Heartless Sky (Zodiac Academy, #7)

by Caroline Peckham

“I mean our true queens no harm.”

When the Heirs arrived, they stood before us and I felt the weight of the words they’d just spoken sitting there in the dark, waiting for one of us to acknowledge them. “I guess that proves it once and for all then,” Caleb said with a lopsided grin, breaking the tension. “That we’re best friends?” Seth asked, bobbing on his toes as he looked between us excitedly. “I never thought this would happen,” Max said, scoring a hand over his short hair and smirking at us.

We’d proved how far we’d go for one another in battle, he’d bowed to me, he’d sworn his allegiance in every way a Fae could. But I wanted to show him that we were equals. That when we stood before each other and he saw a queen, I saw a king staring back at me.

“Seth, I’ll make a freaking coat out of your fancy white Wolf fur if you don’t stop winding him up. Tell him the truth or I’ll kick your ass out of here myself.” “Alright, alright, we didn’t fuck,” Seth conceded, and I looked to Orion, finding him pushing himself off the bed, his shoulders heaving with his ragged breaths. He caught my hand, tugging me against him with a protective growl and I gripped his chin, tilting his head down to make him look at me. His heart was thrashing and there was such a desperation about him at the mere thought of me being with someone else that it melted my anger with him. But screw him for not trusting my word on this. “Yet,” Seth whispered.

The last line lmaooooo he just can’t help himself

“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.”

“Darius,” I breathed as he leaned forward, about to close the gap between our lips but my hand landed on his chest. “If you kiss me now, I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to let you go again. So, if this isn’t it for you, if you can’t handle my stubborn, selfish ass then please just walk away. Because I can’t have you for this moment if I don’t have you for every moment after it-” “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.”

MY LOVES

“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?”

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

For a moment there was so much peace in the room, it was hard to remember that we were at the start of what would likely be a bloody war.

“Got it!” Seth announced and the door swung open a moment later, revealing Darius and Tory lying in bed together, but instead of finding them fucking like animals as we’d all been expecting, we found them holding each other. Tory was nestled into the crook of Darius’s arm, her eyes closed and breathing heavy as he trailed his fingertips along her spine, the sheets tugged over them enough to cover most of her body from us. His gaze snapped to us, but in the brief moment before that, all I’d seen in his expression was this, deep, fulfilled kind of contentment as he’d been watching her, and it made the knot in my chest loosen to know that at least one good thing had come from this nightmare. The stars had finally been forced to reconsider and it looked like everything the two of them had suffered through had paid off.

“Do the assholes just want him, or do I have to drag my ass out of bed too?” she asked us, scrubbing some sleep from one eye with a fist and yawning. “Just the Dragon thanks, sweetheart,” I confirmed and she nodded, grabbing a pillow and tugging it over her face in a clear dismissal. “And this one claimed she didn’t wanna be a princess,” Seth scoffed, backing out of the room as Darius approached us wearing a pair of jeans and some sneakers, not bothering with a shirt.

“Are you sure we should be messing with this soul hat thing?” Tory glanced at the hat nervously and I knew she was worried about the feel of the shadows again. “It’s okay, baby. I got you,” Darius said and she looked at him with the fire of her Order lighting up her eyes, making me feel all fuzzy for them as she nodded her agreement.

“See?” Seth said innocently, giving Darcy the big eyes. “He’s so easily riled up. He’s like a gorilla-sized chihuahua.”

I’m going to be here always, as your friend. Just give into it, bro. It’s inevitable. Like you and Darcy were inevitable.” “That’s kinda cute,” Darcy said, looking to me with her eyelashes fluttering.

“Do the angry words of the day, sir!” Seth cried as he bounced up and down in his seat. “It’s not the same without the angry words of the day.”

True

YOU CANNOT DEFEAT LIONEL ACRUX IF YOU CAN’T EVEN DO BASIC FUCKING SPELLS. I twisted around to glare at them all and Geraldine started jotting down what I’d written.

There is only her.

Oh, what a shame it was that he was such a slanderous sardine.

“You got me a gold coin?” Darius asked and I turned my attention to him, nodding through my tears as I pointed to it. “I had it engraved with this date upon it,” I gushed - the day we became a family.

GERALDINE 😭❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

“Can I tell you a secret?” I whispered, leaning forward to rest my chin on his shoulder. “No,” he said bluntly, sipping more of the bourbon as he tried to jolt me off of him, but my chin was staying right there on that meaty muscle bit. “It’s a good one,” I whispered. “One that could ruin me.” He frowned, observing me as he swallowed another mouthful of bourbon, intrigue glittering in his dark eyes. “Oh yeah?” “Yeah. But if I give you this power, Lance Orion, you have to be my friend,” I said, prodding him in the dimple. “B to the double F. Got it?”

HAHAHA

“How much did you hear?!” I bellowed, ready to slice his ears off and make threats to every single member of his family so he never spoke a word of this. He backed up several steps, fear crossing his features. “J-just you asking Professor Orion how he gets hard,” he spluttered and I breathed a sigh of relief, hurrying to the door and slamming it in his face. “Thank the stars,” I said heavily. “Oh yes,” Orion said sarcastically as he glowered at me. “Thank the stars.”

