Dark Fae (Ruthless Boys of the Zodiac Book 1)

by Caroline Peckham

  Books were piled around a heap of cushions on the right hand bottom bunk looking like someone’s personal reading cave and the top bunk had the covers thrown back as if someone had just climbed out of it.

  “Where am I?” I asked though with how comfortable Ryder looked here I could hazard a fairly good guess.

  “My room, new girl. Just like in your fantasies.”

  “I don’t fantasise about you,” I retorted. Liar. “Why does it look like you don’t have dorm mates?”

  “Because I don’t. I like my own space and I made the suggestion they all come up with alternative arrangements. They agreed that would be for the best.”

  “Of course they did,” I muttered.

  I twisted my fingers through the material of my skirt as I fought against the tears, slowly forcing my pain back away so that I didn’t have to bear it in front of him. Why had he brought me here? All I’d wanted was to be alone. To let an inch of this agony loose in the privacy of my room before I had to try and contain it again.

  “You stole a dose of my pain the other day,” Ryder said slowly, taking a step towards me.

  “You were the one who offered it to me,” I objected, raising my chin to meet his gaze. I’d never asked to see anything of what he’d shown me. Hell, I’d never asked for a single one of his hypnotic visions at all.

  The pain in my chest was still pulsating sharply, making it hard to breathe, hard to focus on anything. Gareth’s face swum behind my eyelids and all I wanted was to get the hell out of here and forget about this while I screamed into a pillow.

  “I want to take a trade on that pain,” Ryder breathed, moving so close that he pinned me against the wall.

  I could have used my speed to get away from him, but I didn’t.

  Ryder stood before me, placing a palm against the stone beside my head as he leaned down to look into my eyes.

  “Don’t,” I breathed, feeling him toying with his powers like he was half considering forcing my pain to the surface with his hypnosis. But I couldn’t let him see it. He might recognise Gareth’s face. Besides, it wasn’t his, it was mine. I didn’t want anyone else seeing my memories of the people I loved.

  Ryder cocked his head to the side, assessing me slowly, like a predator sizing up their prey. But I was no prey.

  He reached out to me, tracing his fingers in a slow line along the side of my face. My back arched as the pain in me sharpened unbearably and I sucked in a breath to try and steady myself as he drew the pain out of me.

  It hurt like hell. Like standing there and hearing those words for the very first time all over again. Gareth’s dead. Dead. It was like the rug being pulled out from under me, and the foundations of my whole world crashing down around me. I could feel the rough carpet in our old hallway as it bit into my knees and the way I’d choked, gasping for a breath I couldn’t get into my lungs. It was a sharp blade, slicing a hole right through me, cutting me open and leaving me to bleed and bleed but somehow keep on living too.

  Ryder’s touch awoke pain and suffering and misery in every inch of my body and yet somehow...it felt good.

  Ryder shifted closer to me, leaning down until his forehead was touching mine, inhaling deeply like he could actually absorb the agony which was coursing through my limbs.

  “What has a pretty little thing like you ever lost to make you feel pain like that?” he breathed and the ache in his voice made it impossible to refuse him. He needed to hear my answer as desperately as I needed to share it.

  “Everything,” I replied on a breath.

  “Fuck, Elise, you’re so broken,” he groaned, his lips brushing against my ear. Somehow that didn’t seem like an insult coming from him and half a laugh escaped me as more tears fell.

  I wondered if they’d ever stop or if giving them this freedom meant I’d be bound to shed them forever.

  I dragged a breath between my lips, the cold agony trailing through my limbs and sharpening into little spears of ice which cut me open from the inside out, exposing everything in me that had been ripped apart.

  I was broken. This fucked up, broken little girl was trying to fix something that could never be mended. Even when I managed to figure out who’d killed Gareth it wouldn’t bring him back. Even when I tore them limb from limb and bathed myself clean in their blood, he wouldn’t be there at the end of it.

