Fuck you, stars.
I gritted my teeth and kept going, ignoring a thin track which led back to the centre of campus and ploughing on.
Thunder rumbled overhead, but I pretended I couldn’t hear it and kept running.
The clifftop loomed ahead of me and I fixed my gaze on it as the sound of Darius’s feet hitting the trail chased me on.
Rain spilled from the clouds, peppering my cheeks and I didn’t even bother to shield myself from it.
I kept running until I made it to the very top of the cliff then stopped.
I turned to face Darius as he came to a halt too.
“Do you think this is a good idea?” he asked slowly, looking up at the sky as the shower grew heavier and the rain washed over us. He wasn’t shielding himself from it either and his tank was plastered to his skin as the rain pounded down.
“Why should we have to listen to the stars?” I asked, raising my voice to be heard over the rain.
“Because they govern everything,” Darius said sadly like there was nothing to be done for it.
“They don’t govern me,” I growled.
Darius frowned slightly as I took a step closer and thunder crashed so violently that the ground trembled.
I waited to see what he was going to do and his jaw set as he moved towards me too. The rain slammed down over us so hard that I could hardly see through it. My hair was plastered to my back and a shiver ran through me, but I banished it with a flare of fire magic beneath my skin.
Darius stopped inches from me and I looked up at him as water gathered in my lashes and slid over my cheeks. He reached out to cup my jaw in his large hand and the thunder crashed again, lightning forking through the clouds above us as the stars fought to make us part.
“Are you sure about this?” he asked me.
“Fuck fate,” I snarled because it was time I owned what was going on between us. “No one gets to pick my future for me. I choose what I want and I want you.”
The smile he gave me was bright and fierce and full of an emotion I was afraid to put a name to, but the way he was looking at me lit me up from the inside out.
“Fuck fate,” Darius agreed darkly.
His grip tightened and he closed the distance between us, his mouth catching mine in a kiss that made my aching heart throb with the most painful kind of hope. I gripped his shirt in my fists and dragged him closer as I kissed him like the sky might cave in if I didn’t, even though it was more likely that it would if I did.
Thunder crashed like an explosion overhead, freezing cold rain pelted down on us and lightning slammed into the ground behind us. But I didn’t care. I would gladly take the rage of the heavens in payment for this moment in his arms.
Darius pulled me closer, growling hungrily as his tongue pushed into my mouth and he kissed me savagely, filthily, desperately.
I pushed up onto my tiptoes, my body pressing flush to his as I wound my arms round his neck and my heart pounded to a brutal beat like it wanted to force its way out of my chest and meet with his.
Lightning struck the ground so close that a crackle of electricity danced up my spine. I flinched, but my grip on Darius only tightened.
I dropped the barriers on my magic and Darius’s power flooded through me on a tide of ecstasy as we merged our essences together. We were meant to be together like this, it was painted beneath my skin and through my veins, even my magic ached for him and yearned for the caress of his power.
Thunder boomed and I growled in defiance, lifting my hand to cast a shield of solid air magic around us, cutting off the storm completely. Darius’s magic flowed alongside mine into the shield, the strength of our will blocking out the will of the stars.
The earth rocked savagely beneath our feet and we fell. Darius kept ahold of me as he hit the ground on his back and I tumbled aside for a moment, but I wasn’t going to let them drive us apart. I shoved myself to my knees, crawling over his legs as he pushed up on his elbows and kissed me again.
His fingers slid through my wet hair and his stubble grazed my skin as he kissed me so hard it was bruising, punishing, branding and yet it wasn’t enough.
My heart was aching, tears pricking the backs of my eyes as I fought to keep hold of him while the storm hammered against our magic, determined to tear us apart again.
I poured magic from my body to hold the shield as rain slammed against it so hard that the air rattled around us.
Darius dragged me against him and I could feel how much he wanted me in every hard line and ridge of his body.
We were both drenched, covered in mud and utterly incapable of giving one shit about it.
