Shadow Princess (Zodiac Academy, #4)

by Caroline Peckham

It was sad to think that it had such a hold over an entire Order. Without blood, they were powerless. And in Solaria, being without power was worse than a death sentence.

“The same thing he wanted you and your sister for,” he said in a snarl. “He took her to that very same place on the clifftop and called a meteor from the sky. She walked willingly into that pit for him while I was bound on my knees beside Darius. But when the shadows came for her, she didn’t come back, the darkness killed her.”

It’s been a long time coming, Blue. But I’ll see Lionel Acrux dead even if I have to tear all the stars from the heavens to do it.”

A tear slid down my cheek and dropped smoothly onto his shirt. He turned to me abruptly, wiping his thumb across my cheek with a desperate frown. “Don’t be sad.” “But it is sad.” I wound my arms around his neck, and he pulled me close, his steady breaths brushing against my ear.

“When Lionel brought you down into that pit, I relived my worst nightmare. I don’t ever want to be in that position again. Powerless, unable to save you. But I realised you don’t need me to rescue you, Blue. You and your sister came back from the dark without a...

“We’ll destroy Lionel for what he’s done and make sure he never hurts anyone we love again.”

Since I’d been given the shadows, I wasn’t sure I’d gotten much more than three or four hours a night and with the alcohol I was consuming to try and drown the nightmares too, I was definitely suffering.

I scrolled through FaeBook as I ate, laughing to myself as I spotted a Griffin support group with the subtitle how to say no to Fae with a dump fetish. The author hadn’t quite had the balls to name Max Rigel, but it was pretty obvious that the group stemmed from that rumour. The pranks we’d played on the Heirs just kept snowballing, delivering more and more rewards as time went on and I couldn’t for a moment feel bad about it.

“It’s too dark in here for sunglasses, Roxy. Are you hungover again?” he asked. “Maybe you need to work on your drinking problem.”

“I want you to bow your head when I walk into a room. I want you to learn your place and stick to it. If I say jump, I want you to say how high.”

I reached up, parting my hair and pulling half of it over my shoulder, twisting it in my grip as I looked at him. “Shall I start tying it in pigtails?” I asked innocently. “So that you can pull on them whenever you see me?” “Be careful what you wish for, Roxy,” Darius warned, reaching out to take my hair into his grasp. “If I pull on your hair, you’ll be screaming my name in response.” He tugged just a little and I snorted dismissively. “Why don’t you let that little fantasy keep you warm while you’re sitting in my chair?” I asked, shifting aside and gesturing to the seat he wanted me to vacate so badly. Darius narrowed his eyes at me as he dropped his hold on my hair and folded himself into my seat, leaning back and spreading his legs like his balls were so fucking big he couldn’t possibly close them. I pulled the edges of my skirt out to the sides and gave him a mocking curtsy. “Enjoy it, your highnass.”

My heart was racing, and I held my breath, waiting to see exactly how far this asshole was willing to push me today. One look in his eyes told me it was going to be really damn far.

“Are you calling on the shadows again, Roxy?” he demanded. “Is that the real reason you were wearing those glasses?”

“Right. Because he’ll actually kill me where you prefer to just make me so miserable I’m tempted to end my suffering for myself,”

“Fuck off, you’re not suicidal,” he replied dismissively. “Nobody burns as hot and cold as you do if they don’t love life.” “You don’t know anything about me,” I snarled. “Yeah, I do. And that’s what you can’t stand,” he replied darkly. “Because we’re the same you and me. Both fucked up, broken pieces on a game board that’s bigger than we can cope with. Both hoping to find some way of winning despite the odds being stacked against us all the damn time. Both addicted to things that push our boundaries and make us feel alive. Because at the end of the day, even feeling the worst of things is better than feeling nothing at all.”

He was right though. I’d rather be sobbing with sorrow, screaming in fear, laughing until I was breathless or riding the very edge of a high than just keeping to the middle path. The thing I feared most in life was boredom. I didn’t want to live an easy life, I wanted to blaze through an adventurous one and I’d choose to burn out entirely before I’d let myself whither in emptiness.

“So I won’t let you ignore me, Roxy,” he snarled. “I’ll have your attention even if I have to take it without your permission.” “Why?” I demanded. “Why not just go after someone else?” “Because we don’t get to choose our obsessions. And you’re mine.”

“What if I don’t want to be?” I asked eventually. “Then that’s just tough.”

