“How about it, Darcy?” Seth challenged before the rest of us could suggest anything. “You wanna try and kick my ass for making your life hell?”
“Hell yes,” Darcy growled, her gaze narrowing as she looked up at Seth and he laughed as he hopped down from the boulder, using his air magic to slow his descent.
“No Order gifts,” Orion said casually as he wandered past. “We don’t need a deep fried Heir on our hands.”
“No chance of that,” Seth growled irritably, clearly not liking the suggestion that Darcy could overpower him with Phoenix fire that easily.
I glanced between the other Heirs, wondering which of them I was going to have to fight, but Darius spoke before I could challenge anyone. “Why don’t we take turns to fight today while we get a feel for how each other’s skills are progressing? We can watch this round.”
“Okay,” I said simply, turning my attention to watch Seth and Darcy as they faced off in the space before us. I was more than happy to witness his ass kicking anyway.
“If you want me to go easy on you, babe, you just have to ask nicely,” Seth taunted. “Just get down on your knees and say please in your sweetest voice and-”
Darcy shot a blast of water at him so fast that he didn’t even have time to shield before it smacked him in the face and knocked him on his ass.
I smirked as she barked a laugh and vines shot from the ground to entangle Seth as he scrambled to get up. We’d been practicing damn hard in class and out of it, using each other as opponents and getting Geraldine to heal the fatigue from our limbs once we were done so that we could complete the rest of our studies too.
Darcy advanced with a savage grin on her face as her vines tightened around Seth but he managed to rip a hand free, stealing command of the vines and making the ground quake beneath her feet as he snarled with determination.
Darcy threw another blast of water at him but it slammed into an air shield and washed over it, splashing us as we watched. I took a step back to avoid it and flinched as I bumped into someone.
I turned, finding Darius behind me and quickly stepped away again as my skin burned from the contact.
He didn’t say anything but now that I knew he was behind me, my skin prickled with goosebumps and my breaths became shallow.
Seth regained his feet, clenching his teeth in concentration as Darcy slammed water into his shield and he fought to maintain it. But with a flick of his other hand, he sent a huge vine spinning up from the ground at her feet.
Darcy cried out as the vine sent her flying, throwing fire at it as she tried to burn it away from her, but Seth was too fast. More and more vines shot at her from every direction, slamming into her and winding their way around her body tightly before immobilising her hands too.
She fell back to the ground tangled in them with a grunt of frustration and Seth howled his victory to the sky as she panted beneath them.
“Do you yield, babe?” he asked, moving to stand over her and I clenched my teeth in irritation. But that was okay. We knew we couldn’t match the Heirs yet. The point was that we would be able to soon. And with our power we’d be able to crush them for good measure.
“Yeah,” Darcy sighed. “I yield.”
The vines fell away and he offered her a hand as she got to her feet.
“Good,” Orion barked as he passed us again. “Darius against Tory next.”
I glanced at Darius as my gut did a kind of weird flip flopping somersault, but his gaze was locked on Orion.
“No,” he growled. “I’m not fighting her.”
“You are unless you want a week of detention with me,” Orion growled right back, stopping to glare at him.
“I said no,” Darius repeated, his arms folded in a clear refusal.
I looked between them as Orion geared up to go full asshole and I sighed dramatically.
“What’s the matter, Darius? Afraid I’ll kick your ass and make you look like a little bitch in front of everyone?” I taunted, turning to look up into his black-ringed eyes.
His gaze slid over me slowly and heat followed the path of his eyes over every inch of my flesh that they caressed.
“Hardly.”
“Then what’s the problem?” I demanded.
He hesitated for a long moment then shrugged. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
My lips parted at that declaration and the sincerity of those words echoed deep down into me with a truth I couldn’t deny.
For a long moment we just looked at each other before I remembered we had an audience and I quickly rolled my eyes. “You’re so cocky for an asshole who’s afraid to even face me. Just come and fight me – we both know you want to really.”
His eyes narrowed at that assessment and he still refused to move. “No.”
“Well…I’m going to fight. So if you don’t want me to make a fool of you, you probably want to fight back.”
Orion chuckled darkly behind me and Darius’s muscles flexed as he held his ground.
“Come on, Dragon boy,” I taunted and I suddenly realised that I’d actually missed his usual challenges and teasing comments. I wanted him to bite back at me, needed him to stand up to my shit and call me out on my crap.
“No.”
“Fuck me, are you really going to make me beg?” I pouted as I looked up at him and the barest hint of a smile tugged at the corner of his lips.
“You can certainly give it a try.”
Not likely. But my lips pulled up as I came up with another plan.
I reached out and caught his hand, tugging it so that he was forced to unfold his arms and he frowned at me in confusion as an electric kind of heat passed between us.
The sky darkened overhead and I was willing to bet the stars wouldn’t put up with us actually touching each other for long even while we had company but that was okay, I wasn’t planning on just holding onto his hand.
The moment his guard dropped, I raised my other hand and slammed my palm into his solid chest. He was seriously strong and I was sure I wouldn’t have moved him a damn inch but for the force of a tornado crashing from my palm.
