I curled my hands into fists on the table, not knowing what to do with all the rage and hurt that lived in me on her behalf. The shadows clawed their way up under my skin, trying to feed on that pain, take it away. But they couldn’t have it. It was mine to bear, and I wasn’t going to let them pacify me.
By the time class ended, Diego had gotten the spell right and Orion had taught me and Tory how to hide our magical signatures on our concealments too. It was like withdrawing the energy around the spell we’d just laid, siphoning it away until there was as little as possible used for the concealment, leaving no clues that an object was there at all. I was excited to use it for real, and kinda annoyed I hadn’t known how to do this before now to conceal the Aquarius Moonstone from Seth. He might never have figured out I’d given him fleas. But in all fairness, it felt pretty good that he knew I’d struck that blow against him. After all the shit he’d put me through, a little isolation from his pack and constant itchy balls had definitely been due.
The bell rang and we all started heading for the door.
“I need to discuss your Order gifts paper with you, Blue,” Orion’s voice cut through the air and I fought a grin as I held back.
“I’ll save you a seat in Tarot,” Tory said with a knowing look and I squeezed her arm in thanks before slipping away toward Orion’s desk. Someone tugged on my sleeve and I glanced back to see Diego there with a pale expression.
“Um, Darcy, can I talk to you?”
“Not right now, Polaris,” Orion snapped, waving a hand so a gust of air crashed into Diego and sent him flying out the door with the last of the students. The door slammed shut and I glared at Orion, planting a hand on my hip.
“That was rude,” I said sternly. He flicked a hand to cast a silencing bubble then shot toward me, taking my breath right out of my lungs as he threw me back onto Tyler’s desk and pressed his tongue between my lips.
“I am rude,” he growled into my mouth.
I moaned, tangling my hands in his hair as the heat of his flesh brought my body to life. I forgot everything, the world just a hazy grey blur around us as I clung to this man who made every part of me sing. My heart felt like it was trying to claw its way out of my chest to get closer to him, but I knew this had to stop. It was the middle of a school day and though I knew he could hear anyone approaching, my pulse still pounded with adrenaline.
“Lance, if we get caught…” I said breathlessly as he forced my thighs wider around his hips.
“We won’t,” he growled, knotting his fingers in my shirt.
He kissed me again, pulling buttons free and sliding his hand into my bra, a growl of desire leaving him as he found my nipple pebbled and aching for him. I gasped as he pinched my sensitive flesh, his other hand sailing beneath my skirt and brushing up the centre of my panties.
“Ah,” I gasped, his thumb skating over that perfect spot between my thighs.
We were so hungry for each other, everything about our movements was frantic and pawing. He tilted my head to the side, his mouth trailing across my neck as he hunted for a vein, his desire for my blood as keen as his desire for me.
A knock came at the door and he groaned, pressing his forehead to my shoulder in frustration.
He flicked his fingers to disband the silencing bubble and shouted, “I’m busy! Come back later.”
“It’s just…it’s quite important,” Diego’s voice sounded beyond the door.
“I said not now!” Orion barked, but I pressed a hand to his chest, shaking my head.
“He said it’s important,” I whispered and Orion pulled his hand out of my shirt, his brows stitching together as he raked his knuckles across my cheek.
“You’re important,” he growled, his thumb pressing down between my thighs the same moment he clamped a hand over my mouth.
“Lance,” I begged against his palm, though my thighs widened, betraying that plea to stop.
The knocking came again and Orion’s head snapped towards the door with murder in his eyes.
“It’s about…about your sister, sir,” Diego hissed and my heart lurched.
I caught Orion’s wrist, tugging his hand free from my skirt and pushing him back. I was flustered and hot all over, but this wasn’t something that could wait.
I quickly did up the buttons of my shirt and Orion checked me over before shooting to his desk and dropping into the seat behind it. He rearranged his pants and I fought a smirk before moving to stand before the desk, then he casually whipped a hand at the door to wrench it open.
