Awful Curse: A High School Enemies-to-Lovers Romance (The Celestial Bodies Series Book 1)

by Elena Monroe

  Luna was extra everything—innocent, maternal, rule following, and loyal to her friends in a way that made you think of a cult.

  I pushed Henry Jon’s journal in my bag and decided I was going to skip class today. I needed to tackle all this new information logically. I didn't even bother pretending to glance at my blazer, navy skirt, and maroon knee high socks.

  I loathed that uniform. It was meant to make people blend in, and I never did, even in a uniform.

  Once I pushed my foot into my Doc Martens, I started to head for the library before anyone was outside, trying not to be seen. I didn't care about getting caught. I was avoiding anyone in this magic circle and their scrutiny.

  Stopping for a coffee to warm up my hands wasn't the smartest idea, but after feeling how tight and red my eyes were, I figured they needed some moral support.

  Scanning the library for anyone who would rat me out, I decided upstairs where I was last night was probably the most hidden, even from the woman who moved like a ghost.

  I dropped my stuff on the same table Bolton had me pinned against and I felt myself suck in my bottom lip as the goosebumps chased the feeling across my skin.

  I can't do this with you.

  Those words echoed in the back of my mind all night as I cried out my parents lack of attendance in my life, their vacancy, and now, not only was being an outcast not enough, I was also supposed to be some key to them going home again.

  I slumped down in the seat, already exhausted, and I hadn't done any research at all. I pulled out my laptop and started typing keywords, like “Aries,” “gods,” and “Olympus,” and searching the connections.

  Aries, “the ram,” is the first of the twelve zodiacal constellations, and in Greek myth represents the animal whose fleece was sought by Jason and the Argonauts.

  Zeus placed the ram's image among the stars in honor of its heroism.

  Everything Caellum and Bolton said had connections back to mythology. The density of the search engine left me wondering which information was more true.

  Ares, the God of War.

  Aphrodite's lover and was held in contempt by her husband, Hephaestus.

  Was he a god himself or the ram Zeus honored by literally writing him in the stars?

  I was already knee deep when I used a website to calculate my astrological sign and was shocked to see the archer populate in the images on my screen.

  I pried my mind open. I broke all the rules, but it was hard for me to believe there was something in existence that truly broke all the rules like this.

  Sagittarius: Zeus, the God of the Sky, Lightning and Thunder

  My mouth hung open too long before my hand clamped over it. I looked down at my shaking hands that shocked not only Bolton but Caellum too. Lightning? My dream threatened another cold sweat, except this time I wouldn't be sleeping.

  My twitching fingers moved over the mouse pad and kept reading the information that none of us could really prove beyond the status and the ramblings of an old prophet.

  Zeus exposed liars, as he was the keeper of oaths.

  Zeus' arrow is equivalent to Sagittarius' archer.

  No wonder they were convinced they needed me, they thought I was the most powerful god there was.

  I felt like Zeus behind my computer screen, exposing whatever lies I could find and keeping some kind of oath by keeping their secrets.

  Guess it was my secret now too?

  The deeper I fell down the hole, the more things connected and entwined together like a ball of rubber bands you were trying to pry apart. I had more questions than answers.

  If each one of them was a god who represented an astrological sign, then what did that mean for mortals?

  Why are they stuck here only now?

  Where were they before this?

  Why were they together, but I was changing schools every year?

  It was like all my questions summoned Bolton’s existence, and his quiet steps went unheard, until he leaned down over me, looking at the same screen I was.

  “You weren’t in class.” There was no concern, and his voice didn’t go up at the end asking a question. It was just a fact he was stating out loud.

  “And? I’m really busy, Bolton.”

  “Alba isn’t a joke. He’ll write you up.”

  He sat on the table next to my computer, and it wasn’t lost on me that he was perched up higher than me on a fake throne. Bolton could make anything a throne. From what I had been reading for the last few hours, apparently it was exactly how an Aries should act.

