Dark Fae (Ruthless Boys of the Zodiac Book 1)

by Caroline Peckham

  “Elysian Mates,” Gabriel’s strong voice came back to her and almost every head in the room snapped around to stare at him in shock. He aced every class but Gabriel Nox never participated. It was unheard of. Until now. When apparently he wanted to make sure that my fate included total mortification. He was looking my way again, I knew it. But I refused to return his gaze. I couldn’t.

  “Perfect example. Your Elysian Mate is your true love, soul mate, happily ever after, etcetera, etcetera,” Professor Rayburn said. “Meeting them is not a fated event as some Fae never find them. However, should you come into contact with your potential Mate, you will end up in a Divine Moment with them. Fact. Fate. Unavoidable. You will be drawn from your bed when the stars align just right for the two of you and in that fated moment you will of course be given the opportunity to choose them for your own. If you do, both of you will gain the silver ring of true love around your irises to mark your union, changing your eyes forever. Or of course you could always choose not to pair with them, your irises will be marked with a black ring instead and you will become star-crossed - destined never to be together and to mourn that loss forever more. Not much of a choice, but a choice all the same. So fate will put you in the Divine Moment but free will allows you to make your own decision about where your destiny will go from there.”

  I released a breath as she moved on from the subject of Elysian Mates to listing other examples of fate and free will colliding and I zoned out a little, taking another bite of my chocolate bar. At least if I was Elysian Mates with Gabriel I could decide whether or not I wanted him when the time came. But I still wasn’t convinced he wasn’t just cuckoo.

  Leon made an impatient noise beside me and I glanced at him, finding his chin practically on my shoulder and his mouth open demandingly as he looked at my chocolate.

  “You promised snacks,” he reminded me.

  “I said there were snacks. I never said they were for you.”

  Leon growled playfully, eyeing my chocolate bar with intent.

  “Besides,” I added. “There’s no way I’d be hand feeding you even if you could convince me to share.”

  “Oh c’mon,” he whispered. “I’ll suck your fingers.”

  “That’s not appealing.”

  “Fine.” He lunged for the chocolate but I was faster with my gifts, swiping my hand away from him and biting another piece off. I grinned at him tauntingly with it between my teeth and his smile widened too.

  “I’ll happily take it from your mouth, little monster,” he said, leaning even closer.

  With a surge of motion he twisted in his chair and pinned me in place, his hand reaching for the chocolate as I leaned back, holding it as far away from him as I could.

  He growled again, the noise as playful as sin as his breath danced over my neck and I leaned further back, quickly devouring the piece in my mouth to save it from him.

  Leon’s eyes widened in surprise like he couldn’t quite believe I’d done that then his gaze slipped to the rest of the bar in my hand as I tried to hold it away.

  He lurched across me as I tried to keep it out of his reach and I laughed in surprise as I was forced to try and wrestle him off. His hand closed over the fist hiding my chocolate bar and he grinned excitedly, looking right into my eyes as he still half pinned me in my chair.

  His skin was hot against mine and my pulse skittered in response to his touch.

  I sighed dramatically and released it into his hold, daring a glance at the rest of the room as he slowly withdrew with his prize before falling back into his seat. Luckily, no one seemed to be paying us much attention in our shadowy spot but I caught Dante glaring at us briefly. Glaring seemed to be his signature look recently though so I tried not to take it personally.

  Professor Rayburn was still discussing theories on fate with the rest of the class and pointing out that some decisions were set in stone by the stars before we were even born. For example, our star signs defining our Elemental magic. I had to admit she was right on that one. Because Libra was an air sign, I’d always known I’d have control of air magic once my power was Awakened. I guessed you could call that fate.

  Leon started groaning in the seat beside me as he devoured my chocolate and I couldn’t help but laugh as he kept getting louder and louder with each bite.

  “Mr Night, do you care to tell the class what it is that you are finding so pleasurable?” the Professor asked suddenly, swinging around to fix a glare on him.

  I bit my lip, keeping my eyes low as everyone in the auditorium turned our way.

