Zodiac Academy 5: Cursed Fates: An Academy Bully Romance (Supernatural Bullies and Beasts)

by Caroline Peckham

  “He’s being a stubborn fucking asshole,” he spat. “He won’t sign off on the appeal. He’s going to stay here and rot because he’s a righteous prick.”

  “There must be something we can do.” I clutched his arm as he looked to me with pity in his eyes. And I hated that.

  “I’m sorry,” he said heavily like he meant it from the depths of his being. “He’s made his bed, now he’s determined to fucking lie in it.”

  “No,” I choked out and he dragged me into his arms, suddenly becoming the only thing solid that was holding me upright. “Darius,” I sobbed. “Please do something.”

  He said nothing but his silence said it all. There was nothing he could do. He’d go to the ends of the world if it meant he could free his friend, but unless Orion made the choice to help himself, it was all pointless.

  “He did this for you,” he said quietly when I managed to draw myself together. “This fate means you can still rise in society without your name being sullied.”

  “I don’t care what people think of me,” I growled. “He took that choice away from me.”

  “I know,” he said in a low tone. “But…we can’t waste his sacrifice.”

  “What are you saying?” I stepped back out of his arms with accusation in my voice, my brows pulling together.

  “It means, the best thing you can do for him right now, is give him what he’s hoping for. Back off, give him time to stew in there until he comes to his senses. Don’t send letters, don’t try to call.”

  “But-”

  “There’s no other way,” Darius said grimly. “If he thinks you’ve moved on, he might start listening to me. And in time…maybe I can get him to agree to the appeal.” He didn’t even sound convinced of his own words. I didn’t know if he was saying them to placate me or himself. The chances of Orion changing his mind were miniscule. He’d chosen this fate. And I knew he was stubborn enough to see it through if that was what he’d decided.

  A final tear tracked silently down my cheek as reality settled over me like a ten ton weight. The broken pieces of my heart sat jaggedly in my chest, piercing right through to my core. There wasn’t a single part of me that didn’t hurt.

  That was it. My only option. I had to walk away from this place and not look back. I had to hold onto a hope that was so small, it barely shone at all.

  The stars had turned against us so thoroughly, I wondered if they’d ever been rooting for us.

  Me and Lance Orion were officially over. The most beautiful, pure love I’d ever known had been taken away from me just like that. And I didn’t know how I’d ever recover.

  Good Morning Gemini.

  The stars have spoken about your day!

  In the wake of chaos comes calm and it may be tempting to bathe in that bliss, but be warned: when feeling safest, the dark is most likely to rise. Uranus is moving into your chart so be aware that sudden shocks and changes could be coming your way. Now is not the time to start feeling comfortable in your surroundings. Though sometimes the cosmic surprises brought on by this planet can be hard to adapt to, you will have to think fast if you want to avoid making the wrong decisions. Now is the time to be impulsive – but don’t forget, nothing is ever as simple as it seems.

  In the words of Geraldine: fuck me sideways with a Dragon dildo. I don’t need anymore chaos in my life.

  I sighed as I read over the message from the stars again. Those shiny asshats definitely had it in for me. What had I ever done to piss them off so bad?

  I grumbled at my Atlas as Darius approached with my coffee, but instead of just leaving it on the table, he sat. He’d messaged me about missing our run yesterday because he had to visit Orion with Darcy and I obviously had no complaints about that, but it had kinda sucked not to start my day with him. And as classes didn’t resume until today, I hadn’t actually seen him until this morning when he’d been waiting to run with me outside Ignis House. We’d gone on our silent run like usual and I’d found myself smiling for a ridiculous amount of it as I pushed myself as hard as I could and forced him to work to keep up. I didn’t know why running with him meant so much to me, but I had to admit that it did. There was something about knowing he’d show up every day that just made me feel…important. And as much as I didn’t want to admit that he had that kind of hold on me, I couldn’t really deny it anymore. I was starting to care about the things he did and said and…gah, how was I supposed to actually talk to him face to face?

