Zodiac Academy 3: The Reckoning: An Academy Bully Romance (Supernatural Bullies and Beasts)

by Caroline Peckham

  “I am,” I said with a grin which drew a laugh from her. “Does that mean you’re accepting my offer of a ride?”

  “I guess so.” Tory looked at me, her gaze trailing down to my chest as she pursed her lips.

  I looked down too and cursed as I spotted the bloodstains all over my white t-shirt. The girl had hit me really damn hard with that branch. It was pretty hot.

  “Kinda looks like you’re a messy eater,” she teased. Her fingers brushed her neck absentmindedly where I’d bitten her, sending a zip of energy straight through my body to my dick.

  I cleared my throat, looking in the back of the car like I might find something in the tiny space between the seats to change into. I spotted my Pitball jacket and hooked it into my grasp, shrugging it on and zipping it up to cover the bloodstains. I found her Atlas down there too and handed it back to her without mentioning the whole I snatched it like a psycho thing from earlier.

  The navy jacket was lined with silver stripes and my name was stamped across the back of it in shining silver letters. It was hardly subtle but I was always recognised wherever I went anyway so it didn’t make much difference.

  “You look like an extra from Grease,” Tory said, smirking at me.

  “You got something against being my Sandy?” I asked, unclipping my belt as I leaned over her to open her door.

  She snorted a laugh as I hooked my arms around her waist, not giving that a response. But I was fairly sure that snort meant she didn’t see me as much of a Danny. Fair point. He never kidnapped Sandy and drained her of her blood up a mountain like a serial killer. Or course Sandy never would have been able to handle the kind of man who did that so I guessed Tory wasn’t much of a Sandy either. Aside from that leather jacket and tight jeans, pity they weren’t leather too...

  The door opened and I leapt out of the car with Tory’s arms around my neck and her warm body against my chest.

  I used my Vampire speed to shoot straight through the gates, tossing a wedge of auras at the kiosk to cover our entrance fee before the paparazzi could get any shots of us. I dove into the crowd, speeding between vendors and rides until I spotted Seth, Darius and Max moving towards the log ride.

  I came to a halt a few meters away, calling out to them to let them know I was here.

  Tory slid out of my arms, cast a single look at the guys and turned her back on them before walking away.

  All three of them tensed, glaring at me with questions in their eyes which were gonna need answering before I could spend the evening with Tory.

  I held a finger up at the guys and darted after Tory, catching her hand and tugging her to a halt. My gaze hooked on her lips which she’d painted blood red and I had to resist the urge to kiss her.

  “I need to talk to the other Heirs for a sec, wait for me, yeah?”

  “Sure,” she replied sweetly. Too damn sweetly. “I’ll just have a look at some of the stands.”

  I narrowed my gaze on her for a moment but I couldn’t figure out her angle so I pressed a kiss to her cheek before heading back over to the other Heirs.

  “Nice job there, Cal, looks like you really scared the shit out of her in the mountains,” Max said sarcastically as I stopped in front of them.

  I’d known this was coming when I backed out of the plan to scare a confession out of her and leave her up that mountain on her own. It hadn’t been a part of the plans we’d been making for after The Reckoning, but I’d been so angry about the Pegasex bullshit that I’d insisted on breaking things off with her and I’d wanted her to know exactly why too. The other Heirs hadn’t put up much of an argument against it and Darius had been all for it. Which wasn’t a surprise because he’d made it clear that me hooking up with Tory pissed him off something chronic and he’d obviously been pleased I was going to call time on it. Except now I wasn’t. And one look at his face let me know he wasn’t fucking happy about it.

  That had absolutely been my plan right up until I’d gotten her up there and looked her in the eyes. I thought she’d crumble when I pushed her. I thought she’d cry or beg or...something. But she just stared me in the face and lied. She didn’t even bother to lie well. She knew I’d caught her out and she just owned it. Pushing back at me and daring me to do something about it or let it go. And it was so fucking hot that I’d chosen option B. I didn’t know what it was about Tory Vega, but I was fast becoming addicted to it.

