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

by Caroline Peckham

The friction of my hot booty on his sea cucumber

“Oh no, Grus, I’m not a good man at all,” he breathed. “And if I get you back to my bed tonight, you’re going to find out just how bad I am.” “I’m not sure if declaring yourself as bad in the bedroom is the best way to tempt my night garden into action,” I teased as he tugged on my hand insistently and I started walking. “I’m not… I didn’t mean I was bad like bad. I meant bad like…like I dunno. Like the way people say bad when they mean good,” Max said with a frown.

“How about for tonight, we just don’t discuss the Vegas or the Councillors, the throne or the Heirs. It’s just you and me?” Max offered, his gaze capturing mine and a stillness seeming to fall around us as he made that one simple request. My lips parted on a protest. The Vegas and the throne were what I lived for, what I thrived on. Pretending they didn’t exist was like pretending the sun wouldn’t rise on the morrow-

“Well if that didn’t wet my whistle, I don’t know what would,” I breathed. “Fuck, Grus, I have no idea why, but when you talk like an insane person it turns me on so goddamn much,” Max growled. A blush crept across my skin at the heat in his gaze as he looked at me and I released the most girlish of giggles.

It felt so much more intimate than kissing or even bumping naughty norberts. We were baring our souls and letting them snuggle up like wombats in the wild. “Oh sweet salami,”

kept my walls up against his sneaksome interference with my emotions. 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. I just wouldn’t admit to such an indiscretion towards an Heir on any other night.

“You’re gonna make me work my ass off for you, aren’t you?” Max groaned as he finally gave up on trying to boost my lust. “Are you saying you’re not up to the challenge?” I suggested with a wily eyebrow.

“Are you seeing someone else?” I asked, pulling her to a halt and making her stop short right before the entrance to the tunnel. “The only thing I can see right now is a big barracuda intent on luring me to his sea cave,”

“Do you really want to waste our time together worrying about whether or not I’ve been letting other eels into my garden or do you want to bang me like a drum until I forget all about them?” “I’ll take the drum thing,” I replied instantly

She was so uninhibited, not trying to be cool or seductive or offer me any bullshit, just vibrant and fucking crazy and alluring as fuck.

The day that the stars chose to birth my princesses like two priceless diamonds placed against the queen’s bosom. Their passage into this world would have been nothing if not divine.

Oh, but to share the same birth year as the Vega Twins was a gift in itself. I would never scorn such an offering from the stars.

They were born on a wondrously powerful day. Eleven was the epitome of strength, a predictor of magnanimous tidings to come. Their destiny had been whispered from star to star, their shiny, plump baby buttocks’ primed for being seated on a throne from that very day they were born.

I may not have been an Heir or a Dragon, but I was a Cerberus with earth magic and water magic boiling through the fabric of my very soul. I could put that dastardly Dragon boy on his firm backside if he crossed me. Especially today of all days. I was not to be trifled with.

"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," I informed him.

I sighed, not knowing what to say to him. I could tell him how much Tory cared about him because I could feel it every time she so much as glanced his way, but I didn't even know for sure if knowing that made him feel better or worse about everything at this point.

"What's wrong?" Darius asked. "Mildred is planning to crash the party," I explained. "I will officially have blue balls for the rest of time if I don't stop her from turning up."

"As it stands, I'm officially dating my right hand for the rest of forever while picturing a girl I can't even touch without lightning trying to strike us down." "Hopefully not while your dick is in your hand though," Seth teased as he moved to join the conversation with Caleb beside him. "Because that sounds painful." "Hilarious," Darius deadpanned.

Lool

"Either way, it sounds like we need to make sure your fiancé doesn't make an appearance at your mate's party," Caleb said. He still had icing smeared up his left cheek from his wrestle with Seth. "I'm sure we can come up with a fun way to achieve that." "I say we dig a big hole and bury her in it," Seth suggested

"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. "Well that would at least be an end to one of my problems," Darius joked and I laughed before I could stop myself.

"Imaging her teeth chattering with that underbite," Cal sniggered and Darius smiled cruelly. "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."

"Says the Siren," Darius deadpanned. "Dragons don't sit on rocks. I feel like I'm posing for some kind of Siren porn shoot." "Maybe that's why Washer just showed up?" Cal suggested with a grin. "He's come to lend you some of his teeny weeny speedos?" "That had better be a joke," Darius growled

The one where you were all playing Pitball shirtless in those little shorts, wrestling in the mud and showing off your big, strong, sporting prowess..." “You kept a bunch of shirtless pictures of your students?” Seth asked in disgust and Washer raised his hands innocently. “Only to show support to our Pitball team of course.

Wtff

“Woah, woah, hold your horses, cowboy. I’m your friend. I never did tell the FIB about you sneaking out of Orion’s house in the dead of night naked as the dawn. Even after his arrest made it clear that he’s had at least one other victim…” Darius looked about ready to go full Dragon on him

We threw a silencing bubble up around us as we waited, giggling like a bunch of school girls as Darius kept scowling in our direction, all oiled up on that rock like a fucking wet dream. Caleb took another picture of him and sent it to Tory with a happy birthday message and I laughed harder, knowing Darius would lose his shit over that when he found out.