  Blood rushed to my cheeks and for some reason, it took me way too long to lift my gaze from my Atlas to look at him.

  This was weird. I knew it, he knew it, hell, the goddamn coffee knew it, and yet here we were.

  The Orb was half full for the breakfast rush already so the stars were okay with this unexpected breakfast date. Not date. Obviously I didn’t think of it as a date. It was just a Phoenix and a Dragon who had chosen never to be together sitting in a room filled with other people while food and drinks were consumed. Shit. If I had verbal diarrhoea in my head then how the fuck was I going to get a straight sentence out of my mouth without sounding like a goddamn douche canoe?

  “Hi,” he said, a knowing smile playing around his lips which was damn distracting.

  Hate and sex I could do as easy as breathing. Saying hi to a guy who showed up every day to run with me and fetched my coffee was impossible though. Great.

  Why hadn’t I thought this through? Why hadn’t it occurred to me that while I was pouring all of my childhood memories and secrets out via text that there was an honest to the stars demigod reading them? And why did a few weeks away from him and countless messages between us make me feel even more awkward in his presence? Surely getting to know each other better should have made it less weird? Instead, the weird had met Mrs Weird and had a bunch of weird babies who were currently having a party in my stomach which made the idea of consuming my coffee utterly unbearable.

  “I was wondering if you’d been to see the bike you won from me yet?” he asked with a cocky little look on his face that said he knew full well that I hadn’t. In fact, I’d shoved that key deep down into the recesses of my pantie drawer and refused to think about it at all. Aside from whenever I had to get panties out and spotted it of course. And sometimes when I was bored and fantasied about going for a ride…

  “Umm, I’ve been a bit busy,” I hedged, reaching out and snagging my coffee from the table so that I had something to do with my hands. I lifted it to my lips as he spoke again.

  “And there was me thinking it had something to do with you not wanting anything from a jumped up lizard asshole who doesn’t know his ass from his elbow and is only good for hate sex?”

  I half gasped, half laughed and one hundred percent started choking on my mouthful of burning hot coffee. Like, I legit started hacking my lungs up and damn near spilled the entire mug in my lap as I struggled to set it down on the table. I leaned forward with my hand to my chest as I struggled to get control over my water magic and tempt the little drips of coffee back up out of my lungs before I managed to make an utter dipshit of myself. But as I sat up again and swiped my hand over my mouth for good measure, it was clear I was too late for that.

  Darius was smirking at me in that way that used to get my blood boiling with rage but now, to my utter devastation, was making a motherfucking blush crawl over my cheeks.

  “Asshat,” I muttered without any venom.

  “At least I’m consistent,” he teased, his eyes lighting as he took in my shame and those little weirdos in my belly started up some kind of backflip routine.

  “Well, I already knew you were a douchebag. I’m just trying to get my head around all of the other things I know about you now, too,” I admitted.

  “Like how good I am in the sack?” he asked, leaning forward and dipping his voice so that it wouldn’t carry, but all that really achieved was to make the gravel in his tone more apparent and my toes curl inside my sneakers.

  “I could have guessed that the first time I laid ey
es on you,” I quipped before realising I’d just admitted that I’d wanted him for that long.

  The cocky ass smile on his face told me he didn’t mind that one bit and I swear I could actually feel my blush growing. Tory Vega didn’t blush. This was not like me. And those weirdos in my stomach were at it again and – holy mother of shit, the weirdos are butterflies. Motherfucking butterflies! What the hell is happening to me??

  “Come on then, Roxy,” he urged. “Tell me why you haven’t been for a ride yet?”

  My lips parted and I wasn’t even sure what to say. That I hadn’t figured out how to feel about the bike yet, let alone whether or not I was actually going to accept it and by just leaving it parked up without looking at it, I could just pretend it didn’t exist at all and get away with not figuring any of those things out.

  “I don’t know how to deal with you when you’re not being an asshole,” I admitted.

  “Don’t worry about that, Roxy. I’m still an asshole,” he assured me.

