Shadow Princess (Zodiac Academy, #4)

by Caroline Peckham

“In Solaria we have a tradition of giving rose quartz to someone we want to be exclusive with.”

“I think the stars picked you for me, Blue. I think you’re my Elysian Mate.”

“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.”

omg

I glared at him, raising my chin defiantly, daring him to do his worst as he reached out and snatched a handful of my hair into his grasp, tugging on it hard enough to tilt my head back. A gasp of pain parted my lips and his mouth collided with mine a moment later as my heart leapt at the unexpected turn of this argument.

His kisses were setting me alight, my whole body bowing to the carnal desire I’d felt for him since the very first time I’d seen him.

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.

His throat bobbed and a vulnerable kind of smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. “I’ve not really dated a girl before. Not like this. Not the proper way. But with you, making you smile like that…it’s everything. A few months ago, I would have looked at myself now and thought I was losing my fucking mind. You make me wanna dress up trees, Blue. I’m one hundred percent a lunatic for you. And I don’t give a damn.”

“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.”

“Because you’re in my head all the time. You pulse through my blood with each beat of my heart. I live for every scrap of attention you offer me and suffer through every moment you spend ignoring me,” he said darkly, holding my eye the entire time.

“I thought you hated me?” I asked. “I do,” he agreed. “Because you represent everything I want and everything I can’t have.” “You want me?” I asked slowly, taking a step towards him despite the dark energy which coiled around him. “You know I do,” he replied simply as if anything about us was simple.

“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 want me to hate you?” I asked in surprise. “I want you to feel for me. And I’ll take hate if that’s all you’re offering.”

“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.”

“I mean, like the way I lie awake at night, remembering what it felt like to hold you in my arms. How still the world felt, how pure that moment was between us. How I imagine I can still smell your perfume as my eyes fall closed and how I reach across my bed in the night wishing you were really there. Or like the way my heart beats harder when you walk into a room and my throat thickens when I try to think of the right things to say to you. How I fight to get your attention in any way I can because I can’t bear it when you ignore me.”

ahhhhh