Never Keep (Sins of the Zodiac, #1)

by Caroline Peckham

“I’m losing myself when it comes to you,” he said, his chest rising and falling heavily. “Since the moment we met I thought you were standing between me and what I wanted but I’ve started to see that you’re the key to it, not a barrier in my way.”

“Because there is no bypassing you, Vesper. I stalled the moment I laid eyes on you and have been struggling to recover ever since. But this…” he lifted our entwined hands to his mouth and kissed the back of mine. “This is perfection.”

It seemed the Sky Witch and I had uncovered a secret that had been whispered about in the four nations since the Dragons’ disappearance long before I was born. Were the Reapers responsible? Had they placed that beast there? Were there more hidden behind those other archways?

It didn’t point to my nation’s victory. It spoke of favouring the ‘peacemakers of destiny.’ But who was that referring to?

Frustration burned through me at not being able to hear what they said, and as that thought crossed my mind, that strange, dark kind of magic stirred inside me. It was reaching out before I could stop it, unable to wrangle it under my control, but out of nowhere North’s silencing shield shattered and his voice boomed out for me to hear.

“The Matriarch sets me the tasks that she knows will hurt the others. That would hurt you, in time. It has nothing to do with favourites.”

“You have a life to make for yourself, freyin, that’s what she wants for you. It’s why she protects you. But I am what I am,” Kaiser said. “A weapon, nothing more. She understands that. There is no future for me but one written in blood. I do not feel regret, I do not suffer in the wake of any atrocity I commit.”

The Matriarch was one of the most feared Fae in the four lands and her bloody reputation spoke for itself.

His Werewolf form was huge, bigger than any I’d seen before, the beastly creature standing even taller than my father’s warhorse. His fur was grey with white splashes across his chest, jaw and legs and he bayed a terrible howl as he raced toward his enemies. My

He watched them as calmly as an evening tide rolling in at his feet, his brutal good looks making him resemble the beautiful effigies of the hunter of the sky, Orion.

Kaiser Brimtheon had caused a massacre without unsheathing a single blade and my heart was thumping erratically at what I now knew him to be capable of. I’d known he was strong, but this? It was terrifying.

You have followed me to your death, silka la vin, and I doubt you told a soul at the Keep that you are here.”

“Liar. You hold no company. You slink in the shadows, going unnoticed, yet you dress to the contrary. A walking paradox. I know the cut of you, it is so glaringly obvious and tiresomely dull.”

“Opponent,” he echoed dismissively, shaking his head. “You are hardly that. You’re just a rat that needs gutting.”

“I am commanded by one woman and one woman only in this world. It is not you, and nor shall it ever be.”

“The Matriarch has her claws in you so deep that you’re just a mindless pawn serving a callous queen. She probably doesn’t think of you beyond the victories you claim in her name.”

“Your filthy mouth won’t save you, silka la vin.”

place perched on a flying island all of its own, hidden in the sky surrounded by clouds and placed as close to the stars as any Fae can get. It whispers of a love so powerful it broke the world. Cracked it in two and then two again until the four continents of The Waning Lands were forged from the forgotten remnants of what came before.

Eventually, the laws came to pass. No wielder of earth, sky, flame or flood should ever merge their blood with one who wasn’t born of their element. And with the rise of the Reapers came the Elysium Prophecy, speaking of the day when peace might come at last on the wings of the Skyforgers who fought so valiantly to return the world to order.

I just needed to make sure that Cayde and I remained secret.

“Just don’t die,” she growled in command as if her will alone could prevent such a thing. “And hurry back.”

twin Gemini swords

Do you know much of the Scorpius Pirates, doll?” “They’re nomads like the Vampires.

But from the feel of it, this was hardened with something. Perhaps… I examined it closer, my pulse quickening. “Dragon fire.”

That gold isn’t gold anymore, it’s draconia now that it’s been altered with Dragon fire and likely imbued with the strength of a Dragon scale too if it’s made in the ancient way.”

“I need to kill a Fury,”

“You do, do you?” he purred, stepping closer. “That wouldn’t be Kaiser Brimtheon now, would it?”

rattled my bones. “It’s time. The moment has come, are the acolytes prepared?”

“The acolytes are cleansed and waiting to meet with fate and see which of them will survive their assessment,”

“Blood. Fangs as sharp as blades. Monsters on the horizon,” she gasped. “When?”

“I cannot grasp more…” She looked tired, dropping into a seat at one of the tables.

and that endless chiming told of only one thing. Never Keep was under attack.

And the man, Cayde, who looked like he was plotting death and carnage in every passing thought.

I noticed the large, imposing form of Kaiser Brimtheon charting a path through the crowd with North and his pack at his heels, looking fit for war, but I ripped my eyes from him back to the pink-haired warrior before me.

The Vampires stayed out of our wars, coming close to the rest of the Fae only at Awakenings so that they could claim any of their kind who Emerged and steal them away to their hidden kingdom in the wastelands.

If Fae were vicious then Vampires were the worst of us all, creatures of pure depravity who delighted in bloodshed beyond all other pleasures. Worse, they formed covens among themselves, like Werewolf packs only far deadlier. Their ferocious strength and speed - which were already far superior to all other Fae thanks to the gifts of their Order Form - were heightened by the bond they formed as a unit.

If the Vampires had breached the gate, this was going to be a bloodbath. The power of the covens they formed was insurmountable. Packs of five or six had been known to kill an army of a thousand, ripping through flesh like paper and moving like the wind itself.

and I locked onto his desires with an iron fist. Revenge, blood, power, longing.

and for the first time in as long as I could remember, fear found me in battle. Not for my own death but for the death of the two women who shared my soul and who deserved so much more than this from life.

opened the floodgates to my own magic automatically, a tide of raw and foreign power slamming into me and stealing the breath from my lungs. It wasn’t air magic but somehow, as the two forces within us collided, they merged, finding an impossible unity and becoming something that I could wield against all odds. I threw Everest’s power into the shield, the cracks sealing, the Vampire bellowing in frustration.

“Band together!’ Reaper Jaspin commanded. “Put aside your differences and fight as one for the good of the Keep!”

“Let’s see what you’ve been hiding then, Vesper. And it had better be as wicked as I’ve been hoping.”

“By the ocean, are you breathing that loud to stake your claim over the air?” I clipped at him. “Keep your mouth shut or I’ll silence you permanently,”

He hit the opposite wall, touching the bloody wounds and shock filled me at the sight of him using healing magic, something only the Reapers were capable of, his injuries stitching over fast and offering him a full recovery. “No,” I gasped, raising my blade again.

The Vampire reared back in surprise, a snarl of anger tearing from him as he swatted the little lizard away, but Blue let out a shriek from his open jaws and a powerful blast of energy exploded from him, sending the Vampire smashing into the wall.

I stepped over Cayde who was yet to get his ass off the floor, my boot knocking into this chin as I went. He grunted irritably as he shoved to his feet, and Blue went flying over his shoulder, his wing slapping him in the face before he came to land on my hand.

But Dalia and Moraine had been my sisters for as far back as I could remember. And Cayde had unlocked my heart and stolen my trust alongside it since we’d been at Never Keep, earning his own level of faith. Besides,

“Who have you told about this?” Cayde demanded, his glare shifting to Everest again and I stiffened.

I ran, tearing across the chamber toward him, my heart cleaving in two at the sight of the runes cut into his bare chest. His head sagged forward, his body limp and his hair was falling into his eyes, that golden stripe at the front caressing his cheek.

“No escape,” he croaked. “Run, Ever. Never stop running.”