“Because if you shut up, then I can try and focus on your looks and forget about the personality that goes with them,” I said. It didn’t matter that I was admitting I found him attractive, it wasn’t like I desired him no matter how gorgeous he was; the beast inside was easily enough to repulse me. And he knew what he looked like anyway.
Max scowled at me but did as I requested and stayed silent.
My gaze swept over his handsome features, strong brow and deep eyes. He was captivating and all masculine; the scent of the sea washed toward me from his skin and his scales hugged every contour of his toned abdomen. Yeah, if I could forget the asshole that lived within his flesh then I could summon up the motivation to kiss him without puking.
I dropped my hand. Released a breath. Stepped forward.
Max moved too until the space dividing us was almost gone.
“If this is some trick, I’m going to kick you in your scaly balls,” I warned.
For half a heartbeat Max actually smirked at me, like he’d found that funny and then his mouth was on mine.
I froze, meaning to pull back the moment our lips had brushed against each other's but something wound its way around me and I found myself caught in that moment.
The power of the Siren’s Song drew me closer and instead of wanting to pull back, I found myself leaning in.
Max’s mouth moved against mine slowly and I gasped as I felt a sliver of lust trickling beneath my skin which didn’t feel like my own. It was quickly followed by an image of me from a few minutes ago when Max had first seen me in the clearing. He’d looked over my silky pyjamas, noticing the curves of my body and the way my flesh was exposed. The moonlight shone on my dark hair making it look like a spill of ink and he was filled with irritation and a little anger, countered by the strange desire to take this kiss from me.
I flinched internally at the tide of his emotions as they danced across my mind. It disoriented me and for a moment, I felt like I was falling. I reached out, my hand landing on the firm line of his hip as I tried to steady myself.
My touch ignited a flare of lust in him which washed into me again and lit a fire of excitement in my veins. This was wrong. I should have been pulling away from him but his hands caught my waist and he dragged me against him instead, cementing the connection between us.
A soft moan escaped me as his kiss deepened and his lust fed into mine, creating a whirlwind of it which I couldn’t escape. He pushed his tongue into my mouth and I tasted salt water as I devoured his kiss.
A small voice in the back of my head was shouting at me to remember what he was and as I focused on it, I drew on the well of power within me to help me resist him.
But instead of doing what I wanted, it flung me further into his psyche, beyond the lust he’d been allowing me to see and into the untold corners of his mind.
He kissed me harder, his grip on me tightening as my hands travelled up his broad chest, the scales silky smooth beneath my palms.
I was vaguely aware of him trying to push things away from me but it was like I’d been handed the key to his mind and everywhere I looked were open doors.
I wondered if this was what he felt when he was feeding on power and emotions from other people. Had he been looking straight into my mind when he’d drawn my greatest fear from me?
The moment that thought crossed my mind, Max gripped me harder; he was kissing me like he would die if he didn’t and while one part of me was caught in the heat of his arms and the feeling of his lips against mine, another started to notice flashes of memory.
I could hear a man’s voice and I knew it was his father. His tone was kind, understanding while Max was swamped with fear and loss.
“There was nothing anyone could do for her. By the time anybody realised she was sick, it was too late. I don’t know why she hid the symptoms from me. I could have done something...”
Max looked up through tear-blurred eyes as the loss of his mother overwhelmed him and saw another woman looking into the room. The corner of her mouth lifted into a sly smile for half a heartbeat and he knew that she’d been responsible for causing his mother’s death. His stepmother had wanted her gone for as long as he could remember... his mother was a dirty little secret.
What secret?
At my direction, the answer came to me between the taste of his lips and a groan of longing that escaped him.
No one outside of the family had ever known it, but Max was a bastard. His father had married his wife through an arrangement to keep his bloodline pure but he’d been in love with another woman. He’d kept seeing her in secret and had gotten her pregnant before his wife. To cover it up they’d hidden her and his wife had pretended to be pregnant rather than face the scandal. He was still an Heir because his power came from his father’s side but if anyone ever found out he was illegitimate they could push for one of his half-siblings to take his place.
