Cursed Fates (Zodiac Academy, #5)

by Caroline Peckham

“I dunno,” Caleb hedged, but he licked his lips as his gaze dropped to my throat again. “Mars is making me kinda edgy-“ “Oh. So you’re a pussy?” I taunted. “No.” “Chicken shit?” “Fuck it. Fine. You’re too fucking delicious to refuse again. But you’d better be ready for this, sweetheart.”

“I’m sorry, Tory,” Caleb gasped, as he looked down into my eyes. “I’m so, fucking sorry. Shit, shit! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

“Caleb knocked her off the roof and bit her real bad,” Max muttered as he dropped down too. “He’s broken her fucking spine,” Darius growled and the terror in his eyes would have frozen me in place even if I could move. “I’ve never fixed something this complicated before.”

“You will never hunt her again!” he roared as he battered his fists down over and over. “You will never put your fucking mouth on her, never sink your fucking fangs into her ever again!”

“I’d take death over life without you,” he breathed, his voice rough and broken by fear.

My hands were trembling and my breaths coming too fast as I reminded myself over and over again that she was okay, Darius had saved her, she was going to be fine. But, fuck. I’d just thrown a Solarian princess off of a roof and damn near ripped her throat out with my teeth for good measure.

And I’d clearly fooled myself into believing that that meant I had utter control over it. That I ruled it and it didn’t rule me. What a pretty lie that had been.

“You should go,” I snarled, my fangs cutting into my tongue as I forced myself to remain where I was on the floor instead of lunging at him. “It’s not safe to be around me right now.” “Bullshit, you’d never hurt me.” Seth moved closer and the ache in my chest tightened.

“I’m not myself tonight, I’m tapped out, I’m worked up, Mars is banging a fucking war drum in my head which demands sacrifice and I can’t hurt you too. Please just go.” “I’m not going anywhere,” he replied roughly, stepping closer so that he towered over me. “So you made a mistake? Okay. How many of those have I made over the years? I couldn’t even begin to count the amount of times that I’ve fucked up and you’ve been there for me.”

“Come on, Cal. I want you to,” he demanded, meeting my eye with honesty shining in his gaze and something else which I wasn’t sure I could put a name to.

I reached out slowly and gathered a handful of his long hair into my fist, gently winding it around my hand until I could use it to tug his head aside. Seth inhaled deeply as he bared his throat to me and for a moment I was struck with the realisation of just how much he must have trusted me to show such vulnerability to me like that. Especially for a Wolf. They only ever bared their throat as a sign of submission and though I knew he wasn’t submitting to me in any way other than this, the knowledge that I had such a powerful Alpha at my mercy willingly made my heart race. I touched my lips to his neck, my fangs brushing against his skin and a shiver danced through his flesh as I prepared to take what I needed from him.

My hands grabbed his hips as I held him in place but I didn’t need to, he wasn’t making any effort to escape me. Seth’s grip on my hair tightened as he pulled me closer, his other hand grasping the back of my neck as his fingers slid across my skin and raised goosebumps on my flesh.

“Darius and Tory are meant to be together,” I muttered. “In fact, if I hadn’t been getting in their way all this time then maybe none of this would have-” Seth’s hand landed over my mouth to silence me as he closed the distance between us again. “Don’t do that,” he snarled.

“I’m such a fuck up,” I said with a heavy sigh. “You’re not a fuck up,” Seth growled. “You’re the most thoughtful, generous, amazing fucker I know.” I snorted dismissively. “Maybe you look at me through rose tinted glasses.” “I don’t,” he snapped. “When I look at you, I promise you I see it all. The good and the bad, the light and the dark. And you’re still the best person I know.” My heart twisted at his words and I reached out to pull him into a hug. “You’re the best person I know, too,” I murmured.

He turned his head against my neck. His lips brushed my skin and I froze. My heart pounded as he moved his mouth up my neck slowly, his hands gentle against my chest as my skin tingled where he touched me. His lips brushed against the soft skin beneath my ear and I swallowed thickly as he pressed the lightest kiss against the corner of my jaw.

“Maybe I should just go,” he said slowly, his voice rough as he looked at me with regret in his eyes. “Maybe,” I repeated as he backed up another step and he bit his bottom lip.

I groaned as he wielded that stupid fucking power code shit. We’d come up with it when we were seven and super excited about the idea of us ruling the world together one day. Basically, if one of us invoked the power code, we all had to show up. No excuses. I’d tried to get him to change the fucking name of it at least eight hundred times over the years, but he wouldn’t. Fucking power code.

