Zodiac Academy 6: Fated Throne

I sat in my chair beside the fire in King’s Hollow, my elbows on my knees as my hands trailed down towards the wooden floor. I leaned forward, letting my head hang as I just looked at the space between my feet and tried to focus on the positives. But shit, sometimes it was really hard to see any positives in the world right now with Father on the throne and nothing ever seeming to go our way in the fight against him.

It wasn’t long since classes had finished, and Roxy had been taking part in them for a few weeks now without anyone seeming to realise she was no longer fully under Father’s thumb. We had to keep giving her the antidote to the Order Suppressant whenever Father or Mildred dosed her, but I was just relieved that the shadows didn’t suck her back in the moment she lost contact with her Phoenix. She was herself again, though she was clearly still a prisoner too. I knew it was endlessly better than it had been before, but I still despised her having to pretend.

It meant she was alone all day, keeping to herself while she sat with the K.U.N.T.s and maintained her cover. I hated that she had to do that. That after months of being cut off from everyone she was still segregated so much. But with the bond between her and my father still linking her to him, we didn’t have many other options right now. I just wished I could do more about it. He had me backed into a corner and I was desperate to break free and prove to the world that you couldn’t tame a Dragon.

I’d been back to visit Lance almost every night since he’d returned from Darkmore and we’d been spending time in the palace library where there were countless books on every subject imaginable. We’d begun to search through the tomes for anything that we might be able to use to break the Guardian bond. I didn’t want to be negative about it, but I was having trouble maintaining any hope that we would find anything. Especially as Gabriel hadn’t been able to see us making a discovery and we’d spent years looking into this subject in the past when trying to disconnect ourselves.

But Lance had thrown himself into it wholeheartedly, seeming glad of the opportunity to do something productive for our cause while he was stuck waiting on the full moon to reveal more of his father’s secrets to him. And I was glad to have given him a task if nothing else because he seriously needed a distraction from everything that was going on in his life. The two of us were a pair of sorry sons of bitches right about now and I knew all too well the pain of being hung up on a Vega who wasn’t yours.

I’d stayed with him for most of the night yesterday, researching all we could and then I’d flown back to campus instead of using stardust, preferring to stretch my wings for several hours than get back to my empty bed too soon. I didn’t sleep much these days anyway. All I ever did was fall into dreams of the girl I should have been able to call mine and get caught up on the failures I’d made on her behalf.

The door opened and closed but I didn’t look up. The other Heirs would all appear here at some point tonight. Darcy and Geraldine too. And maybe…

I lifted my head and found her there, hesitating by the door like she hadn’t expected to discover me here alone and now didn’t know what to do about it.

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. There were too many fucking words caught in my throat and too many images of the things Max had shown me of what she’d suffered through. My father hadn’t wanted me to have her. So he’d done all of that just to make certain I never could. It was my fault. All of it.

The fear he’d given her for me was reflected in her eyes as she looked at me and the knowledge of that made me want to scream. I half expected her to just bolt, but Roxanya Vega wasn’t built like that and she raised her chin instead, ready to face her demon. I just wished that wasn’t how she viewed me.

‘I…should apologise to you,’ she said in a quiet voice that was nothing like the girl I’d fallen for and spoke of all the hurt and trauma she’d endured because of me and my family. 

‘Why?’ I asked, frowning at her as thunder rumbled overhead. The damn stars wouldn’t even let us have this. She was ten meters away from me and my fucking heart was shredded to pieces over her, but we weren’t even going to be offered the chance of a fucking conversation.

‘For believing that you…’ she trailed off, glancing at the window as lightning flashed outside. 

While she watched the rain pouring down from the heavens, I watched her. I drank in the way her ripped black jeans hugged her figure and the bare skin of her waist which I ached to curl my hands around. Her skin was paler than it had been, her frame thinner, but Roxanya Vega had been cast by the stars to make me hunger for her no matter what shape her body was in. The cropped black sweater she wore had the words wild at heart written across it in swirling pink script and I was pretty certain that summed her up perfectly. Her chocolate brown hair tumbled down her spine and I was filled with the desire to push my fingers into the silken strands as I stole a kiss from those captivating lips of hers. The lips that had cursed me, caressed me, kissed me and taunted me. The ones that had always spoken her mind no matter whether she knew they’d get her into trouble or not.

She was wild at heart, but right now, her fire had been dampened until I barely recognised her anymore and I was left shattered in the face of what I’d done to her. Because this might have been on my father, but I knew it was on me too.

When she’d first come back here, I’d agreed to do everything I could to get rid of her. To protect our throne and our kingdom from this pair of stupid, un-Fae, practically mortal girls who I’d foolishly believed could never be strong enough to rule. But one look at her standing there after all she’d fucking survived since returning to Solaria proved how full of shit I was.