Lightning slammed into the shield and I gasped as it almost buckled, breaking our kiss as I looked up at the black sky above us. More lightning split the clouds apart, striking the ground all around us again and again, making the earth rock even more violently. As a second bolt hit our shield, I almost lost control of it and I could feel my power waning as I threw everything I had into maintaining it.
We only had seconds before it was going to collapse and I reached out to catch Darius’s jaw in my grip, looking into his dark eyes with a pang of longing.
“I’m sorry I did this to us,” I breathed. I might not have been sure everything between us was fixed yet, but I was beginning to believe it could be and I was starting to think I’d made the wrong choice when I’d been offered it.
“It wasn’t you,” he replied, pain flickering though his gaze.
“It was both of us,” I disagreed, tears mixing with the rain on my cheeks.
Before he could say anything else, another bolt of lightning slammed into our shield and shattered it. The force of its power sent us flying and I crashed down on my back in the mud five meters from Darius as he scrambled to his knees.
I pushed myself upright and we looked across the distance separating us as the rain pelted us again and a huge crash of thunder sounded in warning.
If we didn’t stop this, we were going to get ourselves killed. And as much as I wanted to defy the heavens and refuse to bow to their commands, I couldn’t just abandon Darcy like that.
Agony of a far too familiar nature splintered through my heart as I called on my Order form and flaming wings burst from my skin.
Darius watched me as the rain pelted down on him, his whole posture written with defeat as he waited for me to leave him behind again.
“I’m sorry,” I breathed and he nodded just a little to let me know he understood.
I turned and ran from him before he could see me shatter, diving over the edge of the cliff as my wings snapped out and I beat them hard as I flew toward the storm clouds which had come to curse us.
I kept flying hard and fast, diving into the clouds and relishing the satisfying hiss that sounded as my wings turned the rain to steam all around me.
I let the Phoenix fire have me, coating my skin in it and relishing the full power of my Order as I flew into the darkness within the clouds, burning a path right through the centre of them.
I finally burst free, emerging above the storm and looking up at the sky as the last stars lingered in a sea of navy blue on the horizon.
I raised my hands and bared my teeth at them as I unleashed the might of my Order on the heavens themselves, hoping I could curse them just as they had cursed me.
Red and blue flames poured from me in a torrent so hot that the air shimmered all around me.
“You don’t get to choose for me!” I screamed.
Thunder rumbled as the storm dissipated beneath me and for a moment I could have sworn the sky was mocking me.
Tears sprung from my eyes and I turned away from the sky and the stars and all the fucking secrets they held as I raced back down to the ground. They may have forced us apart, but my lips still tingled with the memory of Darius’s mouth on mine. And if we’d managed to steal that much then I was going to figure out how to claim a whole lot more. I’d been a thief for a long time and if I had to take my destiny from the cl
utches of the stars while they slept, then I’d figure out a way to do it. I’d never set my mind on something and failed before. And this wouldn’t be the first time.
I’d officially been in prison for three months. Three fucking months. And not a single day went by where I didn’t think about her. Though I tried. I fought it like the moon battling the pull of the earth so it could remain in the heavy nothingness of the sky. But it was always hardest in the very first moments of the morning, laying in my bunk with the world pressing down on my chest so hard that it felt impossible to breathe.
I played it all over in my mind until it was an endless song of despair on repeat. The day of reckoning had come for us and I’d realised how terribly un-fucking-prepared I’d been to lose her. Even though I should have known all along that I would. She had been the most beautiful fantasy I’d ever known. But a fantasy was all it ever could have been. And that was blindingly obvious now, like the stars had drawn the curtains back on our illusion and laughed at us for ever thinking it was possible to remain in it. But I hadn’t let them take us both down. Even though it had cost me twenty five years in the most ruthless prison in Solaria. It was a price I was willing to pay.
