average human’s Reviews > The 13th Zodiac > Status Update

She walked over slowly and peered inside. The room was simple but comfortable, with a queen-sized bed with dark blue bedding, a desk by the window, a wardrobe, and an attached bathroom. Unlike our rooms, which had accumulated years of personal touches, this one was a blank slate, waiting for its occupant to make it their own. Still, every single room in Dominion had an old-world kind of charm, with dark mahogany furniture, stone walls, a large fireplace and tall windows with long, flowing curtains. It was definitely luxury living.
Jupiter glanced around the room as if searching for traps. Noodle had already made himself comfortable on the bed, coiling into a tight spiral on one of the pillows.
‘Nice,’ he declared. ‘Warm. Smells safe.’
“At least someone approves,” she muttered.
An awkward silence fell over the room. Jupiter sat on the bed, her posture rigid, while the four of us hovered near the door like sentinels who didn’t know what to do with their charge now that they had her.
“We should let you get settled,” Draco finally said, backing toward the door.
“Right,” Eris agreed. “Bathroom’s stocked with fresh towels if you want to shower. The kitchen has food if you’re hungry.”
Jupiter nodded stiffly, meeting none of our eyes.
Percy and Draco filed out, but I lingered, watching her. She looked small sitting there, surrounded by hastily packed bags, in a room that was foreign to her. For all her power, all her fierce independence, she looked so fucking lost.
“I know you didn’t ask for this,” I said quietly. “None of us did. But you’re safer here, and I’m glad you’re close.”
She finally looked up at me, those silver eyes piercing. “Is that really what this is about? My safety?”
“What else would it be about?”
“Control,” she said simply. “Making sure your unexpected axis stays where you can watch her.”
I felt heat rise in my face, remembering the sight of her with that Leo’s hands all over her. “That’s not⁠—”
“Be honest, Aiden. You don’t want me here because you care about me. You want me here because I’m yours now, whether any of us like it or not.”
The words hit uncomfortably close to home. Part of me—a dark, possessive part I didn’t like to acknowledge—did see her that way. As ours. As mine. The bond had created something primal between us, something that had raged when I saw another man’s hands on her.
“Maybe,” I admitted with a shrug. “But that doesn’t make the threat any less real. Someone wants to hurt you, and whatever else is between us, I won’t let that happen.”
For a moment, we stared at each other, and I felt her acceptance. She wasn’t an idiot, or under any delusions. But what she didn’t know was that right now, it was taking every ounce of my willpower not to sweep her up into my arms.
“Get out please, Aiden,” she said, not unkindly but firmly. “I want to be alone.”
I nodded and backed toward the door. “Lock this behind me. The shield quarters are warded, but better safe than sorry.”
After I pulled the door closed, I heard the lock click into place. Through the bond, I felt her emotions—exhaustion, resignation, and beneath it all, a sliver of relief that she wasn’t alone tonight. That sliver gave me hope that maybe, just maybe, this forced arrangement might eventually become something more.
I walked to my own room and closed the door, leaning against it as I exhaled slowly. The bond between us pulsed with her proximity, stronger now that she was under the same roof. I could feel her more clearly than ever before and it made something in my chest feel crazy.

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Three coming from the left! I projected, already pivoting to face the threat.
On it, Eris responded, his Gemini magic creating three duplicates that confused the approaching bane.
The Sunbreak Shield was fighting with the precision of veterans, but even they seemed overwhelmed by the sheer number of creatures pouring through the breach.
“Jupiter!” Cassandra called to me over the chaos. “We need to close that portal!”
I nodded, already gathering my magic to attempt what we’d discussed. But before I could move toward the breach, something cold wrapped around my waist—a bane’s elongated limb, impossibly strong and freezing to the touch.
I had one moment to register what was happening before I was yanked upward, my feet leaving the ground as the creature lifted me into the air. I slashed at the limb with my dagger, but it was like cutting through gelatin—the wound sealed instantly.
“Jupiter!” Percy’s voice, both in my head and aloud.
The bane flung me away from the fight, releasing me when I was at least two stories up. For a terrifying moment, I was weightless, suspended in the air with nothing below me but unforgiving concrete.
Then I was falling, the ground rushing up to meet me. I braced for impact, trying to channel my magic to cushion the landing, but I knew it wouldn’t be enough.
