Beyond the Veil (Zodiac Academy, #8.5)

by Caroline Peckham

“I will tear the heavens apart for this,” Roxanya Vega snarled, the curse of a true queen lashing across the heavens and scoring them with her conviction. “I will shred your world to pieces and rip your hold on destiny from your fucking fists with blood and fire and vengeance for this,” she screamed at the stars, her power making the ground beneath me tremble, magic unlike any I’d ever felt before burning its way between the realms as she forced the stars to take note. “On my life, I curse you. On his life, I curse you. And for our fate, I’ll end you!”

If she refused our fate, then I would too. I would fight with whatever power remained to me and use whatever I could to see an end to this injustice. If there was any way for us to reunite our souls once more, then I would give all I had to do so. There was only her. My one, my only, my wife.

My beautiful, broken, warrior of a wife was no mystery to me.

“I believe she prefers her friends to call her Tory.” His jaw tightened. “I think I know what my wife prefers. And I am no mere friend.”

“The one where I swore to love and protect your daughter with all that I was for all the time I had in that world and the next. The one that I joined her in when she vowed to change our fate at the cost of the stars if that was what it required. She has sworn to defy destiny in the matter of my death, and I have sworn to do all I can to defy it too. So will you help me, or would you rather allow your distaste for me to leave her grieving and alone for the rest of her life?” I demanded. Hail sighed heavily. “I preferred the blonde one,” he grunted.

“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 swore, holding her tighter while the world fell to ruin in her flames surrounding us.

because whatever the price of our reunion cost, I’d pay it. Anything it took to return to her. Everything it might cost me.

“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.

“Ah shit, Seth, please don’t go all Wolf kink while I’m right here watching. If I have to see you do that nipple thing in the flesh, I’m gonna come back to life simply to kick your hairy ass.”

🤣🤣🤣🤣

My soul shook as that beautiful, powerful, unstoppable mate of mine stepped through the barrier between life and death like it was any other door which she refused to leave closed. She was here.

I crashed into a body preserved in ice, a heart which never should have been able to beat again coming alive once more, pounding to the tune of my wife’s own love.