‘I was a fucking idiot,’ I said to her, pushing myself to my feet and watching her cautiously as she turned to look at me again. She didn’t flinch this time and I could have kissed Max for helping her to see what had been done to her memories of me, but I could still see some fear in her gaze as she looked at me and that cut into my heart in the worst way. Because I knew in part that she had good reason to fear me. I’d given it to her with every fucked up thing I’d done to her when she came to this academy. ‘The second you walked into The Orb on your first day after you were Awakened, I knew you weren’t what I’d been expecting. My heart fucking leapt when I looked at you. My palms grew slick, my mouth got dry.’

‘Me and Darcy you mean?’ she asked curiously, clearly thinking back on it too.

‘No. Just you. I didn’t even see her at first. I swear, I didn’t even think you were who you are. For a few, endless seconds I just saw you and I wanted you. And when I did see Darcy and I realised who you were I was just so fucking angry. Because I knew I couldn’t have you.’

She scoffed lightly, glancing back at the rain as the storm howled outside and I knew we were seriously pushing our luck with the stars now, but I couldn’t bear to walk away from her. Because that sound, that dismissive scoff and the way her posture had tightened the smallest amount was her. Not the fucked up version my father had tried to twist her into. That was my girl, calling me on my bullshit the moment I tried to give her it and I couldn’t help but smile just a little as I saw that glimpse of herself.

‘What?’ I asked.

‘That’s just so typical of you,’ she said, looking at me again as thunder boomed overhead. ‘You assumed the only reason you couldn’t have me was because I had Vega blood. You do realise you couldn’t have just taken me if I was some normal Fae though, right? You’re supposed to ask people if they want to be yours, not just expect them to fall at your feet.’

‘Is that so?’ I asked, my voice teasing as I pretended to consider it like that was brand new information to me.

Roxy almost smiled then shrugged and turned to open the door. ‘I should go before the stars send a lightning bolt to destroy this entire place,’ she said, but she glanced back at me like she was holding back on saying something else and I stepped closer.

Just as I was trying to come up with some excuse to stop her leaving, an excited howl came from the stairs and Roxy stepped back as Seth bounded in in his Wolf form, a blur of movement following him a second later as Caleb leapt after him.

The two of them crashed into the coffee table so hard that it broke beneath their weight and I moved in front of Roxy defensively as Seth shifted back into his Fae form and the two of them started wrestling.

Seth was kicking and punching while snarling aggressively as Cal managed to get on top of him, taking a punch to the face before catching Seth’s fist in his grip and sinking his fangs into his wrist before he could pull back.

Seth growled but it turned into a groan as Caleb reared over him, holding his wrist to his mouth with one hand, drinking his blood while pressing his other hand down on Seth’s chest to keep him in place.

‘Are you seriously still doing that hunting shit after how wrong it went with Roxy the last time?’ I demanded, taking a step towards them, but Roxy caught my arm and I fell still as I glanced around at her in surprise.

Caleb looked up at me while he drank, his eyes filled with bloodlust as he snarled over his meal and Seth groaned again, shaking his head. 

‘This is on me,’ he muttered. ‘I keep making him do it. Don’t be an asshole to him.’

I arched a brow, not buying that shit for a moment, but Roxy’s fingers were moving over the Libra mark on my arm and my attention was seriously wavering.

Caleb finally finished his fucking meal and took his fangs from Seth’s wrist before standing up and offering me a guilty look as he licked the blood from his lips. 

‘It’s not like before,’ he muttered, casting a guilty look at Roxy which made me bristle. ‘Seth is strong enough to take me on. And I don’t wanna hunt weaker Fae than me anymore. It’s more dangerous doing that than going up against someone on my level.’

‘You could just drink from willing victims like you always used to,’ I suggested.

Seth replied before Caleb could, pulling on some sweats and rearranging his junk inside them as he turned to narrow his eyes at me. ‘Yeah, and I could tie a chain around your neck and you could just fly in small circles around campus instead of flying off for miles and miles. Stop being a kill joy, Darius. You’re trying to supress his Order instincts and it’s bullshit.’

‘Fine,’ I grunted, my attention more on the girl who was touching my arm now anyway, though the intensity of the storm was picking up and I knew I’d have to pull away soon. ‘Just make sure you’re not being dumb about it.’

‘Maybe you could let me hunt you some time and find out what all the fuss is about for yourself?’ Caleb teased which drew a growl from Seth.

‘As if his lizard blood could taste as good as mine,’ Seth scoffed, shooting me a glare which quite clearly told me to back the fuck off as if I’d been the one suggesting it.

‘There’s no fucking chance of you getting me to run about like prey for you, Cal, so feel free to stick to the dog food diet,’ I taunted, raising a brow at Seth as he smirked like he’d just won something.