  “Elise just gave me a mouth orgasm,” he explained innocently, holding up the wrapper of the chocolate bar he’d just finished.

  I scoffed dismissively even though I could feel a blush lining my cheeks. “You wish.”

  A few sniggers came around the class and Professor Rayburn rolled her eyes dramatically. “Please try to keep the wooing for after class. Some people are trying to learn here.”

  Leon nodded seriously, miming locking his lips up before handing me the imaginary key which I took for some reason with a soft snort of laughter. I pretended to slip it into my blazer pocket as Leon smirked at me like we were sharing a secret.

  The Professor rolled her eyes dramatically and went back to her lecture.

  We stayed silent for a while and I began to wonder if I could get away with just asking what I wanted to find out from Leon. With my Vampire hearing I’d be able to pick up on any changes to his heartbeat while I questioned him about Gareth anyway so if I started to draw his suspicion I should be able to fix it. Besides, I’d already pretty much ruled Leon out as a suspect. I just couldn’t marry his easy-going behaviour with that of a killer. Unless he was the best actor I’d ever met. I’d ease into it though just in case.

  “I have to wonder what would happen to you if you were left on a deserted island somewhere,” I whispered thoughtfully. “With no one to get you meals and pre-chew them for you, what would you do? Not to mention the fact that you’d have no one to wipe your ass for you when you took a shit either...”

  Leon twitched a smile before pointing at his mouth then holding his hand out to me. I frowned in confusion and he rolled his eyes at me before leaning into my personal space and sliding his hand into my blazer pocket. I widened my eyes at him but he just drew back and mimed unlocking his lips with the imaginary key I’d stashed there and a laugh escaped me.

  “Firstly,” he said in a low voice. “I wipe my own ass. Mostly. Mindy did it once but it was too weird-”

  “Ohmagawd eww,” I said, wrinkling my nose. “Which one’s Mindy?”

  “All of them are,” he replied. “There are too many names to remember plus they come and go, easier not to have to keep track.”

  “Wait...those girls all follow you around doing everything and anything you want and you don’t even bother to learn their names?” I asked in shock.

  “Don’t sound so horrified, like I said: they come and go. I can’t help that I draw them in, half of them aren’t even Lionesses but they get snagged on my macho Lion charisma and they just want to do all that shit for me. It’d be meaner if I told them no, they’d be all lost and crying.”

  “Plus, I’m sure having a whole host of girls to screw whenever you like comes in handy,” I teased.

  Leon smirked but didn’t reply to that.

  “So I’m guessing whoever used to have that empty bed in your room was a Mindy who saw sense and left,” I said slowly.

  Leon cast a lazy look my way but didn’t respond for a moment.

  “No actually, my old roommate...died.”

  I strained my ears to listen carefully to Leon’s heartbeat but it didn’t change at all at the subject.

  “I’m sorry,” I breathed, looking at him as he lowered his eyes.

  He sighed, straightening in his chair a little. “Yeah...it was, well it was an overdose I guess so...”

  Leon frowned as an unnatural stillness seemed to come over him and I got the feeling he didn�
�t want to talk about it. But more than that, he seemed...sad.

  I reached out slowly and slid my hand into his on the armrest between us. “Sorry if I pried,” I whispered. “I can see you cared about him.”

  Leon frowned out towards the front of the class like he wasn’t listening to me but his grip tightened around my fingers.

  We stayed silent as Professor Rayburn began to explain about Celestial Markers and how they could be used to try and unravel our fates if we wanted to try and do that. It sounded very complicated and there were a lot of factors that could change things at any time so I wasn’t convinced there was much point to it. Besides, I didn’t want to live my life believing it was all mapped out for me. I wanted to be free, wild, make wrong choices and learn from them or not. Become my own person with my own flaws and own the responsibility for whoever I was, not blame any of my failings on fate.

  “Gareth was one of my best friends here for a while,” Leon breathed. “Before he fell in with the Black Card anyway.”

