“It’s a possibility,” I agreed, calling over the wind as I looked at the water far below us.
“Well I might have an answer for you if you ask,” he teased.
I rolled my eyes at him and turned back towards campus. “How about this then – we race back to Neptune Tower and if you get there first I’ll ask. But if I get there first, you’ll give me a summary of how this conversation is going to go without making me jump through hoops?”
“Bad choice, Tor, Harpies are much faster than Phoenixes,” Gabriel taunted and I didn’t miss the way he’d just decided to start calling me by Darcy’s nickname for me, but I also kinda liked it.
“Only just,” I scoffed. “Besides…I don’t have to worry about that wind.”
“What wind?”
I raised a hand and blasted a wall of air at him hard enough to send him tumbling away through the clouds and his laughter chased me as I shot away, flying towards campus as fast as I physically could.
My flaming wings beat furiously and Phoenix fire sprung to life all over my body a moment later. I had to fight to stop it from consuming my clothes and I lost a little speed as I concentrated.
Gabriel shouted something which sounded like dirty cheat a moment before a torrent of water crashed over me. It sizzled out of existence against the heat of my flames and I was engulfed in steam which blinded me for a moment as Gabriel’s laughter tore past.
I commanded the air around me to clear the steam and beat my wings harder as I gave chase, the tower looming ahead of us as we raced across campus.
Gabriel was right about Harpies being faster…just. But it didn’t mean I was going to give in. As he dove towards the tower roof, I threw all of my power into my air magic, creating a powerful updraft beneath him and sending him catapulting up into the clouds again.
His curses met with my laughter as I shot towards the roof, landing lightly before dropping to sit on the russet tiles with my legs dangling over the edge.
I withdrew the flames from my skin, but kept my wings free as I waited for him to arrive.
Gabriel dove from the clouds at the speed of a comet before landing beside me and dropping down with a huff of frustration.
“You fight dirty for a princess,” he growled.
“I’m pretty sure being a princess in Solaria requires it,” I pointed out.
“You may have a point.”
“That’s what it takes to be Fae, right? You have to be ruthless, determined, savage, heartless-”
“Not always,” he replied in a low voice.
“Often enough.”
We sat in silence as the truth of that weighed down on our shoulders and Gabriel’s arm pressed against mine. There was something about him that just put me at ease. I had serious trust issues at the best of times and I really never made friends easily. In fact, most of the time I had to assume that people only really wanted to hang out with me as an extension of Darcy unless they wanted something from me. But it wasn’t like that with Gabriel. I felt a genuine connection with him that had nothing to do with any of that and everything to do with the two of us.
He nudged me playfully and I nudged him back. The second time he did it, he shoved me so hard, I fell off the roof.
I screamed as I began to plummet and his hand snatched mine as I grabbed the edge of the roof and beat my wings, scrambling back up.
“Dickwad,” I panted as I sat down beside him again with my heart racing and he laughed.
“I don’t like losing,” he said with a shrug like that made it okay for him to push me off a roof.
“Asshat,” I muttered but I was smirking too.
He was the kind of friend who would stand up to my bullshit, bristle in response to my resting bitch face, call me out on my own crap, push me off a roof when I cheated him and have my back to the brutal, bitter end. Ride or die. In short, the best kind of friend there was. Which considering the short time I’d known him seemed insane, but I just knew it was the case.
I thought back on the lesson we’d had on star bonds and had to wonder if he was my Nebula Ally. The kind of friend the stars chose especially for me because I needed him. Although the stars were on my shit list so I wasn’t going to be offering them any gratitude even if that was true. But I was tempted to ask if he felt it too or if I was just being a weird little stalker claiming to be his BFF.
“Yes, I believe so too,” he said with that knowing smirk.
“Stop answering questions I haven’t asked yet. It’s weird.” I kinda loved it though.
“Pfft. What’s the point in wasting time waiting for you to ask when I already know what you’re going to say? Besides, if I really am your Nebula Ally then you must like it really because I do it all the damn time and if it annoyed the fuck out of you then you wouldn’t be able to stand me.” I rolled my eyes, but didn’t deny it. “Besides, this isn’t my first rodeo. I’ve got more than a few Nebula Allies so I know how to spot the signs. Me, you and Darcy are like a little dream team just waiting to happen. Besties for life.”
I didn’t miss his mocking tone, but I liked it anyway. “Well, it’s time the stars gave me something good for once,” I said. “Rather than just fucking me over all the damn time.”
Silence hung between us as we kicked our legs above the ten floor drop and Gabriel sighed. “I owe you the conversation about the new tarot card Darcy found, but I can’t offer you any insight into it right now. The only thing I could glean from the stars is that it relates to something immeasurably important, but they refused to give me any more than that to go on. So instead, I’m going to say something to you which you won’t like. And you’re going to throw a fit and storm off and then be even more pissed at me because I predicted it and you said you wouldn’t throw a fit but you still did.”