  I bit my lip as I looked at him, casually dominating the chair opposite me, devilishly dishevelled after our run with his black hair a mess and the loose tank he wore revealing so much of his sweaty chest that I couldn’t stop looking at it. He hadn’t bothered to clean himself off with water magic yet and as much as I hated to admit it, Darius Acrux looked fucking lickable after a workout.

  “Prove it,” I dared before I could stop myself. Because I was really starting to enjoy getting to know all of his finer points, but I couldn’t lie to myself about how much the darkness in him lit me up.

  The corner of his mouth twitched like he could look right into my mind and see all of the depravity hiding in there.

  I watched him as he lifted his gaze and looked around the room to the tables where some of the Professors had started to gather for breakfast together. Professor Highspell was perched on the edge of the table where Gabriel was sitting talking to Professor Rockford. Highspell seemed to be trying to draw his attention to the blood red pencil skirt she’d paired with a flouncy blouse which had half of the buttons open. Gabriel didn’t seem to have noticed she was there, but she kept tossing her hair and laughing along to everything he was saying as she tried to catch his eye.

  “Have you started on illusion spells yet, Roxy?” Darius asked me, his eyes twinkling with malice.

  “A little,” I admitted. “More concealment than actual illusions.”

  “I’ll give you a demonstration then,” he said and I watched as he casually twisted his fingers in a complicated pattern.

  At first I didn’t think anything had happened, but then something scuttled around the side of my coffee cup and my eyes widened as I took in the spindly spider which was bigger than my hand.

  “The Baruvian Hellnet Spider doesn’t generally live in this part of Solaria,” Darius murmured as my eyes stayed glued to the creepy thing. I knew it wasn’t real, but somehow it was hard to make my brain accept that. “It can move faster than a Manticore with a fire up its ass and has a particularly nasty bite. The pain of it is said to be so blinding that most Fae who feel it scream loud enough to tear their vocal chords. Not to mention pissing themselves.”

  “What are you going to do with it?” I breathed as I watched it scuttle across the coffee table before me.

  With a casual flick of Darius’s fingers, the spider leapt from the table and landed on my thigh.

  I flinched, barely suppressing a scream as the very real feeling of eight little legs scrambling over my skin made my heart pound in panic.

  “Am I making your heart race, Roxy?” he teased and I couldn’t deny that it was true.

  Darius stood and pulled his chair around the table so that he was sitting beside me with a clear view of the teachers while I stared at the insect on my lap and tried to convince my slightly terrified brain that it wasn’t real.

  The spider leapt off of my leg and began to scurry away from us beneath the tables. I glanced around at Darius as I felt him watching me instead of his creation.

  “Impressive,” I admitted. As much as it might have driven me insane that the Heirs were so much further along in their education than us, I could appreciate the fact that they worked damn hard to get so far ahead too.

  “That’s not the only way illusions can work,” he murmured as he looked at me and I suddenly felt a hand touching my cheek.

  Not just any hand. His hand. I recognised the roughness of his callouses and the heat of the fire that burned beneath his flesh despite the fact that his actual hands were clearly nowhere near me.

  “That’s incredible,” I breathed. If I closed my eyes, I could have believed he was really touching me.

  “You want incredible?” he teased and the feeling of his hand slid from my cheek down my neck, brushing my collar bone before finally caressing my breast. My nipple hardened and I practically started panting at the feeling of his hand on my body.

  “Darius,” I warned, but it didn’t come out like a warning. My voice was all rough and pleading and the way his eyes darkened told me he liked that a lot.

  A shriek of fear interrupted us and the sensation of his hand on me disappeared as he switched his attention to the commotion across the room.

  Professor Highspell had leapt to her feet and I spotted the Baruvian Hellnet Spider scuttling up her skirt as she whirled around and tried to bat it off. She cast a shot of water at it and Darius smirked as it did nothing at all to the spider and only served to soak half of her skirt.

  Everyone in the room was looking her way in shock and I was pleased to see Tyler filming as the spider ran up her chest and she screamed again. With a sudden lurch of movement, it dove towards her neck and sank its poisonous fangs in.