  Ryder’s hand stayed on my cheek, his power pushing me to face this agony, but I wasn’t fighting against it anymore. I was leaning into his touch, leaning into the pain and using it to strengthen me. I coated my body in an armour made of it. This pain didn’t rule me, I ruled it and I’d use it to make me more powerful.

  Ryder’s chest rose and fell deeply as he drew my pain out of me, fuelling his magic with the agony of it.

  “Do you remember what it was like before this?” he asked me quietly. “What it was to live without the abyss inside you?”

  My eyelashes fluttered, less tears falling from them as I embraced this side of me. The more I accepted this agony as being a part of me instead of fighting it, the easier it was becoming to cope with it. I didn’t need to lock it up and hide it away. I needed to feel it, own it, drown in it.

  I found Ryder’s intense gaze burrowing into mine like he wanted to reach right into my soul and devour every inch of this torture.

  “No,” I breathed. “I don’t remember what it was like before. Sometimes I think I do but... everything is tainted with this pain now.”

  Ryder grazed his fingers across my cheek again and his touch was an endless torment.

  “To everyone else you’re like this perfect little doll, but I can see how fractured and torn apart you are inside,” he breathed. “I can see the cracks in the perfection. I can see the poison that’s tainting your essence. And every break, every scar and burn and fissure in your soul only makes it more beautiful. Only makes you more perfect to me. This pain is strength. This agony is beauty.”

  “If I’m broken shouldn’t I want to be fixed?” I whispered, his words echoing through me in an agonising moment of clarity and I already knew his answer before he gave it.

  “No.”

  Ryder’s fingers flexed against my jaw and I could only look up into his dark green eyes, his pain mirroring my own.

  “Be mine,” he growled, a demand and a plea. I hadn’t forgotten what he’d asked me the other night. But my answer wasn’t changing either.

  “I’m not anyone’s,” I replied on a breath. “I don’t want to be caged. I want to be free.”

  “I can show you true freedom, you just have to let go,” he replied and for the longest moment I could feel myself teetering on the edge.

  Ryder’s hand slid around my throat, his fingers caressing gently. His grip didn’t tighten on me at all, but I could tell he half wanted to. His eyes watched the steady movements of his hand against my flesh and I found myself lifting my chin a little higher, offering him more.

  He held my life in his hands but he wasn’t trying to take it. He just wanted my pain.

  “Don’t fight it,” Ryder murmured in my ear. “Just feel it. It’s yours. Own it and it can’t own you.”

  I breathed in and out slowly, letting my eyes fall closed and finally letting myself look at Gareth in my memories. I didn’t try to push him away or deny the ache he’d left in me with his absence.

  It was raw and angry, an open wound bleeding from my soul that would never fully heal. It would scar me forever. But it wouldn’t define me. It was loss and pain and death. But it was also love and light and laughter. It only wielded so much power to hurt me because it meant so much to me. He meant so much to me. Before. And now too.

  I released a shuddering breath and the tears stopped falling.

  Ryder’s hand slid lower, his fingertips carving across the line of my collarbone before easing open the top button of my shirt.

  My breathing stuttered. My eyes flickered open. And I found myself looking up into the eyes of the devil. But for some reason he didn’t want to hurt me
.

  Ryder brushed the fabric of my shirt aside, two fingertips painting a feather light kiss against my skin until they came to rest above my pounding heart.

  “We’re the same, you and me,” he breathed, using his free hand to capture mine. I let him guide my hand higher until he pressed it over his heart, a mirror image of how he was touching me. I could feel the tumbling beat beneath his flesh and my own pulse seemed to rise in response to meet it. “Do you feel that, Elise?” Ryder asked.

  My lips parted to tell him I had no idea what he meant but before I could, I realised what it was. My pulse was utterly in sync with his. Our two hearts beating to the same pace.

  I shook my head in confusion, not understanding what was going on, what trick he’d used to do this.

  “Is that a Basilisk thing?” I asked shakily, somehow unable to withdraw my hand from his chest.