“In,” he demanded of Diego, flipping his fingers to slam the door behind him.
Diego tugged at one side of his black beanie hat as he moved toward us, anxiety flickering through his eyes.
Orion cast another silencing bubble and cocked an eyebrow at Diego. “Well?”
Diego glanced between us, knotting his fingers together. “Well…you know how I told you about how mi abuela made this hat?” He pointed to it.
“How could I forget?” Orion asked dryly, leaning back in his seat with a suspicious expression.
Diego cleared his throat and I gave him an encouraging look. “It’s connected to the souls of my family. We can use it to show each other things…like our memories.”
“That’s crazy,” I breathed. “So you can see your parents’ thoughts?”
“Si.” He nodded. “But only what we choose to share with each other though. Once it’s shared, it’s accessible to everyone connected through mi abuela’s red de alamas. Her web of souls.”
“You’re circling the point like a fucking braindead vulture, Polaris. Get to it,” Orion snapped.
Diego’s throat bobbed and I stepped closer to him, laying my hand on his arm. “It’s okay,” I said. “What is it?”
“My family are helping the Acruxes.” He glanced at Orion nervously.
Orion wet his lips, sitting forward in his chair. “I’m listening.”
“They went to visit them last night and I felt them add a memory to the web. When I looked, I saw…I saw…” He started sweating, pulling off his hat and dabbing at his forehead with it.
Orion slammed his hand down on the desk impatiently and Diego flinched.
“I saw la Princesa de las Sombras,” he breathed, looking to Orion. “The Shadow Princess. Your sister.”
My gut knotted and I clutched Diego’s arm tighter. “What was she doing?”
“I can show you,” he said. “I want to help.”
“You’d go against your own family?” Orion asked in a deadly tone. “Why?”
Diego wrung his hat between his fingers. “It’s hard to explain.”
“Then try,” Orion growled.
I chewed on my lip, waiting for Diego to speak, unsure if I trusted him or not. My heart told me he really wanted to help. But how could I know for sure?
Diego cleared his throat, his cheeks reddening as he turned his gaze to the floor. “The honest truth is that I’ve never known a home before I came to Zodiac Academy. I’ve been a disappointment to everyone in my life. My family think I’m useless. And I thought that too for a while…but I can help with this. I can be useful. But not to them, to my friends.” He looked to me with a faint smile pulling at his lips that made my heart tug. “To people who have accepted me as I am, who never asked me to be anything but me.”
I gave him a reassuring smile, saddened that he felt that way about his family. But I was sure he was telling the truth. Something bone deep told me that.
“Well excuse me if I don’t pull out the tissue box and start playing the tiniest violin in the world, Polaris, but I’m gonna need more than a fucking sob story to be convinced.” Orion rose from his seat, apparently boner free as he strode around the desk and stared down at Diego with his eyes narrowed.
“Give him a chance to prove it,” I said, lifting my chin. “I believe him.”
Orion’s gaze slid to me and his jaw ticked as he mulled over my words. “I’m not going to take any stupid risks.”
> “There’s no risk,” Diego promised. “I can show you the memories through the shadows. That’s all. They could never tell you saw them.”
Orion ran his tongue over his teeth, moving closer to Diego in an intimidating stance. “If you try to fuck me over, kid, I’ll break every bone in your body. And if you try to fuck over the Vegas, I’ll rip out said broken bones one by one, put them in a blender and feed them to you through a straw. I know some nasty fucking spells that will make sure you stay alive through the entire thing. Mark. My. Words.”
My lips popped open and hell, I was shamefully turned on by him in that moment.
Diego straightened his spine and balled his fists. “I swear I won’t.” He held out his hand. “I’ll swear it on the stars if that makes you feel better.”
Orion’s eyes slid down to Diego’s hand extended between them then he clucked his tongue, turning and striding back to his desk. He opened his drawers one at a time, rummaging through them for something before finally producing a beautiful blue Lapis Lazuli crystal.