Caleb flopped down on the couch, grabbing a beer and lifting it to his lips and Seth lunged into the spot beside him and nuzzled into him. He hadn’t healed the bite on his wrist for some reason, but I had too much going on in my own life to be wondering about whatever the fuck they were up to.

Roxy traced the Libra brand on my arm one more time and I gave her my full attention again as she drew my attention to the Guardian bond.

‘Do you ache for Orion all the time?’ Roxy murmured, taking her hand from my arm and touching her own where the Aries mark was branded to her skin.

I sighed heavily, shaking my head as I forced myself to step back and put a bit more space between us before the storm outside blew the damn treehouse to the ground.

‘It’s worse for the Guardian than the Ward in that regard,’ I said. ‘I do ache to be close to Lance, but it doesn’t seem to eat at me the way it does to him most of the time. It was pretty bad while he was in Darkmore, but mainly because it went on for so long and he was so far away. Day to day it doesn’t niggle at me as much as it seems to for him. I can distract myself from the urge more easily and I don’t feel his pain like he does mine. It also gets worse for the Guardian the further you are from your Ward, so with Father away in Kerendia this week hunting down those Sphinxes, it’s probably getting to you more than usual. The whole point of the bond is to ensure the Guardian stays close to the Fae they’re supposed to be protecting in case they’re needed. In years past, when this magic was created, the idea was for you to stay together always so that the Guardian would be prepared to defend their Ward at all times. But the Ward is supposed to be the more powerful Fae, the more important one.’ I cringed at the word, but it was how the magic had been created, not how I felt about Lance. ‘That means the Ward – my father – has more freedom so that he can make his own decisions on the things he does while the Guardian is supposed to just follow after them, dedicating their life to protecting them and nothing else.’

Roxy frowned, chewing on her thumb as she thought about that and I waited while she turned the information over. ‘I know that I hate him,’ she said quietly, keeping her words for me as Seth and Caleb started discussing the Pitball match they wanted to watch this evening. ‘And I know that he did this to me without my consent. I know he tortured me and hurt you and has done countless horrible things, but…’

‘You still want to see him all the time?’ I guessed, sighing heavily. I knew this curse too well to even be surprised by the knowledge that she still pined for him even though it set my blood alight with the need to destroy him for it.

‘I just wish that I could have five minutes to hate him in peace,’ she muttered.

‘I’m not sure there is a way for you to cut off the way you feel drawn to him,’ I said heavily, knowing it wasn’t what she wanted to hear. ‘The only time Lance has ever been able to resist the pull of it was when he went to hunt you and your sister down in the mortal realm.’

‘Really?’ she asked in surprise and I straightened as that thought swept through my mind. 

When Lance had agreed to be the one to go and retrieve the Vegas from the mortal realm, the two of us had been concerned about how he was supposed to stay away from me for that long. But the space between realms just seemed to mute the connection for me. And he’d been relieved of the burden of aching to return to me in the way he normally would have been with so much distance between us. When he returned, he’d said that the need to come back to me had been so much less potent while he was there that he’d actually been able to forget about it half the time.

‘Roxy,’ I said, taking a step towards her but pausing before I could get too close and frighten her. ‘When we first met, I did everything wrong. I shouldn’t have been the pawn my father wanted me to be. I was a coward and a fucking idiot and what I really should have done was follow my damn heart and just asked you to spend time with me. So I want us to try that. Like we should have done at the start.’

‘Try what?’ she asked with a small frown.

‘Let me take you out. I know somewhere we can go where the bond won’t bother you and there are so many people that the stars won’t be able to even suggest that we’re alone.’ I offered her my hand and I didn’t miss the flicker of fear that crossed her features as she eyed it.

‘Where are we going?’ she asked and my heart thumped hopefully because that sure as fuck wasn’t a no.

‘You’re gonna have to trust me,’ I said, offering her the hint of a smirk as I dared the girl I knew to come out and play with me.

‘Fat chance of that, asshole,’ she muttered and my smile widened tenfold. It really shouldn’t have gotten me so turned on to have a girl insulting me, but I’d take Roxy Vega calling me every name under the sun over having a million compliments from anyone else.

‘Come on – you said I’d have to ask if I wanted you to be mine. So I’m asking. Let me take you out.’

‘The stars won’t let us,’ she said hesitantly, glancing out at the storm which had barely quieted even with Seth and Caleb here. ‘And even if they would, we can’t be seen together.’

‘Just trust me, Princess,’ I teased, hoping it wasn’t painfully obvious how much I needed her to say yes. But it had been a long, hard, miserable fucking summer without her and I needed this. I had to prove to myself that she was still her and I needed to put a fucking smile on her face to try and make up for all of the shit she’d been through when I should have been there to protect her from it.

She bit her lip as she considered it then hesitantly placed her hand in mine.

I fought the urge to yank her closer, that small point of contact between us making heat charge through my veins even though I knew it couldn’t last.

