Sorrow and Starlight (Zodiac Academy, #8)

by Caroline Peckham

My brows lifted in surprise as I read the words beneath it, the damned trees which could be grown like a living curse, the heart of their victims bound to it, their entire family line tied to its existence.

Once the blood of the intended is added to the seed, the essence of the caster’s soul must be leashed to its roots. The light of the moon helps raise the shadows to assist in the growth of the sapling, and the longer the bone chant continues, the larger and more powerful the tree itself shall grow.

I cleared my throat, eyes closing for a second, and I winced as I found myself staring down the barrel of a loaded vagina.

No, no, no, I can’t die like that in the clutches of a monster vag. “Seth, you’re choking me,” Caleb gritted out, and I realised my arm was locked tight around his neck. I loosened it, fixing my mind on the alcohol we were heading towards, wondering how much I was going to have to drink to forget about Lavinia’s horror hole.

so here I was, promising I wouldn’t fall in love with a man I had already fallen for some time around the moment he’d bought me a ticket to the moon, and I was hopeless to stop it.

But deep down you are vanilla, Caleb, and I’m a fucking rainbow sundae which you can’t handle aside from the odd lick.”

This here, was the reason I’d inked a clock on my back with no hands. I wanted time to stop whenever I was with him like this, no tick, tick, tick of the unavoidable passage of time that would lead to us parting.

“Do you remember who you’re in bed with?” I asked, a teasing lilt to my voice and his hands slid up to my pecs, cupping them and squeezing. “Bessy, isn’t it?” I could feel his smirk against my skin as he kissed me again and it sparked a smile of my own.

“It’s you and me, Tor. No matter what, wherever we are.”

A beautiful Phoenix bird flew from that gaping wound in the Shadow Beast’s chest, wings of red and blue fire bursting from inside it and flying above me in a circle, a heart wrenching cry leaving its long beak.

“Is this our Titanic moment?” he murmured,

“There’s no future in which I leave you here,” I spoke before he could dare voice that idea. He sighed. “Alright, let’s go take on the unkillable asshole,” he said. “Love you, Orio,” I muttered. “Likewise, Noxy,” he answered, and we moved as one,

He was mine and I was his and I had come here to return him to my side.

My soul shook as that beautiful, powerful, unstoppable mate of mine stepped through the barrier between life and death like it was any other door which she refused to leave closed. She was here.

She was mine, my one good thing, the keeper of my heart and the shackles surrounding my soul.

I drew the glimmering sword from my hip in a fluid movement before placing its tip against the ground between us and dropping to one knee in front of her. A tremor rumbled through the Veil as my knee hit the ground and I clasped the pommel of my sword as I bowed my head before her, my limbs trembling with the magnitude of this action, of what I had known and should have admitted for a long time now.

“I pledge myself and all that I am to you, my Queen,” I breathed,

“I would be your sword to fight your enemies, your shield to protect your people, your monster to own and to wield. I would be yours in any and all of the ways I could be, and I should have told you that a long, long time ago. I am your creature, your servant…yours.”

“You’re Darius Vega now. And you weren’t built to bow to anyone.”

One more song. The wedding dance we should have had. The beginning we’d been denied.

“I wish I could come back with you more than any man has ever wished for any fate in all the history of all the world. I’m yours, Roxy, heart and soul and everything beyond, I’m yours.

This was goodbye. And the song was ending. “I love you, Roxanya Vega, and I wish I could have been worthy of you.”

“I’ll wait for you,” he swore to me. “Right here. I’ll wait for you for as long as it takes. And I’ll watch over you, Roxy. I’ll be there even though you won’t see me. I’ll never truly leave you. I swear it. I’ll wait for you even if eternity passes me by while I do. I won’t ever leave you.”

“No cost is greater than the loss of you,”

The thump of Darius’s heartbeat rang out in perfect synchronicity with my own because it was my own. One heart. One life. Never to be parted again.

“I don’t think that you’re my hero, Roxy,”

“I think you’re my villain too.”

“You mean the one I got on your birthday the summer before you came to the academy?” he asked casually, and I gaped at him.

“You can’t go to war with a bagel on your cock. As your bestie, I can’t let you.” Seth ran at Max,

“All you have ever truly possessed lays here with you now,” the stars whispered,

“Skin and bone and beating heart, all hold no value here, beyond the confines of your world. You are the fire that burned long before you knew of your own existence. One soul severed, light and dark, the perfect balance. But where there is balance, there is unbalance…”

“Once, in a time long lost, there was a star among us who idolised the Fae. Clydinius of the Seventh House.”

When all hope hinges on a promise forged of lies, Beware the threaded minds of blood and chaos. Unlikely friends and broken bonds may shift the tide, Cleave open the walls of the lost in the depths of the unholy night. Unleash the souls tethered in the tainted dark, Unite the rising twelve and toll the bells of fate.

“The power of the fallen has awoken, greed and glory blazing as one. All fates hang in the balance as the flames rise from the hollow, But the Dragon still may prosper if the paths of the enemy are thwarted. Beware the one whose name is Nox, and seek the treasures of the ancient ring. Use the stolen, ally with the might of your maker. Not all starlight gleams.” Lavinia