The Awakening as Told by the Boys (Zodiac Academy, #1.5)

by Caroline Peckham

Green eyes peering into my soul and the brush of lips against mine so hot and powerful that I could taste that kiss right down to my core. A name in the dark which sounded like a plea or a promise and words which hung in my mind like they'd been spoken from the stars themselves. Choose wisely, Dragon born. The greatest treasure is the hardest won.

My thumping pulse picked up speed for a wholly different reason as I drank her in. Long, black hair tumbled down her spine, her green eyes turned up towards the curving roof as she drank in the sight of the building she was in. Her lips were full and primed for tasting, but the set of her mouth said she was more used to frowning than smiling. She was without a doubt, the most stunning creature I'd ever laid my eyes upon and I couldn't help but stare at her as she moved deeper into the room with the other students.

"Mine," I snarled, the beast in me waking up and my eyes shifting into reptilian slits as if my Dragon was aching for a look at her too.

Every muscle in my body tensed and I was filled with the insane urge to get out of my seat and stride straight up to that girl and claim her in front of every fucker here. I didn't even know her name. I didn't know what Order she was or how powerful she was or any of the things like that which should have mattered to me. But I didn't care. Because the only thing about her that mattered in that moment was that I was laying my claim.

I was held captive there, wanting her and hating her for it. Hating her for all the reasons I knew I had to hate her, but just fucking wanting her all the same. Fuck.

I could practically see the hatred forming within those big green eyes of hers. And despite the fact that that should have been exactly what I wanted from her, I couldn't help but feel like I'd just fucked up somehow.

He was probably being all ‘do you like my dimples?’ and hopefully she was responding like ‘no, they look like two buttholes on either side of your face.’

I was filled with the most sickening certainty that I'd done something I would never come back from.

I shouldn't have cared. I shouldn't have given a single fuck about some lost princess with emerald eyes and fire in her soul. But I did. I did and I'd still done what I'd done. I'd still acted on the orders of the man I hated and let my soul pay the price of my actions.

I'd broken something tonight in myself and in a girl who didn't deserve a moment of my torture upon her flesh.

Perhaps I was always destined to be her monster, but I found I hated that fate with far more passion than I'd ever be able to hate her.