Vicious Fae (Ruthless Boys of the Zodiac, #3)

by Caroline Peckham

Because I was coming. And when I found her, I would make her pay for hurting my girl. For betraying me. For picking her worthless father over her true Alpha.

I spotted her tearing through the trees at a ferocious pace, whimpers of fear escaping her with every footfall.

I had loved her with all of my heart. And this was the thanks I’d gotten for my devotion? Not even a challenge? A poisonous dart. A coward’s choice of weapon.

I was her Alpha, the leader of her family, her kin and now, her end.

That was what happened to those who crossed me. They weren’t just killed. They were eradicated.

I didn’t think there was anything in this world which could frighten me. But I’d just discovered my biggest fucking phobia ever. Losing her.

She seemed so fragile like this, as if her heart was laid in my palm and I needed to coil around it and protect it from the world.

I tried to send him a vision, but his mental shields were powerful, keeping me from getting into his slimy mind.

She’d said both of our names. She wanted both of us here. And as fucking shit as that was, she had just nearly died. So wasn’t this the least I could offer her?

According to the rules, we couldn’t share a bed together so we’d be stuck on the floor all night. But even if I could have brought Elise into my bed, I imagined Dante would have come crawling in too like a fucking leach.

“I shouldn’t have spoken for all Oscuras,” Dante said after a long while. “There’s bad blood amongst my people. Felix…Mariella. But I don’t think of them as family. So it wasn’t a lie.”

“When I took over the pack, I banished her for what she did to you. No one even knew she had you until the news spread that you’d escaped. She told everyone you were dead-” “Bullshit,” I snarled. “I might be your enemy, serpente, but I don’t lie to anyone. And what Mariella did was an atrocity I wish my Clan weren’t linked to. That’s why she’s gone.”

I didn’t want to believe him, but maybe some part of me did. Why would he bother to lie? He wouldn’t try to spare my fucking feelings.

The people around you are terrified of you. You have no family and you have no one who loves you. Whether you die tomorrow or as an old man, it will be alone and unloved. And that’s a choice you made.”

“That’s why you should give her to me,” I said as barbed wire coiled around my heart. “She’s the closest thing to family I’ve had in a long time.” I was glad I didn’t have to look at him when I said it. Maybe it was pathetic, but it was the truth. And my tongue would never weave lies like his did.

Two sworn enemies who shouldn’t have even been able to bear standing in the same room as each other and yet they were actually sleeping here, neither of them worried what the other would do while they slept.

Their hold on my hands felt binding somehow. Like it was its own kind of promise. They were here for me and while that was still the case, there was a strange sense of almost peace hanging between them. Or maybe peace was too strong a word, but they’d certainly called a ceasefire.

They eyed me like I might break at any moment and I rolled my eyes at them. “You don’t need to look at me like that,” I said.

“You have me,” Ryder and Dante growled at the exact same time and my lips parted as I looked between them and they turned to glare at each other.

but was there really any kind of hope that the Kings of the two most powerful gangs in Alestria might actually come together over me?

“The two of you don’t get to make a decision for me with some fucking death match. And obviously I’d never want to have anything to do with either of you if you killed the other.”

“Pick now and we’ll end the deal. You choose one of us and the other agrees to let you be with him. I can’t take this anymore, never knowing who you want more, I don’t want this kind of pain.”

“I’ve made myself perfectly clear from the start. I’m. Not. Choosing. It’s not a choice. I like and want you both the exact same amount. One relationship has no bearing on the other. This is who I am. I’ve always been clear about that. You don’t have to have any part of it if you don’t want to. But if you do want me then you’re going to have to get used to the idea of sharing me. And don’t ever ask me to choose again.”

“Bad, little monster,” he said, shaking a finger at me like I was a naughty school kid. “Am I going to have to get Ryder to punish you?” Heat rose in my skin at that suggestion and I slid from the hood of the car, moving to meet him with a smile on my face. Leon was the only one of my Kings who not only accepted the way I felt about the others, but embraced it wholeheartedly too and the way that made me feel was hard to put into words.

I hadn’t had anywhere to hide the urn when I’d first gone to the academy, but the Kings had all figured out that I was grieving by now and even if I hadn’t been entirely honest with all of them about who I was grieving over, I felt safe enough to bring him with me at last.

Because he wasn’t small. He was big and bright and important and…gone.

pushing my grief back into the little box where it lived within my heart. “There’s just a lot of memories for me in that place.”

“She’s not harmless, little monster,” he said seriously. “She was trying to manipulate me into getting you to go and work there for her. And I don’t mean she was trying to talk me into it. She was pushing at me with one of the most subtle Siren spells I’ve ever felt.”

And after months of hiding it and lying about it, I was beginning to think it might be good for me to be around people who knew exactly who I was and what I’d lost for a while.

And I still planned on escaping Alestria as soon as I graduated if I managed to survive bringing down King.

I didn’t know when we were going to sneak away again, I just knew with an absolute certainty that we would be. But first, it was time to party.

Mamma had cast an insect repellent spell around it and Uncle Hugo was currently frosting all the bowls with ice to keep everything fresh.

“She’s my girl,” Leon said proudly, his chest expanding and a pang of jealousy hit me that he could own her so publicly without consequence.

My heart tugged at the mention of my father and I hugged Mamma tight, our broken hearts finding a whole between each other.

I glanced at Rosalie as she practically glowed from the offhanded praise, raising a brow knowingly. She pressed her lips together, giving me an expression that said if you say a word, I’ll gut you.

I was bound by a hundred reasons not to, but they stung more than ever right then.

Because rose quartz meant belonging to someone. It was a promise and a pledge of its own.

He was still insisting that I was going through a phase that would pass as soon as we had our Divine Moment and I became his Elysian Mate.

Who knew there was an expiry date on grief?

But considering the price of a headstone and a plot in one of the warded graveyards, I didn’t imagine that day would come any time soon.

“Well if it isn’t Big Bird on a day out from Sesame Street. What’s the matter? Do you need to talk to someone about how Elmo’s been touching you inappropriately?”

“What does she know about you, baby?” Ryder’s voice softened to a tone I’d never heard come from his mouth before.

“He needed money to pay off our mom’s debt. For me. To protect me. But if I’d known about it, I would have just paid the debt myself-” “Don’t ever say that,” I growled. “You are no more responsible for that debt than Gareth was and he was right to protect you from what your mother tried to force you to do.”

“She was arranging for me to dance in the strip club where she worked as a way to pay her gambling debt...I had no idea.”

I’d never thought I’d agree with the snake on anything, but I guessed our contempt for Elise’s mother was one thing we could wholeheartedly agree on.

“Yeah, right. Of course we’re not going to murder Nightshade.” She mock saluted me and I narrowed my eyes on her.

It was the only way, and if it meant Elise could get answers then I was all for it.

Ryder smiled darkly as my pulse rose. I wanted this for Elise. I’d do what it took to get the truth for her, and at least in here none of the torture would be real. But sometimes I worried about the darkness which rose in her in her desperation for vengeance.

“You talk about her like that again and I’ll make sure Draconis leaves you in here for days, experiencing every kind of torture imaginable. And he’s got a really good imagination.”

“The Card Master will one day rise against the Celestial Councillors when they’re powerful enough, then they will defeat them and take over the whole of Solaria. And their loyal followers, the Black Card, will sit in the Court of Solaria alongside our master.”