  Ryder laughed darkly, pressing forward so that the space between our bodies was reduced to almost nothing.

  “No, baby. That’s an us thing.”

  I looked up at him, wondering how the hell I was supposed to respond to that. But before I had to come up with anything, a harsh bell rang in the corridor outside, announcing the next class.

  I jerked away from Ryder like I’d just been caught doing something forbidden and his lips shifted into a knowing smirk.

  I couldn’t think of a single thing to say to him before I slid out of his arms towards the door. He’d left the key in it and I quickly unlocked it and pulled the door open.

  I hesitated in the threshold, looking back at him like I was going to say something but there weren’t words for what I had to say to him.

  My gaze trailed over him and I couldn’t help but wonder if the man who’d just helped me face my pain was the one who’d caused it in the first place. Was I looking at a murderer right now? Was I looking at a man I needed to kill?

  The door closed between us and I hurried away, leaving my pain with him but keeping some of it with me too. It was time I stopped hiding from it anyway. And I had a feeling I was going to need it before this was over.

  ***

  I seriously wanted to skip my Liaison session with Professor Titan that evening but after ditching out on most of my counselling session the other day, I dragged myself along to it. I couldn’t risk the chance of me getting expelled for breaking stupid rules like bunking mandatory sessions. And at least a Liaison didn’t involve a Siren sifting through my emotions like a goddamn breathing lie detector.

  I knocked on the door to his office and it swung open to admit me. Titan was sitting behind his desk, his nose in a book and a pinched expression on his face as he concentrated. He beckoned me in so I knew he was aware of my arrival and I pushed the door shut behind me before dropping into the chair in front of his desk.

  He kept reading and I tipped my head back towards the ceiling as I settled in, tracing the progress of a spider as it crawled towards the corner.

  “Sorry for the delayed start,” Titan said, closing the book with a solid thump. “I’ve been doing a little research on your kind before our session and I didn’t quite finish before your arrival.”

  “My kind?” I asked with a frown.

  “Yes. Vampires. We had a Vampire teaching here up until a few months ago and she would have been your Liaison had she not…well if she hadn’t…didn’t…leave.” Titan cleared his throat awkwardly and I perked up a little as he totally failed to cover the fact that there was more to that story than her just getting a new job.

  “Why did she leave?” I asked, not caring that I was being nosey. That was the best way to gain information anyway.

  “Well, she ah-” Titan looked around as if he thought someone might be eavesdropping and I found myself genuinely wanting to hear the end of that sentence. “She was having relations with someone she really shouldn’t have. Perhaps a few someones… Anyway, the point is she’s gone and so you’ve got me and my knowledge of the Vampire Code was more than a little rusty so I thought I’d brush up.”

  “Okay.” My mind was whirling with questions about this missing professor. Surely it wasn’t usual for teachers to leave in the middle of a school year? And if she’d left a few months ago that could even tie in with Gareth’s death.

  “So. The Code,” Titan said firmly, seeming disinclined to expand on the subject of the missing teacher.

  “I’m aware of it,” I replied. Though in all honesty I’d only given it a cursory glance a few days after my Order had emerged under the instructions of my old high school head teacher. He’d thought I should follow the stuffy set of rules and guidelines laid out by old, dead Vampires who had nothing to do with me and I’d agreed even if I hadn’t bothered to really take in much of what the Code recommended.

  The main points were obvious anyway. No killing. No permanent maiming. No keeping blood slaves. Where would I keep a blood slave anyway? In my dungeon? It was a fucking joke. There were countless guidelines beyond those few laws which suggested things like don’t indulge in the hunt but I couldn’t remember all of them. I didn’t really care to anyway. I didn’t want to be told how to live my life and as guidelines, I could totally ignore them if I wanted to.

  “Good. So I’ve been reading over the things which will help you to feel the most secure and happy from the point of view of what your Order needs. And I’ve come up with a few suggestions which may help you settle better here.”

  “What makes you think I’m unhappy?” I asked.