‘We’re going out,’ I called to Seth and Cal as I drew her towards the floor length window by the back wall. ‘Don’t wait up.’

‘But how are you going to-‘ Seth began but Caleb slapped a hand over his mouth. 

‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,’ he teased and I rolled my eyes at him because I was pretty certain he had no goddamn lines so that left very little out of bounds.

I pushed the window open and the storm howled as it drove rain inside, but I used my water magic to push it back as I released Roxy’s hand and tugged my shirt off.

‘I’ll race you to the boundary,’ I challenged, watching her eyes light up at that suggestion and she tugged her sweater off to reveal a racerback bra beneath and I fought off the urge to groan at the sight of her body. 

She half shifted so that her wings were revealed, not igniting the flames and instead leaving the golden feathers on show. Without another word, she stepped over the edge of the balcony and let herself drop before her wings snapped out and she took off through the trees.

I grabbed a bag from the chest where we kept the clothes and quickly finished stripping as I stuffed my clothes into it before gripping the strap between my teeth and leaping out into the rain after her.

I shifted with a surge of power, my wings snapping out as my body multiplied in size and I took off and headed for the clouds, unable to dart between the trees the way she was but determined to beat her to the boundary all the same.

I raced across the treetops, circling as I moved to land in the clearing I always used when I came out this way and quickly pulling my clothes back on the moment I was back on solid ground. 

The rain was fast dissipating now that we weren’t together anymore, and I didn’t even bother to use my water magic to keep it off of me as I started jogging up the hill.

Roxy was leaning against a tree just outside the academy fence, but she didn’t even seem to notice me as I approached, leaving my empty bag in the shadow beneath an oak tree and slipping through the small gap to join her.

She was moving her fingers in a slow pattern and as I got closer, I saw the shadows spilling between them a moment before she noticed me, jerking a little as she banished them again.

‘Roxy…’ I began cautiously as she lifted her gaze to meet mine guiltily. 

‘I’m not lost to them anymore,’ she said, chewing on her bottom lip. ‘But they call to me all the time. I don’t even mean to summon them but then I’ll find my hands full of them. And I…’ she trailed off, shrugging and I sighed as I stepped closer to her.

‘You like the way they feel?’

She didn’t say anything, but as her green eyes met mine, I lifted my hand between us and let the shadows slip along my skin for a moment, feeling that slice of pleasure as it raised goosebumps on my flesh before banishing them once more.

‘I know,’ I said simply because the infection of dark magic into my limbs was anything but awful whenever I welded it. There was something addictive about it which I knew was what made it so dangerous. But with them living inside me, it was damn hard to resist them at all times.

Relief spilled into Roxy’s expression as thunder boomed overhead again and I realised that she’d erected an air shield which was the only thing keeping us out of the storm now that we were alone together again. Fucking stars.

I took the pouch of stardust from my pocket without another word and tossed it over our heads as I concentrated hard on our destination.

The stars spun and lurched around us and I gritted my teeth as I pushed us through the divide between realms. The stars finally spat us back out in a darkened alley where the scent of fried food and cigarettes rose up around us accompanied by the sound of a large crowd and busy streets.

Roxy caught my bicep to steady herself then gasped as she yanked the sleeve of her sweater back and stared down at the Aries mark on her arm. She rubbed at it like she expected it to come off then frowned up at me in confusion when it didn’t.

‘I can hardly even feel him,’ she said, her lips parting in astonishment. ‘How?’

‘Lance told me the mark didn’t bother him anywhere near as much in the mortal realm. We guessed maybe because it’s impossible to actually measure the distance, the magic is confused by it or something,’ I explained, drinking in the relief that filled her features as she continued to brush her fingers over the mark binding her to my father. “Have you ever been to New York City before, Roxy?”

Her eyes widened as she turned to look towards the street where bright lights lit up the far end of the alleyway and I just watched her as a smile tugged her lips up.

‘No freaking way,’ she murmured before taking off so suddenly that I was hard pushed to keep up with her.

She jogged down the alley and straight out onto the busy sidewalk, sucking in a breath as she tipped her head back to look up at the bright lights and signs of Times Square. 

A man almost walked straight into her, banging against an air shield she’d placed close to her body a moment before impact and he swore as he stumbled back.

‘Get out of the way, you stupid bitch,’ he snapped and a growl escaped me as he stalked away while Roxy sighed in pleasure.

‘Did you hear that, Darius?’ she asked, turning to look at me, her eyes bright with excitement which soothed something deep inside my soul. ‘Angry locals swearing at people just trying to have a good time – isn’t it beautiful?’

I snorted a laugh and she smiled at me a little shyly before turning and darting away into the crowd. 

I was taller than pretty much everyone here so it wasn’t too hard to keep track of her, but I still muttered a curse to myself as I took off down the street after her. She navigated the crowd like she knew exactly where she was going even though I was almost certain she didn’t.

