Fated Throne (Zodiac Academy, #6)

by Caroline Peckham

When Darcy had presented us with these weapons, my heart had ached for her. For the pain she was in with her sister and Lance gone and the weight of the world pressing down on her. I shared the torture of their loss with her, so I understood the burden of it more than well enough. But instead of crumbling beneath the agony of their loss, she’d risen to the challenge and spent the summer helping us to try and track down the Imperial Star.

My heart was pounding to a frantic rhythm as I searched the darkness between the trees for Darcy. She’d run ahead using a concealment spell despite my command for us to stick together, and panic was warring beneath my skin for every moment that passed without a sign of her. I’d given Roxy my word that I’d protect her sister before she’d fallen into the shadows and been taken by my father, and it was the only thing I could do for her at the moment. Besides, I’d formed a bond with Darcy of my own in the last six weeks.

I needed to break free so that I could stand against my father and rescue the girl I loved. The pain of my separation from Roxy cut me open and made me bleed with every day that passed.

Father held her life in his hands and he’d threatened her to stop me from trying to track her down. Not that that had stopped me. I knew he held her somewhere in the manor and I’d been spending every waking hour searching for her, but I’d never even found a clue to her whereabouts. But sometimes, in the dead of night, I woke suddenly, sure I’d heard her screaming, alone in the dark. I hoped that I was just having nightmares. But I was almost certain I wasn’t.

For a moment the light from her fire cast her in shadows, making her blue hair appear black as she smiled savagely in victory, looking so like her sister that my heart dropped right down into the pit of my stomach. Guilt rose up in me like an all too familiar curse and I forced my mind off of it so that I could focus on this fight.

“You could have gotten yourself killed,”

beside me in his Wolf form and Max slid from his back. “Well, I didn’t. So, you don’t have to worry about breaking your precious promise,” she muttered bitterly. “It’s the only thing I can do for her at the moment,” I growled in reply, my heart twisting with the truth of those words. We’d vowed to do everything we could to get Roxy back, but it turned out that there was nothing we could do. Not so far anyway.

“Let’s make this quick then,” Darcy snarled as she turned towards the building and made a move towards the door. I caught her shoulder, my gaze flickering to Dragon slits as she huffed at me and I moved her aside so that I could go in first. She might not want me to protect her, but I’d promised Roxy and I wasn’t going to back down on that.

“Shit,” Darcy gasped, and I whirled around, finding her in the middle of the room with a tarot card in her hand.

“Seek the fallen hunter.” Darcy looked up at me as she held out the card for me to see. The World tarot card looked back at me, a naked woman dancing above the earth holding a staff in each hand while she was watched by various creatures. That at least was positive – the card symbolised things falling into place, even if the message that went with it seemed like nothing more than a riddle.

He’d made it clear that any public show of dissent would cause him to hurt Roxy and I couldn’t risk that. He had me by the balls and he knew it. He’d effectively leashed and muzzled me and there wasn’t a fucking thing I could do about it.

There was one small sliver of hope which I clung to all the time he continued to taunt me and hold Roxy captive at his mercy. Ever since the night I’d almost killed him, he hadn’t once come near me without Clara at his side. In fact, she never seemed to leave his side at all anymore. And I was filled with this deep hope that the reason for that was fear. He knew just how close I’d come to besting him that night. To ending him. And only Clara and her control over me via the shadows kept him safe from my wrath.

“Because I’m going to fly us all back in.” “No fucking way,” Seth breathed, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet as Max grinned excitedly. “You mean it?” Cal asked, his eyes widening. “Yeah, I mean it. I’m sick of you assholes always being stuck on the ground. It’s time you realised how much better it is to be a Dragon than any of your shitty Orders.”

Seth peeled his hand back off of his mouth then leapt forward and ran the pad of his tongue right up the side of my cheek. “Holy shit, I’m so fucking excited I could pee myself. This is as good as the time when I was on the moon, and I jumped clean over that crater when everyone said I wouldn’t be able to.” “If you piss on me, I’ll toss you into the lake,”

I’d only ever let Lance and Roxy ride me before now and I’d been breaking the rules to do it, but that suddenly seemed so pointless. Father was obsessed with the idea of Dragon supremacy, but who gave a shit if I wanted to let some of my friends ride me through the clouds? It didn’t make me a fucking pack mule. It just showcased what my Order could

I flew as hard and as fast as I could, my heart pounding as I broke through the clouds and soared beneath the stars, showing them the world the way I loved it the most for a few endless moments before diving back to earth again at breakneck speed.

The Heirs slid from my back, laughing excitedly before I shifted back into my Fae form and I offered them half a smile. It was good to see them enjoying themselves, but I hadn’t been able to take real joy in anything since Roxy had been taken from us. My heart felt like it was locked in a cage of ice and if we didn’t manage to find her soon then I wasn’t sure what would become of me.

