Sorrow and Starlight (Zodiac Academy, #8)

by Caroline Peckham

“Your soul is bound to mine,” I breathed against his mouth, even though I knew he was no longer there to hear my words, but a dark and unknown energy seemed to stir the air itself at that vow. “And I won’t rest until I make every star in the heavens fall for trying to cleave us apart.”

“Oh, in the valley of the fruit of my loins, sweet Petunia shall rise and claim her salmon,” Geraldine called,

I would claim him this day, and nevermore would I seek the loins of another codfish. For he was my one true salmon, and the rivers of our destiny were wide and flowing toward an eternal horizon. It was time to bathe in our estuary and sup upon the freshwater, and may all those who opposed us perish on my flail.

“Who comes to take down the last pillar of the Grus empire?” Geraldine roared as she drove the binding needle into the air one last time. “Who presumes to defy the will of the true queens? Come forth and rip me from this rock of shadow and whisperings if you so dare, but know this – I fight in the name of all that is, was and will be. And you, shall. Not. Smite. Me!”

“Between all these goodbyes, I forgot to remind you that I love you,” I said quietly, and her skin began to shimmer at my words. “I’m sorry I’ve been so distant.”

Time didn’t stop, it never did.

“Stars, no,” Seth balked. “I’m in love with-” he half choked on those words. “The moon.” Well, that checked out.

No, sorrow and despair weren’t the path I’d been born to tread. But vengeance? Wrath? Anger? Violence? I could marry myself to those emotions just fine.

“Get up, Roxy,” the wind snarled, and my chin lifted higher at that name. That fucking name.

“Love makes a monster of me,”

So I let that love turn to vengeance, I let it fester and blaze inside of me, and I found a way to defy the stars themselves.

“Hello, Roxy,”

“I love you, Roxanya Vega, and I wish I could have been worthy 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.

“Oh, Roxy. You have no fucking idea.”

Darius and I had been bad news from the first moment we’d laid eyes on one another, we were toxic, hateful, and limitless. But we were still here, and we wouldn’t be turning from each other now or ever.

That wasn’t us. But this was. Brutal, punishing, savage and wild.

“Well, that’s a problem, Roxy, because I won’t ever be done with you,” he swore and goddamn him, I fucking blushed.

This book. This. Fucking. Book.