Cursed Fates (Zodiac Academy, #5)

by Caroline Peckham

Why is she looking at other guys at all?

I was pretty sure there was a guidebook or two out there about not poking a Dragon, but I guessed I was just too stupid to care.

“I think I’ve made my desire to pin you beneath me pretty clear,”

He’d been doing a damn good job of keeping that beast within his flesh asleep around me since I’d cursed us, but now I’d woken it again, I was actually a little excited to let myself get burnt.

“Nice work on that shield, Gwen,”

“Nice work on that tackle, Dari,”

“You fucking beauty!” he snarled, grabbing my face between his hands and placing a rough, scratchy kiss on my forehead as he straddled me in the mud.

omggg

Part of me wanted to agree with him. To say I didn’t want to try and do it again because I couldn’t take having him there with us too, that it cut me open and made me bleed all the time I was with them.

“It isn’t going to happen, Cal. I don’t believe there’s going to be some convenient do over for us,” I said darkly. “I’m going to do everything I can to make things right between me and her because she deserves that much. She deserves to know how much I care about her even if she can’t ever be mine. I don’t want her thinking the man the stars chose for her was nothing but a monster. But I am a monster all the same. And no matter how much I make up for, that isn’t going to change. There’s darkness in me that will never find the light. So she’s better off away from me anyway.”

I may have held darkness within my flesh, but I refused to be ruled by it ever again. I was my own man, and I was going to make my own choices. Which meant I’d never hurt her again.

But Roxy always made me want to break the rules.

I didn’t think she’d ever looked more like the Savage King’s daughter before. She really was a Fae Princess. And I liked it.

It might have annoyed the fuck out of me that he’d been with my girl, but he really was a good friend. A true brother.

“I’m going to look after you,” I growled, leaving no room for negotiation. “So just let me.”

“It looks better on you anyway.”

Roxy Vega might never be mine, but sometimes I found I didn’t mind pining for her as much as I should have.

“No one can match me in any way. But it looks like you and your bestie wanna try, lupo de mine,”

I was soon riding a buzz as everyone agreed and wondered if I could dare Rosalie to kiss Caleb so I could mentally record that image forever.

By the stars Caleb’s lips look good right now. I could just…

“Anything for you, you beautiful Dargon. Dargron. I mean, Draron,” I slurred. “Dammit, how hard is it to say Dragarn? Dargon! Oh, fuck my life.”

“And that was tonight’s fake news everyone. See you when we beat their asses.”

Yep, it’s official. I’m into my straight best friend. Thanks for the headfuck stars.

But there was something off about Polaris. He was a low level air Elemental, but he should have been progressing more than he had.

“Look, sometimes we want to see the good in people we care about so much that we pretend it’s there, living under all the layers of cruelty. But the fact is, Diego, some people are toxic. And if you keep them in your life, they’ll poison everything good in your world until you end up being just like them. And that’s a far worse fate than going against the grain and making your own path. Even if that means you’re alone.”

had to check myself for a second because did I just make friends with Diego fucking Polaris?

“Come here,” I growled, my patience having spent its last dime several hours ago. I needed her in my arms, needed to touch her, smell her, taste her. I wanted to forget all the nos that lived beyond these walls and soak in the single yes that was us. The one we’d decided. Defying the law.

A bed of black silk lay within it and I shifted it gently aside, my breath hitching as I laid eyes on the most beautiful sword I’d ever seen. The metal glinted like diamonds and the hilt was engraved with two stunning wings wrapped together around a single heart. I took it out and energy buzzed through my limbs.

“Take your dress off,” I commanded, and her eyes widened. I’d been waiting all day to have her and now she’d given me a fucking sword, I was going to say thank you in the best way I knew.

But Blue wasn’t a pious little thing who knelt at my altar. She was a goddess in her own right. And however hard I pushed her, she’d always push back.

I was as hard as steel for her. Had been since the second she’d arrived. No girl had ever driven me this wild. I only had to scent her on the wind, and I was ready to fucking pounce.

I was a slave to this body, this girl. I wanted to possess every part of her, invade her and lay siege to every corner of her being.

Everything in my life was brighter with her. It was good and sweet and perfect. I didn’t know what I’d done for the stars to gift me this girl. I could never have offered them enough to earn this good fortune. And I wasn’t going to squander it. I knew what I had. And I’d protect her until my dying breath. And even then, I’d still fight to keep her safe beyond the veil. Whatever it took. Always.

“Professor Lance Orion, you are hereby detained by the Court of Solaria for fraternising with a student who is none other than a Princess of Solaria.”

“That’s what love is, Tor,” Darcy said in exasperation. “It’s taking a leap of faith. It’s opening yourself up and letting your walls down and allowing someone to see every dark and broken corner of your soul. It’s truth and honesty with yourself and them. It’s raw and brutal and terrifying and real. You can’t just claim to want it but refuse to allow yourself to be vulnerable to it. That’s not how it works. If you love someone, truly love them, you’ll bear your soul to them and let them be the keeper of your heart no matter how fragile or damaged it might be. And if they love you then they’ll do everything in their power to keep it safe, to nurture and protect it and heal over all the old wounds. So, when you said no to him in that snow storm, you weren’t even hurting him. You were hurting yourself. And that’s what kills me the most about all of it.”

“That’s what I have with Lance,” she snarled. “It’s messy and terrifying and to anyone else it wouldn’t even come close to perfect. But it is perfect, Tor, he’s everything to me. And now he’s been torn away from me and there’s nothing I can do about it. Everything has been against us from the beginning. But there was never anything stopping you and Darius from being together apart from the two of you. If either of you had just pulled your heads out of your own asses and been honest with each other, then none of this would have happened to you! And that kills me. Because I would give anything to have that freedom with Lance.”

“I just didn’t think any apology I made could be enough to right all the things I’d done to you. And if I’m honest, I didn’t think you had any interest in hearing it even if I tried.”

“I lie awake at night and think about it, think about you, wishing I could have made the other choice. But I couldn’t. As much as this is killing me, I know it’s killing you too. And there’s a fucked-up part of me that revels in that, in knowing that I’m causing you pain just like you did to me.”

“I deserved it,” he said in a low voice, my heart leaping in surprise at those words on his lips. “I deserved it, Roxy. And I’m sorry. Really, truly sorry for all of it. I know that doesn’t matter now and I know there’s nothing I can do to change this, but I need you to know it. I need you to feel it.”

Being this close to him hurt in the sweetest way and made my broken heart bleed.

“I love you, Roxy,”

“And I know it doesn’t change anything. That it can’t change anything,” he growled. “But I’m going to prove it to you. I’m going to do everything I can to make it up to you, for the rest of my life if that’s what it takes. I’ll never forgive myself for bringing this curse on us. And I’m never going to stop loving you either.”

He kissed me like he’d die if he didn’t, like the only reason his heart was beating at all was so that it could be mine, and I kissed him like the world could cave in around us and I wouldn’t even care so long as I was still in his arms when it ended.

“I meant what I said,”

Lance Azriel Orion

I would have given anything for the stars to choose me and Lance as Elysian Mates. But it wasn’t to be. The stars had been laughing at us all along. And maybe Tory was right after all. Fate was bullshit.

“Do you think the stars hate us?”

“Maybe,”

“Maybe they’re the souls of all the spiteful Fae who came before us, stubbornly clinging to the sky instead of passing beyond The Veil. Maybe they want to punish the world for the miserable lives they left behind.”

The key to being the most important man in the room is in knowing it’s true right down to the very fabric of your soul, Darius.

Because I was Darius Acrux, the most important man in the fucking room.