If he wanted my attention, then I’d just work doubly hard at making sure he didn’t get it. And more than that, I’d avoid him like the plague so he wouldn’t have the opportunity to force his presence on me with another attack like that again.

Did I really never message him first? Probably not. I’d learned a long time ago not to give assholes too much attention anyway. Douchebags liked to think the world revolved around them and I’d have nothing better to do with my time than sending them countless messages. Which was not true.

No doubt I’d find a shit ton of messages from him later on or he’d just come to hunt me down in person. I honestly didn’t know why he kept falling into the same trap but it was fucking hilarious, so I kept on setting it up.

I personally found it hard to forget the casual way he referred to me as a whore or the general creepy ass fact that his hat had his grandma’s soul knitted into it. I mean, what the actual fuck? You couldn’t pay me to wear something like that. And I sure as shit didn’t want it near me. What if she was in it, lingering among the head sweat, dandruff and loose hairs, whispering to him about the way my skirt was too short or my attitude too slutty for her liking? Not that I gave a shit what some dried-up soul crust thought of me, but I still didn’t want her near me. The idea of her grossed me out.

So Fae up and quit bitching or I’ll see you in detention.” “Oh, I like her,” Darcy whispered to me, and I grinned.

My gaze slid over a lot of the other guys in our class as I took in bulging biceps and broad shoulders everywhere I looked, it really wasn’t a bad view. Diego huffed and Darcy gave me a look that said I was treading the line of bitch. I replied with a look of I know but I don’t care, and she smirked at me.

“I think it’s time for us to accept who we are. We’re the lost Vega Princesses, Heirs to our own throne and the most powerful assholes in the whole of Solaria. And I think it’s time we stop letting other people tell us what that means and start deciding it for ourselves.”

Seth only shrugged, his nosiness knowing no bounds as always.

That girl took up far too much of his attention. Caleb’s too.

“I want the details,” Seth said like an excitable fifteen-year-old girl who’d just been asked to prom. I snorted a laugh, and he shot me a grin. “Where did you take her?”

the Phoenix and Dragon tattoos

I goddamn knew they would be phoenixs when we first saw the tattoo ages ago. I def made a note about it

“No wonder it went to shit then,” he taunted. Caleb narrowed his eyes on him in return. “Oh yeah? Why’s that?” “Well for one thing, Roxy doesn’t eat fish, or meat, or anything pretentious that comes in tiny little squares. So I’m betting she thought sushi was fucking disgusting,” Darius replied with a snort of amusement. “Yeah, she did,” Caleb admitted irritably. “And she doesn’t really strike me as the type to enjoy applauding idiots for making fools of themselves. Or as the kind of girl who would like getting up on stage and enjoy being gawked at while she did her best rendition of some power ballad.” Darius looked mildly disgusted by the fact that Caleb had even taken her there at all and I had to admit it didn’t exactly seem like the best choice of venue. “Well, she likes having fun,” Caleb replied defensively. “You know, pushing limits and stuff, so I thought I’d try pushing her out of her comfort zone.” “That’s so far out of her comfort zone that I’d imagine she didn’t even stay for an hour,” Darius mocked.

I couldn’t be too amused at his expense because Grus still wouldn’t even consent to sitting with me at breakfast let alone going out on a date with me. In fact, that whole situation was driving me crazy. I couldn’t get the night I’d spent with her out of my head, and she was acting like it didn’t mean a goddamn thing to her. It was bullshit. Complete bullshit. But so far, there was nothing I could do to make her admit that.

“I’d take her over to Clearmont Park on the west side of town,” he replied.

Caleb is gonna take her there. He better give darius credit

“That does kinda sound like a perfect date for her,” Seth said with a shrug. “Assuming she likes tequila.” “She does,” Darius replied with enough confidence to say he was sure of that. Apparently, he’d been paying rather a lot of attention to her because I had no fucking idea she could even ride a bike let alone the rest of it. “Pity she hates you too much to ever agree for you to take her out then,” Caleb shot at Darius who just shrugged in response. “I never said I was going to ask her. But you asked me where I’d take her if I did,” he replied. “Well for someone who isn’t going to ask a girl on a date, you seem to have thought pretty damn hard about what you’d do for one,” Caleb accused. “No I haven’t. You asked and that’s what I came up with.” Darius replied and I only felt honesty coming from him, making me actually believe that.

