Seth:
Don’t mind if I engrave this tonight and repurpose it, do you Lancey? I couldn’t get hold of any on short notice, but she just gave me the best blowjob of my life, so I really need to make sure she doesn’t put those pretty lips on anyone else.
Another photo came in of him lying in Darcy’s bed, one hand cupped behind the back of his head and the rose quartz held between his teeth as he grinned.
“Motherfucker,” I spat, shoving to my feet and stumbling as my head spun. A roar of emotion blinded me, the hot, potent anger in me fogging my thoughts in a black cloud.
Fuck no. I wasn’t going to let this stand. That mutt was not going to steal her from me.
I ignored the little voice in the back of my mind that said he couldn’t steal what was already gone, but I wasn’t listening. I’d had enough of his messages. He had to be fucking with me. There was no way Darcy would date that piece of shit. No fucking way.
I can just slip out of the palace, stardust to Zodiac Academy and check on her. No harm in that. I’m just looking out for her anyway. I could totally be there and back within half an hour. Just a quick check.
I glanced over at the hatch which seemed to be whispering my name, then down at the ring on my thumb which seemed to scream go and kill Seth. The inanimate objects all made good points.
I shot to the hatch, opening it and dropping down into the dark, pulling it shut behind me and speeding off into the tunnel. Only I actually smashed head first into a wall instead and knocked myself onto my ass. Fucking drunk dick of a wall.
I shoved myself to my feet, casting a Faelight which wobbled off ahead of me. Or maybe it was me who was wobbling. I tore off into the dark, speeding out to the far end of the tunnel and slapping my hand against the wall where the next Hydra mark lay, extinguishing my Faelight as it bumped into my head.
The stairway appeared, the roots winding together until I could climb out. As soon as I made it to the surface, I took the stardust from my pocket and struggled to focus. I just need to go to Zodiac Academy. But I can’t just stardust to my office like I used to. Gotta go to that other place. The place with the bushes and shit.
I threw the stardust into the air and was yanked into the ether as I tried to focus on my destination. Fucking Werewolf. I’m gonna break his legs and shove his head up the ass of a Griffin.
The stars spat me out and suddenly I was falling. I was hundreds of feet up in the air and tumbling through the clouds. Aer Tower appeared far below me and I swore as I tried to wrangle my air magic to stop myself falling. I slammed into the wards around the academy and what felt like a thousand bolts of electricity exploded through my body as I was thrown away from it. I cried out, the world a mass of black and grey as I tried to figure out what way was up, my brain rattling in my head.
I managed to get hold of my air magic and pulled myself upright, standing in a cloud as the moon gazed down at me.
“Don’t judge me,” I slurred at it. “It’s easy being you, all the way up there with your big, glowy head and your smug little crater face.” I threw another pinch of stardust over myself and was transported away again, getting the last word with the moon and this time landing in a bush beyond the fence. Ha.
I got up off my ass and headed to the fake bar in the fence that would let me into the academy, walking fast toward it. My forehead collided with the metal and a loud dong rang out that echoed through my skull. Nope. Not that one.
I sidestepped, moving through the next one and onto the academy grounds. This is definitely a good idea.
I should probably illusion up my body though.
I lifted a hand, running a palm over my chest and face, casting some sort of illusion that would make me look like a Wolf in my Order form roaming campus. Or was it a Pegasus? Anyway, I was definitely hidden if someone spotted me. Which they wouldn’t, because I could move as fast as a Harpy with its wings on fire.
I made it to the path that led up to Aer Tower, coming to a halt outside and craning my neck as I gazed up towards Darcy’s room. What if she’s fucking him right now? I’m definitely going to break stuff. The window. Seth’s neck. Any semblance of respect Darcy still has for me.
Oh fuck. I gazed at the stars, shaking my head at them. You wouldn’t do that to me. Come on, I’ve suffered enough, haven’t I? Don’t let her be fucking him. I’ll make a deal with you right now. You can have a limb. Any limb. Just pick a limb.