  Highspell screamed so loud that it echoed off of the domed roof and a fucked up little smile tugged at my lips.

  She fell to the floor and started thrashing about as the other professors tried to get close enough to help her.

  Darius disbanded the magic with a twist of his wrist and as I turned to look into his eyes, the demon I used to fear was looking back at me. And that really should have been terrifying, but there was something about the monster I knew which had goosebumps rising all over my body.

  Highspell’s screams fell silent as the illusion disappeared and with the water she’d cast at herself I couldn’t tell if she’d pissed herself, but I kinda hoped she had.

  Darius pushed himself upright and placed his hands on the arms of my chair as he leaned down to speak to me, caging me in and making my heart pound.

  “Nobody fucks with my girl and gets away with it,” he growled, his lips brushing my ear for a moment and making me shiver.

  He pushed away from me before I could reply and strode from the room. My gaze slid back to Highspell as she got her feet, panting and snarling as she looked around like she was hunting for something. Her eyes fell on me and the rage in them was enough to make me flinch. She clearly thought I was the reason for her humiliation and I guessed in a roundabout way, I was.

  No doubt she was plotting her revenge for my next lesson with her already.

  Perfect.

  I’d have to remember to thank Darius for getting me even deeper onto her shit list. Though I didn’t entirely mind seeing her humiliated in front of everyone so I guessed I’d let him off.

  I pushed out of my seat and decided to grab breakfast to go, snatching a couple of pastries from the buffet table before slipping out of the door and heading back to Ignis House.

  I needed to get changed into my uniform and head to the Uranus Infirmary for our first lesson on healing and I was more than ready to learn about that. Supposedly it was one of the hardest types of magic to master which was why they left it so late in the year to start us on it, but I was determined to perfect it. We managed to end up in way too many dangerous situations and with Lionel, Clara and the Nymphs out for our blood, we needed every advantage we could get.

  I ended up being one of the first to arrive for our lesson and I grinned at Darcy as sh
e approached me where I was waiting outside the teaching amphitheatre. It was on the third floor of the east wing in the huge building which looked like an old gothic manor house and a clean smell of mint and sage hung in the air.

  “Ah! The princesses have arrived!”

  I tried not to cringe as I turned to look at the middle aged professor as she pulled open the door to the classroom and ushered us in. She was wearing a pale blue robe with a white sash over the top of it and had an A.S.S. badge pinned to her lapel. She looked vaguely familiar and it took me a moment to remember that she was the healer who’d let us come and visit Geraldine after she’d been attacked by a Nymph.

  “Just Tory and Darcy, please,” I muttered as she smiled warmly.

  “Of course,” she agreed with a dramatic wink. “No preferential treatment here! I’m Mother Dickins and I’ll be your healing guide, come, come.”

  She led us into the room as the rest of the class appeared and we found ourselves at the top of a small amphitheatre set up with seats circling a hospital bed and a table filled with medical instruments at the centre of the space.

  Mother Dickens guided us down to a pair of seats in the front row and smiled at us fondly as she moved to the centre of the room to await the rest of the class’s arrival.

  “Sometimes I can’t decide if I prefer the fans or the haters,” I muttered to Darcy and she snorted a laugh.

  “On first impression, I’d take her over Highspell,” she shot back and I had to agree with her there.

  My Atlas pinged and I pulled it from my pocket as we waited for the rest of the class to find their seats. My brows rose as I saw who had sent it and I opened it up with a hint of trepidation and a dollop of intrigue.

  Seth:

  Darius just told me he only sent you the apology video from our play date with your ex. I told him you’d enjoy the action footage even more but he didn’t agree so I’m calling his bluff. Tell me this doesn’t get you all hot under the collar…

  A video came through next and I tapped on it with interest as I chewed on my bottom lip. It was an aerial view of Zane’s front yard as Darius and the other Heirs strode into a gang stronghold and proceeded to beat the shit out of all of them with their bare hands.