The moment I’d arrived here, I’d been placed in Cell Block A and forced to fight for a cell or else end up sleeping in the communal pen at the bottom of the three tiered block. The single good thing that had come from the trial was that I’d had enough energy in my veins to tear the world apart, so I’d beat the living hell out of the occupants of Cell forty eight on the second floor, not bothering to try and win a top floor cell where the clear leaders of this block resided. I wasn’t here to try and take over from some long-term convict who’d seek to murder me in my sleep in revenge. I was going to live out my sentence alone, not mixing it with the monsters who lurked between these walls. But that solitary life hadn’t been as easy to secure as I’d hoped. Being a loner who could hold their own against any fucker who sought to target me meant I’d inadvertently made myself valuable. I’d caught the eye of a few of the gang leaders who wanted to recruit me to their violent little crews. And I was having none of it.
I sighed heavily, wishing for something to distract me from my thoughts. I rolled onto my side and took my father’s diary from the shelf beside my bunk, having hidden it between the pages of a book I’d borrowed from the library. Darius had paid off a guard to get it into the prison for me, but I’d still had no luck with the password that would reveal the writing. Every day, I whispered words to it, going through every member of my family, to simple things like food and drink he’d loved, the name of the raven he’d healed of a broken wing when I was a kid, the names of any friend or colleague of his I could remember. But still the words wouldn’t reveal themselves to me. And I was running out of ideas.
A bell rang to announce the start of the morning count and I slid off of the bunk in my boxers, putting the diary away before moving to the cell door and ripping down the sheet I’d hung there. The cells were small with nothing but a toilet and a sink in one corner. A vent at the back of the space allowed the Order Suppressant gas to flow freely through the cells and ensure none of the inmates regained access to their Orders while they slept. Our magic was cut off at all times by the manacles on our wrists, apart from during our daily trip to the Magic Compound which was just a massive concrete yard with a power absorbing fence around it.
My favourite place here had quickly become the Order Yard up top. The fake landscape that had been created to nurture the needs of different Orders was something of a haven for me. It was a place I could hunt freely for blood then sit in a quiet part of the forest, finding real solitude away from the rest of the prisoners. My life was now defined by those moments. Going there felt like waking up from a dark dream I was constantly drowning in. For a short period of time, I fell into the needs of my Order, hunting for the most powerful blood in this place barring the five leaders who I wanted to avoid for obvious reasons.
First, there was Roary Night, a Lion Shifter from Alestria who had an invisible army in Darkmore called the Shades. You never knew who worked for him and who didn’t, so avoiding him was difficult because he probably had people watching me at all times. I wasn’t sure that he wanted me as a recruit himself, but he was certainly watching to see who I was going to align myself with. I knew his brother outside of this place, but that apparently didn’t make us friends by any stretch of the imagination. Not that I was looking to make friends anyway.
Next, there was Ethan Shadowbrook, a Werewolf and leader of the cutthroat Lunar Brotherhood gang in here. He also happened to run my cell block, which meant I was on his radar fucking constantly. His nemesis, Amira Kumari, was the Alpha to the rival Wolf pack of the Oscura Clan. She’d proposed I switch cell blocks into hers and when I’d refused, she assumed I was aligning myself with Shadowbrook. Which meant she avoided me like the plague these days, despite the fact that I had done no such thing. I could have used my connection with Dante Oscura to get in with them, but I didn’t see the point. Besides, if I aligned with the Oscuras, I’d then incur the wrath of the Lunar Brotherhood. So fuck that headache.
Next, there was Gustard La Ghast, a flat out psycho who ran a group of unFae fuckers who claimed their power sickeningly by flouting the Way of the Fae and fighting opponents ten on one. So far, I’d had few altercations with him, but his gaze had turned my way a few times when I’d come to blows with people in the Magic Compound. The fact that I was a double Elemental gave away my power level; it was printed on the breast of my jumpsuit for all to see. And my name was known well enough anyway. The Orions had been in league with the Acruxes for centuries. And when Fae tasted power on you, they wanted to take it for their own. Hence my current fucking predicament.