“What?” I asked with a frown. I was in a seriously good mood. It was a beautiful day, I’d made progress with my Tarot and Potions studies and I’d mastered an advanced concealment spell that Orion had had us working on for over a week. My team’s cheer routine was looking fucking killer in practice and I’d only pouted over Darius like five times today. Hell, I hadn’t even touched the shadows all afternoon. I was as peachy as a nectarine and couldn’t see any sign of that changing. “I’m not going to throw a fit, Gabriel. Hell, I don’t even know how to throw a fit. I’m as chill as they come.”
“That’s a load of bull and we both know it. Anyway, I’m not going to apologise because you need to hear this. I’ve seen it. Plus I’m going home for the weekend after you storm off and you’ll be begrudgingly apologising to me on Monday morning in Tarot class… Oh, scrap that, you might still be pissed and give me the scowly face all day actually. There are a few factors that will determine how long it takes you to realise I was right. It just depends on how pigheaded you are and with your track record…”
“Stop being cryptic and just give it to me straight,” I demanded.
“Fine. But don’t punch me... In fact-” Gabriel shifted until there was a good meter of space between us and I raised an eyebrow at him. “You’re going to try and punch me and if anyone sees us, you’ll end up in trouble with Nova for attacking a teacher. I can’t be fucked with the effort involved with fixing that headache. Nice right hook by the way.”
“Gabriel, just spit it out,” I demanded.
“Okay.” He sighed, levelling me with a dark stare which was quite a deviation from our lighthearted back and forth. “You just claimed that the stars fucked you over, but do you really believe that?” he asked, pinning me in his gaze. There was something so familiar about his eyes, something that drew me in and made me want to trust him. Made me feel safe.
“Of course I believe that. They selected an Elysian Mate for me who had never shown me anything but cruelty and violence. They didn’t even give me the opportunity to choose him,” I growled, my bitterness over that rising keenly.
“So you think that between the stars and Darius himself, they’re entirely to blame. None of it falls down on you?” he
asked. And he was right, I wanted to punch him.
I pushed my tongue into my cheek as I tore my gaze away from his and looked out over the campus. “What should I have done differently? Just roll over and take all of the shit he put me through? Let him humiliate me, victimise me, taunt and bully me, burn off my clothes, tell lies about me to the press, team up with his friends to hurt my sister, go out of his way to make me miserable, call me all kinds of cruel things and try to drown me and then say to myself, well he had his reasons so never mind, I’ll just let him take ownership of me too?” My words were heated and burned across my tongue. My anger, frustration, rage, disappointment, all of it rolled up into one hard pit in the centre of me where my heart should have lain and lashing out at the slightest provocation.
“I don’t think you should let him off the hook for it. But I think you need to take responsibility for your part in things too. Darius is a product of this world, these people who surround him, the monster who made him. How do you think you would have faired with a father like Lionel Acrux? Who do you think you would be if the Savage King had never died and he’d moulded you into his image?”
“How am I supposed to answer that?” I growled. “But it’s not like me and Darcy had it easy. We were bounced from place to place, never wanted, constantly sent away. We had no one to raise us with any kind of consistency, yet we didn’t grow up to be total assholes. She certainly didn’t anyway.”
“I know that you bear the scars of your life before Solaria on your soul. They moulded you just as Lionel moulded Darius. But despite the fact that Lionel worked his hardest to create Darius in his own image, he still fights back against his father. He still tries to protect his brother no matter the cost. And in everything he did to you, no matter how fucked up it might have been, he was acting with the belief that it was the best thing for Solaria. Ask anyone who was alive during the Savage King’s rule and they’ll tell you what a horrifying place our kingdom was to live in while we were governed by the rules of a mad man. Aside from that, Darius has been preparing for years to challenge his father and take his place on the Celestial Council by force. He wants to do that so that he and the other Heirs can make even more progress within this kingdom. That’s why he fought so hard to stop you from seizing it from him. It doesn’t excuse his faults, but it does explain them.”
“And it doesn’t change what he did to me,” I growled stubbornly. “He never apologised, you know. Not once. Not until it was too late and we were standing beneath the stars being asked whether or not we wanted to be bound for life. Then all of a sudden he was filled with regret. But how am I supposed to know if that was regret for what he did to me or if it was regret for what he did to his mate?”
“You’re one and the same.”
“No. We’re not. Because I said no. Because I might have a thousand faults of my own. I might be stubborn and selfish and unforgiving at times. I might be harsh and hard and damaged, but I have enough self respect to know that I’m worth more than some overdue apology blurted when there was no choice but to make it.”
“You’re right…but do you remember the night I asked you to get stardust for our flying lessons from Darius? I told you he would say yes if you asked so long as you went before midnight.”
“What of it?” I muttered.
“Do you remember I warned you that there were two paths your conversation could take depending on the two of you and what choices you made?” he pressed.
“Vaguely.”
“And did you heed that warning? When you went to him, did you try and stop your conversation from heading down the darker path?”
“From memory, he acted like a complete douchebag from the moment I entered his room.”
“I’m pretty sure he tried to talk to you reasonably,” Gabriel countered.
“Do you just vision snoop on all of your friends’ private conversations or is that a special treat you’ve reserved for me?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.
“I get my visions for a reason, and the only reason I snooped was because I knew that could have been a turning point for you one way or another. It was important.” Gabriel shrugged like he had no qualms about his sneaky, snoopy visions and I narrowed my eyes on him.
