Power.
What was the point in power if I was alone with it? It wouldn’t keep me warm at night. It wouldn’t give me a damn thing that I actually wanted. My whole life I’d felt alone in so many ways. And so had she. But instead of coming together, we’d just pushed ourselves apart until-
I expelled a harsh breath and turned my mind from Roxy Vega and everything she might have been.
There was no point in torturing myself over it. No doubt the stars would see to that thoroughly enough without me needing to dwell on it myself.
And I may not have had anything to live for myself anymore. But that was okay. There were other things I could dedicate myself to now. Like making sure Clara Orion went back to the hell she’d just crawled out of and never returned.
The shadows licked keenly beneath my skin and I embraced them as they curled between my fingers, twisting up and around my arms and kissing my flesh as they burned through the pain in my heart and let me focus. They understood the true call of power. And that thirst I’d always had for it was easy enough to latch onto as I let them feast on the darkness in me.
Sometimes I feared I was too like my father. In moments like this, I relished that corruption in me.
The shadows built beneath my skin until my heart stopped racing. It didn’t stop aching, not entirely; I doubted there were enough shadows in the entire Shadow Realm to smother that pain, but it was enough for me to focus.
I crossed the room and pulled a pair of jeans and a black wifebeater from my drawer, dressing quickly and kicking on a pair of boots too.
The chest at the foot of my bed stood open and I moved to it, pushing my hands into the mounds of gold coins and jewels and enjoying the flickering pulse of my magic replenishing as I sought out the darkness hiding with the gems.
It only took a moment to lock onto that feeling of raw energy which accompanied my draining dagger and I pulled it from the centre of the treasure with a sigh of ecstasy as the dark magic called to me.
I worked to conceal the blade with my magic, lashing it to my hip and pouring every drop of talent I had into hiding it from sight. I placed illusions over it and concealment spells to make anyone who looked towards it look away again. Once I was sure it was well hidden, I moved to grab a pouch of stardust from my top drawer and took a calming breath.
It was more than a little tempting to coat myself in golden jewellery again. After letting Lance feed from me and only spending a few hours replenishing I was running low once more, but I should have enough for what I needed to do. It wasn’t going to be pretty. It would be quick, brutal and necessary. Clara Orion wasn’t the girl she’d once been. I was surer of that than I was of anything right now. She never would have tried to kill Lance before this. Whoever that was wearing her skin now, it wasn’t her. They’d dragged some kind of monster back out of the Shadow Realm and I’d happily risk my life to remove her from my father’s clutches.
I just hoped Lance would be able to forgive me for it once it was done.
I drew in a deep breath and threw the stardust over my head, thinking of home. Not that the Acrux Manor had ever felt much like home to me. But it was the place where I’d grown up, so despite the cloud of dread and fear which clung to its imposing walls, I guessed it really was home.
My room at Zodiac Academy twisted out of existence and the stars glimmered all around me as they swept me away. For a moment I could have sworn I heard them whispering, mocking, plotting, but then my boots sank into the snow at the foot of the drive of Acrux Manor and they fizzled out of sight again. I guessed I wouldn’t be surprised if they were plotting against me now. They’d offered me up the greatest gift they could present and I’d sabotaged it so thoroughly that Roxy had turned it down. I supposed I was cursed instead.
I turned my gaze upon the house where all my nightmares lived and strode up the long drive with my jaw set.
The security guards spotted me and offered respectful nods as I headed up to the enormous entryway with the door big enough to admit a Dragon.
No doubt they’d already sent a message to inform Jenkins of my arrival and just as I reached the smaller door set into the Dragon-sized monstrosity, he pulled it open.
“Master Darius,” he purred, head bowed low. “What an unexpected pleasure.”
“I need to speak with Father,” I said, not bothering with small talk.
Jenkins was my father’s man through and through, he’d earned me a beating more than once as I grew up, always ratting me out if I did even the slightest thing out of line. And he knew exactly what he was condemning me to with his tales too. He’d seen my mother patch me up plenty of times. Never said a word, just pursed his lips and cleaned the blood off of the hardwood floors like I’d offended him by bleeding on them. There was definitely no love lost between me and the family butler, though he continued to simper and bow at my feet as if he worshipped the ground I walked on.
“Of course. Would you like to make yourself comfortable in the smoking parlour and I’ll see when he can accommodate yo-” Jenkins looked up from his bow and met my gaze as he spoke, his mouth falling open in shock as he took in the black rings surrounding my irises.
Before I had to endure the inevitable question, Xavier appeared at the top of the sweeping staircase before me, his hand gripping the golden bannister so tightly that his knuckles shone white through the skin.
“I didn’t want to believe it,” he breathed, his features painted in heartbreak which cut right through me.
I opened my mouth, but nothing left my lips and a moment later he’d made it to the foot of the stairs and thrown his arms around me as a choked sob escaped him. His embrace was bruising and for a moment all I could do was close my eyes and accept the small comfort of being held in my brother’s arms.
