Cursed Fates (Zodiac Academy, #5)

by Caroline Peckham

Now is not the time to start feeling comfortable in your surroundings.

Now is the time to be impulsive – but don’t forget, nothing is ever as simple as it seems.

And as much as I didn’t want to admit that he had that kind of hold on me, I couldn’t really deny it anymore. I was starting to care about the things he did and said and…gah, how was I supposed to actually talk to him face to face?

Shit. If I had verbal diarrhoea in my head, then how the fuck was I going to get a straight sentence out of my mouth without sounding like a goddamn douche canoe?

Hate and sex I could do as easy as breathing. Saying hi to a guy who showed up every day to run with me and fetched my coffee was impossible though. Great.

“And there was me thinking it had something to do with you not wanting anything from a jumped-up lizard asshole who doesn’t know his ass from his elbow and is only good for hate sex?”

“Asshat,”

“At least I’m consistent,”

I swear I could actually feel my blush growing. Tory Vega didn’t blush. This was not like me. And those weirdos in my stomach were at it again and – holy mother of shit, the weirdos are butterflies. Motherfucking butterflies! What the hell is happening to me??

“I don’t know how to deal with you when you’re not being an asshole,”

“Don’t worry about that, Roxy. I’m still an asshole,”

“Am I making your heart race, Roxy?”

“That’s not the only way illusions can work,”

he murmured as he looked at me and I suddenly felt a hand touching my cheek. Not just any hand. His hand. I recognised the roughness of his callouses and the heat of the fire that burned beneath his flesh despite the fact that his actual hands were clearly nowhere near me.

Darius disbanded the magic with a twist of his wrist and as I turned to look into his eyes, the demon I used to fear was looking back at me. And that really should have been terrifying, but there was something about the monster I knew which had goosebumps rising all over my body.

“Nobody fucks with my girl and gets away with it,”

Seth: Darius just told me he only sent you the apology video from our play date with your ex. I told him you’d enjoy the action footage even more, but he didn’t agree so I’m calling his bluff. Tell me this doesn’t get you all hot under the collar…

There might have been something a little wrong with me, but watching Darius go all Dragon on some assholes who actually deserved it had given me fucking tingles. Dammit.

“Because healing is unlike any other form of magic. And almost all Fae agree it is the hardest magic of all. It comes from inside you, from the very fabric of your power. Most magic involves creating something from nothing. Your own power is given form by your intent and your ability. However, with healing magic, you need to learn how to tap into the very purest form of that magic where it lives and encourage it to blossom in harmony with the body of the Fae you are treating. Who knows why that is?”

“Yes! Ten points to Aer. Our magic is imbued in the very fabric of our DNA. The reason why we feel that hollow sensation in our chests when we’re out of power is because our magic lives in our hearts. And our hearts move it around our bodies in our blood. Therefore, even decanted blood holds magic. Which is why Vampires drink it. And why the Nymphs attack the heart with their probes when stealing our power. The probe of a Nymph is, in fact, hollow. If you imagine a giant needle being used to suck the power directly from the heart of the Fae they attack then that gives you some concept of how they steal our magic.”

“Vampires seem like the Fae who change the least physically when in their Order form, but that is in fact entirely untrue. There are a lot of arguments that state that a Vampire actually changes their physiology the most of all Fae when in our shifted forms. From the outside, it may seem that only our fangs shift.”

“However, internally, a Vampire’s entire digestive system changes when we ingest Fae blood. Our stomachs have a separate chamber to collect the blood away from normal food and water. Then there is an entire network of organs something similar to the intestines, and veins which filter the blood and extract the magic from it. We have chambers in our hearts which can transform the shape of the magic we consume into the shape of the magic we can create with our Element. Meaning we can ingest the blood of a fire Elemental for example and then our bodies can transform that into the magic we use to create water. Other parasitic Orders have their own methods of doing this…but I digress.”

It wasn’t like power sharing; it was more like dipping my toes into the top of a wave as it rolled away from me and wondering whether or not I should follow as it retreated.