  Lust for blood.

  Chaotic nature.

  Thoughtless aggression.

  I focused on the screen, reading though the history I knew Alba wasn’t going to teach in class. He just started touching on mythology when I needed something more specific.

  Bolton’s shoe kicked my leg on purpose as he sat there, staring at me, waiting for me to bow. “Finally finished his journal?”

  I shook my head as my words fell out: “Nope. Caellum gave me the CliffsNotes.”

  I didn’t have to be this close to him to realize how tense he had gotten, just at the sound of his name. “Caellum? As in my enemy?”

  I twisted in my chair, facing him. “Yes, let me guess… he’s an Aquarius? Power trips, rebellion, and avoids feelings at all costs; that rings a lot of bells. That’s why you two really clash—the love of being crowned king.”

  “Oh, so now you believe it? …when he tells you?” His mouth fell open, and I watched his jaw freeze, while he mulled over my loyalty for the second time in a few days.

  He was the one who told me not to apologize, so I wouldn’t.

  “I don’t know what I believe. This is a lot to swallow. I have too many questions.”

  He turned to face me, still sitting on the top of the table. “Shoot.”

  My mind scrambled for a question to ask at the same time my mind searched for a snide comment about gods, but my knowledge of unbelievable elements started with Twilight and ended with The Vampire Diaries. No mention of Greek gods.

  “I thought you said you were all children of Zeus? Wouldn’t that make you a perv with a fetish for incest?”

  His lips stretched into a grin but didn’t disrupt his cut jawline that begged to have a tongue swiped over it. He started laughing, while his palm hit his knee at my comment was meant to be an insult. Bolton was hard to insult when he was so comfortable being king. “He’s the most powerful god. He rules Olympus. Wait, you actually think you’re Zeus? Like the Zeus?”

  My eyebrows shot up to my hairline, questioning how he put two and two together. That was the only thing I could put together and the only thing that made any sense.

  “My hands, you guys need me to go home, the bow and arrow?” My voice was timid and every second more of his rare laughter made me not even believe what I thought I was sure of.

  “Zeus was a man, sweetheart.”

  “Don’t be gender bias, dick,” I shot back quickly. At least my sarcasm wasn’t broken.

  “You aren’t Zeus. He died a long time ago. You’re his daughter.”

  I shrunk down into my seat. No one liked being wrong, but I was pretty sure no one liked being told they were something made of myths either.

  Now I didn’t just have a dead parent and parent who couldn’t stay away; now I had one who I never knew at all.

  Just my luck. The constant new girl and the unwanted daughter.

  “So why did you all get to stay together?” I looked down at my hands resting on the keyboard of my Mac. I was unwanted in every aspect, unless it was convenient for people.

  “It just happens to be you most of the time. You don’t like to stay put.”

  I snatched the coffee sitting against his thigh, just as his fingers held it up with no real grip. “This is crazy, you know that right? I'm not special.”

  He leaned forward, watching me sip my coffee. “Do you trust me?”

  I shook my head no with the cup still to the edge of my lip.
I trusted the human parts, but this god shit? I wasn't that gullible. He stood up anyways and demanded I come along. To where? I had no idea, but I concluded staying in the library all day after skipping was a sure fire way to get caught.

  Shoving my Mac back into my bag, I followed Bolton down the stairs, before he stopped, spinning around to face me and towering over me even a step below me. “Just don't tell the circle you know anything.”

  My eyes hooded, cutting my vision down, but not my ability to glare with purpose. I questioned everything, exposed liars for their true nature, and kept important oaths to myself—all the things my research told me I am.

  He didn't explain, and I didn't push to know why. I knew enough and that seemed like politics instead of facts.

  I followed Bolton into the brisk chill outside when he headed to the edge of campus towards the abandoned building that no one uses, except to blow off steam.