“Yeah. Does the name Zane Baxter mean anything to you?” Seth looked my way excitedly and I frowned. “Roxy’s ex. The one who left her to drown in that car wreck,” I muttered. If that asshole had lived in Solaria, I’d have ruined his life a long time ago. “Yeah…you wanna go pay him a visit?” Seth waggled his eyebrows enticingly and my spine straightened as I looked at him with more interest.

I was hardly sleeping, my studies were suffering and in all honesty I just felt like I was existing in this bubble of hopeless nothingness which I couldn’t see an end to. If Xavier and my mom didn’t need me, I wasn’t really sure why I’d even get out of bed in the mornings. Sometimes I got so angry at Lance that I punched myself just so he’d feel it wherever the fuck he was. Why couldn’t he have just stuck to the plan? What did he really think he was achieving by fucking up his entire life? Self sacrificing fuckwit.

“Maybe she would,” Max said. “You could just ask and see.” “I can’t even be alone with her, so how would that work?” I grumbled. “Try texting, idiot,” he shot back and I frowned at him as the others sniggered like that was so fucking obvious. And maybe it was. “Or calling,” Caleb added. “You’re not together if you’re just talking on the phone.” “Video chat,” Seth added with a dirty grin. “You could totally have video sex.” “Shut up,” I growled, but I couldn’t entirely hide the grin on my face either. Maybe I was fucking dumb.

I snorted dismissively at his words. These kinds of assholes liked to believe they owned the world just because they cast a big shadow in a small corner of it. But it was a huge fucking world and this was a small shithole of a corner.

“That girl doesn’t belong to anyone,” I growled. “Least of all some half rent gangster who thinks he shits gold when all he really is is a tiny little tadpole swimming upstream in a river filled with crocodiles.” “So you think you’re a crocodile?” Zane taunted, grinning at me like he thought he was a predator. “Something like that,” I replied darkly, my eyes shifting to reptilian slits for half a second before shifting back again just as quickly.

“But when we beat the shit out of every last one of you, you’ve gotta make a little video for me, telling Tory how fucking sorry you are for leaving her to die in that car like the cowardly little worm you are.”

“I wasn’t going to die to save some bitch, no matter how hot she was,” he muttered and Caleb punched him before I could. “Tell her you’re sorry,” Caleb demanded, pointing the Atlas at him again.

Seth offered them a cheery little wave as we walked away and held a hand up for a moment before grinning as he disbanded a concealment spell and his Atlas suddenly appeared in his grasp. “I used air magic to suspend it above the fight,” he said with a wild grin. “I filmed the whole thing.”

Shame licked down my spine and my jaw tightened as the depths of my own total fucking clueless dickhead behaviour were revealed to me and I was filled with enough self loathing to coat my tongue with bile.

and I was grateful when Tory suddenly appeared in her running gear, dropping down beside me, her presence lending me strength. A moment later, Darius arrived, placing down her coffee with one of the chocolate wafers she loved before walking off without saying a word.

I passed Tory’s Atlas back, finding her eyes glimmering with something that looked an awful lot like love. Trust her to get all gooey over Darius violently smashing her ex’s face in. But it made me like him even more too and a grin tugged at my lips that she returned before quickly schooling it.

“There’s one more thing I should have realised. You could never be my mate, Darcy Vega. Because we’re not equals. You’re far better than me in every way imaginable.”

“Why did he do this?” I asked him, stealing the heat from his body as the wind froze me to my core. “Isn’t it obvious?” he sighed, resting his chin on my head. “He was protecting you, babe. By taking absolute responsibility for that crime, he ensured your name wouldn’t get muddied in the press. You won’t lose support for the crown. If anything, you’ll win more sympathy for it.”

It should have felt wrong taking comfort from him, but it felt awfully, frighteningly right. Like he would have my back through anything now.

“I am an Heir to the Solarian throne. You haven’t got enough power in your veins to fuel a bus. How could you ever think we would be mated? You’re just a low born, low mannered, low class snake.”

“Kylie Major is no longer visible to anyone who supports me and my sister!” I called to the room and Seth flipped his fingers so my voice was amplified ten times over. I caught Darius’s eye and he nodded with a dark glint in his gaze before I continued. “You will not see her, hear her, or even smell the sickly sweet perfume she wears to hide the scent of evil on her,” I spoke clearly, my voice ringing around The Orb and Tory let out a little laugh of triumph. “That goes for anyone who supports the Heirs too,” Seth suddenly boomed and I looked to him with a smile twisting up the corner of my lips.

