Restless Stars (Zodiac Academy, #9)

by Caroline Peckham

“I love you, Darius Vega,” Roxy said, her eyes falling closed as she settled herself against my chest where the pounding of my heart thumped against her ear. “I loved you first,” I told her, tightening my arm around her and letting my eyes shut too.

“Then let it be learned, and used, then forgotten,” he agreed, offering me his hand. I took it in my own and the power of that oath clapped between us, the stars binding us to our words. I swallowed a thick lump in my throat, my pulse thundering in my ears as I dropped my gaze to the innocuous looking book once more. Then I opened it.

“My name is Imenia Brumalis, and I have waited a long time to place this diamond at the feet of my queens. As a fellow of the Glacials, I pledge my allegiance to their cause. Take me to them so that I might assist them in the war.”

Her taint could no longer trap the Nymphs’ souls, and I prayed that meant we could convince the High Nymph Cordette to fight on our side, or at least grant liberty to any Nymphs who wished to fight with us.

“She really is out of your league. I dunno how you managed to bag her.” “Fuck you,” I grunted. “And it was brutal persistence until I ground her down,” I added. “Oh that’s romantic. Kinda fucked up, too.” “Shut up. You know I don’t mean it like that I just… Me and her were…” “Inevitable,”

Gabriel Nox: I saw this coming and could have stopped it #forthepubes #pubemeonce #revengeofthebush

Her power wasn’t what it had been and, in that moment, with my gaze pinned upon hers, we both felt it, the shift, the truth. She was no longer more powerful than me.

bed. “The shadows are no longer slaves to my whispers,” she said, her voice stricken with grief. “I can form a hand for you, but I cannot bend the shadows to any command but my own. I can’t gift them to you or leave them rooted within you. I-” “You will try again,”

The Vegas had been here. They had been here and they had released Vard’s monsters upon my army, meaning they had done more than wield illusions from the mountaintops. They had crept into my domain, and I had no way of knowing how deeply they had burrowed.

“You mean the bit with us sitting on the outskirts like the miserable bastards we too often are, or the bit where you pretend not to have been fucking a Vega five minutes before hanging out with me?” I asked, making him laugh. “It’s easier now that we don’t have to hide it,” he said and I looked into his eyes, that still unfamiliar ring of silver which lined them suiting him.

“What will everyone think if they notice the consort I brought back from death sitting so sullenly over here?” Roxy teased as she came to a halt just out of reach, her body still moving to the music.

And that sound, that fucking sound so full of life and joy was why I wasn’t going to bow to the odds which stood before us. That sound was why I would fight to death and beyond for this war. Her. My queen. Who deserved so many more days of laughter to come.

“Let’s slip away to the Shimmering Springs. There’s a pretty rock pool there you’d look fucking edible in. Especially naked, sitting on my-”

“She told you about that?” I murmured. “Of course she did, with rosy cheeks and a sparkle in her eye,” Geraldine said in a choked voice. “Thank you for this,” I said, then she croaked out a sob and walked away.

“Your Sight has likely shown you the answer to that,” I said in a low voice. “She doesn’t need anyone’s permission to do as she pleases.”

“Your dead dad. Your biological one. I told you about him before you went off to the cabin,” Darius said, narrowing his eyes at Gabriel as though he was being purposefully dense. “You have never once mentioned my birth father to me or indicated that you had any interaction with him beyond The Veil,” Gabriel replied in annoyance.

If these had been made to wield the Imperial Star…was Clydinius still connected to them somehow?

I wondered if the Vega twins’ return had sparked Lionel into action with his plans or if his timescales had always been running to this pattern. Was their presence here the catalyst which had thrown us to this destination, or would his rise have come by now regardless? Would we be entirely without hope of resistance if it weren’t for the return of the Vega line to our realm?

“He ate from that very utensil; his essence imbues it with the power of the unknown. It is said that any who possess such a thing will themselves be shielded from the eyes of death and so prosper during battle.” I frowned, noticing the little card which sat above the fork. ‘Genuine item blessed by Darius Acrux’.

