The Big A.S.S. Party (Zodiac Academy, #5.5)

by Caroline Peckham

“Well, if you aren’t just a fruit salad filled with banana drama,”

I didn’t need any help in lusting after him anyway. I’d been drooling like a dog at dinner time every time I’d looked his way since the first time I’d laid eyes on him.

The eleventh day of the sixth month, oh what numbers! They were born on a wondrously powerful day. Eleven was the epitome of strength, a predictor of magnanimous tidings to come.

Crazy coincidence haha!!!

"I beg your porpoise?" I gasped. "Decorations? What decorations? Please tell me this instant, Max Rigel, that Darius the dastardly Dragon has not taken it upon himself to set up a P.A.R.T.Y. for the Vegas. For my queens."

"A big deal? Today is the single greatest day that ever was in Solaria and ever will be. Of course it's a big deal. It trumps the day Jedidiah Norrington sent his quivelfig into outer space on nothing more than a cumber-bun!” “What the fuck is a quivelfig?"

It was in my blood, right down to my giggle fruit!

I wasn't beyond whacking him with my shoe if that was what it took.

Damn that beastly boy with his roguish scent and his hot chocolate skin that made my Lady Petunia want to bloom and welcome his proboscis in to pollenate her all night long.

I stopped dead in my tracks as I took in the most simple of decorations adorning the walls and the cake on the table that was nothing but a bland, white sponge. A sponge.

It was an insult. An abomination. A scandal waiting to happen.

It was a cake more fitting for a casual afternoon tea on a Sunday with a violent inmate from Darkmore Penitentiary. It should not have seen the light of day on the eleventh of June, the most important day of all days.

Darius shrugged. Shrugged!

Store bought icing? How could this get any worse?

which were of course sent by dove and hand printed on purest kalian silk -

"We just got Grussed," I said with a grin. "You don't know what the fuck happened at first but once you get used to it and just go along for the ride, you'll find yourself having the time of your life."

"Sex with her is a constant series of asking yourself what the fuck just happened? What the fuck did she just say? What the fuck did she just call me? Why the fuck does that feel so goddamn good? And that's the most you'll ever find out about it because she's mine,"

"Quit the lothario act you bungling baboon! We have a code brown!" "Someone shit themselves?" "No, you nincompoop! Someone spilled the beans!

"I say we dig a big hole and bury her in it,"

"She's got earth magic too, genius, she'd just escape," I pointed out. "I never said bury her alive," he said, waggling his eyebrows like an idiot.

"One ice palace for a wannabe princess coming up," he said with a deadly look in his dark eyes. "No one fucks with my girl on her birthday."

I whipped an accusing finger between Diego and Sofia as the Vegas shared a look which said I was overreacting. But tweak my begonia peaks, if anything I was underreacting,

"As casual as a cranberry on a cornflake," I agreed, shooting him a wink

Geraldine: Is Mildred dealt with, you tantalising terrapin? Maxy Boy: She’s all locked up, you sexy starfish. I rolled my eyes, tsking at the insult. Why he would call me a starfish, I had no idea.

"I'm more concerned about the fact that my girl put my name last," I ground out. Surely I should be the first Heir that came to Geraldine’s mind?? "Maybe because she's not your girl

"It does make you a sack of shit. But I'll totally be there to watch you beat the fuck out of every single one of them."

Geraldine had created a perfect small scale Palace of Souls. There was a wooden door leading inside through the centre of it, but all around that there were turrets and towers and bridges, all designed in miniature to look just like the home the Vegas should have grown up in. Geraldine had topped each of the towers with two silk flags, one Royal blue with the name Darcy in silver letters fluttering in the wind and the other black with Tory spelled out in gold.

"I'm kind of understanding why Geraldine thought our attempts at a party were embarrassing when you compare it to this,"

They opened magically and we stepped into a huge ballroom which had been decorated with countless images of the twins were carved into every wall, the floor, the ceiling. Their names were repeated everywhere over and over and over again. It was kinda creepy. Like a shrine or something.

"Holy shit - she made their chairs into replicas of the Solarian throne,"

In that moment, I couldn't see the two returned princesses who had come looking to steal our throne from us. I could just see two sisters who were united in their heartache, putting on a show for their friend as they indulged in this party for her sake and not theirs.

Inside the box was a platinum charm bracelet with seven charms on it. One for each of the elements they possessed, air, fire, earth and water, another with the Gemini symbol on it, a letter G and an R.

The only difference to this was the Dragon charm carved entirely out of rose quartz which shone pink beside the letter R. She stared at it for long enough to make it clear that she understood the meaning of the rose quartz.

Darius was telling her that he belonged to her and that he wanted her to belong to him in return. Even if the stars wouldn't allow that in a physical sense.

"I do mind! I mind as much as a tomato minds when it is denounced as a vegetable even though it is clearly a fruit!"

"No offence, but are you on something? Because I wanna try it."

"I have never taken a potion or lotion in my life, nor have I ever had the notion,"

Panic danced through me as I looked to Lady Darcy and I knew I needed to act fast. I had to brighten her face, I had to see my wondrous queen laugh and enjoy her birthday. I acted on instinct alone, throwing out my hand and casting an illusion over Seth Capella, turning him into a six foot turnip with beady eyes and a tiny mouth. Then I slapped him across his turnip face and he yelped in surprise.

He threw out a hand and I wailed as his magic fell over me, expecting an attack, but instead the trickling coolness of an illusion ran over my flesh. Darcy laughed harder and the sound was music to my ears as I looked down to find the cheeky chihuahua had turned me into a giant buttery bagel. “Oh butter me right side up, I am quite the baked good, aren’t I?”

It was a fucking travesty that they couldn't be together, but it made me realise that I couldn't keep letting this thing between me and Geraldine hang in this undefined limbo. I wanted her to be mine. All mine. Officially. And I was going to do what it took to confirm that.

"What about love?" She laughed this sad and derisive sound, shaking her head. "I'm not fool enough to look for love. What our Kingdom needs right now is strength and unity. It has nothing to do with love. It's about power, position, strength, all the things that being Fae mean.

Women in men’s field fr

"I'm not going to stop trying to change your mind," I warned her. "So change your allegiance, if you really want me more than anything else,"

I nodded once, biting my tongue on screaming about how fucked up everything she'd just said was. "So give me that time," I said. "Two years. Two years of you and me to fuck and fight and fall in love and be all the things we won't be able to be once you walk down that aisle. Give me that time to try and convince you that that life isn't what you really want. We don't ever have to talk politics, we don't even have to tell anyone if you don't want to. Just let it be me and you, at least for a little while."

But she was worth the risk. So I was going to take it.