His father had always stood firmly beside him but his step-mother was devious and wanted one of her own children on his throne.
I could feel the tension in Max’s body but he didn’t seem to be able to pull away from me. Instead the heat of his kiss was increasing, his hands moving beneath the hoodie I wore and skimming the flesh at the base of my spine.
I almost drew back, not liking this insight into his mind despite the fact that my body was begging for more of him and my hands had moved behind his neck. But before I could withdraw, I felt a flicker of his fear again. The sensation of his emotions skewing my own sent a shiver down my spine and I couldn’t help but wonder why the hell he liked the taste of other people’s fear.
Because I know that taking their fear from them makes them happier.
I jolted in surprise at that revelation but I knew it was true. I could feel what he felt and I could see memories of him absorbing fear from others. It wasn’t the fear he enjoyed; it was the sense of peace and calm he left them with as he removed it. He only claimed to like the fear itself as a way to seem more intimidating and cover up the fact that he preferred using his power on softer emotions.
I was given a flicker of more memories as he took joy and hope from people too and how that lit him up from the inside. But if he took too much joy from someone it left them sad and he hated that.
My gut squirmed. I was looking into the soul of a monster and I didn’t like the fact that I was finding out so many opinion-altering things about him. He was an asshole. Through and through. And I didn’t want to feel bad about his mother’s murder or sympathetic to the way he fed from people’s emotions.
With a wrench of determination, I drew back and broke our kiss.
My lips felt bruised and were tingling from the intensity of it. His eyes burned with desire for a fleeting moment and all I could do was stare at him in utter shock.
What the hell just happened?
He’d been pushing at my clothes, trying to get closer to me as he was lost to the passion of our connection and I could feel the heat of his palm as it splayed across my lower back beneath my cami. My hoodie had been knocked back off of my shoulders and his other hand cupped my cheek. My own fingers were fisted in his mohawk and our bodies were pressed together so that I could feel the hard contours of his muscles against my flesh.
We were both breathing heavily like we’d done a lot more than kissing and I fought to shake off the lust that had grown beneath his touch.
With a shake of my head, I moved my hands to his chest and shoved him back a step as I broke away from him.
“What the hell was that?” I demanded.
Max’s hands fell limp at his sides and he looked almost panicked for a moment.
The spell holding me here had gone and I could feel the air moving around us again in a cool breeze but I didn’t leave. I wanted answers.
“You just...” Max scowled at me as he sifted through what had just happened and a dark accusation flashed in his eyes. “Fuck!” He advanced on me suddenly. I couldn’t help but back up a few steps even though I wanted to hol
d my ground. “Who the hell do you think you are to go poking around in my head?” he demanded.
In the blink of an eye his rage turned to panic and he whirled away from me again.
“You’re the one who drew me out here in the middle of the night,” I reminded him angrily. “So whatever the hell that was, it’s on you!”
He turned back to look at me again, his hand shifting beside him and drawing a stronger wind to rustle through the clearing at his call. I braced for some kind of attack, summoning my own power even though I knew I was outmatched.
“My song has never called anyone more powerful than me before,” he muttered, almost to himself. “Hell, there never was anyone more powerful than me before... normally I can control what the Song-Spelled get to see of me but you took control...”
“I used your own power on you?” I asked, putting the pieces together.
“What’s it going to take for you to keep your mouth shut?” he snarled.
“What’s the big deal?” I asked. “Where I come from every other person has a step parent or a single parent, half siblings or a foster family. Why would anyone give a shit about your daddy fooling around?”
“Because the Celestial families don’t just marry any old street trash they take a liking to,” he growled. “We keep our bloodlines pure and our power intact. Half of our marriages are arranged for us. And my step-mother’s family just so happen to be some of the most powerful people in Solaria outside of the Council. Offending them would have massive consequences. Not to mention the fact that my real mother had a Minotaur for a Grandfather.”