"Errr, I'm still holding out for our wedding night. You know I want our first time to be special..." Darius said, glancing our way and causing Mildred to make a move to look too. "But I think about it a lot," he added quickly, dragging her gaze back to him. "I think it about it daily," Mildred replied as a breeze rustled through her moustache and she sucked her top lip into her mouth in a way that might have be intended to be seductive. "And I touch myself too."

"Holy shit," Darius cursed, looking like he would literally rather be anywhere else in the world right now as he tried to hide his horror. "I mean...err, what do you think about us...doing while you...do...that?" "I know that you're a big, powerful man," Mildred said hungrily, taking a step closer to him. "But I like to think about pinning you down and making you take me the way I want it."

Omggg so weirdd

"I need a shower," he said, swiping a hand over his face. "And to bleach my ears out so that I can remove the description she just gave me of our wedding night. I swear to the stars, if I ever make it down the aisle, I want the three of you to kill me before she can drag me back to her bed." "We'll find a way to fix it, brother," I promised him. "But in the meantime, let's make sure you look hot as fuck for Tory Vega tonight, yeah?"

I laughed so hard on this

My Lady Tory held quite the demons in her dillypurse too; those black rings in her eyes would always make my stomach roil with the power of a hurricane contained within a volcano. At least that rogue of a Dragon boy was making some effort now, trying to right his wrongs, but he had far more work to do if he was ever going to officially earn his way out of my book of pompous turdbiscuits.

Yeah... let's not say she didn't fight her demons AT ALL anymore lol

Like my mother always said, 'you can't pickle a pear in salty tears'.

Whatever Geraldine said.

Why he would call me a starfish, I had no idea. Starfish were the devils of the sea with conniving little minds. A rule I lived by that had always done me well was this: if it had five legs then it wasn't a critter I wanted to fraternise with. No siree Bob.

"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??

"Does it make me a complete piece of shit if I fully intend to run off any and every dude who so much as looks at her, let alone strikes up the idea of a political match? Even though I know that I'll be walking down the aisle myself the moment I graduate," Darius asked. "Yeah," Seth said with a soft whimper. "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."

"If I really marry Mildred, I think that will be the end of it. Roxy will never speak to me again. If we can't find a way around this situation before then, I don't even know what I'll do. Sometimes I think I'd be better off to head to the Mortal Realm and never look back." "It won't come to that, brother," I reassured him,

Darius opted to forgo the jacket, remaining in his black dress shirt and slacks and looking just this side of don't-give-a-fuck as usual. No wonder he and Tory Vega were a match made in heaven. I bet she’d turn up to her damn coronation in a crop top and booty shorts if she ever did claim the throne.

"I'm kind of understanding why Geraldine thought our attempts at a party were embarrassing when you compare it to this," Seth said as he tilted his head back to take the whole thing in. "Yeah, it was probably pretty dumb of us not to have realised she'd go all out for this," I said as we headed to the doors.

"I already have sat my ass on it. Do you think that makes me more powerful than you now?" Darius asked, his voice teasing. "When?" Seth gasped, his eyes widening and jealously scrawled over his features. "When we were at the palace for Christmas. I left the party and went to sit in it and pout over Roxy." "You're lucky she didn't find you there," I joked, shaking my head at the audacity of him. “Who the fuck just goes and sits in a throne like it doesn't mean a goddamn thing?" "Actually, I'm lucky she did find me there," he said,

the Pegasus girl, that twat Tyler Corbin who was always making Faebook posts about us, the Dragon girl and the hat kid.

Loool

"I don't think I'm suited to a gentlefae," she said with a shudder. "Tall, dark and devastating seems to be my kryptonite." I glanced at Darius as the edge of a smile touched his lips at her words, but it fell off again as she went on.

"Because I'm a hateful bitch who believed no one could ever love me for so long that I ended up making it come true."

They were all dressed in similar insane outfits and they looked a bit like a bunch of clowns putting on a show. My girl sure had some crazy tastes.

Darcy took her sister’s hand and squeezed her fingers for a moment, clearly knowing that Tory was just putting up a front and Tory offered her a soft smile that made my heart ache. 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.

"Why is Dean even here?" he asked, scowling at hat boy. "I don't understand why they let him hang around them all the time. He's one of the lowest ranking Fae in their class." "Jealous much?" Seth

"I'm surprised you were able to rein yourself in, but I really don't think I could have dealt with a massive party. Not with all eyes on us. I swear, my whole life revolves around people staring at us for one reason or another recently and I can't think of anything better than just hanging out with you guys tonight." "Well, this is awkward," Cal muttered

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.

She took another drink with her as she backed away from us, letting the crowd swallow her and putting distance between them so that the ground fell still again and Darius sighed. "We'll find a way," I promised him,

"Come on, I'll find Gerry and we can all dance in a group. The stars might not even notice if the two of you start grinding up against each other if we're all together." Darius blew out a laugh and I grinned at him as I led the way out onto the dance floor.

Lady Tory ground up against Darius Acrux while Maxy boy and Caleb danced with them to ensure the stars didn't get a bee in their bonnet about it. Tyler twirled Sofia around by one hand and even Diego was spinning the top as Angelica taught him the vamba-von-Vega jive.