“I don’t understand,” he whispered as he pulled back to look up at me. Though he didn’t have to tilt his head as much as he used to. Despite Father’s neglect, Xavier was growing into a man and even though he didn’t have a Dragon lurking beneath his flesh, there was still a strength in his gaze which spoke of his resilience. You didn’t survive in this household without growing a thick skin and learning how to channel pain into strength. “Why would she say no? She loved you, I could see it in her eyes, I could feel it between you, I-”
“Enough,” I growled as my heart throbbed and splintered. “Whatever you think you saw, it wasn’t that. She might have been drawn to me, but she saw me clearly enough. She locked eyes with the demon lurking within my soul and knew she’d be better off away from me than bound to it.”
“Darius!” Xavier gasped. “Don’t say that! You can’t seriously believe that she’s better off not-”
“To what do we owe this unexpected visit?” Father’s cold voice tore us apart and Xavier released me as he leapt aside. Softness wasn’t tolerated in this household. Our own mother had stopped embracing us a long time ago, and overt displays of affection between the two of us would result in punishment later.
I drew in a breath as I turned to look up the stairs. Jenkins was gone, he’d clearly scuttled off to tell my father that I was here and Mother had shown up too.
I refused to hesitate and lifted my chin as I looked up at the two of them as they paused at the top of the stairs. I looked straight into my mother’s eyes and a strangled scream escaped her as she took in the black rings surrounding mine.
She lurched off of the top step and ran to me as my eyebrows rose in surprise.
“How did this happen?!” she cried as she reached me, her hands clasping my face as she forced my gaze down to hers and tears swam in her deep brown eyes.
My mother was a beautiful woman, but it had been a long time since I’d seen anything even bordering on true emotion from her. She was like a pretty doll who walked and talked and hung from father’s arm while batting her eyelashes at the people he wanted to impress. I’d heard a rumour once that he sometimes leant her out to his friends to secure political deals, letting them have a night with her in e
xchange for support to his agenda in the Council. I hadn’t wanted to believe it but there was a cold, cynical part of me which was almost certain it was true. And it was impossible for me to tell how she felt about that. Or if she felt anything at all about anything most of the time.
But right now, she was looking at me like her heart was breaking. Like this thing that had happened to me might as well have happened to her.
“Who was it?” Father asked and my gaze whipped to him as his eyes lit with a thirst for the answer. His heart clearly wasn’t breaking. In fact, I doubted he had one at all.
I let the shadows loose beneath my skin as I used them to drown out some of my pain, working to hide it from him as I moved away from Mother to answer him.
“Roxanya Vega,” I growled, her name sticking to my tongue like a pill too bitter to swallow.
Father’s lips tugged into a cruel smirk, his eyes glittering with triumph which I failed to understand.
“So she can take orders well after all,” he purred.
“What does that mean?” I demanded, my hand curling into a fist as my Dragon shifted beneath my skin and I moved up the stairs towards him.
“Only that I saw the way you looked at her at Christmas,” he replied with a shrug. “And I warned her that the two of you were not a good match. Seems like she agreed with me on that.”
“Did you Coerce her to do this to me?” I asked in a low tone as an ugly truth shifted in his gaze and my heart leapt at that possibility. It wouldn’t change what had happened, but if I knew she hadn’t truly wanted to say no to me, that was something…although as I considered that, I knew I didn’t really believe it. She’d spoken plainly enough when she tore my heart from my chest. She’d known exactly what she was choosing and why. And I knew it too. I’d earned this fate from her. I’d failed too many times to even dream of anything else.
“Don’t be absurd,” Father replied. “Why on earth would I want my own son to be so unhappy? Besides, how could I have possibly guessed that you’d be mated to a Vega?” His sneer made me want to punch him and my fist tightened, but I restrained myself. I wasn’t ready to face my father yet. And there was something else I’d come here to do.
“I know that Clara came to you,” I said, changing the subject before I snapped. “After Lance fought to return her from the Shadow Realm and she tried to fucking kill him.”
Father arched a brow like he could see where I was going with this and he clearly had no intention of following along.
“Yes. I owe him a debt of thanks. My Guardian has been returned to me safe and sound.” The excitement in his cold eyes was impossible to miss and the shadows beneath my flesh stirred hungrily with the desire to tear him apart.
“He almost died,” I snarled. “She’s clearly unhinged and-”
A door banged open in the corridor behind him and I looked up just as a blur of motion shot towards me.
“Darius!” Clara squealed, shooting at me with such speed that I could barely brace for impact before she collided with me.
I was knocked back against the bannister as she wrapped her arms and legs around me and the thin robe she was wearing fell open to reveal her naked body.
The shadows within me roared and flared to life beneath my flesh at her touch. For a moment, I was blinded by them as my knees buckled and I slumped down to the steps beneath her as she straddled me.
She pushed her hands into my hair as I gasped for breath and she tilted my gaze up to meet hers.
The girl I’d once loved like a sister looked down at me but her features had sharpened, her pale skin was almost translucent and tinted black veins pulsed beneath her flesh.