The glittery shitbags remained deathly quietly, but I had the feeling they were laughing at me. Yeah, it must have looked so fucking funny all the way up there. With their shiny pals all placing bets on which Fae would crack first under their bullshit. Well the joke’s on you guys, I cracked a long time ago.
Wait…
“Ahh!” a girl screamed bloody murder and I dropped my head, finding Kylie Major stepping out of the tower, her snake hair bursting from the crown of her head and standing on end in fright.
My heart lurched and I whipped my hand out on a knee jerk reaction, sending her flying away on an enormous breeze. She was thrown in the direction of The Wailing Wood and her screams faded into the distance as she cartwheeled through the sky.
She’d dropped a mirror in her wake and I hurried forward, picking it up and checking my reflection. Oh shit. I looked like a deranged yeti with a glittering horn poking out the centre of my face and huge fangs peeking out of my mouth.
I stared in the direction I’d launched Kylie, sure I could still hear her screams carrying to me.
I have no regrets.
I dropped the mirror and darted around the tower before using air magic to shoot myself up it at fifty miles an hour. I landed on Darcy’s windowsill with surprising grace, then gazed inside, cloaking myself in an illusion of shadow as my eyes fell on the bed. The covers were pulled over a couple fucking like rabbits and my breathing grew out of control as I became nothing but a carnivorous beast looking for its next kill. I was about to force the window open and kill Seth with my bare hands, when the covers were thrown back and I realised it wasn’t them at all. Just a couple of dudes having the time of their lives. Oh, wrong room.
I carried myself up another level, figuring out where I was then landing on the next windowsill along.
A spill of blue hair made my gut clench and I gazed in at her curled up in bed between the paws of a white Wolf. My heart fractured and my body deflated as I watched them together. My eyes tracked over her face, her expression taut like she was trapped in a painful nightmare, but then Seth nuzzled into her in his sleep and the tension in her features eased.
“Blue…” I rasped, inching forward, pressing my hand to the glass as I prepared to smash my way in there and make the Wolf bleed and hurt and beg for a mercy I was never going to give.
But then a moment of clarity gripped me.
I couldn’t go in there. I’d lost the right to do that when I’d given her up. When I’d given up everything. And no matter how much I wanted to destroy Seth for this – and I really, really fucking did - I couldn’t. I’d forced her away. Told her to move on. I’d just never been prepared for the fact that she’d actually listen.
I hadn’t thought my heart could break any more than it already had, but apparently there was a little left of it still to shatter.
I turned and jumped off of the ledge, lowering myself down with my air magic and hitting the ground running. There was only one place I wanted to be now. I ran to Ignis House, casting myself up to Darius’s room on a gust of air and feeling myself slip through his wards as they allowed me access. I pushed his window open, dropping into his room and he shot upright in bed with flames roaring in his palms.
“Who are you?!” he bellowed, his face twisting in horror at the sight of me. He launched the flames at me and I threw out a blast of water to douse them before they could burn me to dust.
“Darius,” I snapped. “It’s me.”
“Lance?” he gasped in confusion and I nodded. “By the fucking sun, what kind of illusion is that?”
&n
bsp; “Oh right,” I muttered, waving a hand to dissolve it.
“How did you get here? Are you running? Do we need to go?” He jumped out of bed, starting to grab his stuff and a smile pulled at my mouth.
“No, brother.” I shot toward him, knocking him back onto the bed and winding my arms around him. He pulled me closer with a sigh of relief as our foreheads pressed together.
“Tory found a way for me to get out.” I showed him the King’s ring, explaining the situation.
“You’re drunk,” he accused when I was done and I shrugged one shoulder.
“I’m not not drunk,” I admitted and he pressed his fingers to my temple, starting to heal away the effects of the bourbon. With every inch my mind that cleared, the more regrets I started to have. Ah fuck, I shouldn’t have come here.
I groaned, rubbing my eyes and rolling onto my back, my heart feeling pulverised by a blender by what I’d just seen. Darius propped himself up on his elbow, frowning down at me.
