My mind was swimming with every awful thing I'd ever done to her, reminding me of all the reasons why I deserved to suffer like this until regrets and self hatred threatened to drown me more thoroughly than all the water pouring down on me.
I finally landed in a huge clearing between two mountains, the flat plain being pounded by the rain and my claws digging into the damp soil.
I roared at the stars even though I couldn't see them amongst the clouds, but I did it all the same, cursing them just like they'd cursed me and breathing out a giant plume of Dragon fire in an enormous fireball which blossomed right up to the sky.
I hung my head, watching the flames as they slowly died out before me and my heart stuttered as I spotted a figure stepping through the smoke as it cleared, her long hair falling all around her and a dark look on her face that told me she was pissed as all hell.
"Don't you run away from me, Darius Acrux," Roxy snarled, striding right up to me in that tank top which I just now realised was actually mine.
Her feet were bare and her golden wings were flexing at her back, glinting with the fire of her kind despite the pounding rain.
An air shield closed over me as thunder boomed through the heavens again and lightning struck it, splintering over the dome she'd created and lighting her up as if she was the one wielding it.
I shifted back into my Fae form, my muscles bunching with tension as I fought between the desire in me to go to her and the need to protect her from the wrath of the stars.
I stood totally still as she strode towards me, her eyes flaring with danger and determination.
"You know, when I was dragged out of my life and brought to your world, people kept telling me over and over again about the way the stars choose our destinies. They told me that our fates are set in stone and sealed by those twinkling little dots of light way off up in the sky. And I told them I didn't believe in fate. No matter how many times predictions and horoscopes and all of it was proved right, I kept scoffing and telling them I didn't believe it."
"That's not a surprise, Roxy. You're the most stubborn Fae I've ever met."
"Said the pot to the kettle," she growled and a ripple of anger burned in me at the tone she used with me. Even after all this time she was still just as disrespectful, just as rude and cutting and fierce as she'd been on the first day I'd laid eyes on her. Maybe even more so now.
"Well if you find me so obnoxious then why did you chase me out here?" I challenged.
"Because, from the moment I arrived here I swore I wouldn't let anyone decide my fate for me. So despite the fact that you're literally the rudest, most pig-headed, infuriating asshole I have ever met, I still want you. So fuck the stars. Fuck the moon and the meteors and the fucking clouds. Let the sky watch me as I tell it to get fucked. Nothing up there or down here gets to tell me what to do. You told me I was yours and I think that you're mine too."
"You think?" I asked. "I told you I love you. I tattooed it on my flesh, Roxy, I feel like I've made my feelings pretty clear. You're all I want for myself. The only choice I wish I could make and the only one I can't. So you don't think anything. You know I'm yours, every damn piece of me. But you've never told me what you want out of owning me or if I own you too."
Thunder roared in the sky but Roxy ignored it entirely as she held her air shield in place, not even flinching when lightning crashed against it repeatedly.
"I'm the girl no one ever loved, Darius," she said. "No one but Darcy, my whole life. And though I never let it show, I used to dream of finding someone who would love me like a prince in a fairy tale so I could be their princess. But I don't love you like a princess. There isn't anything soft or sweet or easy about us. It's wild and unpredictable. It hurts more than any pain I've ever felt and consumes me more completely than anything I ever could have predicted. You make my heart race with all the best kinds of fear and my gut clench with the angriest butterflies I've ever known. I have hated you more than I even knew I could hate a man and I think if I love you with as much fury then I'll burn up in it."
"So you don't want to let yourself love me?" I asked, looking down at her as she stopped barely a meter from me and the heavens raged in fury at the way we were defying them.
"Maybe not," she agreed and my gut fell, but she lifted the hem of my tank and my gaze was drawn to the movement of her hand as she dragged her thumb up the front of her thigh and removed the concealment she must have had in place over her skin there.
A lump formed in my throat as my gaze tracked the lines of ink on her flesh. I knew the design because it mirrored the one Gabriel had told me to place on my own skin. The lines which dictated the position of the heavens on the night she'd told me no. The night when everything could have been so different if I'd only followed what my heart wanted sooner. The words which ran down her thigh to the left of the design in delicate script were a mirror of those on my own skin. There is only him.
"I think I'm already burning, Darius," she breathed. "And it's time I stopped pretending I'm not."
I stepped forward and caught her face between my hands, kissing her in a hard and demanding plea for that to be the truth. Because if I had her then I knew I had it all. And I didn't care if we really would have to tear the stars out of the sky to force them to give us our tomorrow. I'd do it. I'd pay any price they asked of me just to make this feeling last. Just to truly have her.
Give me this, I begged them as I lost myself in the feeling of her mouth against mine, her hands on my skin and her pulse thundering to the same heady rhythm as my own. Give me her and I will pay any price you ask.
The thunder seemed to crash even louder like the heavens were denying my pleas, but I soon forgot all about the stars and everything they were doing as I lifted Roxy into my arms and kissed her like this might be the only chance we got. And maybe it fucking would be. Because it was clear she was planning to hold off the storm with her magic for as long as physically possible and who knew if the heavens would ever let us get this close again.