  “Ah, well, Miss Nightshade mentioned you didn’t make it through the entire session with her the other day. I convinced her not to impose any sanctions on you while you’re still settling in but I’m afraid if you cut your sessions with her short again or miss them entirely it could put your position at this academy in jeopardy.”

  I sighed dramatically. “Can I be honest?” I asked, wondering if his friendly act was bullshit or not and figuring I may as well test it a little.

  “Of course. Anything you tell me will stay between us.”

  “Okay. I found Miss Nightshade to be a nosey bitch. I get that she’s supposed to be on the lookout for mental health issues and whatever. But she used her gifts to force information from me which she had no right to know. If I don’t want to talk about my grief then that’s up to me. And I think she abused her power to steal that information from me.”

  Titan chuckled and I found myself liking him a hell of a lot more for that alone. “Yes, I’d have to agree with a few of those points,” he admitted before placing a hand over his mouth. “Don’t you repeat that though!”

  I laughed too and mimed crossing my heart. “I’ll take it to the grave,” I promised.

  “Please do.”

  “Why don’t you just do my counselling sessions as well as my liaisons?” I suggested hopefully.

  “Ah, I would if I could. But I’m not a licensed mental health professional.”

  I blew out a disappointed breath and he chuckled again.

  “How about I tell Miss Nightshade that you will come back to sessions with her under the premise that she doesn’t use her gifts overtly to force you to discuss matters like your grief before you feel ready to. In your own time?” Titan eyed me hopefully and I pursed my lips. He went on, seeing that he hadn’t sold me yet. “I do have some experience of grief myself.” He cleared his throat. “Once upon a time I had a daughter…”

  I frowned as he opened up to me about that, surprised that he would be so honest.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, not wanting him to feel like he had to give me any more information on the subject if he didn’t want to.

  Titan eyed me for a long moment before shrugging even though I could see that that pain still lived in him. “It was a long time ago. She was only eight when… Do you know, she had green eyes just like you. Perhaps that’s why I’ve taken a liking to you so quickly,” he chuckled. “Anyway. The point of me bringing it up was just to say that I have some experience of what you’re going through and I know everyone deals wi
th these things in their own way, but counselling did help me.”

  “Oh so you’re heading into emotion blackmail territory?” I teased, not really sure how I should comment on his confession.

  Titan smiled, raising his hands in surrender. “You caught me out. Did it work? Will you agree to go back to seeing Miss Nightshade under the terms I suggested?”

  I realised this was probably the best offer I was gonna get on the subject so I nodded.

  It wouldn’t stop her using her powers to read my emotions but maybe it would make her back off a bit and with some self control I could fool her anyway. Besides, I’d been doing some research of my own about how to confuse a Siren. There were a few methods I could employ. I could take a calming draft before our sessions which would suppress my feelings, making them harder for her to pick up on. I could also exert myself physically so that my endorphins were up and I gave off happier vibes. Or I could expose myself to powerful emotions before sessions so that those were ruling my thoughts when I went in.

  Ryder was actually onto the right trick with that one too because the best kinds of emotions for that were lust, pain, anger and sorrow. I could just overload myself on one of the four before meeting her and use it to hide my dishonesty, suspicions, grief, guilt, vengeance and anything else I didn’t want her finding out about. The next time I had a session with her I’d be ready.

  “Okay then,” I agreed half-heartedly. “Thank you, Professor.”

  “You’re welcome, Elise,” he replied. “Now back to my research. Have you been making time for yourself to be alone? Your Order is naturally solitary and sleeping in dorms isn’t necessarily beneficial to your happiness.”

  “Erm…I study in windowsills sometimes.” In all honesty I spent most of my free time trailing around the school, following up on hunches about things I’d seen sketched in Gareth’s journal or trying to figure out more about what the Kings got up to outside of lessons. Who they hung out with, what they did, when they left campus. I didn’t really do alone time in the sense of actually separating myself from the throng of the academy.