“A Minotaur?” I frowned at him. “What does that have to do with-”
“Because that means there’s a chance that I’m carrying goddamn Minotaur genes! Which could make it a lot harder for me to find a wife. Who wants to risk muddying their blood like that? The Siren Order is much more powerful than-”
“So you’re telling me that if you fell in love with a... Medusa or a Pegasus you wouldn’t marry them?” I asked with a frown.
Max’s lips parted. He stared at me for a long second then released a breath of laughter.
“A fucking Pegasus? Even if I found out I was Elysian Mates with a Pegasus I doubt I’d be allowed to consider marrying them! Can you imagine?!” He ran a hand over his face in exasperation.
“What’s an Elysian Mate?” I asked with a frown.
“Gah you’re so ignorant it kills me! It’s like your one true love. Point is I couldn’t marry them if they weren’t a Siren.”
“Well that seems pretty damn stupid,” I replied. “What’s the point in having all of your power if you can’t even have happiness with it?”
Max shook his head. “If you want to go and marry a Cyclops then please be my guest. I would love to see you weaken your claim like that. It would make things even easier for us.”
“No one will be having any say in who I marry,” I replied scathingly. “If I fall in love with a Cyclops or a Pegasus or even a damn mortal, then I’ll be with them regardless.”
“You’re an idiot,” he said, looking up at the sky. “But I couldn’t give two shits what you do with your love life anyway. Go back to the mortal world and marry Big Bird for all I care. It’ll make things a lot easier for us anyway.”
“Well I’d sooner choose happiness over worrying about a stupid scandal,” I bit back. And Big Bird sounded like a much better option than a lot of the assholes in this school anyway.
“If anyone finds out about my parentage, it will cause a hell of a lot more than just some scandal,” Max replied. “It could cause a divide amongst our supporters. It could tear a hole in the foundation of our government and leave us vulnerable right as the Nymphs are gaining power. Why do you think my step-mother has never told anyone? In public she acts like the doting mother she should be but behind closed doors she plots my downfall. If something were to happen to me then my half sister Ellis would be the Heir. That’s what she’s hoping for, but my father stands in her way.”
He said the words so matter of factly that I almost felt a hint of pity for him. But then I remembered what a dickwad he was and quickly squashed that thought.
“Fine. Whatever,” I said. “I couldn't care less about your mommy issues anyway.”
“No one knows about this,” he said, his voice low. “No one.”
“Not even the other Heirs?” I asked in surprise.
Max clenched his jaw which was confirmation enough. This really must have been a big secret if he’d even kept it from them.
“Fine,” I said, taking a step back. “I’ll keep your dirty little secret.”
“Just like that?” he asked disbelievingly.
“Unlike you, I don’t take pleasure in causing other people pain,” I replied. “Just don’t go serenading me out of my bed again any time soon.”
I gathered the hoodie closer around me and headed out of the clearing. Max didn’t follow and relief flooded me as I made my way back to Ignis House as quickly as I could.
That encounter had been weird as hell and I was just glad it was over.
Tory’s run-in with Max last night was all we could talk about over breakfast. He might have been a total asshole, but that Siren song thing was kinda screwed up. And though we may have had his deepest fear in our grip now, we weren’t gonna stoop to his level and exploit it. Besides, the knowledge that Tory knew his darkest secret was probably enough to torture him psychologically.
When the bell rang, I headed to Tarot with Tory, Sofia and Diego, my gut knotting over revisiting Astrum's classroom. The stark reminder of his violent death made my neck prickle as we passed by the patch of ground where he'd been found. It had now been covered with wildflowers by someone with the Element of earth and I supposed that meant the FIB had taken whatever evidence they needed from the area.
