The Reckoning (Zodiac Academy, #3)

by Caroline Peckham

Darcy's eyes locked with mine and my lungs compressed. Why was it so fucking difficult to cut her out of me? One look was enough to make me consider risking everything I’d ever worked for.

At Zodiac Academy, they called this Hell Week. And this year, it was more literal than ever.

Why did it have to be her? Why did I have to lust after one of the only people in the whole of Solaria who I could never have?

I was supposed to be working with the other Heirs to get rid of them and instead here I was protecting her like I'd lost my fucking mind.

My eyes were closed so I couldn’t see him, but I just felt oddly at home. Like this was where I was meant to be.

I'm the sister who makes sensible decisions. I don't play games with the devil. And yet here I am tempting him with my own two hands.

Fuck, his mouth was a sin all of its own, his tongue a wicked device honed for the most beautiful torture.

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

mmm

He pushed his fingers into my hair, his touch like a drug bleeding into my veins, and I shut my eyes to savour the high.

His touch was as possessive as his magic swimming in my blood, the rush of all that power making me dizzy. He was claiming me, and I claimed him right back.

“I want you to the point of pain, Blue.”

screaming crying throwing up

He shuddered as he struggled to hold himself back and the sight of this man falling to ruin because of me made my head spin.

Here, we were nothing but two Fae who craved each other with a force that rivalled mother nature. And I could no longer resist the call of its power.

Fuck, I had to let her go. For her sake. Definitely not mine. I was going to suffer the second she was gone.

i love a pathetically in love man

I released her and she was gone, darting into the darkness, and making my soul feel like it was being ripped in two.

He was danger and power and the worst kind of temptation, but I almost wanted to find out just how close I could get before I got burned.

“It just pisses me off. It’s like she gives him a free pass for all his bullshit but expects me to grovel at her feet for simply being Fae.”

I just needed to get out of my own head and lose myself for a few hours and what better way to do that than in Caleb Altair’s arms?

mmm yes

He was the perfect escape from the mayhem of everything else that was going on in my life. And I was more than happy to lose myself with him for a little while.

And most of all I was sick of wanting her and hating her all at once.

🤭🤭🤭

We were Solarian princesses with actual enemies who possessed sharp claws and teeth. But they were worse than just beasts, their tongues spun words that were either as sharp as knives or as sweet as honey.

“I want you on your knees telling us how we’re all your kings and how you’re so sorry for ever showing your faces in Solaria. And once we’re satisfied, you can go.”

If I got near that girl when the moon was up, then there would be no stopping me. I’d be begging on my knees for a moment of her time, and she’d probably be laughing in my fucking face.

Fuck. If she wanted me hooked, she had me. I just didn’t know if she wanted me.

“I’m not trying to pretend she doesn’t hate me. I’m just wondering if hate is the only thing she feels about 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.

“I watch you and hunger for you and ache for you. It torments me like I torment you.”

holy fuck i’m screaming

Perhaps I was wrong, but in that moment every piece of me was aching for him, needing him to be all the things I wished he would be.