“What’s going on?” he asked and I sighed.
“Seth is with Darcy. The two of them-” I pressed my lips tightly together, unable to finish that sentence as rage and possessiveness clogged up my throat. Jealousy didn’t come close to describing how I was feeling. I was being eaten alive by the need to lay my claim on her and snap the neck of the motherfucker who dared lay his filthy hands on her.
“What? They’re not together,” he said and I frowned at him.
“I just saw them in the same bed,” I growled.
“Yeah well, Seth does that with any of his friends when they’re sad,” he said with a shrug like it meant nothing. But it meant everything.
“It’s more than that,” I muttered, taking my Atlas out and showing him the photos Seth had sent me.
“What…” Darius breathed as he scrolled through them. “This isn’t right.”
“Well maybe they’re keeping it a secret,” I said, my breathing getting laboured as I thought of that. I was her deepest secret, not him. Not fucking him. At least…I had been.
“I’ll find out, okay?” he promised and I nodded, though I knew it wasn’t enough just knowing. I was never going to feel right again whether she was with fucking Seth, or some other guy. I didn’t care how irrational it was, I wanted to maim and torture and destroy anyone who dared to try and claim her heart. A heart she’d given to me.
“I told her to move on, but I can’t let go, Darius,” I gritted out, my eyes fixed on the wooden canopy over his four poster bed. “I made this happen. I pushed her away. I thought I could handle it, but I can’t. I didn’t think anything could be more painful than losing her, but now seeing her with him…” My heart was slashed open, oozing blood. I’m not going to survive losing her. It’s a long and agonising death, but the end is fucking nigh.
“Look, I really don’t think they’re together, but Lance…one day she is going to move on,” Darius reasoned.
“I know,” I hissed, venom lacing my words, my veins. “I fucking know. And I’m gonna end up with a life sentence in Darkmore for it instead of twenty five years because whoever it is is going to fucking die.”
Darius grabbed my face, yanking my head around so I was looking at him. “Then don’t let her go.”
I shoved him off with a growl. “She’s already gone. And even if in some hypothetical reality she could forgive me and take me back, what life could I offer her now anyway? I’m fucked whichever way you look at it. I’m Lionel’s prisoner for as long as he wants me, then I’ll be shipped back off to Darkmore for the remainder of my sentence. Even if I can run away before that happens, I’ll have to live in hiding unless we can defeat Lionel. I can’t re-join society as it is, I’m a Power Shamed loser. I have no future. No way to offer her anything.”
“I will kill my father,” Darius vowed. “And the Heirs and I will take his place as rulers of this kingdom and-”
“Wait, what? As a Councillor to the Vega queens, you mean?” I looked up at him in confusion and his expression twisted in disgust.
“No,” he scoffed. “Of course not. I don’t intend to let them take the throne just because we’re friends now. Where the hell did you get that idea?”
I pushed myself up to sit with a growl. “Are you fucking with me right now? You’re in love with a Vega. You and the other Heirs have been working with Darcy for months and-”
“And what? You thought I was just going to stand aside and give them a clean shot at my father? Let them take the throne like I’m some sort of weak Fae who couldn’t claim it myself? They might be powerful, but they aren’t stronger than the Heirs so why the hell would we just give it to them? That’s not how it works,” he said in disbelief.
“It’s not about weakness,” I snarled, getting up in his face. “It’s about what’s best for the kingdom.”
“And you think they’re what’s best?” he asked in astonishment. “You’re the one who’s been training me up all these years to take my father’s place. Now you’re just switching allegiance?” he demanded.
“I’m not switching allegiance,” I said seriously, gripping the back of his head to make him look me in the eye. “I want you in power, Darius. But they’re the rightful queens. My father was a part of the Zodiac Guild, he protected the royals, the queen came to him with a vision that showed him the way.”
“You’ve told me all of this,” he snarled. “But you’re just going on the word of some dead old man who was locked up in Darkmore for years.”