‘Roxy!’ I called as she managed to pull ahead of me, darting between the crowd and slipping around the flood of people as if they were hardly any bother to her even though I found it almost impossible to get around them.

I lost sight of her as a yammering crowd of tourists following a guide cut across my path and bit my tongue as I looked over the heads of the people all around me with my heart thumping faster as I hunted for her.

Just as I was about to roar at the people closest to me to get out of my fucking way, a warm hand slipped into mine and I looked down to find her smirking up at me with laughter in her eyes.

‘Come on, country boy, stay with me and I’ll get you through the carnage,’ she teased tugging me into motion and pulling me between the throng of bodies.

‘I’m not a country boy,’ I growled, but the smirk on my face wasn’t leaving and as she snorted a laugh at my expense, I found I didn’t even care what she called me.

‘Says the dude who grew up on an estate even bigger than mine which housed four people instead of forty thousand. Come on, Darius, don’t try to pretend you know how to survive out on the streets. If I abandoned you now you’d end up lost within thirty minutes and you’d probably be discovered wandering around down by the Hudson in three days’ time with no shoes and a wild look in your eye that said you’ve seen things you can never unsee.’

She laughed and I jerked on her hand as I stopped walking, tugging her back towards me suddenly and making her crash into my chest as her eyes widened in surprise.

‘I hope you’re not trying to challenge me here, Roxy,’ I said in a low voice, not giving a shit about the flood of people who were muttering curses as they were forced to part around my broad frame to continue their walk down the street. 

‘You can’t seriously think you could survive out here without any magic or money, do you, rich man?’ she teased. 

‘I’m a big boy, people tend not to want to fuck with me,’ I assured her.

‘Hmm.’ She ran her gaze over my frame slowly and I suddenly realised that I was still holding her hand and as of yet, the stars didn’t seem to be doing anything to force us apart. The crowd was hiding us even better than I’d hoped and to make it even better, in the mortal realm, nobody knew who we were. ‘So maybe no one would dare to beat you down,’ she conceded slowly. ‘But you’d still starve to death.’

‘And you wouldn’t?’ I arched a brow at her and she shrugged innocently before pulling a handful of scrunched up dollar bills from the back pocket of her jeans. I counted over a hundred dollars as she waved it before me tauntingly.

‘Well, these tourists just offered to pay for my dinner tonight. Though I might have to work a little harder if I need to pay for a hotel room – especially here in the city.’

I probably should have called her out on stealing from all of these strangers where anyone might have spotted her, but we were in the mortal realm, so I guessed she wasn’t really risking her reputation with anything she did here. Not that she’d ever seemed to give a damn about her reputation anyway. And I was not so secretly enjoying getting this look at the girl she’d been before she’d found out she was Fae and a princess and everything else that came with the Vega name.

‘I’m not sure you’ve got enough there to buy yourself a dinner in one of the fancy ass restaurants around here,’ I teased, laughing as her nose wrinkled in distaste.

‘I’m really not meant for mixing with high society,’ she said and I could see that she meant that in the purest possible way. She wasn’t bitter about it, like a girl standing outside a grand party looking through a window and wishing she could join in – no matter how much wealth and prestige had come attached to her family name, she really had no desire to become a carbon copy of every other vapid heiress I’d ever met. Roxanya Vega was the kind of girl who pick pocketed from strangers to survive and rode fast motorcycles while calling mean bastards out on their shit and making no apologies for who she was. And I was thoroughly addicted to finding out everything about who that might be.

‘Good. Because that ass of yours isn’t destined to sit on the throne, so I wouldn’t want you getting any crazy ideas about being above me,’ I taunted and her brows went up as she shook her head at me.

‘So cocky, Dragon boy,’ she said, backing up and tugging her hand back like she was going to pull it from my grasp, but I tightened my hold, ignoring the gasp of fear that escaped her lips as I dragged her after me along the street.

‘Come on,’ I urged as she hesitated. ‘If I don’t feed you fast you’re gonna keep running your mouth at me and I’ll have to put you on your ass to remind you which one of us is more powerful.’

She scoffed indignantly but let me tug her through the crowd and away from the tourist trap as we headed down side streets and I tried to remember where I was going. It had been a few years since me and the Heirs had come here for a night out, but we used to do it fairly frequently just to get a night off of everyone knowing who we were. Of course, Cal and Max had always made sure that we went to the best, most exclusive places in the city whenever we came, but I’d found a few more interesting places here too.

We finally spilled out onto another street and I tugged her along to the Mexican restaurant which was so packed that people were spilling out onto the street with food in their hands.

Roxy groaned longingly as I led her up to the door and I released her hand as the first spots of rain fell from the clouds and people around us cursed in frustration. The crowd may have been helping us to hide, but the stars were clearly taking note now and I’d been holding her hand for too damn long.