  “Yeah well...” I glanced over at Tory as she started talking to some girl selling sparkling balloons shaped like various different Order forms. “I took her up there and did what I said but-”

  “But then she started sucking your dick, right?” Seth asked with a smirk.

  Darius growled at him and I laughed.

  “No. She wouldn’t admit it,” I said. “And I thought about leaving her up there in the dark and I just didn’t want to do it. We need to make sure they don’t claim their throne, but we don’t have to be total assholes in the process. And if I forget the fact that she’s a Vega then I don’t have any reason not to keep seeing her,” I said, knowing the words would damn me but fuck it, it was the truth.

  “But she is a Vega,” Darius snapped like it was the only thing that even mattered. And maybe it was. Or maybe it should have been.

  “Yeah. Well I’m an Altair. And I don’t do what I’m told by anyone, so you can save your lecture,” I snarled back.

  “Are you sure you know what you’re getting into with her?” Max asked, shifting closer to me. “That’s not just lust you’re feeling anymore.”

  Darius growled again and Max shifted his attention to him, his eyebrows drawing together sharply.

  “That girl is trouble,” Max said darkly, his eyes whipping between me and Darius as he fed on the emotions bubbling around us.

  “Pfft, maybe I like trouble. It doesn’t mean I’m going to forget what’s important to us. Or Solaria,” I said firmly and Max nodded, relaxing as he read my emotions on that too.

  “So keep screwing her if that’s what you want,” Seth said with a shrug, pushing a hand through his long hair. “Just so long as it doesn’t change anything else.”

  Darius looked like he was fighting hard not to add anything on the subject and I decided against baiting him on it. If he’d wanted a shot at Tory then I wasn’t what was standing in his way; he was the one who had made her hate him like she did. And if he had some other reason to object to what I chose to do then it was up to him to say it to me or not.

  “It won’t,” I replied firmly. “The Reckoning’s tomorrow anyway, chances are she won’t make it through. Even if she does we’ve got better plans to put the Vegas in their place than me breaking her heart.”

  Seth snorted with amusement. “I don’t think there was ever much danger of you managing that,” he said, nodding towards something over my shoulder.

  Tory had just stepped forward to take her turn at the Siren kissing booth. The guy who pulled her into his arms wasn’t wearing a shirt and he was built like a tank. He started saying something to her which made her laugh loudly enough for us to hear it. She hadn’t kissed him yet and I had no intention of letting it happen either.

  “Can’t she fight off a Siren lure yet?” I snapped as I stalked towards her with the other Heirs in tow. Irritation slid beneath my skin that she hadn’t even learned to keep up a basic mental shield like that.

  “He’s not using a lure on her,” Max said casually and I snapped around to him with a frown.

  “What do you mean?” I demanded.

  “I mean, your little Vega chose to go up there without him needing to use any power on her at all,” Max said with a smirk. “Maybe she’s more likely to break your heart than the other way around.”

  I swore at him as I shot forward to stop that Siren asshole from touching her but Darius had made it there first.

  “Back off,” he snarled at the kissing booth douchebag and the Siren instantly did as he was told, shifting away from Tory like she was contagious.

  Darius caught
Tory’s arm and tugged her away from the stand while she tried to claw his fingers off of her. He moved her to stand before him and she shoved his hand off of her aggressively.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she spat, glaring at him with so much venom in her gaze that I halted my advance on them.

  “Stopping you from embarrassing yourself and ending up all over the press tomorrow in a story about how you have to pay for kisses as well as having a sex addiction,” he replied scathingly. “You’re welcome.”

  “I was asking him about which charity the kissing booth is raising money for,” she bit back instantly. “Not paying for a fucking kiss. Unlike you, I don’t just pay my way through life, living off of Daddy’s credit card. But I do have a stipend that’s stupidly generous and a fucking conscience and I was trying to do something decent. Which I guess you wouldn’t know jack shit about.”

  Darius cast a look over his shoulder at the sign announcing the fact that the kissing booth was raising funds for a charity and I shifted uncomfortably as I read it too. Missing Moon Orphanage.