“I had a letter from my father. And you know it’s more than that. The twins have been gifted visions from the stars. They’ve seen the truth. The Savage King wasn’t who we thought. What Hail Vega did was because of Lionel’s Dark Coercion. He’s been biding his time all these years, he constructed it all.”
“I’ve been training my entire life to rule this kingdom,” Darius growled, his eyes turning to the golden slits of a Dragon as smoke plumed between his teeth. “I will take down my father and I will rule alongside the other Heirs. The Vegas will not sit on the throne.”
I fell quiet, seeing the blazing determination in his eyes, the stubbornness that was never going to fade.
“Rule with them,” I begged, but he shook his head.
“No,” he hissed. “And the other Heirs will never stand for that either. We might be friends with the Vegas, Lance, but when it comes to the throne, we will fight them to claim it.”
I released a heavy breath, knowing I wasn’t going to change his mind. I pushed out of bed, heading to the window and running my fingers through my hair.
“I’ll always have your back, brother,” I swore and silence pooled between us.
“I’ll come home for when the moon rises tomorrow,” he said at last.
“See you then,” I said gravely, opening the window.
I cast an illusion over myself before leaping from the window ledge and racing away into the night.
***
I spent the next day alone, anxiously waiting for the sun to set while Darius and Xavier attended the lavish funeral Lionel had put on for Catalina. As Gabriel had predicted, there had been a brief, but very public trial for Christopher and he’d been sentenced to life in Darkmore for abducting, raping and murdering the Queen. I was actually surprised that Lionel hadn’t pushed for an execution, but I was guessing he just wanted it over with and this way he could move on.
I’d watched a little bit of the ridiculously over the top funeral on TV, but the fake grief Lionel displayed had been more than enough to turn my stomach and I’d turned it off after watching the horse drawn hearse leading an enormous procession down the street.
The papers were full of stories about how beloved Catalina had been and how terribly she’d be missed, and I had to wonder what people would think if they knew the truth of the life Lionel had forced her to live.
Geraldine had told everyone that Catalina was well hidden with her father and was settling in just fine, promising to arrange a visit for Darius and Xavier as soon as possible. I was jus
t glad that she’d escaped the hell of Lionel’s company.
Gabriel called to wish me a happy birthday and told me the cards had mostly fallen in our favour today. The night would be clear, the moon bright, but he couldn’t tell me about the details of what was to come in case it changed things. Everything was looking relatively good though. Luckily, Lionel was going to be away tonight, milking Catalina’s funeral for all it was worth and giving Darius and I a clear opportunity to read my father’s diary.
As the last rays of sunlight dripped through the summerhouse windows, my pulse began to pound. Night slid into existence and a blanket of stars spread across the sky as I waited anxiously for the moon to rise.
After a while, one of Lionel’s henchmen showed up to cast a ward around the perimeter of the summerhouse and lock me in for the night. I casually flipped him the finger while he worked and he scowled at me before heading away.
The moon soon peeked out above the trees beyond the pool and I moved to fetch the diary from my nightstand with my heart rate elevating. The leather binding was etched with stars and I ran my thumb across it, feeling closer to my father for a second. I thought about him a lot lately. About all the secrets he’d hidden, about the sacrifice he’d made for the entire kingdom.
If I’d had any doubts at all about him being a good man in the past, they were thoroughly squashed now. I just wished I’d gotten the chance to know him beyond my childhood. That he could have been there when I needed him most. When Lionel had bound me to Darius, when I’d not known what paths to take.
I guessed this diary was proof that he’d had faith in me, and there was some comfort in that. But it wasn’t the same as having had a parent to rely on, someone who could have offered me guidance when I was lost.
I hope I’m not a fuck up in your eyes, Dad. Even if the rest of the world thinks so.
The sliding door sounded and I turned, finding Darius walking in wearing a black t-shirt and jeans, something gripped in his hand.
Zodiac Academy: Fated Throne Page 43