  A shiver tingled along my spine at that name and I turned to look at Leon from the corner of my eyes. “What’s that, another gang?” I asked gently, though my heart was pounding at this new crumb of information.

  Leon shook his head. “They’re just a group of students. They’re like a club of some kind but people can only join by invitation. They’re secretive little shits so no one really knows what they’re into but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that more than half of them are hooked on Killblaze.”

  “And your friend joined this club?” I asked.

  “Yeah...and then he just became distant, withdrawn. Maybe I should have tried to snap him out of it. But he was a grown man, he had his own mind, you know? And I was living my own life too so I guess I just put it down to us growing apart and didn’t really pay much attention to whatever he’d gotten himself into.”

  “So you think he was an addict then?” I asked despite the fact that every inch of my body balked at the idea.

  Leon shrugged. “No. I mean, he was sleeping in the bed across from me every night and Killblaze makes people act fucking crazy. He was a bit quiet but not...I never would have guessed he was taking the stuff. When they told me he’d overdosed I didn’t believe it at first but I guess... I mean maybe it was his first time and he was just unlucky.”

  Relief spilled through me at his words. I’d been right. I knew it. And no matter what Gareth had gotten himself into with these Black Card people, I was still sure he never would have taken that shit willingly.

  Leon fell quiet and I wondered how much I could keep pushing him on this.

  I moved my fingers in his, painting circles along the back of his hand with my thumb and he shifted in his seat, leaning towards me.

  “Do you think the people he was hanging out with might have forced him to take it?” I asked.

  Leon’s brows pinched and he ran his free hand through his long hair. “I dunno. Why would they? That seems like taking peer pressure a bit too far to me, but what do I know? I’m not in their creepy cult.”

  “Cult?” I asked, that word sending a jolt through my heart.

  A smile pulled at the corner of Leon’s mouth. “Could be. They keep their little club secret enough,” he teased though I could tell he didn’t actually know that for sure.

  We fell into silence and my mind whirled with what he’d told me. I was going to have to find out more about the Black Card and what they were up to. If Gareth had any friends in this place then it sounded like they would have been there, but it also sounded like his enemies might stem from there too. I was gonna have to do some more digging. And maybe try to earn myself an invitation into their club.

  Eighteen Months before the Solarid Meteor Shower…

  My new roommate, Leon, bunked across the room from me. My other two roommates were called Sasha and Amy - but Leon insisted on calling them Mindy – and they did anything under the sun to please him. That was Lion Shifters for you. The males didn’t lift a finger to do anything for themselves unless they absolutely had to. And this guy had the strongest aura I’d ever experienced. Hell, even I wanted to do shit for him sometimes and that male Lion bullshit was only supposed to affect girls.

  I was currently laying on my bunk with my Atlas in hand, looking into Gabriel Nox in the hopes that I could dig up some dirt and blackmail the shit out of him. He had plenty of money to spare and I was fucking desperate for it. I had three more days until the deadline, meaning Ella was royally screwed if I couldn’t pull through for her.

  First thing I noticed about Nox? His parents didn’t add up. Two low powered Fae, one a Werewolf and the other a Caucasian Eagle. Gabriel was a Scorpio, so that explained him possessing the power of Earth. But to be gifted with Water too and be a Harpy with mixed parents? That shit was rare. Possible. But rare. And from the look of his scrawny, blonde-haired father and petite, red haired mother I’d found a picture of by trawling FaeBook, I didn’t see the family resemblance.

  Pooling all of that information together led me to one conclusion: Gabriel Nox wasn’t their son. So maybe this Falling Star guy was the real parent? But I’d found myself at a hundred dead ends when I’d tried to figure out who Falling Star was. All I really knew was that they had some vested interest in depositing huge amounts of money into Gabriel’s bank account every month. So maybe it wasn’t a someone. Maybe it was a company or a foundation. But I’d searched and searched for one that fit the bill and drawn a blank. So I went on a hunch that it was a pseudonym. And if that was the case, I had a few theories that spanned from conceivable to absolutely batshit.