“If anyone is seen with her, they’ll get the same treatment. She is officially nothing,” Darius took over, a hungry glimmer of vengeance in his eyes.

“Wait!” she cried with desperation in her tone, but I couldn’t hear her. No one could. She was going to suffer alone and pay for what she’d done. Invisible, ignored, nothing.

Apparently, I should have realised that him letting another girl suck his dick was no big deal because he didn’t kiss her or fuck her and he was thinking of me the whole time. Douchebag.

And he was hot. Not Darius Acrux hot. But I’d always had a thing for danger and darkness, and wrap that combination up in a bundle of muscle and you basically had yourself some Tory kryptonite. Damn hot douchebags, I always knew they’d be my downfall.

“If we want the answers, we have to go in,” he said simply. “The answers to what?” Darcy asked and he hesitated for a long time before replying. “Everything.” “Well, that sounds promising,” I muttered. Fucking stars.

The girl I was watching didn’t look like a Queen, she looked like a warrior, set to survive anything and I felt a real sense of union with her in that moment. I knew what it was to fight for survival and the look in her eyes felt so familiar that it made my heart ache with a wish to have known her.

“I’m going to die tomorrow,” he replied and there was no sadness in his voice, just a calm acceptance of the fact. “I’m going to trade my life for yours and the life of our son.” Our mother sat up and pushed his spear aside as she reached for him and he tossed it to the ground as he dropped to his knees beside her. “Our son will change the world, he’ll be the greatest Seer of his generation,” Marcel breathed as he leaned down to kiss our mother and the conviction of his words let me know that he had no doubt of that whatsoever. He’d seen it.

We watched as she introduced a four year old Gabriel to the Savage King and the man who had made our entire kingdom tremble in fear smiled with all the warmth of the sun. He took him in without question, played with him, taught him to ride a horse and took him flying in the sky on his back when he shifted into his Hydra form.

It was achingly sweet and hauntingly sad. This perfect fairytale of a life which had been stolen from all of us. A brother who we’d never even known existed.

“Mommy? I don’t want to leave you,” Gabriel said as he tugged on her skirt and she dropped down beside him as she dragged him into her arms. “I wish it didn’t have to be this way with all my heart,” she sobbed. “But I promise one day you’ll find your sisters. One day you’ll have a chance to fix this kingdom and save our people from the threats that haunt it.”

My heart froze into a solid lump in my chest as Lionel Acrux strode into the room and our mother fell still, her face written with shock. “You,” she gasped as she stared at him in utter horror and I could tell that her visions hadn’t shown her this. “I thought you were our friend, I thought-”

“I found happiness in creating my own family…but now… I remember. The visions broke the block on my memories and I remember my mother, your father… I remember holding the two of you on the day you were born and promising to love and protect you until the day I died.” I lunged at him as Darcy did the same and the three of us fell into a sobbing, laughing, happy, sad, utterly confused and yet completely fucking ecstatic heap.

“Seth!” I admonished. “Are you serious? You crept into my room and slept on my bed? Do you realise how weird that is?” He whined again, stepping closer. “Not really. It’s my Order…I can’t help it. I’d have slept with Darius every night since he was Star Crossed, but he’d flay me alive for it. In my drunken haze, I guess I knew I could get in here and…” He shrugged and I gaped at him, at a loss. “I’ll go.” He hung his head, trailing towards the door with a dog-like whimper that said he was hoping I might tell him to stay.

Elke Henderson: Side note: that shit was cold blooded! Are the Vegas and the Heirs teaming up now? I don’t know who I support anymore #allofthemgetmehot #cantheheirsshare #whychoose

“I’m going to make you look like Max, he’s given his permission for you to use his identity today and removed his anti-mimicry wards,” he said and my heart warmed at the thought. It was strange to be on the receiving end of the Heirs’ kindness. Especially when I’d spent so long thinking they didn’t have a kind bone in their bodies.

“It’s a command. And one you’re going to follow. Get out of here and forget this place. Forget me. It’s over. Done. So move on.” His words were sharper than a knife, the hollowness to his voice making me long for the warmth he usually directed at me.

“So that’s it?” I asked breathlessly, the wind crushed from my lungs. “We’re done? Finished. Because you say so? And I never even got the chance to fight for us?” His eyes darkened and he had the look of a wounded beast as he turned his gaze from me to the wall. “Yes.”