A laugh tore from my throat as Darius’s eyes widened in surprise and he was thrown back, but I hadn’t accounted for the fact that he was still holding my other hand.
I screamed as his grip tightened on me and the two of us were sent flying by my magic, slamming into the grassy hill in a heap as adrenaline thundered through my limbs.
We rolled across the grass and I ended up on top of him, quickly pressing my advantage as I called on the earth beneath him to hold him down.
The grass bloomed and flourished all around us, wrapping its way around his limbs as I fought to tie him down, but he wielded fire to burn it away as quickly as it grew.
With all of my focus on trying to force the grass to hold him, he should have been able to throw me off easily and I braced in anticipation of his attack, but it didn’t come.
“Are you still going easy on me, Darius?” I growled as I looked down at him from my position straddling him.
“I told you, I’m not going to hurt you again, Roxy,” he replied as he continued to burn my earth magic away as fast as I could conjure it.
“Don’t pretend you don’t want to,” I pushed. “You must hate me for saying no.”
Darius growled, but he still didn’t attack me. “I don’t hate you.”
“More fool you then.” I tried to push off of him but he caught my thighs, holding me in place with a dangerous snarl as the clouds continued to darken overhead.
I narrowed my eyes at him and switched my attack to water, forming a bubble of it all around him and closing it in over his head so that he was forced to shove me off of him to remove it.
I rolled aside, coating my arms in fire as he directed the water from his face with his own magic and scrambled up too, shaking his head and sending droplets flying from his black hair.
I threw the flames in my arms at him and he quickly used his own magic to gutter them out. I sho
t more fire at him, then water, air, earth, and he neutralised each and every one of my attacks without once striking back.
The longer it went on, the more infuriated I got, fighting harder and harder to break through his defences with everything I had, but I couldn’t even crack them.
Darius’s eyes lit with a hungry kind of thrill the longer it went on and no matter how sneaky I tried to be with my attacks or even when I threw brute force behind them, I still couldn’t find a way through.
Heat licked down my spine and I found myself wanting to punch his stupid, smug face every single time he burned through my attacks with a blaze of fire or stopped them with a shield of ice. My heart was pounding, my skin tingling and I hated to admit it, but I was getting way too many flashbacks of the way his flesh had felt against mine the few times we’d given in to this heat between us.
“Enough!” Orion called eventually and I dropped my hands to my knees as I panted with exertion. “Fifty points to Ignis for an impenetrable defence, Darius. Minus fifty for not attacking your opponent when you had the opportunity. And you can have one point for determination, Miss Vega.”
I flipped him off and his eyes lit with amusement as he called an end to the class and the rest of the students started to disperse.
A shadow fell over me and I looked up as Darius approached.
“You know, one day, I’ll be able to get past your defences,” I warned him as I stood upright and looked right into his eyes. “And then you’ll have to decide if you want to fight back before I kick your ass or just take your beating like a good little bitch.”
“Maybe I’ll take the beating,” he said in a low growl as he moved so close to me that our chests were almost touching. A cold wind whipped around us savagely, tossing my hair about and I realised that almost everyone else had gone. The stars were about to force us apart if we didn’t separate willingly. “After all, I clearly deserve it.”
“I didn’t think you were capable of admitting when you were in the wrong,” I breathed.
“Neither did I. But if you want to keep punishing me by straddling me in the dirt, I’m not going to complain about it.”
Blood rushed to my cheeks at the heat in his words and I licked my lips before I could stop myself, the pure masculine scent of him wrapping around me like a drug.
“Don’t go getting your hopes up, next time it’ll be my boot grinding you into the dirt,” I warned.
“I look forward to it.”
The wind picked up violently and a scream from somewhere above made me look around just in time to leap aside as a Griffin fell from the sky and crashed into the ground right where we’d just been standing.
My lips popped open in shock as he shifted back into his Fae form and started screaming.
“Help meee! I think I’ve broken my ass bone!” he shrieked and I backed up as Geraldine charged forward to help him.
“I shall assist you, my friend!” she cried. “Allow me to check the area for ruptures.”
The guy screamed again as she grabbed him by the hips and pointed his ass in the air before slapping her hand to it as she worked to heal him.
“Holy shit,” I breathed, caught between laughter and guilt as I backed up again and the wind continued to gust around us. I was pretty sure that me and Darius were responsible for the stars creating this maelstrom and laughing definitely would have meant I was a dick.
But as the guy gave in to Geraldine’s ministrations of his ass and Max started cussing her out for groping him, I couldn’t help it. A laugh tore from my lips and I had to clap my hand over them to try and hide it. I’m definitely a dick.
The wind continued to howl, causing my hair to billow around me and several of the students at the far side of the field shrieked and started running for cover.
I took a few more steps away and flinched as Darius caught my hand, but before I could question what he was doing, he pressed a small, black box into my palm.
“Sorry it’s late,” he said in a rough voice before turning and walking away from me down the hill.
I watched him leave as the wind finally dropped, my gaze lingering on the Phoenix and Dragon tattoos which dominated his back and the strangest ache building in me to call out for him not to go.