“I’ll go one better,” he said, deadly calm. “You will make a star promise with me and Blue. Then you will do it with Darius and Tory when you see them too. If you break the promise, we’ll feel it. And the stars will curse you for the rest of your miserable days. Which will be a sum total of one, during which the bone-breaking-smoothie fest will commence.”
I would have laughed if he hadn’t looked so damn serious. I really did think my crazy Professor boyfriend would have made Diego drink his own bones in the world’s most messed up milkshake.
“I’ll do whatever you need to gain your trust.” Diego continued to hold out his hand, but it was definitely shaking a little as Orion grabbed it and pressed the crystal to his inner palm and it started to glow. He scored lines across it and I shifted closer to watch as he painted Diego’s star sign constellation of Aquarius onto his skin in a mark that glimmered like the crystal. Then he marked the Libra constellation on his own palm and took hold of Diego’s hand in what looked like a bruising grip. “You will swear not to breathe a word of what we discuss together, never share a memory or a thought about your time with me, the Vegas or Darius Acrux unless we agree to.”
“I swear it.” Magic flashed between their palms and Orion dropped his hand, seeming satisfied as he moved forward to take mine. He lifted it, pressing the crystal to my palm and drawing the Gemini constellation across it with gentle strokes. I glanced up at him under my lashes, seeing the worry in his expression and wishing I could soothe it away. I knew how he felt. He was afraid. Afraid of the world falling away from beneath our feet at any moment. And I was scared of the same thing.
Amongst all of the darkness hanging over us, he was a solid beacon of light I could focus on. Him and Tory were the only things that mattered. I had to protect them, keep them close. But we couldn’t just hide, or run. We had to stand and fight. And if Diego could help us do that, then this was a chance we had to take.
Diego moved forward, taking my hand and Orion directed me to repeat the words he’d spoken before. When Diego agreed, a cool, powerful magic flooded into my veins. I felt the weight of the deal slipping around my heart, sitting there with the other one I’d made with Orion. When we’d promised to always do whatever it took to stay together.
“Show us then,” Orion demanded, looking to Diego with a tight jaw. “Let’s see this memory.”
Diego’s hand was still holding mine and he reached out to take Orion’s.
Orion looked like he wanted to hold hands with Diego about as much as he wanted to throw himself from the nearest window and dash his head to pieces on the cobblestones below, but he reached out and did it anyway.
“We have to connect through the shadows,” Diego explained. “Reach out to me with them.”
I took in a slow breath then let my eyes fall closed as I concentrated. The shadows were waiting, ready, coiled like a snake in my chest looking for prey. They slithered toward Diego without much encouragement and I felt the lull of them surrounding me.
My pulse sounded slow and steady in my ears, the thump thump thump of it the only thing I could hear as I started to drift into the abyss.
Diego and Orion’s presence shimmered in my periphery and I felt Diego tugging us into the dark, leading us deep, deep, deep down into the belly of the shadows.
My grip on the Fae world was slipping away as I became weightless, floating in a sea of nothing. It should have been frightening, but the shadows wound through me, keeping my mind calm and my pulse beating out that ever-steady tune.
Thump, thump, thump.
A light expanded before us and suddenly I was gazing at what looked like a cloud, suspended before us in the dark. It was white and yet seemed denser than a normal cloud, like I could dip my fingers into and find a foamy texture awaiting me.
Flickers of light danced through it and with each flash, I saw faces, landscapes, moments. I saw Diego as a young boy standing on a hill in the dark, his eyes wide and his cheeks flecked with red paint. Then it flashed away and I saw him holding his acceptance letter to Zodiac Academy, his face bright with enthusiasm. I felt the atmosphere twist and writhe and suddenly a memory grew brighter amongst them all, drawn to the surface of the cloud and filling the entirety of it, then more and more until it slipped into my mind and played as if I was seeing it through my own eyes.
