The Reckoning (Zodiac Academy, #3)

by Caroline Peckham

Now, I was adrift without her, my heart trying to tear its way out of my chest in a bid to go to her.

Could they be Elysian mates?

Francesca was one of my Nebula Allies. She'd been in Aer House with me at Zodiac and since she'd joined the FIB she'd helped me out more than a few times when she was off duty.

Diego Polaris shifted beside her, dropping his arm around her shoulders. My jaw locked and white-hot energy built in my chest. I had the completely irrational urge to go over there and drag him out of The Orb by the throat. Be sensible, Lance. It was a one-time thing. She’s not yours to be jealous over. Leave it alone.

“Miss Cygnus, name the seven Cardinal Magics that all Fae are capable of before Miss Vega turns blue,” Orion commanded, and Sofia squeaked in alarm. My heart thumped madly but Sofia was the smartest Fae in the class, and she gave his answer immediately. “Healing, Coercion, Levitation, Summoning, Illusion, Divination and Atmospheric Manipulation.”

“Congratulations, Roxy. Looks like we’ve got a date Wednesday night then.” I ignored the flutter in my chest as he called it a date because it absolutely didn’t take place. “Maybe I’ve already got plans Wednesday,” I said. “Yeah, you do. With me.”

“You said no physical contact,” I whispered as his muscles hardened, keeping me caged beneath him. I was losing my mind. I should have tried to fight him off, but I didn’t want him to go anywhere. And from the intense look he was giving me, I could tell how close he was to crossing this line again himself. “What if I’m having second thoughts?” he growled. “You’re fickle,” I pointed out. “And confusing.” “I don’t mean to be.” He dipped his head, so his mouth was by my ear and goosebumps rose to meet the heat of his breath. “I can't think straight around you,” he said heavily, his hand clawing into the earth beside my head. “I could have lost you in that battle, or I could have died without ever knowing how this might have played out…”

My Atlas pinged and I took it out of my bag, my soul fraying as I found a private message waiting for me from Orion. Lance: What if I don't want it to stop?

Lance: I guess you’re about to go back to radio silence so for what it’s worth… In Solaria blue means royal. And to me, blue means you.

“Do you want to know a secret?” she breathed, her voice lowering seductively. “What?” I asked, wanting to hear anything and everything she might ever want to tell me. She leaned a little closer and her long hair tickled my skin. “I think,” she breathed slowly. “That I’m going to puke.”

A smile pulled at my lips in response to her comment. It might have been nice for my ego if she’d started declaring how attractive she found me, but in all honesty, she just wouldn’t have been herself without her smart mouth. And I was beginning to realise that I might like that, and a few other things about her, just a bit too much.

my head lay on the chest of a man whose strong arms were wrapped around me like he never wanted to let me go. His heartbeat thumped beneath my ear. My arm and leg were coiled over him while he held me against him, his hand resting on the curve of my thigh. He was warm unlike anyone I’d ever known, his skin almost seeming to hold a fire within it which filled my soul with strength and peace.

“Don’t go,” he breathed and there was a strange kind of plea in his voice.

“With the coming Lunar Eclipse-” “It's coming so hard!” Tyler cried out and Orion shot a blast of water at him that sent him crashing to the floor, his seat flipping over with him. Orion looked back to us all with a challenge glittering in his eyes. “Anyone who makes a joke in this class will get wet. Just like Tyler got wet. So is anyone else getting wet?” he baited us and I covered my face with my hand, unable to bear looking at him.

“If you don't kiss me, I'll go mad,” his voice rumbled through his chest and a magnetic heat tugged me toward him.

Seeing another guy's hands on you makes me want to rip out their eyes so they never get to look at you again.

I hesitated then whipped the pillowcase off and wrapped my hair up in it. I took a selfie, poking out my tongue and grinning as I sent it. He replied almost instantly. Lance: Shit, how did you know about my pillowcase fetish?