“You’ve never smiled at me like that before,”

“Shut up, I smile at you all the time,”

“Not like that you don’t,”

“You look…cute.”

“If I’d spent the night in your bed, there wouldn’t have been anything innocent about it,”

“As much as I ache for the feeling of your body against mine – and I really fucking do – I think if I was allowed a single cheat against this curse that keeps us apart, I’d just want to be able to hold you in my arms,” he replied. “Just to wake up with you there, knowing you were safe.”

Darius might have been showing me more of himself now, he might have stopped hurting me and be trying to change but had he done enough to make up for all the pain he’d caused me? When I really thought about it, I still wasn’t sure. But I was sure that he made me smile when he messaged me, that I looked for him whenever I arrived in a room, that he seemed to be trying to do everything he could to set things right. And that I fantasised about him more than I had about any man in all my life. Even Tom Hardy. Even. Tom. Hardy. Fuck it.

“Why should we have to listen to the stars?”

“Because they govern everything,”

“They don’t gov...

“Are you sure about this?”

“Fuck fate,”

“No one gets to pick my future for me. I choose what I wan...

“Fuck fate,”

But I didn’t care. I would gladly take the rage of the heavens in payment for this moment in his arms.

“I’m sorry I did this to us,”

“It wasn’t you,”

“It was both of us,”

“You don’t get to choose for me!”

They may have forced us apart, but my lips still tingled with the memory of Darius’s mouth on mine. And if we’d managed to steal that much then I was going to figure out how to claim a whole lot more. I’d been a thief for a long time and if I had to take my destiny from the clutches of the stars while they slept, then I’d figure out a way to do it. I’d never set my mind on something and failed before. And this wouldn’t be the first time.

I’d officially been in prison for three months. Three fucking months. And not a single day went by where I didn’t think about her.

She had been the most beautiful fantasy I’d ever known. But a fantasy was all it ever could have been. And that was blindingly obvious now, like the stars had drawn the curtains back on our illusion and laughed at us for ever thinking it was possible to remain in it. But I hadn’t let them take us both down. Even though it had cost me twenty-five years in the most ruthless prison in Solaria. It was a price I was willing to pay.

My favourite place here had quickly become the Order Yard up top. The fake landscape that had been created to nurture the needs of different Orders was something of a haven for me. It was a place I could hunt freely for blood then sit in a quiet part of the forest, finding real solitude away from the rest of the prisoners. My life was now defined by those moments. Going there felt like waking up from a dark dream I was constantly drowning in.

Insane didn’t even cut it. I had dreams about Darius almost as often as I did about Blue. And they weren’t all PG fucking thirteen either. It didn’t help that Darius punched himself in the face every time he remembered to be pissed at me. It felt like his actual fist ramming into my cheek. I’d been mid-way through my breakfast the last time and had fallen off my fucking chair.

I didn’t want to dwell on the fact that when I left this place at the ripe old age of fifty-one, I’d still be power shamed in society for the rest of my life. I wouldn’t be allowed to fight for position. I’d be stripped of everything, forced to live on the outskirts of society. And somehow, I thought that would be even worse than Darkmore Penitentiary. At least in here, I could be Fae. Beyond these walls, the little life left that awaited me was going to take a fundamental part of my existence away. I guessed I still had twenty-four years and nine months to get used to the idea…

I was facing the wrath of the stars for breaking the promise me and Blue had made to do whatever it took to stay together.

A broken heart was the most painful thing I’d ever endured. But I’d never deserved to own the heart of Darcy Vega. And I’d had to give it back in the most brutal way possible. It was the only way I could see to save her. And it would be worth it when she rose to power and led the life she was meant to lead. If my own life had to be a casualty for that to happen, I was more than willing to sacrifice it. Even if I was going to pine for her for the rest of my days. Miss her with the very essence of my soul and ache for her until the world stopped spinning. I would stay here, and I would suffer willingly to do what was best for her. And someday she’d understand why.