‘It’s over an hour wait,’ a server called as she passed us by, carrying a tray with two pitchers of beer and a plate of nachos on it. 

I glanced at Roxy as she pouted, giving a woman’s half eaten burrito a longing look. My girl wasn’t going to wait for a minute, let alone a fucking hour.

‘Not good enough,’ I said, striding inside to follow the waitress through the brightly lit restaurant.

The walls were painted a deep red colour and there were paintings of brightly coloured skulls hanging all around the place. There were tables packed end to end and little booths lining the far wall while loud music blared out over an even louder crowd.

As the waitress reached a couple in the back corner of the room and placed the beers and nachos down, I caught her arm.

‘This is our food,’ I said, lacing my voice with Coercion as she widened her eyes on me. ‘These people were just leaving,’ I added, looking to the couple and including them in my command.

Mortals had such open, malleable brains that it was no effort at all to get them to bend to my will. Maybe that made me a dick, but that was hardly news to me.

I couldn’t even bring myself to give a shit about screwing them over as they scrambled away either. My girl was hungry and she wasn’t gonna wait in line like some regular fucker.

I looked back around towards the door and beckoned her in as she rolled her eyes at me like I was a total douchebag. Any other girl would be falling at my feet if I’d done that for her, but Roxanya Vega somehow managed to call me an entitled prick with a roll of her eyes and I found myself loving every second of her disdain. 

‘Two bean and cheese burritos,’ I said to the waitress as I gave her my attention again for a moment, ordering the meal Roxy had been salivating over. ‘Plus every side you’ve got on offer and some tequila. Don’t make us wait.’

The girl nodded, her brow furrowing in confusion for a moment before she hurried away to get my order and I looked back across the room to my girl.

My blood heated as I spotted her in the centre of the restaurant, standing by a table full of drunk looking assholes as one of them held onto her wrist and made her stop to talk to him.

He was leering at her, loudly urging her to come sit in his lap while the guys around him all laughed their encouragement and rage lit my blood on fire as I strode back across the restaurant at a fast pace. Roxy was saying something in reply which had his friends laughing at him, but I didn’t give a shit if she was already handling it. If he didn’t take his hand off of her right now then I was going to break it off.

A waiter stepped out in front of me but I just shoved him back, making him drop his tray of food and not even looking at him as I stepped over his legs and finally made it to the dead man with his hand on my girl.

A few of his friends saw me coming and straightened in their chairs, pointing me out so that the asshole swung around to look at me a moment before my hands landed flat on the table in front of him. I leaned down to glare at him, certain the Dragon in me was clear for him to see.

‘Take your fucking hand off of her,’ I growled in a low tone that had him dropping his hold on her wrist instantly and stammering apologies to me as if I was the one he needed to be offering them to. ‘Apologise to my girl for laying your hand on her,’ I snarled as several people around us started sidling away like they could tell I was about to beat his smarmy face in. 

‘I’m sorry – I didn’t know she was yours,’ he gasped. ‘Sorry, man. Sorry-‘

I reached out and grabbed hold of him by the collar, half lifting him out of his seat and twisting him to look at Roxy. ‘Say it to her.’

Roxy had fallen still and beneath the bloodlust that had taken hold of me at seeing that asshole manhandle her, I realised that she was afraid of me again. Fuck.

‘I’m sorry,’ the guy gasped and I used my grip on him to toss him to the floor as I tried to fight back my temper, my gaze fixed on the girl I loved as she regarded me like she thought I might turn on her next.

But then she lifted the asshole’s beer from the table and dumped it in his lap, swallowing thickly as she stepped over him and moved to my side. 

‘I don’t need you to fight my battles,’ she said firmly, fighting off her fear as she folded her arms and met my eye with defiance in her gaze.

‘I know,’ I replied and she nodded as she headed over to the booth I’d gotten us and sat down.

I followed slowly, working to try and push back the Dragon in me as the asshole and his friends scrambled out of the restaurant. The owner came bursting out of a door beside the kitchen, calling out something about me needing to leave, but it only took a couple of words laced with Coercion to send him scurrying away again.

I sat down opposite Roxy, finding the table piled up with all the food I’d ordered and eyeing her hesitantly and she narrowed her eyes on me.

‘You told him I was yours,’ she said, reaching out to take a nacho and loading it with guacamole. 

‘You are,’ I replied simply and she held my gaze as she thought on that.

‘I never said that.’

‘No, you didn’t. But you were mine from the first moment I laid eyes on you. You’re just too damn stubborn to say it out loud.’

Silence lingered between us as she scowled at me and I was pleased to see she’d pushed her fear aside again.

‘Maybe,’ she said finally before giving her attention to eating her food and I tried not to grin like a smug motherfucker as I joined her.