  The stairs creaked a loud warning sign that I ignored altogether, before Bolton pushed the heavy door open. It wasn't until I was inside that the part of the brain meant to panic kicked in. We were alone in an abandoned building, after he told me his biggest secret. It was every Lifetime movie before the happy ending.

  I questioned myself, Why am I following him down a hallway that smelled like my aunt’s attic with a slight hint cologne they must have used to freshen up the scent?

  Once in an abandoned room with all the remnants left behind, glass beakers and posters still up reminding students to be careful in the lab, Bolton slid against a table, watching me awkwardly. “Get mad, Arianna. Your abilities are emotional.”

  I looked down at my hands feeling nothing but stupid and polished it off with an eye roll.

  “I know what happened in Texas now. What about your mom? How did she die?”

  He was treading on ground I didn’t even like to set foot on. I slanted my eyes, making sure to find his so that he knew there was a special anger saved for him.

  That didn't stop him from pushing me and theorizing how my mom might have died as he slipped down, stepping towards me.

  “Did what happen in Texas happen before? Do you feel responsible? Did you fight with your mom before she died? Tell me what happened, Arianna.” His palms slammed down on the table between us, making demands that I knew I wouldn’t meet and answers I forced myself to forget.

  I looked down at my hands again, watching my bronzed skin stay perfectly still; there were no veins and no gold, like in my dream this morning. A sweet relief came over me, and I took a deep breath.

  Bolton shouted, “Was it your fault?! Did your dad not stick around because he blamed you?! You can't hurt me, Arianna.”

  It happened in a snap—one quick snap with the right question boring into my soul and crushing all my safeguards I had around my heart. Bolton had actualized my worst fear out loud and made it sound undeniably true. I didn't even feel the tears pour down my cheeks until I opened my eyes again from having them clamped shut.

  When I opened them, I expected to see the same damage I did in my dream: a roasted building, with him and I the only things left standing in destruction.

  That's what happens when you have a life filled with hardship: you become the anomaly in destruction. Destruction leaves us untouched and toying with how much we can take.

  How was destruction not a god?

  The damage wasn't the same at all. There were lightning patterns burned into the walls that looked like veins branching off everywhere staining the less than white walls. The tables between us were broken against the lash of my “abilities” that I was unwilling to claim.

  Unclaimed lightning from your fingertips. Going once, going twice, anyone?

  With my mouth open and chest heaving from the silent tears, I looked down at my shaking hands before I even thought to make sure Bolton was okay. My hands were fading back to normal when I noticed the gold replacing my veins was creeping up my forearms now too.

  He unlocked something in me, and now the emotions I kept buried deep were making me vulnerable to not only sarcasm but physically being able to hurt those who hurt me.

  Bolton pulled me into his chest. His shirt was full of holes that were burned into the material. There was no blood, and I no longer had a choice but to believe him.

  I wasn't different because my mom died, my dad was decorated military, I changed schools multiple times a year, and had an attitude problem. I was different because the blood in my veins was made of gods and myths.

  Bolton smoothed down my hair. “It's okay. We’re okay. I mean the lab isn't...” I slapped his arm, willing the tears to dry up with his jokes, but I didn't wiggle out of his arms.

  Bolton wasn't a god to me. He was my king and only my king.

  With my cheek against his chest, I could feel the hard edges of the damage to his shirt. “She died on the way to get me from school. That was the start of being kicked out and suspended constantly.” I paused offering him a way out of hearing this if he didn't want to. I knew all too well how nightmares are easily shared.

  “What happened?” His voice was less critical than normal, and there was a softness I didn't experience even with his pinning my legs up the night before.

  “Fallon Myers was being the extreme bully she was to this girl who would never stand up for herself. She was the easiest target for Fallon. So I pushed her in the hallway, and she hit her head on the lockers. She got three stitches, and I got suspended.” I paused again, knowing this was where my memories got less angry and more deep—a depth I felt fill my lungs, slowly drowning me.