We soon arrived in Mercury Chambers and as we filed down the gloomy staircase to the classroom, Kylie's voice carried to me from behind. “You'd think she'd just shave it off. Every time I see that ugly bald patch I'm tempted to do it for her.”
I clenched my jaw, determinedly ignoring her and giving Tory a shake of the head. When she flexed her fingers anyway I gave her a look that said she's not worth it.
“Do you think she knows it's even there?” Jillian whisper-giggled.
“Maybe not,” Kylie said loudly. “Hey Darcy!” she called, her voice sugary sweet. I still didn't turn around. “Do you know you're missing a chunk of hair on the back of your head?”
“Now now, settle down.”
My blood chilled at the sound of Professor Washer's voice and as the crowd parted ahead of me, I spotted him in Astrum's place at the centre of the Tarot room. The large, circular table ringed around him and though he was thankfully not half naked like he usually was in our Water Elemental Class he still made my skin crawl fully clothed in a white shirt and floral tie. He swept his hazel locks out of his eyes, shooting me a lopsided smile as I dropped into my seat.
He spread his hands on the table before me, lowering his head to speak just to me. “Don't worry about your hair. There's still plenty left to run your fingers through.”
I shuddered as he walked away.
“Maybe you should shave it off,” Tory whispered.
I released a laugh and Washer looked back over his shoulder, glancing between us hopefully as if we'd been checking him out.
Unlikely Professor Pervert.
Washer clapped his hands to get everyone's attention. “Now, although we are all deeply saddened by losing our exceptional Tarot Professor, I have taken on the role temporarily until the Academy hires a replacement. I am not quite as adept at reading the cards as he was, but I assure you I know how to use my hands. So today's lesson will focus on palmistry.”
A low current of groans sounded from a few of the girls who were gifted with the Element of Water and I shared the sentiment. Kylie sat up straighter, seemingly unaware of Washer's overly familiar behaviour with his students as she tossed him a bright sm
ile.
He swept a hand over his hair again, making his shirt ride up to reveal the tanned skin beneath.
“Heave,” Tory said under her breath, faking a vomit beside me.
I covered my mouth as she continued the act and Washer's eyes slid onto her. “Is everything alright, Miss Vega?” He moved toward her and the brush of his Siren gifts tickled me like feathers against my skin.
Tory drew away, quickly nodding. “I'm fine.”
“Good,” he purred deeply, but he didn't leave as he reached out to take her hand. “I'll start with a few palmistry demonstrations.”
Tory grimaced as she let Washer take her hand and he started painting his finger across the lines on her skin. Her eyes unfocused a little and a dreamy smile pulled at her mouth as she stared at him. I wanted to slap the guy for forcing emotions on my sister. What the hell was wrong with this creep?
“You have quite the exciting taste in lovers, don’t you miss Vega?” he purred seductively and a faint frown pulled at Tory’s features.
Sofia had explained that the most powerful Sirens could actually look at your memories and apparently Washer was strong enough to peek inside Tory’s head. I grimaced at him, prodding Tory in the ribs to try and help her snap out of his hold.
When he drew away and his eyes fell on me, I hurriedly dropped down to rummage in my bag, pretending to search for a pen.
“Your hand, Darcy,” Washer encouraged with a devilish note to his tone.
Ergh- no no no.
His influence rushed into me and I felt him stealing away my resistance, replacing it with perfect willing. I stared up at him as I held out my hand and lust dripped through my body, tugging at everything inside me. How could I have thought he was so disgusting just moments ago? His face was so rugged...his hands so smooth...his skin such a perfect golden hue.
“Your love line tells me there's a forbidden romance in your future,” he whispered, his finger circling on a small break in the line on my palm. “A stormy sea is coming, Miss Vega, but you will ride it well.”
I sighed softly, but something niggled in the back of my mind. He's a Siren. And a lecherous pig.
Zodiac Academy 2: Ruthless Fae: An Academy Bully Romance (Supernatural Bullies and Beasts) Page 12