Lastly, there was Sin Wilder. He wasn’t a leader of this place in the same way as the others were. He didn’t rule intentionally, he ruled because he was a strong motherfucker who was as insane as they came. He didn’t have a gang, he was a loner like me, though plenty of people served him to keep him sweet. I hadn’t had much contact with him, but I felt we’d formed a mutual understanding. Incubuses were similar to Vampires in ways. As a parasitic Order, they preyed on sexual energy, but their nature was to live in solitude. He’d once broken a Fae’s whole hand for sitting opposite me at my empty breakfast table. At least, that’s why I assumed he’d done it considering the wink he’d aimed at me after. That was about as far as our interactions had ever gone.
“One-fifty!” Officer Cain barked as he approached. He was a trainee C.O., tasked to assess me in this place. He was a Vampire with short cropped hair and muscles that strained against his uniform. He had a nasty streak that had served me with several hits from his shock baton already. We hadn’t liked each other since the moment we’d met. Vampires were instinctually driven to challenge one another when forced into each other’s proximity, so his tactic of keeping me down before I could rise was one I had quickly grown tired of.
Without access to my magic or Order, I had no chance against him. But my nature made me hunger for the fight. I couldn’t help but push at him. And I ached to show him how powerful I really was. That in the real world, he’d stand zero chance against me. But in here, he was the ringmaster of the Darkmore Circus and I was just a beast in a cage. My claws pulled out, my teeth filed short.
He moved in front of my cell, his storm grey eyes meeting mine as he lifted the scanner and held it to my face. The light flashed over me and the scanner bleeped to say I’d been counted, but Cain didn’t leave.
“Sleep well last night, princess-fucker?” he asked in a mocking tone that made my hackles rise. His little nickname for me had me wanting to tear his throat out, fangs or not.
“Better than usual. I dreamed about the Belorian eating that smirk off of your face,” I growled. The Belorian was a bio-weapon that had been created to roam the halls at night and ensure that if any inmate managed to escape their cells, they’d make a feast for the monstrous creature who lurked out there. I�
�d never seen it, but I’d heard its awful shrieking cries in the dead of night. I didn’t have to get a look at it to know it was the stuff of nightmares.
“Careful, inmate,” Cain snarled, baring his fangs. “Or you might wake up out in the halls tonight yourself. How hard do you think it would be for me to arrange that?”
I glowered at him and he smiled darkly to himself as he moved on to the next cell.
When the count was taken, we were let out of our cells to head to the showers and herded across the retractable bridge that led to the only exit on the bottom floor. A void stretched out ominously beneath it, the pit full of thick, black evermist vapour so anyone who fell into it was subject to excruciating pain the second they lost their footing and breathed it in. And people did fall – or get pushed. And even after a guard pulled them out, they’d be unconscious for six hours during which time they’d suffer the agonising burn of the poison in their blood until they woke.
A hand landed on my shoulder and a warning growl rumbled through me as Ethan Shadowbrook stepped to my side in his boxers, revealing the artwork of tattoos that covered his flesh. His dark blonde hair was shaved in at the sides and flopped loosely over the top of his head, yet to be styled for the day like it usually was. His pretty boy face didn’t match the ruthless beast that lived in him. I’d seen him bite a man’s head off in the Order Yard in his Werewolf form. Literally. It was the most dangerous place in Darkmore. Unmanned, unguarded, unwatched. Being a Vampire meant I could outrun ninety nine percent of the other inmates though, so I wasn’t too worried about myself up there. I couldn’t ignore the weekly death toll though.
“Morning, Lance.”
“Ethan,” I said curtly, shrugging his hand off of my shoulder and he let it slide down my back instead.
The tactile nature of the Wolves always made me uncomfortable. But following my instincts and shoving him away was a dangerous move not worth taking. Most of my block was taken up by his pack and of all the leaders in here, I needed to keep him off my case the most.
Zodiac Academy 5: Cursed Fates: An Academy Bully Romance (Supernatural Bullies and Beasts) Page 69