We were standing in the middle of a muddy field which meant there were only so many options available to us, so I sank down onto my knees before sitting back on the ground with her in my lap.
Her tongue chased mine as she kissed me harder and my magic danced against the edges of my skin as it ached to be joined with hers. My barriers fell away and hers followed, a moan escaping her as the weight of our magic colliding flooded through us.
She was so powerful that it stole my breath away, this endless, unstoppable ocean of power which roared to a rhythm I hungered to drown in.
My hands moved up her spine, shoving at the material of my tank which she still wore, but it caught on her bronze wings, refusing to move for me and making me growl with frustration until my fingers met with the silky soft texture of her feathers.
A shiver ran through her entire body and she drew back with a gasp as I stroked my fingers over her wings, her pupils dilating as she looked at me.
"Do it again," she commanded, her eyes flashing and bringing a smile to my lips as I did as she wanted, caressing the ridges of her wings before circling my fingers over the spot on her back where they connected to her flesh.
She moaned as I repeated the move and I leaned in to kiss her neck, tasting her sweet skin as the ground beneath us began to rumble with the next wave of the stars' defences against us.
Roxy drove her knees down into the soil either side of my hips and through the connection of our magic, I felt the way she harnessed power over the earth beneath us, forcing it to still once more with a flare of magic.
I released my hold on her wings, sweeping my hands out around us and casting flames into existence in a ring surrounding us so that she could replenish her power while we stayed here like this, giving her all she needed to shield us from our fate.
I moved my hands down her body as I continued to kiss her neck, feeling her hard nipples through my tank and groaning as I closed my mouth over them one after the other.
Roxy
moaned my name and I swear that was the best sound in the entire world.
She pushed me back and I let her, lying on the wet, muddy ground as I grasped her waist and moved her to kneel over my face so that I could kiss the ink on her thigh. I traced each and every line of that tattoo with my tongue, my heart racing at the knowledge that she'd placed it on her skin permanently for me.
My hands slid up the backs of her thighs and over the round curve of her ass as I ran my mouth over the tattoo before hooking my fingers into her panties and bringing fire to my hands to get rid of them.
Roxy gasped as the flames kissed her skin, but the Phoenix in her wouldn't let her burn.
I turned my head from her thigh to the centre of her, gripping her ass tightly and bringing her down over my mouth as the sweet taste of her desire met my tongue.
Thunder boomed so loud that the air within the shield rattled, but her magic held, protecting us here so that we could defy the stars.
I ran my tongue over her clit, loving the way she shivered in pleasure at my touch and her bronze wings flared wide either side of us, the flashes of lightning reflecting off of them and making her look like a fallen angel. And I was the demon who’d cast her to ruin. I just couldn’t bring myself to regret that for a single second.
I used my grip on her ass to rock her hips and she obeyed my instructions, riding my face as I devoured her, the hard bite of my stubble grazing her soft skin and my tongue dragging through the centre of her over and over again.
She was so wet for me that it made my cock throb with the need to fill her and I growled against her pussy, making her gasp as she rocked her hips more urgently and my tongue worshiped her clit.
When she came for me, she cried out in bliss, her wings spreading wide and the fires all around us flared brighter, warming my skin.
I could feel the earth trembling again beneath us, the entire plane we were lying on seeming to shudder with the might of the earthquake the stars had sent to force us apart. Roxy's magic tugged on mine even harder as she forced her control over the Elements to keep us safe and I couldn’t help but marvel at the strength in her.
The rain was crashing into her air shield so hard that I couldn't see beyond it aside from the constant deluge of water running over its surface. It felt like she’d created this one tiny paradise for us here where nothing beyond the two of us existed and I intended to make full use of it for every moment that we could steal.
I grasped Roxy's waist and flipped her off of me, tossing her down on her back in the mud and she banished her wings with a filthy laugh as I moved on top of her.
My mouth found hers and she kissed me hard, the taste of her orgasm dancing between our lips as I drove her down into the mud beneath me.
I found the hem of the tank she was wearing and ripped it up and over her head. But as the material caught around her arms, I twisted it to keep them trapped within it, pinning them above her head and smirking down at her as her green eyes flashed with anger.
She arched her back like she meant to fight back against me, but my cock found her entrance with the movement and as I drove into her, she forgot all about that idea.
"Shit, Darius," she panted as the perfect tightness of her pussy closed around my shaft and I pushed in harder, loving the sound she made as I filled her and the way her entire body arched against mine.
I captured her lips again, kissing her hungrily as the ground continued to judder violently beneath us and the thunder crashing overhead made the whole word vibrate.
The moment she melted into my kiss, I drew my hips back and thrust in again hard, keeping her hands pinned above her head and dominating her body as I fucked her with the desperate need to make her mine irrefutably.
Dragons were hardwired to find the most priceless treasure they could and make it theirs and she was the most prized possession I could ever hope to own. She was beauty and strength and bravery and hope and if I spent every day for the rest of forever making her mine then I'd gladly do it.