“I have a perfectly good bed downstairs,” I replied, shaking my head just a little. “Why would you want me to stay?” Darius frowned like he wasn’t sure what to say to that, but he inched a little closer all the same. “Because it feels right,” he breathed.

I traced the curves of her body, eyeing the deep bronze colour of her skin and the way her hair shone like starlight. This girl is made for me.

I glanced around and found most of the girls and several of the guys outright staring at him, waking a feral creature in my chest that growled mine.

“Chiedo al buio di disturbare questo corpo dalla pace e di mettere la sua magia nel mio sangue.”

Italian- “I ask the darkness to disturb this body from its peace and put its magic into my blood.”

“-would fucking break me. So don’t you dare give in to them. I’ll follow you into the shadows if I have to and drag you away from them kicking and screaming. Because they can’t have you. They fucking can’t.”

“What the hell have I just walked in on?” Max gasped, his gaze swivelling between the destroyed Atlas, Seth, and my bleeding arm. I bared my teeth at him, and his power hit me harder, his brow pinching with concentration as he tried to wrangle the angry beast inside me. “Cal sent him an emoji,” Seth whimpered.

“I’m trying to get Diego Polaris’s saliva off of my girl,” he growled.

“I thought you were different,” he said slowly. “But you’re just like your whore of a sister, pining after bastardos who treat you like dirt and who only give you a second look because you’d drop onto your knees for them any time they liked. Es patético.” He turned his back on me and walked away into the crowd, seeming to trample on my heart as he left.

Always felt he had a dark side. Maybe a villain in the making?

“When we were in the battle and you were about to die, I felt compelled to save you. Like…if I didn’t a part of me would die too. And ever since then, that part of me is getting stronger like it’s become this tangible thing that lives in me. I’ve never been a jealous person before but when I see you with Francesca it’s like I turn into an animal with nothing but basic instincts.”

He took my hand, winding his fingers between mine and pressing his mouth to the back of my knuckles. I chanced a look his way and my heart pounded as I found nothing but happiness in his eyes. Then he said six words that made my heart shine like the moon. “Good, because I feel it too.”

“I just want someone to make my heart beat faster,” she said in a low voice that had me drawing closer to her as I looked into her dark eyes. “To challenge me and make me laugh and push back against my bullshit. I want to be forced out of my comfort zone and I want to feel excited, exhilarated, afraid. But not just because you’re an asshole. Because I want to feel alive.”

“Are you okay, chica?” he asked, catching Tory’s other arm so that she stopped to speak to him.

Fake ass friend

“Forget it. Eres una puta como tu hermana.”

Screw this guy!

“Maybe I’ll be an even bigger Dragon than Darius

Maybe not dragons but phoenixes

“I’ll do whatever makes you happy,” I replied, throwing my arm over her shoulders as I led her towards the next ride. And the strangest thing was, I was pretty sure that was the truth.

Aww he loves her

Fae born of ash and fire...it’s

Phoenixes!

Leave this old man to sit on the cliff and go get your girl.” I got to my feet, shrugging like I didn’t much care either way but the way he’d just called her my girl made the Dragon purr beneath my skin.

She wasn’t just a girl though. Not to me. She was the one girl I shouldn’t want, the one I couldn’t have, the one I didn’t need. And yet I did. And everything in my life could be damaged so badly by that need that I’d fought it tooth and claw up until this point.

Roxy Vega, I’m gonna make you mine.

“Because that’s what I do,” he said slowly. “I watch you and hunger for you and ache for you. It torments me like I torment you.”

“I’d find it easier to carve my eyes out than I would to stop them landing on you.”

“There are countless people who would say I’m not allowed to want you,” Darius breathed. “But you make me want to burn the whole world down so that I can claim you for my own.” “Then we should burn it down,” I agreed.

“I’m sorry,” he breathed. And the world slid away as we fell into the grip of the stars. Darius Acrux was sorry? He didn’t know the meaning of the word. But after what he’d done, risking our lives by tangling us up in his family’s psychotic ritual, I planned on making him learn the definition. He was sorry? Not yet he wasn’t.