  Tory and her sister were orphans twice over and even though I’d never gotten any details from her about their childhood, I knew it wasn’t all sunshine and roses.

  When we turned back to Tory she was already gone.

  “Nice work, man,” I snapped at Darius as I pushed past him to chase her down.

  “You were gonna punch that asshole too,” he called after me, but I ignored him. Partly because he was pissing me off lately. Mostly because he was right and I was just lucky Darius had gotten there first.

  I pulled my Atlas from my pocket as I followed her and sent a quick email to the family lawyer, getting her to set up a donation to the Missing Moon Orphanage from my trust fund and asking her to send me a confirmation ASAP.

  I caught Tory as she drew close to the hook-a-duck stand and turned her around to face me.

  “You have some really annoying friends too, you know,” I said before she could say anything.

  “Oh yeah?” she asked, rolling her eyes. “I bet you can’t even name any of my friends.”

  “Darcy,” I said quickly and her lips twitched with amusement.

  “Name five more and I’ll let you off the hook for your asshole associations.”

  “Come on, we both know you don’t have five more friends. You’re not that likeable,” I teased and I got a full smile in response for that.

  “Three then and you can name your prize,” she offered.

  “Grus,” I said instantly, smiling widely.

  “I’m gonna want a full name for the prize.”

  “Geraldine Grus,” I said enthusiastically. I couldn’t even really claim to dislike that girl, she was a goddamn machine on the Pitball pitch and at least she was consistent with her beliefs. She was an open book. Sure, it was set to a page I didn’t like much but at least I knew she wasn’t a conniving asshole like a lot of the Fae I knew. With her you knew exactly where you stood without having to second guess it.

  “That’s one,” Tory conceded.

  “And, errr...” I pushed a hand through my hair but found the curls sticky with drying blood as I did. I dropped my hand irritably, hoping it wasn’t noticeable. I’d wiped the blood off of my face in the car but it wasn’t going to come out of my hair without a shower. “You know...the little one with the nice ass and the pixie cut. I wanna say she’s called...Sorange?”

  “Not even at all,” Tory laughed and I knew I had her again.

  I pushed my advantage and caught her hand, wrapping my fingers between hers as I pulled her into a walk. I could feel the guys watching us but I couldn’t deal with them now. I had my sights set on Tory Vega tonight and I wasn’t letting her slip away.

  “Okay, that’s two,” I said, ignoring the eye roll I got for counting Sorange as a win. “Aaaaand...Hat Boy.”

  Tory gave me a full laugh for that one and I turned towards her, capturing her lips with mine before she could stop me.

  She didn’t resist much, her lips moulding to mine as she gave in to the heat between us and I pressed her back against the hook-a-duck stand. Her lips parted for me and I wrapped my hands around her waist beneath her leather jacket, the soft skin of her stomach warm against my palms.

  A kid swore at us as I nudged him and accidentally made him lose his duck which quacked angrily as the spell released it and it splashed away.

  Tory pressed me back and I sighed dramatically as she moved away from me, but she let me take her hand again as I fell into step beside her.

  I glanced over my shoulder and found Darius scowling at us - no surprises there - Max had folded his arms while he watched us and Seth mimed striking a whip at me. I wasn’t even sure I could deny it at this particular moment. Tory Vega was getting under my skin and I wasn’t sure I could do much to stop it. I shrugged at the other Heirs like I didn’t give a shit what they thought which was mostly true anyway, and drew Tory away from them into the crowd.

  “So what do I get for my prize?” I asked casually as I eyed the brightly coloured stands and vendors peddling all kinds of strange and wonderful things.

  Tory was drinking everything in with wide eyes and a smile played around her lips which actually made her look kind of innocent for once.

  “You just had your prize,” she said dismissively.

  “You would have let me kiss you anyway!” I protested.

  “Not likely,” she teased.

  Her eyes fell on a guy selling brightly coloured sticks of cotton candfae and I tugged her towards him knowingly. I ordered her one and tossed the guy a twenty when he asked for two auras, drawing Tory away again without bothering to wait for the change.