Something large and solid intercepted me before I hit the pavement. Eris had thrown himself under my fall, his massive body absorbing the impact as we crashed to the ground together. He grunted in pain, but his arms remained tight around me.
“Fucking hell, that hurt,” he groaned. “You okay, lass?”
“Thanks to you,” I gasped, scrambling off him. “You didn’t have to do that, Eris, I could have crushed you.”
“Aye, I really did,” he replied, wincing as he got to his feet.
We rejoined the fight, which had spilled out into the square. Civilians were fast-walking away, unable to see the bane but feeling their cold, soul-draining presence. None of them had a clue what set their fight or flight into action, but it was better that they get out of our way. The other shield teams had arrived, creating a perimeter to contain the threat.
I caught sight of Draco facing off against a particularly large bane, his Scorpio magic forming a purple glow around his long leather whips that lashed at the creature. He was so focused on the attack that he didn’t notice another bane approaching from his blind side.
“Draco!” I screamed, but it was too late.
The bane’s claw raked across his cheek, opening a gash that immediately welled with blood. Draco staggered back, momentarily stunned by the blow.
Something inside me snapped. A white-hot rage unlike anything I’d ever experienced surged through my veins, burning away rational thought. My magic responded instantly, exploding outward from my core in a blinding wave of silver light.
When the light receded, I was holding two swords that hadn’t been there before, blades made of pure, concentrated starlight that hummed with power. They felt like extensions of my arms, perfectly balanced and eerily familiar though I’d never held them before.
What the fuck? I heard Aiden’s voice through the bond, his shock mirrored by the others.
I didn’t pause to question it. I moved toward Draco’s attacker, my body flowing with a grace that felt both foreign and natural. The starlight swords cut through the bane like they were made of warm butter, their light causing the creature to shriek in agony.
“Jupiter, your eyes!” Draco called, his hand still pressed to his bleeding cheek.
I couldn’t see myself, but I could feel it. My magic had completely overtaken me, filling me until I was glowing with silver light. The tattoos on my arms were moving, writhing against my skin as if they were alive.
Three more bane converged on me, sensing the threat I posed. I met them head-on, my starlight blades whirling in deadly arcs. Where they touched the bane, the creatures’ dark matter simply ceased to exist, erased by the pure celestial energy.
I could feel the Nightfall Shield’s awe and concern fighting for dominance. They’d never seen me like this—hell, I’d never seen me like this. But there was no time to marvel at it. My bond mates were in danger.
A scream of pain cut through the noise—Percy. I whirled to see him staggering backward, a bane’s claw protruding from his shoulder, dark ichor dripping from the wound. The creature was pulling him toward the portal, where dozens more were still emerging.
My vision went white. The bond between us amplified my rage, turning it into something terrifying and utterly unstoppable. The twin swords in my hands melded together, forming a single spear of blinding starlight that crackled with raw power.
I knew what I had to do. The portal was the source. As long as it remained open, we would be overwhelmed. Without thinking, without planning, I started running toward it, gathering speed as my magic pushed me faster than I’d ever moved before.
“Jupiter, no!” Multiple voices shouted both aloud and through the bond—Percy, Draco, Aiden, Eris—their fear hitting me in waves as they realized what I intended.
I ignored them, focused only on the rippling tear in reality ahead of me. When I reached the edge of the square, I pushed off with all my strength and leaped, my body arcing through the air toward the portal’s surface.
Time seemed to slow as I flew toward the breach, my spear of starlight extended before me like a lance. I could see individual bane emerging, could see the darkness beyond, the emptiness they came from. I could hear my shield screaming my name, feel their terror through the bond.
Then my spear struck the center of the portal.
For one breathless moment, nothing happened. Then the starlight exploded outward, a nova of silver energy that engulfed the entire breach. The portal didn’t just close, it shattered, fragments of reality knitting back together with such force that it created a shockwave that knocked everyone within fifty feet to the ground.
I fell to the pavement, my spear vanishing as suddenly as it had appeared. The remaining bane screamed, their forms dissolving without their connection to the dark dimension that sustained them. Within seconds, they were gone, leaving nothing but wisps of black mist that quickly dissipated in the air.
Silence fell over Rittenhouse Square.
I lay on my back, staring up at the blue sky, every muscle in my body trembling with exhaustion. I’d never channeled so much magic at once, had never even known I was capable of it.