“I think she’s hot, but she annoys the fuck out of me too,” he said dismissively but I didn’t miss the tension in his posture. “Besides, even if she didn’t and even if I hadn’t done all of the shit I’ve done to her and she didn’t hate me about as much as it was physically possible to hate a man, what can I offer her?” “Don’t tell me you’ve got an inferiority complex,” I teased,

“Yeah, who the hell would want all of those muscles and the darkness and the tattoos...” Seth trailed off as he blatantly checked Darius out and we all laughed.

“And she wouldn’t say yes anyway so this is a pointless conversation. Like you said, she hates me.” Darius’s gaze darkened even further with that remark and for a moment I could have sworn I felt…pain. Shit.

Everything I did to them was for the security of our throne. For us. For Solaria. The Vegas’ protection hadn’t ever really crossed my mind.

“So, what does he stop you from telling us?” Seth asked, frowning as he seemed to realise that was a dumb question. “I mean, what kind of thing?”

and pushed my hands through my mohawk

Haha i forgot about that. If i wrote a book the people would keep looking different because i would def forget

“He’s been blocking me out of his head for a hell of a long time,” I said with a frown. “But he just let the walls down and…fuck, I think we really screwed up. He’s not just miserable, he’s a ball of anxious energy and darkness and pain. I don’t even know how to marry that with the guy who makes me laugh every morning over breakfast and wrestles with me in Water Elemental. He’s been hiding this shit for so long that I don’t even think he knows how to drop the mask anymore.”

My heart lurched as I felt a stab of hurt coming from him directed at me. He’d just tried to open up to me about his feelings for Tory and I’d shot him down. But what else could I say? Even the idea of him liking her was insane. It wasn’t like he could ever have a future with her anyway and if he felt everything he was feeling about her now when they hadn’t so much as kissed then what the fuck would he feel if he managed to start something with her only to have to end it when he married Mildred? I didn’t want to hurt him, but he had to let go of whatever the fuck he was thinking or feeling about Tory Vega. And so did Caleb. I’d be telling him that too.

Darius asked irritably, clearly ending the subject of Tory Vega. Which was probably for the best while Caleb was here anyway. This situation was so fucked.

Did he really think he couldn’t ask us for help when he so clearly needed us?

“What if we exchange a secrecy oath?” I suggested. “And I’ll tell you all my secret too?”

We were a force of nature individually, together our power was cataclysmic.

“My mother isn’t my mother,” I said, my voice trembling as I spoke those words aloud for the first time in my life.

“My father had to marry the woman you think of as my mother because of an arrangement for power. But he loved my real mother before that was decided. He kept her close and got her pregnant before his wife. They covered it up, pretended I was legitimate to hide the scandal. And I’m pretty sure my stepmother poisoned my real mother to get rid of her after she’d had her legitimate child.”

expect that if my stepmother can’t kill me off, she will want Ellis to challenge me eventually. I’m pretty sure the only reason I still draw breath is because Dad placed protections on me. He’s made it clear that he wants me to sit in his place. He doesn’t care about my legitimacy but the scandal it could cause…” “I know,” Darius growled. “But we would stand by you even if the whole world found out you were the son of a mortal, let alone being a bastard. What difference does it make anyway? Your power comes from your father. So fuck anyone who would give a shit about your blood not being pure enough. There’s no better man or woman to sit in your father’s place after you, and if your stepmother thinks she can replace you with Ellis, she’s fucking deluded.” “Too fucking right,” Caleb agreed, looking straight into my eyes. “I always thought your mom was an asshole,” Seth added thoughtfully.

I shouldn’t have doubted them. I shouldn’t have doubted him. But the Acruxes were well known for their pure blood beliefs. Darius was already engaged to his second cousin just to make sure they kept their line pure. Powerful. Dragons. I’d thought that might mean he held prejudiced beliefs too, but maybe it really meant he could understand my position better than anyone.

“I almost killed a girl a few months after I was Awakened,” he said, chewing on his bottom lip. “I let myself get too low on magic and we were drinking…she was all over me, begging me to bite her and I did. But I guess I was too drunk because I tore her skin too much and she just started bleeding everywhere. I didn’t know how to heal someone magically then, so I had to run for my Mom…” He cleared his throat before going on. “She got there just in time. Saved the girl and then paid off her family. She gave them this massive estate on the other side of the country and covered the whole thing up so it wouldn’t cause a scandal. That’s why she made me go home on the Eclipse, just in case… But I wouldn’t do that again,” he added defensively. “I’m careful now. I know it wouldn’t ever happen again, but sometimes I still dream about her lying there, bleeding and bleeding…”