“Look how big you got,” Clara gasped, her voice almost childlike but with an edge of darkness which warned me that she wasn’t the same girl anymore at all. “So big and strong, like your daddy.” Her hands roamed over my chest, my arms, igniting a swell of darkness from the shadows within me everywhere she touched.
I was immobilised by them, my limbs locked as I stared at her. She wriggled on my lap and I frowned as I looked down at her naked body with my skin crawling. There were marks on her pale flesh almost like tattoos, but they writhed and danced on her skin, moving from place to place like living shadows.
“What’s the matter, Darius?” she breathed, leaning so close that her breath washed over my lips and the taste of soot and chalk coated my tongue. “Is your heart bleeding for Roxanya?”
She painted a cross on my chest above my heart with a finger, her nail biting into the skin through my wifebeater and causing blood to flow.
“Give in to the shadows and you’ll forget her,” she whispered. “And then we can destroy her together if you like…”
Her lips brushed mine and a deep growl resounded through my chest as Dragon fire poured through my limbs and burned through the shadows which she was driving beneath my skin.
This creature had tried to kill Lance, she was dark and twisted and bound to my father. The only thing she could cause by being here was further pain. And I refused to let that happen.
She pressed her lips down on mine more firmly and I snatched the draining dagger from my hip before driving it straight at her gut.
Her fingers caught my wrist at the final second, her grip impossibly strong as she stopped my attack and the shadows rose up so thickly that I couldn’t see anything but her amidst the darkness. Her fangs snapped out and she lunged at me, but I’d already thrown my other hand up between us.
Fire slammed into her with the force of an explosion and she was knocked off of me, tumbling down the stairs as the shadows rose up all around her.
Father shouted at me to stop, but he didn’t intervene as he remained at the top of the stairs watching our fight. Mother and Xavier had run for safety in the corridor beyond the entrance hall, but I only had eyes for the monster who’d tried to kill my friend. Rage consumed me like an inferno, feasting on my grief and giving me an outlet for it as my muscles bunched and my magic burned beneath my skin.
I dropped the dagger and let out a roar of rage as I lunged after her, shooting spears of ice and an inferno of fire at her with every drop of power I had.
Clara screamed in agony and for a moment I thought I’d succeeded in ending her but before I could press my advantage, the shadows reared out from her and snaked their way around my limbs.
I was thrown backwards, slamming into the wall with a cry of pain as the shadows coiled around me, forcing their way inside me, choking, drowning suffocating. They tore into the agony of my heart and spilled the sharpness of the pain I harboured through me in a never ending torrent which cleaved my soul from my flesh.
I couldn’t hear anything, see anything, do anything other than feel the agony of all my failures, the hopelessness of all I’d ever dreamed for and knew I’d never claim.
It was eating me from the inside out, consuming and devouring everything good in me and drawing every hateful, brutal piece of me to the surface of my skin as agony thundered through my limbs.
“That’s enough, Clara,” Father’s voice cut through the fog of shadows and suddenly they withdrew. “I’ve only got one Heir now after all.”
The world came back into focus and I found myself panting at the foot of the stairs on my back with Clara standing over me, a cloak of shadows now hiding her nudity.
“That wasn’t very nice, Darius,” she pouted. “I’m the Shadow Princess and you’re a prince. We should be happy together.”
“Fuck you,” I panted. “You tried to kill Lance.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, not sounding sorry in the least. “But he was a bad, bad brother. Daddy told me we need him though, so I won’t hurt him again.”
“Daddy? Your father’s been dead a long time, Clara,” I grunted, wondering if she’d lost all sense of reality as I tried to reach for my magic but it was all gone. I was entirely tapped out and stuck at her mercy.
“Silly, I don’t mean the man who sired me.” She giggled and I frowned as Father’s foo
tsteps approached and he stood over me too.
“Clara has that little nickname for me,” Father said mildly like that wasn’t weird as fuck.
Clara turned to look at him with adoration swimming in her gaze, tiptoeing up to press a kiss to his lips as her hand trailed down over his waistband and cupped his junk. The look my father gave her said he didn’t mind that at all and I fought the urge to vomit in my mouth.
“Your wife is right there,” I snarled, glancing behind him to where my mother and Xavier stood watching us like they didn’t know what the fuck was going on.
Father only shrugged. “The bond between a Guardian and their Ward transcends any other commitments. You should know that well from your relationship with Lance. Catalina is open to the needs of my bond with Clara being fulfilled.”
Mother didn’t respond to that, her concerned gaze fixed on me like the only thing she cared about in all of this was making sure I was alright.
I was sure my repulsion was scrawled across my face, but they didn’t seem to care. Clara was young enough to be his daughter - if she was even truly Clara anymore. I certainly didn’t see the girl I used to know shining back out of her eyes.
“Just say you’re sorry, Darius, and we can be friends again,” Clara demanded with a pout.
Zodiac Academy 5: Cursed Fates: An Academy Bully Romance (Supernatural Bullies and Beasts) Page 6