I was in Lionel Acrux’s home, watching as Clara stood up on the dining table. Lionel sat at the far end while his vile followers huddled around it, marvelling at Clara as she wielded the shadows like they were extensions of her limbs. Her body was cloaked in darkness and she filled the entire vaulted ceiling with shadow, casting them all in gloomy tones. Lionel gazed up at it with a sinister kind of victory in his eyes. Like he’d won this war already.
My gut tightened into a ball of rage as I stared at the girl who’d hurt Orion. I knew she was his blood, but I saw nothing but a monster lurking behind her eyes. And if this hadn’t been a memory, I would have tried to tear her apart with my Phoenix fire, destroy her for ever laying a hand on her brother.
“Clara Orion will guide us in the way of the shadows,” Lionel announced. “She has suffered in darkness for us all and now we owe her our gratitude.” He stood from the table, raising a blade before ripping his sleeve back and slicing open his arm.
I gasped in time with the body I was experiencing this memory through as Lionel spilled his blood into a crystal glass, holding it out to Clara with a dark smile.
Clara rushed forward to take it, dropping to her knees before him on the table and swallowing every last drop from the glass.
“You will honour her as I do,” Lionel said, an edge to his tone and everyone around the table hurried to offer her blood too. “Our Shadow Princess!”
The memory faded away before she dove on more glasses of blood and I found myself yanked from the darkness, blinking sharply as I took in the room around me. My eyes locked with Orion’s as we released Diego’s hands and my heart pounded wildly out of rhythm.
Orion’s brow was crinkled and he looked pale, broken, his heart shattered. I wanted to rush forward and wrap my arms around him, promising it would be okay. That we’d figure out what to do about his sister. But with Diego there, I could do nothing but stare and feel all the hurt exuding from him like a wave crashing against my soul.
“I can show you everything,” Diego breathed. “Everything there is to show.”
“Thank you, Diego,” I said earnestly, moving forward to hug him. With him, we had a line to Lionel. He was our very own shadow spy, a chance to get ahead of our enemies.
I sat on the tiny beach of Draco Island out in the sea, looking back towards the coast where I could just make out the rocky cliffs that made up Air Cove with my mind sifting over and over the same things time and again.
Roxy. Lance covered in blood. Roxy. Clara strengthening my father’s hold on the shadows. Roxy. Father plotting to take down the Celestial Council and binding me in silence with dark magic. Roxy.
Mother’s face when her perfect façade shattered for the first time in forever. Roxy. Xavier’s pain locked up in that hell. Roxy. The shadows calling me closer. And Roxy.
I blew out a long breath as I looked up at the rising moon. Over the years, I’d gotten stupidly good at telling the time by the position of the sun and moon in the sky so that I didn’t lose track when I went out flying, and I had about half an hour before I was due to meet the others at Air Cove for our shadow lesson.
But there was something I needed to do before then. I’d been putting it off because I’d basically been avoiding everyone including the other Heirs, but there was an issue that needed sorting.
I pushed myself to my feet and started running along the sand, leaping forward and shifting in the same motion. I transitioned perfectly, my Dragon bursting from my flesh in a flash of golden scales and fire bursting from my jaws as my claws skimmed across the tips of the waves.
I beat my wings hard and took off towards the sky, eyeing the stars with contempt and sending a torrent of fire blazing toward them. Not that they cared. I didn’t know if I’d been born cursed or if they’d just found such amusement in my pain so often that they grew to enjoy the taste of it. Either way, the heavens had offered me more than my share of bad luck.
I turned away from them, not wanting to see their mocking glimmer as I beat a path back towards campus. I flew straight through the detection spells, not giving a shit that Nova would have logged me coming and going from campus. A Dragon needed miles of free sky to fly and circling campus just wasn’t going to cut it for me. Especially not at the moment when I needed the comfort of my Order form more than ever. I’d been flying more than sleeping most nights and I had no intention of restricting that any time soon.
Zodiac Academy 5: Cursed Fates: An Academy Bully Romance (Supernatural Bullies and Beasts) Page 11