Seth lingered in the shower until Caleb cursed him and shot in there to toss him out. Max had cleaned himself off with water magic too and he chuckled as he tightened his tie, a little knowing smile on his face as he glanced towards the bathroom where the sound of them arguing spilled from the doorway.

She was heart-stoppingly beautiful, wearing a full-length black gown which clung to her figure like a spill of ink. Her mahogany hair had been curled and hung down her spine and her makeup was like a work of art, dark and sultry around her eyes which only highlighted the ring of black the stars had given her. Her lips were painted a deep, blood red which made me ache to taste her kisses again.

She didn’t look my way. She didn’t even seem to care where she was. She just stood there as my heart splintered right down the centre and I was frozen, not knowing what to do. I wanted to stride over there, rip her out of his arms and take her as far away from him as physically possible, but instead I was rooted to the spot. I didn’t know how to handle this. She wasn’t kicking or screaming or trying to escape, she was just standing there like she was made of stone and nothing in the world could touch her. I’d look insane if I tried to prise her away from him by force but was I seriously just going to stand here and stare at her?

Roxy and Clara would throw themselves between us and as much as I was willing to destroy Clara, I couldn’t lift a hand against Roxy. I’d sooner burn my own heart from my chest than put her in harm’s way.

She stepped closer to me and leaned in, brushing her lips against mine in a cruel mockery of all the kisses we’d shared before. Her lips were cold and her gaze empty. A shiver raced through me as I tasted the darkness on her. There was nothing in that kiss, not a single piece of the girl I loved, and it felt like every part of me was breaking apart as I looked down at her in horror, wondering what the hell had happened to her to leave her so empty. How the shadows could have stolen so much and what else my father had been doing to her in the time that she’d been missing.

She pulled back but I caught her wrist, wanting to beg her to come back to me, hunt for some piece of the girl I knew in her eyes. But the moment my skin touched hers, a jolt of pain and darkness speared through me as the shadows in her invaded my body and wound their grip tightly around my heart.

“Don’t you know me?” I breathed, unable to hide the raw edge to my voice as I studied the black rings in her green eyes and begged the stars to let her see me. “You’re Darius,” she replied, that rough edge still coating her voice. “The man who promised he’d never hurt me, even though he always enjoyed it when he did.”

Father took his seat at the head of the table and heat invaded every cell in my body as he tugged Roxy down into his lap. A growl ripped from my throat and I half lurched out of my seat, but Clara caught hold of the shadows in me and forced me back down again before anyone noticed. I sat rigidly in my chair, pain and terror shredding me apart as Roxy arranged herself more comfortably on Father’s knee.

“I can see what had you so captivated, Darius,” Father murmured as the next course was served and everyone was distracted. “She really is a beautiful girl. And so…tenacious. I have to say I really enjoyed breaking her in and beating that wildness out of her.” “If you’ve laid a fucking finger on her, I’ll cut you into a thousand pieces and burn you alive in Dragon fire,” I snarled, but Clara’s hold on my shadows stopped me from doing any more than tightening my grip on my damn spoon. If I could get close to him, I’d gladly find a way to make a spoon lethal though.

“What did he do to you?” I choked, my heart racing as I reached for her, but she shifted so that I couldn’t catch her hand and I could have sworn fear flickered in her eyes for a moment before she hid it again. “Tell me and I’ll rip him apart for it. Tell me what I have to do to break you out of this.” “Out of what?” she asked in a cold tone. “The shadows, Roxy, you need to break free of them, you need-” “Why would I do that?” she asked dismissively. “The shadows bring me more pleasure than you can even imagine. They feed my soul and steal my pain. Maybe you should consider joining me in them.”

“He has three Elements!” Mom gasped and I turned my head to look at my family. Father’s eyes were wide, a look of pride filling them that I’d never seen aimed at me in my damn life.

A weight shifted on my bed and my hands slipped into soft fur as I rolled towards the comforting heat of the body beside me. Seth’s Wolf form was damn huge, but he still managed to somehow fit in my single bed and leave me with enough room to breathe. I hadn’t asked him to stay with me, but I also hadn’t asked him to keep me company at the palace all summer and he often had. All the Heirs had.

“I was gonna, but then I touched this blanket and it was so soft. What’s it made of, fucking clouds?” Max brushed his fingers up and down it. “Anyway, I made this nest like some sort of Tiberian Rat and camped here. So…this blanket is mine now, yes?”

I never spoke with him directly, but Darius kept me updated. And I guessed that was the new normal. Living as though he was wholly separate to me, like he’d never owned my heart, like I’d never pledged to love him no matter what.

“It’s kind of a big deal.” “Every crush you have is a big deal, you had a crush on a cookie the other day and didn’t eat it for like eight hours.” “The chocolate chips were arranged into the shape of a dick!” he defended himself

“It’s like…a crush on my friend,” he said coyly, and I swear if he’d been a Wolf right now his ears would be flattened to his head all cute like.

