Beyond the Veil (Zodiac Academy, #8.5)

by Caroline Peckham

“You made up for your poor choices in my eyes as well as in the eyes of my daughter. Besides, I always knew you’d be the one for her. I held you as a baby when I was pregnant, and I saw it.”

“I saw a hundred possible fates, all of which tangled the two of you up with one another. None of them mean you can thwart death itself.”

She was hurting. Because of me. Despite all the promises I’d made to her, I’d done it again, hurting her worse than I ever had before by leaving her when I’d promised to stay.

“I’m here,” I promised her again. “And I’m not giving up. We’ll rip The Veil to shreds if that’s what’s required for us to be together again. I’m yours Roxy. There is only you,”

“I’ll burn it all if that’s what it takes,” she breathed and I could have sworn her words were for me, that she’d felt me there, knew I wasn’t giving up.

“Then burn it all, beautiful. Every fucking piece of it,” I growled, because whatever the price of our reunion cost, I’d pay it. Anything it took to return to her. Everything it might cost me.

I knew that I would keep that vow or let my soul be cast to ash in the effort it took to attempt it.

“You’d rather I give in to this fate, leave Roxy a widow before she’s even been crowned?”

Roxanya cried for vengeance with blood soaking her hands.

I held baby Roxanya in my arms, my sweet daughter cooing softly and blinking up at me with the biggest, brightest green eyes I had ever seen. Matched only by her twin who Merissa was bouncing on her knee. Little Gabriel was waving a white bunny toy in front of her, and Gwendalina giggled at the sight until he hid it behind her back, and she cracked a sob like she believed it was gone forever. Gabriel brought it back again and Gwendalina’s face immediately lit up while Merissa laughed.

I stroked my finger down Roxanya’s nose as she curled into me. “You are always so content, my little love,” I said. “Except when you are cold or sleepy or hungry.”

“Have you been sent into death to torment me?”

“Was I meant to hold a seance every night to try and contact you? To sing you songs and offer you little trinkets?”

“Just waiting for the dead king to move and I’ll be on my way,” Darius said. “Just waiting for my daughter’s poor choice to move aside, and I’ll be on my way,” I gritted out.

Darius lay his hand on Lance’s shoulder, and it was almost as though Lance searched for the man at his side, like he could sense him there.

“I’m here, my little darling. You can fight this,” I spoke to her, though she couldn’t hear me at all. Maybe she could feel me.

“My taste is fire and ruin tempered by the kiss of a woman who has always and will always be out of my league,”

No Roxy though.

For a while, I even hoped the two of you might become something more-” “Me and Lance?” I scoffed. “He fucking wishes.” “The two of you did have all of those sleepovers. He drew me to him in a nightmare once and I was filled with excitement when I found you in bed with him, your arms wrapped tight around him, offering comfort, the two of you in a state of undress and-”

“Those were platonic sleepovers,” I said, rolling my eyes. “And I was never fucking naked for them-”

“He’s not the king anymore. And I’m the one who married one of the true queens – so maybe he should be the one bowing to me,”

The greatest yearning of my heart was simply to return to what I’d lost. I needed to get back, to keep the promises I’d made and find my way through death to the woman I loved once more.

I want my daughter to be happy more than anything in all the world but a lifetime without you would pale to insignificance in the face of some things.”

“I thought the bike was a nice gift,” she said, and it took me a moment to realise she meant the bike I’d bought Roxy for winning the race against me all those months ago. “Yeah? She sure took her time in coming to look at it.” “Well, it was good of you to admit that you were wrong and accept that she’d won something. But you could hardly expect her to forgive you without making you work your ass off for it.”

“Some days I’m still not convinced she has forgiven me, or more like I’m not convinced I deserved her forgiveness at all,”

“My luck in life has been decidedly shitty. At least it was before her.”

What I am even less so. I know the only reason he tolerates me at all is because she chose me in the end, and he won’t go against her. But I get it, I’m not good enough.

The thing is, the only person I’m ever going to care about proving myself to in that regard is her. So Hail can hate me all he likes, my focus won’t shift from what she needs, and right now that means I need to find a way back to her.”

“See, I knew she pick...

It helped me feel at least a little more deserving of Roxy’s love if she wasn’t the only person who thought I might be worthy of it.

“I’m kind of a big deal around here,” he pushed. “I’ve got a whole merchandise range,”

“I need to return to my wife

Roxy shoved herself to her feet while my heart tore itself apart in my chest and I was left as nothing but a witness to her grief as she stood at the edge of the cliff and screamed her pain for the world to feel, her agony trapped within a silencing bubble so that her suffering would stay contained to her own personal hell.

I needed her to know I hadn’t left her, I needed her to believe that I was fighting to return to her too.

finally, she felt me there, surrounding her, holding her, refusing to let go. She inhaled deeply, leaning back into me and stealing whatever strength she needed. I knew she felt it and the relief that spilled through me had a laugh breaking from my lips

Her connection to me shattered but as The Veil tightened its hold on me, drawing me away, I knew she’d taken that strength from me, I knew she’d felt my presence even if only for a moment, and that truth gave me the strength I needed to go on too.

Darius was chasing myths through The Veil in hopes of reuniting with his heart’s greatest desire.

My heart broke to look at him, my beautiful boy, his life stolen from him just as he had managed to rip it away from that monster who had fathered him.

It was impossible to deny the gratitude I felt in the face of it too, his torture buying her a chance at salvation. His love for her was bound in blood, his body a sacrifice on an altar to save her from damnation, and there was no denying the profoundness in that.

“What did you find?” she asked keenly, and I glanced between the two of them, sensing some secret in the air. “About what?” I asked. “Nothing that involves you, relic,” Darius said, striding into my chambers as if he owned them. “Hail, I need to talk to him,” Merissa said, giving me a pointed look. “Go to Azriel and tell him what we saw.” “What did you see?” Darius asked, intrigued. “Nothing that involves you, poor choice,”

“Why didn’t you ever tell me about this? I could have faced this with you.” I looked up at him. “Well, you were dead,” he said simply. “Right, that,” I said with a note of dark amusement colouring my voice.

“Get her name off of your tongue,” I hissed. “Whatever connection you think you had with my wife was extremely short lived, mine is ever enduring and indestructible.”

“The first one. Roxy is grieving. She wants me back. So tell me the limitations of what I can do with that level of need. She has to hunt for the ether that Mordra told me about. I need her to go looking for it, so I have to be able to send her after it.”

my wife,”

moments I’d stolen with the woman I loved

But all of that paled to irrelevance as I looked to her, the girl who had captured my soul so completely that it would only ever be hers.

Roxy crumpled where she sat on the edge of the bed, a silencing bubble bursting from her a beat before she screamed with a raw and brutal energy that was so filled with pain that it rocked the centre of me, making me quake where I stood, the world tilting around us.

my own energy coursing into it as I willed her to feel it, to feel me there with her.

“You can shoulder this pain for now and I swear to you it will pass. I will return to you.”

eyes of thunderous rage and power lifting and looking straight into mine, as if she could see me or at least feel me there with her.