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

“Is it information or Nymphormation?” I asked, barking a laugh at my own joke and Darcy fell apart with me while the others just looked at us like we’d cracked. “That was fucking funny,” I grumbled when none of them joined in. “It wasn’t, babe,” Seth said, shaking his head at me like I was some poor pathetic soul. “You’re not the funny one. Just try and stick in your snarky, bitchy lane, yeah? It suits you better.” I opened my mouth to protest that, but Darius turned and punched him in the arm before I could. “Don’t tell her she can’t be funny, dickhead,” he warned like my own personal dark knight. “Well tell me this, Darius,” Seth said seriously, looking him square in the eye. “Did. You. Laugh?” Silence followed as Darius glanced at me, knowing full well he hadn’t laughed, and I tried to look pissed off over that fact as the others all fell apart. Caleb broke first, shoving me playfully as I tried to hold out on my indignation over what had been a perfectly valid joke, but I gave in as Seth leapt on top of us and I found myself at the bottom of a dog pile a moment later.

This place might have been a temporary reality away from the war raging up above us in Solaria, but it was a haven I was damn happy to enjoy for as long as I could. Because down here with my sister, Darius and my friends, it was as if time had stopped and everything was so perfect I just wanted to press pause and stay here forever.

Ohmagod, she still believes in Santa.

“Hell yeah we can,” Seth agreed. “We’re the Phoen Dream, Bitchy Flame Eyes, Wolfman, Bitey C, Fish Fury, Dragzilla, Professor Shame and Batty Betty.”

Geraldine was beyond Max, swinging her flail with violent blows as her hips bobbed and swayed with every strike she landed like she was performing some sort of murder dance.

“At least I don’t have to be there when Geraldine finds out,”

“No, Roxanya Vega, I don’t call that fucking,” he replied. “I call that worshipping my goddess. I call it making love to the most beautiful woman in all of Solaria, I call it penance for all the bad things I’ve done to you and the least I can offer in retribution for the harm I caused you. But most of all, I call it loving you with the intensity of the sun and the devotion of the moon because you are my end, baby. The only dream I never dared to have for myself. Yet here you are, within reach at all times. And you’d better believe I can’t resist you now that I have you. I plan on marking every inch of your flesh so thoroughly with the memory of my touch that you’ll never be able to forget it.”

“No, Roxy. I just know what I want and it’s you. In any way I can have you and every way you’ll offer. So if I can get you to be my bride then I’ll fucking take it. If you never want to get married, then I’ll take that too. If you didn’t want me this close and all I was left with was the option to watch you and hunger for you from afar the way I had to when we were Star Crossed, then I’d take that as well. It’s you, Roxy. Only you. So here I am and I’m yours. The rest of it is up to you.”

We rounded the next corner and Seth howled in fright. “Holy mother of an eight legged cunt!”

“That actually makes some sort of sense,” Darius said in surprise. “Flabberjacks! Of course it makes sense you overgrown crouton!” she clapped him around the ear. “Now come, we have to move yonder.”

“Oh, gracious, I have been saved by a dashing yet unfortunately shamed Fae,”

“I think it’s romantic!” Geraldine gushed, cupping her chin in her hands. “A shamed, repulsive Fae professor claiming a princess when the whole world would rather he didn’t.”

“Don’t belittle what I feel for you. I would tear down mountains for you. The stars look my way in contempt, resenting me for getting to love you while they’re way up there never feeling anything real, never touching anything as beautiful as you. I am the object of their envy because they can’t have you while you’re down on Earth in the cage of my arms, but if they’re waiting to claim you in death, they will find me right beside you, guarding you even then. Because no one will take you from me, and no one will love you as fiercely as I love you. Where you go, I will follow. There is no force powerful enough in this life or the next to tear you away from me. So don’t you dare question my love for

“Let’s go get you fed, baby,”

“I did it for you too,” I told her. “The stars showed me your death on the cards too, little shrew. And I couldn’t have that.” She sobbed as she clutched me harder, more tears falling against my skin as she held me like she really cared about me. And I realised just how much I cared about her too. She was like a little sister to me now. My silly little shrew of a sister who ran me around in circles as easily as breathing.

🥺🥺❤️❤️❤️❤️

She owned me anyway. So why keep fighting against the commands of my queen?

YESSSS🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️

“I love you,” I swore to her, knowing I couldn’t take that hurt away with those words but hoping she felt the truth of them all the same. “I love you too,” she replied, turning her head to meet my kiss and the taste of her tears passed between us as I kissed her so sweetly that it made me ache.

“Fuck I love it when you talk like a psychopath,” I said.

That girl was honestly fucking insane but I could admit that she was growing on me a little.

But then a single point of light appeared which burned so much brighter than them that it cast them into the realms of irrelevance, and I saw her soaring across the sky burning hotter than the sun itself. She was so endlessly beautiful, so powerful, so strong. My heart. My love. My queen. And that was the way I wanted to leave this life, because when it came down to it, I knew that she was it for me. The only thing I’d ever truly needed and for the briefest span of time she had belonged to me. And that was enough. There is only her.

I looked up at the heartless sky with a curse on my lips and slit the blade deeper into my flesh, knowing that it would scar and welcoming the pain as I dropped the weapon and held my fist up to the stars for them to see the mixture of my mate’s blood and my own running down my arm.