“I yield,” she replied loudly. “And I am very much looking forward to seeing what you do next, my boy.”

I’d challenged her for her position and I’d won. I was a Celestial Councillor. And I answered to no one but my queens anymore. I fell to my knees before her, throwing my arms around her as a sob broke in my chest. “I love you,” I told her forcefully, knowing this could never change that in the slightest.

“I love you more,” she promised, her forehead falling to mine as we knelt there panting and bleeding, exhausted both physically and emotionally, forever changed and yet forever as we were.

“I don’t care about rules or laws when it comes to us,” I said my voice hard and unyielding, my steps certain and unfaltering.

“I challenged my mother and claimed her place,” I told him. “And if my queens try to tell me no on this then I think I’ll just have to go ahead and commit treason. You are in my head morning, noon and night, your presence invigorates me and your absence leaves me aching. I dream of you whenever I sleep and burn for you whenever you are near. I can’t hide it anymore. I won’t hide it anymore. I want you to be mine, Seth, I fucking need you to be mine.”

“Mates,” I finished for him. “We’re Moon Mated.”

“How?” I pressed, needing to know. Any added strength in the coming fight was immensely precious. “I will teach you,” Imenia vowed. “And when the battle comes, I pray it shall help shift the tide in our favour.”

And if you decide that that is your duty and step into that role as fully as you possibly can, I believe the nightmares will fade. It is how I cope with the visions, and I can teach you my ways if you’d like?” “Your ways?” I asked curiously. He nodded. “In my family, I am the last to sleep and the first to rise.” He got to his feet, his wings flexing as he offered me his hand. “A Harpy’s duty is to protect the nest. Let me show you how it is done.”

“Coffee?” “I knew I didn’t just marry you because you were dying,” I groaned longingly. “No,” he agreed. “It was because I was dying and I have a big cock.” “Hail to that.”

“Why the fuck are you sitting in the bath while he’s in the room?” he snapped, his words coated in a possessive growl.

“You wouldn’t care if I was having a bath while you were in the room,” I said. “That’s because I’m your husband and we fuck each other so I get to see them.” “You assholes get naked to shift all the time and it’s not like I’m concerned about that. Caleb must have seen Seth’s cock a thousand times before he was tempted to start sucking it.”

“I will rip your eyes from your fucking heads if either of you look at my wife while she’s in that bathtub,” he cursed, storming towards me as if he might try and haul me from the water himself, dropping the bag of coffees down on the floor and grabbing a thick bathrobe from the chair closest to the tub.

I gave her a look which said ‘I can’t just bow down to this shit’ and she arched a brow which said ‘hell no you can’t’ before speaking for the whole room to hear. “What’s the problem, Darius? They’re only tits.” “Can we get back to the mention of a threesome,” Seth pushed.

“Why am I always last?” Max grouched, though he stuffed the food into his mouth all the same. “It is a matter of prestige, of course,” Geraldine told him. “First the Queens, above all as is just and right.” “Uh-huh. But why can’t I be after them?” “Well then, our dear Dragoon, consort to one of the True Queens, returned from death itself where he no doubt had slim pickings when it came to food of this quality-” “He was dead, he didn’t need any food,” Seth interrupted as he took a seat on Caleb’s other side, taking a savage bite from a bar of chocolate which I’d hidden behind the fucking headboard.

blinked down at the four little lizards who peered up at us from within a nest of shredded paper, broken eggshells crushed beneath their iridescent bodies. They were each a different colour; one a pearly coral, another silvery white, the third sparkling pale green and the last opalescent sky blue. “I thought they were extinct,” Orion breathed from behind me, but I couldn’t tear my gaze from the little creatures who were blinking up at Darcy and I as if we were where their world began and ended. “What are they?” I murmured.

“Sayer dragons,” Geraldine replied in a hushed voice. “Now imprinted upon the two of you, forever faithful to your will, forever loyal to your wishes.”

