Shadow Princess (Zodiac Academy, #4)

by Caroline Peckham

She was always such an enthusiastic student and fuck if that didn’t get me so hard for her. She shared my love of learning and I’d often enjoyed the way her eyes lit up in awe in my classes.

“Fuck, Gabriel, when you said we were coming out with your friends, I assumed it would be people we didn’t know. Not tweedleass and tweedledipshit,”

She is so…everything. Does she know how everything she is?

I brushed my mouth over his in a feather light gesture as I gave in to my most desperate desire. Him.

His eyes flashed with emotion but I was done, so fucking done.

I stared at him with my heart pounding as I found a world full of faith gazing back at me. No one had ever looked at me like that. Like I was unstoppable.

I dropped my skirt and raised both middle fingers over my shoulders as I strolled away.

“Max! Max! His hair’s so shiny. It’s just a shame his dick’s so tiny!”

I turned to Caleb like the fart hadn’t spoken.

Tory referring to Darius as a fart is the funniest fucking thing ever

“Well flick my nipples, that tastes wonder-tastic!” Geraldine exclaimed,

“Good. Because I’m not a better man,” he said in a low growl, his eyes full of shadows. “I’m the devil and I want you. I want you like I’ve never wanted anything or anyone. And I will fight to make you mine, no matter what it takes. No force in Solaria will rip us apart.”

he caught my eye and something in his gaze seemed to call to me. Like he needed me to see him. The real him. Just for that second. I wondered if I was giving him a true glimpse of me in response as I brushed my thumb along his jaw and he tilted into my touch like he ached for it.

Darius Acrux was probably the most pig headed, arrogant, infuriating man I’d ever met. But he was fucking mind blowing in the sack.

“One day I’ll burn you alive,” I whispered, moving closer.

“Oh look, it’s raining assholes,” Tory said in a bored voice.

“The next time you want to drown in them, tell me about it.” “Why?” “Because if you’re going to drown then I’m going to drown with you.”

Don’t be with him because we were together once. For one, too brief, earth shattering moment, you were mine. And I never should have let you go.

I’m one hundred percent a lunatic for you. And I don’t give a damn.”

He loved me. Lance Orion loved me. And I loved him back with every corner of my heart and all the spaces in between.

Because Darius Acrux was absolutely not a mistake I was going to make twice. Certainly not while I was sober. I definitely wasn’t going back there…like fifty four percent. Dammit.

“Darcy is everything to me,” he breathed. “She’s all I think about and all I want. I see so much good in her and she somehow brings out the best in me. And if you feel that you can’t keep this secret for us or like you have to tell the authorities about what’s going on between us, then I understand. Because you want to protect her as fiercely as I do. But even if we’re torn apart, even if I went to Darkmore Penitentiary and had to live out the rest of my days behind bars, I’d never regret a moment of it. Because my life was empty before I loved her. And parting us won’t change the way I feel for her.”

“You get one shot to do right by her,” I warned, pointing at him. “And if you fuck it up, if you hurt her or break her heart, then I won’t just kick you in the balls. I’ll castrate you.”

“I don’t want you on your knees. I want you fighting me and hating me and fucking me like you mean it. You’re Roxanya Vega and you weren’t built to bow to anyone,” he growled passionately.

“You’re so fucking beautiful, Roxy,” he breathed

“You can deny it as much as you like, Roxy, but you and me are going to happen over and over,” he promised, the scent of him wrapping around me and the heat of his flesh blazing so fiercely I could feel it despite the inch of space dividing us. “So no matter how much you hate me or despise me or wish you didn’t want me in any way at all, there’s no stopping it. You don’t feel fire like that and just let it burn out.”

My whole life, I’d never had someone choose to love me. No one had ever looked at me the way he was now and said that they picked me.

I never wanted a war with you. But you didn’t give me a choice in that. And now I’m not giving you a choice in this.”

“Please, just be mine, Tory,” Darius begged. “I’d rather be alone,” I whispered.

My gaze locked with his just as a black ring formed around his pupils. His eyes widened in horror and I guessed the same thing had happened to me too. That was it. We were marked. Star Crossed.

“You don’t need me, beautiful. I was always a shitty teacher,” he said, taking a rattling breath that chilled me to my core.

“I love you,” I sobbed and I hated myself for saying it because it sounded like goodbye.