  Theory number one...Gabriel’s real mother or father was famous. Perhaps he was the lovechild of a singer, actor or even a Celestial Councillor who were keeping him hidden from their real husband or wife. But that didn’t explain the fake-ass parents. Unless one of them really was related to him.

  Theory number two…Gabriel was taking part in a drugs test that gifted him with a powerful frame which had nothing to do with his parents and the gift of an extra Element. Yeah okay, maybe I’d come up with that one after three or four beers.

  Theory number three…(my personal favourite) Gabriel was undercover. Running from the law or maybe even from an Astral Adversary who was hunting him to the ends of Solaria.

  Theory number four…I was a desperate motherfucker looking for a way to blackmail Gabriel Nox that simply didn’t exist.

  “Hey Gordon.” Leon strode into the room, walking straight towards me.

  “It’s Gareth.”

  “That’s what I said.” He smirked. “You’re on the Pitball team, right?” He pointed to my filthy Pitball kit in a heap on the floor.

  “Yeah and?” I asked.

  “I wanna try out. I’ve been playing Pitball with my brother since I could walk. I make a killer Fireshield. My tackle is legendary.” He grinned in a way that said he meant that in both senses of the word and Sasha and Amy giggled from their beds.

  “You missed try outs, they were last weekend. Professor Mars is gonna announce who made the team tomorrow. You can probably be a sub though if you can convince him to watch you play.”

  “Na, that doesn’t really suit my needs. I wanna play Fireshield, then I want to make Team Captain.”

  “Well that sucks for you, because I’m gonna make Team Captain this year.” I grinned tauntingly and his eyes danced with the challenge.

  He ran a hand through his long, beach blonde locks, his blue t-shirt stretching over his broad form. “Listen dude, you want to have an actual chance at winning the inter-academy tournament this year, right?”

  “Right,” I agreed, raising a brow. “And you think you’d give us the edge to do that, do you?” I surveyed his frame, quietly accepting that he would probably make a decent addition to the team.

  “I do,” he said easily.

  “Well like I said. You missed try outs.” I shrugged one shoulder.

  “Were you on the team last year?” Leon asked thoughtfully.

&n
bsp; “Yup. I’m a star player and I’m gunning for Captain. It’s basically a done deal,” I said with a sideways smile.

  “Then Mars will make an exception for you if you ask him.” He leaned down, grabbing my wrist and hauling me out of bed.

  “Hey asshole.” I shoved him back with a blast of air and he stumbled away with a grin.

  “Come on, dude. I’ll make it up to you,” Leon implored.

  “How?” I folded my arms.

  “I’ll give you the login for my Faeflix account? You’ll have access to all the best movies and shows in Solaria right on your Atlas.”

  “Really?” I asked, tempted by that shit. I couldn’t afford the ten aura a month subscription and had to listen to my friends talk daily about a new action film called Fae Hard which sounded awesome.

  Leon reached into his pocket, taking out his Atlas and a glittering white crystal was pulled free, bouncing across the floor. It was the size of my thumb and fucking beautiful. Leon didn’t move to get it and Sasha jumped out of her bed to grab it for him. Before she could, I dropped down, picking it up and turning it over in my palm. It shimmered like starlight and a strange energy seemed to pour from it, bathing my heart in a pool of warmth.

  “Oh thanks, dude.” Leon took the crystal, tucking it back into his pocket.

  “What is that?” I asked, missing the feel of it already.

  “It’s white jasper,” he said, raising his eyes from his Atlas. “And it’s mine.”

  “Right...isn’t jasper normally red?” I was hopeless in Potions class so I couldn’t remember what jasper was capable of anyway and I’d never heard of a white version. It was my least favourite subject and when Professor Titan started babbling about the power of crystals, my mind just checked out.

  Leon laughed. “Yeah dude, the white ones are rare as hell and ten times as powerful as the red ones. You could feed a family of ten off this crystal for a month.”

  I forgot to breathe.

  Or save my baby sister from parading herself on stage for a bunch of horny unwashed guys.