of the jaw. But then slowly I understand that it isn’t. The nose is wrong, the hair too light, the forehead too broad, the lips too thin. It’s not Rhianna. But those are her eyes.

It’s like she’s torn back my skin to reveal the darkness lurking within.

I want to taste that smile. Consume everything she was feeling. I want to make it mine. Mine.

He sweeps his thumb along the line of my jaw and peers deep into my eyes. His are a mixture of colors, one eye more green, the other more brown. I stare up into his and I feel like I’m falling. That hook in my stomach is the only thing tethering me to the ground.

“Mate?” I croak out, her words making no sense. “Yes, it’s okay, I’ll go fetch your fated mate right back here. We should never have separated you.”

It’s more than magic. What the hell? I glare at him, tears racing down my cheeks. “F-f-fated mate?” I stutter.

“It means the fated mate bond between us is sealed.” She’s still too weak to feel it, the thread connecting us, vibrant and alive, binding us together. “And now it’s unbreakable.”