  Tory raised an eyebrow at me as she took a bite of her cotton candfae which was changing from pink to blue to lilac as she held it. “Why did you do that?” she asked me, casting a look back at the vendor who was grinning like that tip had just made his day.

  I shrugged. “That money doesn’t mean anything to me, it makes him happy. Why not?”

  “Aaand?” she pushed, her eyes picking me apart like I was just so damn easy for her to read.

  I sighed. “And it doesn’t hurt my reputation for people to think of me as generous. When I’m sitting on the Celestial Council one day and I make some choice that that guy’s friends are pissed about he’ll be there saying, ‘I met Caleb Altair once, he was damn decent - gave me an eighteen dollar tip on some cotton candfae.”

  “There it is,” she said with a satisfied smirk, taking another bite.

  “It’s still a nice thing to do,” I protested. “Ulterior motives aside.”

  “Sure,” she agreed like she didn’t agree or maybe she did, I couldn’t fucking tell and she was already walking away again.

  My Atlas pinged in my pocket and I pulled it out, grinning at the email from the family lawyer.

  “I thought I’d make up for the whole kissing booth thing back there,” I said, holding out the email for her to look at.

  She raised an eyebrow as she read it. “You donated ten thousand auras to the orphanage?” she asked, her lips parting in surprise.

  A grin was tugging at my lips in anticipation of what she’d do next but instead of the hug, tears of joy and making out sesh which would undoubtedly lead to me getting her back in my bed again tonight, she frowned at me.

  “Why?” she asked warily. “What exactly is it that you want from me?”

  “I...” I pushed a hand into my hair, unsure how this seemed to have had the opposite effect to what I’d wanted. “I thought it would make you happy.”

  Tory looked at me for a long moment, twirling the cotton candfae between her fingers. “You know what I like about you, Caleb?” she asked like she was asking me a math problem.

  “Everything?” I suggested.

  Tory rolled her eyes. “I like it when you don’t try so hard. I don’t need you to make grand gestures or buy me sweets. I’m not your girlfriend and I don’t want to be.”

  Ouch. />
  “So why don’t you just save the bullshit for a nice girl who needs hearts and flowers because that’s not me. I’m not impressed by shit like that.”

  “So what are you impressed by?” I asked, needing to know more than I liked to admit.

  “I just want someone to make my heart beat faster,” she said in a low voice that had me drawing closer to her as I looked into her dark eyes. “To challenge me and make me laugh and push back against my bullshit. I want to be forced out of my comfort zone and I want to feel excited, exhilarated, afraid. But not just because you’re an asshole. Because I want to feel alive.”

  “So not much then?” I confirmed teasingly. This girl was going to be the death of me. I couldn’t resist that glint in her eye or the challenge in her tone and I was pretty sure she knew it.

  “No, not much.” She smirked as she finished her cotton candfae and released a blaze of fire magic in her palm to destroy the wooden stick it had been wrapped around.

  “Fuck it then, come on.” I snatched her hand and this time I didn’t try to hold onto it all sweet and innocent, I just tugged her through the crowd behind me.

  The Fairy Fair was the same every year and I knew by now where all the best parts of it were found. We wound between countless people and I dragged Tory on when she spotted Geraldine Grus and her Ass idiots. She waved at them but didn’t try very hard to get away from me and I smirked to myself, knowing I had her attention again.

  A shadow stepped into my path and I scowled as Hat Boy himself set his eyes on my date.

  “Are you okay, chica?” he asked, catching Tory’s other arm so that she stopped to speak to him.

  “Yeah,” she said brightly. “Caleb’s just showing me around the fair. Where’s Darcy?”

  Hat Boy’s gaze darkened slightly and he shrugged. “She blew me off. Turns out our date didn't mean as much to her as it did to me.”

  “Speaking of dates,” I interrupted loudly. “We were actually-”

  “What happened?” Tory asked, cutting me off and my irritation grew a notch as she chose to give this loser her attention instead of me.