Heartless Sky (Zodiac Academy, #7)

by Caroline Peckham

“You’re a gift sent from the stars,”

That when we stood before each other and he saw a queen, I saw a king staring back at me.

You could have some Vampy, bondy blood time or some shit.

“Goodnight, Lance,” I said breathlessly, and he pressed his lips to the soft place behind my ear as his fingers ran over the bite to heal it. “Goodnight, Blue.” “Goodnight, roomies,” Seth whispered.

“Is it totally conceited of me to hope you might be waiting for me?” Darius’s voice called out from the dark and my eyes fluttered open. “Yeah,” I agreed on a breath as I drank in the sight of him standing before me in the half unbuttoned black shirt and smart trousers he’d worn to marry Mildred, my heart racing with the speed of a stallion and my throat thickening as I took in the very real man who was somehow standing a little way down the hill before me. “But I think I’ve always been waiting for you, so maybe you’re right.”

“I’m yours, Roxy,” he growled against my lips. “For every single second I have in this world, I’m all yours. And after that I’ll still be yours, wherever I end up after I’m gone, I’ll belong right here with you.”

“Oh. And just in case it wasn’t clear, baby, I’m not going to be anyone’s but yours. So maybe you and me should get hitched and I can show you what a real wedding night looks like?”

“You are better than him, Darius. And you might be a monster, but you’re my monster now and I want you just the way you are.”

“I love you, Darius,”

“You snuggle with Darcy and Darius all the time. But where’s my snuggles, Lance? Where’s. My. Snuggles?”

“You’re infuriating,” I huffed. “And you’re cute when you’re angry.

Totally normal to savage your super-hot Vampire ex-boyfriend, right? Right.

“I don’t think we were ever really apart, Lance,”

“I can see the headlines now, the Vega twins die in joint chocolate-related suicide,” she said and I chuckled.

“They’re cuddling,” Darcy whisper-squealed and Tory shushed her again but started suppressing a laugh. “It’s called a man hug,” Darius said, his voice gruff from sleep and I cracked my eyes open, finding we’d shifted close together and were tangled in a ridiculous cuddle.

“You are meant for the sunlight, Lance Orion. So you’ll stand with me in it or else we’ll stay in the dark together,”

“Gabriel said it will work,” Darcy said as the others turned to look to her too. “With no further explanation.”

“If anyone can pull off the wedding of the century in two days it’s Geraldine Grus,” I replied as we started heading for the royal quarters.

Darius Acrux had taken full ownership of my heart. And I was claiming his right back in return.

This dastardly dogfish would be the death of me one of these days.

“Fuck me, Roxy, I know I really am in love if I can see you in that gown and still want you just as fiercely as ever,”

“So telling him the truth is ridiculous but Guardian bonding your best friend to you so that he might be more tempted to fuck you isn’t?”