I was going to fuck my name into every inch of her skin, brand her with my kisses and mark her with my love until not a Fae in the world could deny it and even the stars would be forced to allow it.
My free hand moved over the curves of her body as I slammed my cock deep inside her over and over again and her flesh was painted in muddy handprints which I never wanted her to wash off.
Every scream that escaped her lips urged me on as I thrust harder, deeper, wanting her to come for me again and again until she couldn’t see straight or think straight and all that was left in the world was me and her and nothing else.
She gave in to me for several ecstasy filled minutes as I dominated her, making me growl with pleasure as her body bowed to mine the way I'd always wished I could get her to submit.
But of course, she wasn't just going to let it be that easy.
With a sharp tug, she yanked her arms free of the shirt and my grip and moved her hands to my chest as she tried to push me to make me roll beneath her.
I growled a refusal at her, liking the feeling of owning her like this way too much to give it up and hooking her knee into my grasp so that I could fuck her even deeper. I watched her moaning and writhing for me as I pounded into her harder and harder, her hands pawing at her breasts and squeezing her nipples, painting every inch of skin with mud.
But just as I was certain I had her at my mercy, she reached up again, pressing a hand to my shoulder and knocking me back with the shadows that lived inside her.
I groaned as the darkness in me responded keenly, filling my entire body with pleasure as the shadows within us merged and pulsed with a keen need to be joined and I somehow found myself on my back beneath her.
Darkness pooled all around us and I dug my fingers into Roxy's hips as I drove my cock up into her, making her take me so deep that each thrust stole her breath.
The shadows were whispering something in my ear, making me ache to spill my own blood to intensify the pleasure they were feeding me as they beckoned me deeper into their hold.
But as my hooded gaze stayed fixed on the girl on top of me, I focused on fighting them back instead, knowing I could never need anything the way I needed her.
Roxy's eyes flared with Phoenix fire and the shadows raced from her body, the flame that lived within me rising up too and helping me banish them as she tipped her head back in pleasure.
My grip on her hips tightened and I leaned up, meaning to flip her beneath me again. But her hands landed on my chest as she denied me so I sat up instead, kissing her hard and fucking her deep.
I found her clit between us and her fingers pushed into my hair as I rubbed it in time with my thrusts deep inside her until she was panting and screaming and coming on my cock so hard that I couldn't help but come with her.
I thrust in firmly one last time, making her cry out as her tight pussy clamped down on me and I spilled my hot cum into her with the growl of her name on my lips.
The thunder that crashed overhead was full of rage and ominous predictions as bolt after bolt of lightning hit her air shield and she flinched as she fought to maintain it, dragging so much power from me that it made my breath hitch.
We stayed there, joined and panting, kissing softly and sweetly instead of hungrily and desperately and I ran my muddy hands up and down her spine, knowing this was the end of it. But I didn't want her to go. I didn't want her anywhere but in my arms, always.
"I'm yours, Darius," she breathed, her voice barely audible over the storm. "And you're mine. No matter what."
I kissed her once more, not wanting this to end, not wanting her to go. It felt like it would break me all over again if I had to watch her walk away from me again and yet I knew that this was the most we were ever going to be able to have. It was so much more than I thought we could take, but it was nowhere near enough at the same time.
I kissed her swollen lips one last time and she ran her fingers over my jaw like she wanted to memorise the lines of it before finally pulling b
ack and getting to her feet.
The moment our bodies were no longer connected, the flow of our shared magic was cut off. I groaned at the loss of her power within me while she gritted her teeth as she fought to maintain the air shield with her power alone.
I stood too, stumbling a little as the force of the earthquake rattled through the ground beneath us.
"Can you hold the shield while we fly above the storm?" I asked her, the lightning which was slamming into her magic making my skin prickle with discomfort.
"I think so," she agreed, pulling my filthy tank back on before shifting into her full Phoenix form, her body covered in red and blue flames.
I shifted too, the Dragon in me bursting free of my fresh and I leapt into the air after Roxy as she took off towards the sky.
We flew hard and fast, lightning striking Roxy's shield over and over again, making my heart pound with the idea of what might happen if one of those bolts managed to break through. But she just flew harder, driving a path into existence between the clouds until we emerged above them and we were suddenly bathed in sunlight.
The air shield surrounding us fell away and we exchanged one last look before she took off in the direction of the academy once more and I was left to watch her go with my heart breaking a little all over again.
But this time the fissure wasn't so deep. Because despite the fact that the stars were determined to keep us apart, we'd managed to fight back and claim a slice of our own happiness right out from under their noses.
I just hoped they weren't the types to hold a grudge. Because if they were, then I had the feeling that destiny would be turning against us now and fate would make sure it got the last laugh.
***
I strode out of Jupiter Hall at the end of the day, my mind full of my girl instead of the lessons and I almost didn't notice the gold coin sat on the path in front of me until my foot was about to land on it.
Zodiac Academy: Fated Throne Page 57