“They’re not cute, Blue. Their powers are vast and unknown, unpredictable and immense,” Orion explained. “Each of them growing into magic unique to its own personality, the power of which is sustained by the connection it holds with its masters.” “They use our power?” Darcy questioned, tickling the green lizard beneath its chin. “No, but there is some kind of link, one which is as impossible to deny as it has been to pinpoint. They were highly coveted creatures in the Slovian Ages. But once they have bonded to a Fae their loyalty cannot be turned. When Fae realised they couldn’t steal the beasts, their jealousy over the power and protection they offered up to their owners resulted in them being hunted to extinction. Or so I thought until now,” Orion explained.

“Daughter of the flames, you wield the stones as if they were made to summon me,” Arcturus boomed among them all, his ire as clear as fucking day.

“I refuse you entry to the realm beyond this one. May you linger forever in the clutches of life while all others pass on without you.”

“Only The Ferryman can reap the souls of the departed,” the skeletal figure hissed, his voice a rush of air between rotten teeth and yet still so loud it deafened me. “Only I get to rule over that branch of fate. You will forever pay for crossing me, Tharix, son of rot and ruin. You will forever be everything and nothing at all.”

“Death will surround you but never claim you,”

“It’s lightweight – incredibly so. You’ll barely even know you’re wearing it. But it’s strong enough to take the force of a battering ram without buckling and has clasps which will release automatically if you have to shift. I used solid gold and strengthened it with Phoenix-” “It’s priceless,”

“I mean that literally, Roxy, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything so rare, so valuable, so-” “Potently powerful for a Dragon who needs to keep his magic replenished?” I offered smugly, because of course that had been the idea. To make something so valuable that it would not only protect him in battle but strengthen him too. And what better way than to make his magic practically unending the way mine and Darcy’s was whenever we wielded flames?

needing it to be the best it could be because it would be out there in battle with the most precious thing I owned, and I couldn’t bear for him to be at risk.

“Fine. I worked myself to death over it and I’m fucking exhausted by the effort it took. I did it for you because I won’t ever risk you again. You own my heart, Darius.” I pressed my palm to his chest where his pulse sounded in time with mine. “Not like this, but in the purest and most vital way any one person can. And I will follow you into death if that’s what our fate demands. But I don’t plan on letting death have us that easily, I plan on living with you and loving you this fiercely through the grey hair and wrinkles and rocking chairs surrounded by a hundred great grandbabies and every glorious moment between now and then. So this is a command from your queen, Darius Vega. Don’t die out on that battlefield. Bring me your father’s head and let’s start a new life by dancing on his funeral pyre.” “So beautifully, brutally, violent, my Queen,”

“And of course, your wish is my greatest command.”

wish to belong to you in every way a person can belong to someone. The stars mated us, they wove our fates together long ago before our souls were cast inside our bodies. They may have marked you as mine and me as yours, but I want us to choose each other regardless of what the sky might think of it. Because if we hadn’t been mated, I would still love you like this, like the world begins and ends with you. I would have walked just as willingly into the depths of Darkmore, I would have destroyed myself to have a single taste of you. And if this is it, if our final sunrise crests on tomorrow’s horizon, then I need to know that you would have chosen me too. In a time when you weren’t a queen and I was nothing but a broken man, and together we denied the impossibility of us. I want a chance to do so again in the face of our downfall. So Darcy Vega, sovereign of my heart, will you defy all fates that deal our deaths and promise to marry me?”

the Nox flower that Darcy, Gabriel and Orion had secured making sure that the enemy Nymphs couldn’t lock down our magic in the approaching battle.

They were here. They’d come. They’d fucking joined us at the very last second. “Welcome the Legion of Shadow,”

Long live the True Queens. Forever may they reign. In this world or the next.

The only thing that was ever worth bleeding for. Love. And no pit of death, or stench of battle could touch the fearsome, unstoppable force of that.