“So you knew we were going to be Elysian Mates?” I asked, my heart pounding at the thought of that. If he’d known and hadn’t warned me, I’d wring his fucking neck and pluck all of his feathers before lighting them on fire while he cried over it.
“No. Of course not. No one can predict those kinds of star bonds, the heavens hide that from us. Believe me, I know – I spent a lot of time trying to predict them a long time ago.”
“Why were you so interested in us then?” I demanded.
“The stars offered me enough to know that your relationship with Darius was important. Not just for you, but for the whole of Solaria. It still is, even now. You’re both destined to rule this kingdom and one way or another you’ll have to figure that out one day.”
“So what? You’re saying that if I’d been reasonable too, talked to Darius instead of freaking out over the idea of him hurting me again then this whole thing might have turned out differently?” I scoffed. “Because of one conversation?”
“Wars have hinged on less. Fate is a fickle and temperamental beast.”
I frowned as I thought back on that night. Darius had told me he cared about me and I hadn’t wanted to believe it. He’d seemed so close to apologising for everything, the words almost seeming to stick in his throat and for the longest moment I’d really believed he was going to speak them. But he didn’t. And I hadn’t waited around for him to find the courage to do it.
“We fought,” I said, bitter tears stinging the backs of my eyes. “He insulted me again and I just lost it with him. He wanted me to admit that my feelings for him had changed, that on the night of the Lunar Eclipse when we almost kissed it meant something more.”
“But you slammed the door in his face and told him nothing had changed,” Gabriel said sadly like knowing I’d done that hurt him too. “And you told him you still hated him.”
“Well what the fuck else was I supposed to say?” I snarled. “Are you telling me I should have just cut myself open, shown him my heart and let it bleed for him? Made myself vulnerable to him after everything he’d put me through when he couldn’t even say he was sorry for any of it?”
Gabriel sighed like my words caused him pain and he shook his head sadly. “You both could have made different choices there. If he’d apologised, if you’d been honest…you would have been together that night. It would have changed so many things.”
I scoffed because I didn’t believe it. Or maybe I just didn’t want to. Maybe I was too stubborn, but what difference did that make now?
Gabriel hesitated before he went on, seeming to see the way my blood was boiling and rage was fuelling me. “After you were together in the Shimmering Springs, you told him it didn’t matter to you, you made little of it, told him it didn’t change anything.”
I ground my teeth. I knew why I’d said that then. Darius had been looking at me in a way I couldn’t put a name to and I’d been terrified that he was about to say or do something cruel again. And I couldn’t take it. I was too raw in that moment, too vulnerable, desperate for it to mean nothing and mean everything all at once that I’d gotten there first with venomous words and lies held before me in a shield to try and protect myself.
“I assumed it meant nothing to him. That I was just some conquest,” I muttered.
“He was falling in love with you and you ripped his heart out,” Gabriel said quietly. “There is no greater pain in this world than that. Believe me. I know. I’ve lived it.”
“So am I supposed to feel guilty now?” I demanded. “Responsible? After everything? All of it? He never said that to me. Never told me-”
“He told you. You just didn’t want to hear it,” Gabriel interrupted.
“I don’t want to hear this,” I snapped, getting to my feet as the t
ears threatened to fall. “I don’t have to hear it.”
“Yes you do,” Gabriel growled, standing too. “Because you need to accept that you’re to blame in this too. You both failed the tests the stars set you-”
“I don’t-”
“In the throne room, when you were with him there, he told you, as clearly as I’m telling you now that he wanted you, he said he wanted to claim you as his own, he said he wanted everything from you, that you-”
“Do you just have visions about my fucking sex life?” I snapped.
“It’s not about sex,” he said with a grimace like the idea of seeing me and Darius going at it horrified him. Which it should have because the idea of him vision-perving as well as vision-snooping was so far beyond gross I could have puked. “I don’t see that. I see the parts that matter, the things you say and feel and I know how much you both care-”
“Enough!” I shouted as the tears finally broke past my defences and spilled down my cheeks. “That’s enough. I don’t care whose fault it was or how many chances we had not to end up here. We are here. That’s the end of it. So fuck fate. Fuck the stars. Fuck destiny. Fuck Darius Acrux. And fuck you.”
I leapt off of the roof before he could reply, throwing up a hard air shield behind me to make sure he couldn’t follow as I beat my wings hard and took off across campus. I didn’t know where I was going, I just knew that I needed to get the hell away from Gabriel Nox, my so called bestie.
Wasn’t it bad enough that I had to live with this shit for the rest of my life? Did I really have to turn it all over and over? Couldn’t he just leave me to blame Darius for all of this and at least take comfort in my own innocence? I didn’t need him piling blame onto me too. And I really didn’t need to be thinking that he might just have a fucking point.
Gah! Fucking psychic Harpy asshole.
A rush of magic swept over my skin and I shivered as I realised I’d just flown straight through the magical barrier which surrounded campus.
Zodiac Academy 5: Cursed Fates: An Academy Bully Romance (Supernatural Bullies and Beasts) Page 21