“Yeah… Caleb to be exact,”

“We won’t die,” he said with a shrug. “We’re the Heirs and the Savage Princess. Darcy and the dudebros. Wolfman, Bitey C, Fish Fury, Dragzilla, and the Phoen Dream.”

“The truth is, I’ll probably dream about Lance for the rest of my life. I’ll miss him and long for him, but when I wake up, I’ll continue as if he was never here. Because that’s what he asked for when he betrayed me. And now he’s gone, he’ll never get back in. No one will. I just can’t trust anyone anymore.”

“The fuck?” Max appeared, shoving Justin away from Geraldine and gripping her cheeks in a punishing hold. “Why are you crying?”

Tyler suddenly tensed up and released an aggressive, horse-like snort and I frowned at him in surprise. “You okay, Ty?” I asked and he lifted an arm, dropping it around Sofia’s shoulders and yanking her closer. “Hey,” Sofia snapped as she lost her grip on a bagel and it went bouncing back onto her plate, but Tyler didn’t look at her. I followed his gaze to the door. Xavier Acrux had just walked in,

“He got three Elements, did you hear?” Angelica said as she dropped down beside Geraldine with a cup of coffee. “Yeah, and he chose Ignis House,” Sofia said, her cheeks turning rosy. “He’s in your house?” Tyler balked and she shrugged, making him snort angrily again.

“I hoofed down Davros and Brutus yesterday. They arrived on campus early and I beat their asses in Pegasus form. I’m officially the Dom of our herd now.” He lifted his chin, holding Sofia tighter. “Which means I’m his now,” she explained, looking at him with a proud smile that said she didn’t mind that so much, but then her eyes flitted back across the room to Xavier, and I suspected there was something else going on here. “But Xavier Acrux is like…serious Dom material.”

Darius was the only one who understood fully, and together we’d found a way to keep moving, because giving up wasn’t an option and talking over and over our woes did nothing but bring us down. One small mercy I’d been gifted was that I’d found a bond with him I’d never expected to have. And though trust was something I doubted I’d ever feel again for anyone besides family, Darius Acrux came surprisingly close. And so did the other Heirs sometimes.

The door opened again behind her, and Darius appeared, halting dead in his tracks, his lips parting and suddenly he was upon us, wrenching Tory from my arms and twisting her around to face him. “You’re back,” he rasped.

I fought to push them aside as I tried to remember the dream. I’d been standing in the rain on a cliffside and someone else had been with me. Someone who had made my heart beat a lot faster than the slow and steady rhythm it was maintaining now. My lips tingled with the memory of a touch I couldn’t place, the taste of something so much sweeter than I deserved...

They withdrew reluctantly and I watched in the mirror as they slid back beneath my skin until the only visual clue that they were there at all was hidden in the black ring that surrounded my irises. My gaze stayed locked on that ring for a long moment as the echo of something important tugged at my memory. I shivered as I almost felt the kiss of snow on my arms, tasted tears on my lips, felt a stab of pain directly into my heart. But as I sucked in a sharp breath at the almost memory, the shadows fluttered in my chest and soothed it away for me.

I flinched as my gaze fell on Darius, standing there in a pair of grey sweatpants and a white tank. His muscular, tattooed arms flexed with tension and his gaze tightened as his eyes moved over me. “Roxy,” he murmured, and I fought to stay impassive as the echo of pain and fear washed through me at the sound of that name in his mouth.

I expected him to lash out at me and drew on my own darkness even more in preparation to fight him off, but instead he just stepped into my personal space and caught my cheek in his rough palm. “Because I’m not giving up on you, Roxy. I don’t care what I have to do or what it costs to pull you back out of the shadows. I won’t stop until you’re yourself again,” he swore roughly.

“You don’t have love,” he growled, his eyes flashing with reptilian slits as the Dragon beneath his skin peered out at me too. “You don’t love that monster. You love Darcy. You love...” His brow creased and he shook his head. “I love you. And you promised me forever once. So, if I have to-” “Forever?” I asked, a memory pushing into my mind but fleeing again before I had a chance to look at it.

“Stay away from me,” I warned him as his muscles tensed against the pain I was driving into his flesh. “What if I won’t?” he gritted out. “You will,” I insisted, pushing more shadows into him and making him swear as he fought to stay on his feet through the pain of them. “I promised you forever too, Roxy,” he growled. “And I intend to keep my word.”

I closed my eyes to drink in the image, but somehow, behind the confines of my closed eyelids, I found myself imagining a golden Dragon instead.

I looked up to find Darius standing there, perspiration now coating his flesh where it was on show and his breathing heavier than usual like he’d been running. I stayed silent as I took him in, the faintest niggle of recognition stirring in me again like his morning routines were supposed to interest me for some reason.