We didn’t say much while we ate, I just drank in her company while she moaned appreciation over her food so loudly I was beginning to think her goal was to get me as hard as stone for her.

When we’d finally eaten so much that there was no chance of us managing another bite, she slammed back her shot of tequila without even flinching and eyed me with mischief dancing in her eyes.

‘So what now?’ she asked. ‘Did you have some grand plan for our evening of escaping our problems or are you just winging it?’

I shrugged because I definitely hadn’t expected to take her out like this and though I was aching to get her alone somewhere, I was just happy to be in her company without shadows flickering in her eyes. And being in a crowd of strangers was close enough to alone all the time I had her undivided attention.

‘Maybe we should just stay here,’ I teased. ‘Hide from all of our problems and never go back.’

‘It’d be that simple, huh?’ she asked, glancing around the room heaving with people as if she was considering it for a moment.

‘No,’ I replied honestly. ‘They’d hunt us down. There are ways to trace magical signatures which are especially effective here where there are hardly any Fae. Besides, even if we could hide from them, Fae can’t live in the mortal world for long periods of time once their magic is Awakened. The balance of power isn’t right here. This place slowly eats into your magic if you hang around too long. Even the Fae who work here importing goods back to our realm rarely stay more than a month at a time and even then, they pay a cost for it. We just don’t belong here.’

‘No,’ she agreed, looking around at the humans who seemed so like us in some ways and yet so different in others. ‘What would happen to a mortal who came to Solaria then?’ she asked curiously. 

‘They’d lose their minds,’ I replied. ‘The magic in our realm is too much for them to handle.’

‘Okay…so what about a couple who fell in love Romeo and Juliet style?’ she asked. ‘A Fae and a mortal-‘

‘Destined for failure,’ I said with a mocking smile. ‘They can’t even have children together. The magic in our blood and the lack in theirs makes it impossible.’

‘Good thing I’m not a romantic or the idea of that might just break my heart,’ she teased and the two of us fell silent as we looked at the black rings in each other’s eyes. Being here with her like this felt so damn good, but I knew I was just kidding myself into thinking we were alone. There were people all around us and the stars were clearly still watching even here. But it was still pretty nice to pretend.

“So come on then, what’s next?’ she asked and I shrugged.

‘If this was a proper date and I’d actually organised it, I guess we would have gone for a race on our bikes,’ I said. ‘I still want a re-match after the last one.’

She smiled at that suggestion and my heart leapt as I looked at her. She was so beautiful. Why hadn’t I just let myself see that before? I’d been so caught up on the idea of it just being lust and wanting to hate fuck her that I’d refused to see that her beauty went so much deeper than her appearance. She was everything I wasn’t and everything I wanted. A princess, born to live her life in a specific way just like I had been and yet she refused to blindly follow any path. At least until my father had forced her onto one.

‘Well, I guess it’s on me to solve that little problem then, isn’t it?’ she asked, getting to her feet and pulling out the cash she’d pick pocketed before tossing it all on the table.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ I asked as I stood too. ‘You’re not paying.’

‘Well I don’t see you hiding any mortal money in those jeans,’ she said lightly. ‘So just suck up your pride and let me pay. You can be all bitch hurt over being emasculated tomorrow when I’m not around to witness the tears.’

She offered me a taunting smirk and I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or growl, but she didn’t give me the time to decide before turning and striding out of the restaurant.

I was forced to jog after her as she led the way back up the dark street with her long hair swaying down her spine. When I called out to her to slow down she just laughed before ducking into an underground parking lot and out of sight.

I cursed beneath my breath as I ran after her, vaulting the barrier blocking the way in and heading into the dimly lit parking lot where there was no sign of her.

‘Roxy?’ I called and she laughed somewhere off ahead of me to my right.

I hurried past the rows of expensive cars, looking for her between all of them until I finally found her in a dark corner, crouched down beside a bright red Ducati Panigale V2.

‘What are you doing?’ I asked as she failed to look up at me from her position on the floor by the motorcycle.

‘You promised me a ride, dude,’ she said, cursing beneath her breath as she kept fiddling with the engine. I couldn’t really see what she was up to, but it looked like she’d made some tools using earth magic to assist her.

‘What are you doing?’ a voice yelled and I turned to find a guy dressed in a grey and black guard uniform pointing a gun at us. There was a radio at his hip but it was impossible to say if he’d been in contact with anyone else.

‘Nothing. Leave us alone,’ I Coerced him and he turned away instantly, lowering his weapon and walking off.

I looked back to Roxy with a smug grin but she pointed up at a camera by the roof which was angled right at us.

‘Ah, shit,’ she cursed a second before a blaring alarm sounded all around the parking lot and I raised an eyebrow at her just as she got the bike started up.

‘Is this what you like to do for fun then?’ I teased as she hopped up and swung her leg over the bike, revving the engine at me enticingly.