  “My mom was on her way to pick me up, and someone hit her from the side. The car flipped and caught fire on the way to my school. They said the impact killed her instantly, and she wasn't in any pain when she passed. How can you not be in any pain when you leave everyone behind?”

  Bolton’s silence spoke volumes I wasn’t ready to hear. He was basically a god, and he didn’t have any more answers than the mortal I thought I was. No one had the answers I wanted, because nothing would be good enough. Nothing would bring her back.

  His hands locked around me, holding me closer. “No one is ever gone, gone. Everyone comes back, just differently.”

  I don’t know why what he said filled the space in my heart that was previously empty, but every word fueled the hope I thought I lost. It propelled my brain into question after question with no real answers.

  Was she reborn like they were? Could she have come back as someone else? Would I meet her again? See, hope could answer all of these.

  I didn’t expect him to fill the silence again but he did: “Guess it’s my turn for confessions? The ritual Henry Jon saw is still going to happen. Now we just have to figure out creative ways around it.”

  “Caellum said you don’t trust I’m special enough to kill me. That’s as sweet as we’ll ever get huh?”

  I made Bolton laugh, not smirk or grin, but I heard his laugh as he looked down. Aries was the child of Greek gods, with the hard exterior that shattered into a laugh that I wanted to bottle up.

  “Sweet? We’ll always be hateful, competitive, stubborn, and sparks. Nothing sweet about it. Zeus wrote it into our stars.”

  I titled my face up toward him, watching his expression for any inconsistencies, even though Bolton was the most consistent person I knew.

  Nyx

  Three weeks later

  I felt like I lived in some PG version of life when all the raw, real, painful parts were left on the editing room floor, and we pretended life was peachy.

  Life was only peachy for some of us…

  Bolton was smiling on a semi-regular basis when the circle wasn’t around. It wasn’t hard to pin it on Arianna; all his sudden happiness seemed to dull down the parts of Bolton that rubbed people the wrong way.

  He told me everything, and I always made sure to listen, because Bolton didn’t do anything without a reason behind it.

  In his PG glazed eyes, he told me all about teaching Arianna how to harness her abilitie
s, about our past that she still didn’t remember, and keeping it all on the down low. The circle was chomping at the bit to perform the ritual so we could go home.

  Being stuck as high school seniors was our own personal hell, one I might have deserved, but my penance was over the minute I had to swallow my feelings for Luna all over again every time the fucking distractions failed.

  My abilities, strength and speed, were nothing compared to pushing away someone you know you’ll fall for if you don’t keep yourself in check.

  The plain peanut butter and jelly sandwich I made for my lunch seemed plainer when I was staring at her. Nothing else compared when the sunlight poured through the dining hall and lit her hair ablaze. The freckles across the bridge of her nose made her seem even more endearing, even though she didn’t need anymore.

  She was already painfully aware of others, sympathetic, and overly empathetic.

  She was a goddamn sacrificial lamb in a circle of wolves.

  I watched her laugh at something Arianna said, just as her fingertips touched her lips trying to conceal it. She was always turned inward, hiding in plain sight inside her shell, not much escaping, unless someone needed it to.

  Bolton’s heavy boots on the stairs going past me yanked my attention from getting my daily dose of Luna from a safer distance.

  “Meeting tonight. No circle. Library. Midnight.”

  Bolton was always cryptic and somewhat unclear in everything he said. Thankfully one word sentences helped me get on board quicker. Apparently he was calling a meeting without the circle, which meant something was wrong or there was evidence to believe someone in the circle wasn’t loyal anymore.

  I knew better than to ask why, but I felt particularly combative today, seeing as how he ripped my focus from Luna.

  I didn’t do much talking, but when I did it was either filled with cruelty or the lust behind how I felt about this girl. He was the only one who knew how much I could love her if I let myself. That was the problem: letting myself.

  I was made up of extremes, too much or too little, no middle ground and no compromising. If I let myself love her, I was going to suffocate her, and if I was hellbent on hating her enough to get by, I would do it with precision.