The commotion died down as Geraldine finished healing the Griffin and he declared his unfaltering loyalty to the Ass Club before hurrying away from Max’s rage with his junk cupped in his hands and his bare ass wiggling as he ran.
Geraldine called Max a cantankerous crustacean and demanded he leave too before heading over to join me with Darcy at her heels.
I stood looking down at the box, wondering what the hell it could be as they closed in to look at it too and the wind finally fell still.
“Don’t keep me in suspense, my lady! If I have to wait another moment in wondering, I’m going to fall down dead as a doorknob with tension tearing my poor nerves to shreds!” Geraldine gasped.
I scoffed lightly, my grip tightening on the little box as I was caught between the urge to open it and the urge to throw it away. Gah.
“You don’t have to open it if you don’t want to,” Darcy said, using her twin senses to figure out exactly what I was thinking.
But not opening it was worse than opening it. Because then I’d be thinking about the damn thing, wondering about it. And I didn’t need any new reasons to spend my time obsessing over Darius Acrux.
With a huff of frustration, I pulled the lid off of the box, a small tingle of magic rushing over my fingers which I recognised as Darius’s.
“Oh, he spelled it only to open for you,” Geraldine sighed, fanning her eyes.
“I swear, Geraldine, if you start crying again, I’m going to toss this in the trash,” I warned her.
She buttoned her lip and I looked down at the white card which lay on the top of the box, hooking it out and reading the short note in Darius’s curling handwriting.
In this one instance, I may have been full of shit.
We both know you won.
I hope you enjoy your prize
Lot J, top floor, in the parking lot.
Beneath it was a layer of silver tissue paper and my heart pounded to an unfamiliar rhythm as I slowly teased it open, my fingers tingling once more with the touch of Darius’s magic.
I pulled it apart and found a black bike key nestled in the paper, a silver Yamaharpie logo standing out on it and making my breath catch.
“Holy shit,” I breathed. “Is he for real?”
“He bought you a bike?” Darcy gasped.
“I can’t believe he’s actually admitting I beat him at something,” I said slowly. That just seemed so unDarius.
“How romantic!” Geraldine gushed.
“It doesn’t change anything,” I muttered as I ran my thumb over the key. But if I was really being honest with myself, maybe it did. Just a little.
I lay on top of Orion, a curtain of blue hair surrounding us as I grinned down at him. We rarely slept apart these days. I knew it was reckless, we both did. But since he’d come so close to death and the world felt like it was going to tip on its axis at any moment, neither of us wanted to waste a second apart. Staying at his place was probably insanity, but as he was the only one with a double bed, I always preferred coming here. Not that we were currently making any use of the extra space; I was making Orion into my very own mattress. But instead of springs it had abs.
It must have been past midnight by now, but I didn’t feel tired. I felt wide awake, wanting to drink in his company like the sweetest cocktail in the world. My body was still humming with the after effects of him claiming me. I felt his kisses branded on my skin like dripping hot wax, his touches like invisible tattoos.
I will never take a single moment with him for granted ever again.
“Are you worried about Clara?” I asked gently. I knew it was eating him up inside that he couldn’t go to Lionel’s house and do something about his sister.
Darius’s father had banned him from going
there, saying that she needed time to ‘adjust’. But what that really meant was that even Lionel couldn’t control her. From what Darius had said about his visit home, Clara was volatile, violent and entirely unpredictable. Which had been confirmed by the memories Orion had demanded Diego show him of her whenever possible. Even if they didn’t help us with anything; Lance was just desperate to find a change in her that I feared wasn’t coming. And every time we spoke about it, there was this raw pain in his eyes which just cut my heart to ribbons.
His gaze slid from my face and his expression became dark. “Honestly? I’m fucking terrified for her, Blue. I know she attacked me, I know she’s not herself. But it’s the shadows, it’s not her.” He clutched my arm and his eyes flicked up again, hunting my gaze. “You believe that too, don’t you?”
I knew he needed me to be on side with this. But after seeing Clara driving that blade into him, tearing into his throat with her fangs and draining the blood from his body, I couldn’t feel anything but bitterness towards her. Hate. She was a monster. Nothing remotely Fae lived in that body from what I’d seen. But Orion needed me to try, so I could offer him the smallest shred of hope I had.
“I don’t know,” I said truthfully and his muscles rippled beneath me. I cupped his cheek so he couldn’t turn away, my heart pounding a frantic beat in my chest. “But if it is the shadows making her like this, then I’ll help in whatever way I can to free her from them.”
His throat bobbed with emotion as he nodded. “If I could just go to her…”
“And what would you do if you could? What if she attacked you again?” I demanded, my heart thrashing like a caged animal at the thought of him going near her. I was quietly glad Lionel had stopped him from visiting, because the idea of him walking into that house with that creature who’d nearly killed him made me want to scream until my lungs burst.
“Darius and I are discussing ways to drive the shadows from her body,” he said, his jaw pulsing like he was aggravated that he didn’t have a simple solution to helping her. “I’ll find a way. I will,” he added like he was trying to convince himself as much as me.
Zodiac Academy 5: Cursed Fates: An Academy Bully Romance (Supernatural Bullies and Beasts) Page 15
