Shadow Princess (Zodiac Academy, #4)

by Caroline Peckham

And it wasn’t just the way she looked. Every time she bit at me or fought back against me, the beast inside me raised its head. She was more than just some girl who posed us a threat. She was a real challenge, unafraid of me no matter what I threw at her and capable of matching or even besting me in every way. I’d never met a girl like her before. She was my equal. She had no interest in my power or my name so every piece of attention she threw my way was earned by me. She actually cared about who I was over what I was. And even though she hated what she found most of the time, she still saw me. And the idea of that was as exhilarating as it was terrifying. “Is Xavier texting Sofia?” she asked all of a sudden and my lips parted at that strange question. “Yes,” I said eventually because it seemed pointless to lie to her about it. “He can’t tell her who he really is, obviously. But I wanted him to have someone of his kind to talk to, some contact with a herd…” I trailed off because giving him the phone number of one girl to message seemed like a pretty pathetic way to help him, but I didn’t know what else to do. “I take it Lionel still won’t let him reveal his Order to anyone?” she asked. I laughed but it was a hollow, empty thing. “Never.”