‘Jump on and I’ll show you what I like to do for fun,’ she offered, patting the seat behind her.

‘How about you shift your ass back and I’ll drive?’ I countered because there was no fucking way I was going to be her passenger. 

‘Oh, you can steal a bike for yourself then?’ she taunted, her eyes twinkling with amusement. 

‘Just start one up for me,’ I growled, refusing to dignify that with a response. 

‘No,’ she replied with that stubborn set to her jaw which always riled me up so damn much. ‘Now or never, Darius, jump on the bitch seat or stay here to get caught by the cops.’

‘Why do I get the feeling you seriously would just ride off and leave my ass here?’ I asked irritably.

‘Because I would,’ she replied simply, shrugging one shoulder like there wasn’t an alarm blaring overhead and she was in no rush at all. ‘Now hop on and let me show you how a real Fae rides.’

I cursed as I swung my leg over the back of the bike and Roxy barely gave me time to wrap my arms around her waist before she dropped the clutch and tugged the throttle back.

My grip tightened on her before I could fall off the back and she laughed wildly as we shot away. 

Roxy rode like a pro, weaving around parked cars and squeezing through a pedestrian entrance to the underground parking lot before racing out onto the street.

Her hair whipped back in the wind, catching against the stubble on my jaw as I placed my head beside hers to watch the road. The sweet scent of her skin rose up around me reminding me of the few times I’d held her close like this and my irritation over her making me be the passenger melted away as I just enjoyed it.

The heat of her body against mine had my mind filling up with ideas of all the things I’d fantasised about doing with her more times than I could even count. I’d imagined having her in each and every way conceivable and had dreamed about her every night for so long that I couldn’t even remember when it had begun. And yet all of that paled into nothing when compared to the reality of actually holding her.

Rain poured from the sky in a sudden torrent and I tipped my head back, catching sight of the Leo and Gemini star signs illuminated in the sky above us before the clouds swept over to conceal them again.

We weren’t free of our curse. Not even here. But Roxy didn’t seem inclined to stop and move away from me either.

The flash of red and blue lights caught my eye before I even heard the sirens and Roxy laughed wildly as she put on another burst of speed.

She ducked and weaved around traffic and pedestrians, narrowly avoiding a collision with a yellow taxi as it ran a red light right ahead of us.

‘The stars are trying to part us,’ I called over the roar of the engine and she nodded, pushing back into the cage of my arms as she kept going.

Her ass was practically riding my dick as we pressed closer to each other and I couldn’t help but turn my head and press my mouth to that soft spot of skin beneath her ear. A shiver ran right through her body and she leaned back into me a little more as she sped through the streets of New York City so fast that the cops had no chance of catching up to us.

But the further we went, the heavier the downpour got until it was hard to see much ahead of us and the hazards appearing in the road were getting more and more dangerous.

A truck stopped suddenly right in our path and my heart leapt with fear for the girl in my arms as she narrowly avoided it, the tyres skidding on the wet road and only her level of skill saving us from spinning out and crashing.

‘We have to stop,’ I called to her, hating to cut this short but fearing what would happen if we crashed. It was all well and good having healing magic, but if we died on impact that wasn’t going to make a bit of difference.

Roxy growled something at me which I couldn’t make out over the engine noise, but she turned off the main road and started speeding down a slightly quieter street.

I held on tighter, knowing I was going to have to let go really soon and wishing I didn’t ever have to.

She pulled up sharply by the waterfront close to the Brooklyn Bridge and I climbed off as thunder boomed overhead and lightning lit the sky for a moment.

‘Admit it, I ride better than you,’ she said as she backed up, putting some space between us.

I groaned aloud as I took in the way the rain was making her clothes stick to her frame while the adrenaline of the ride pumped through my limbs, demanding an outlet which I knew I couldn’t claim.

‘I already knew how well you could ride from the time you climbed into my lap on the throne,’ I said and her eyes widened at that reminder as I fought with everything I had to hold my ground. I knew it wasn’t enough though, there was no one around us and the stars weren’t going to stop until they’d driven us apart.

Roxy bit her lip, her gaze moving over my chest where my white t-shirt was clinging to every curve of my muscles. ‘Show me your new tattoo,’ she demanded and I smirked at her, loving the fact that she’d been thinking about that.

‘No. You’ll have to come see it for yourself,’ I teased and she glanced up at the sky with concern as the storm picked up even more.

She seemed tempted to come closer but the way the storm was building made it clear it was probably a bad idea.

‘I guess that’s our cue to head back,’ she said and the disappointment on her face was enough to make me want to shift and start flying huge circles through the sky.

‘Come here then,’ I beckoned to her and she gave the bike one last, wistful look before abandoning it to come and join me as I pulled the stardust from my pocket.

I tossed it over us and we were wrenched out of the storm and into the grasp of the stars who seemed to be buzzing with even more energy than usual as they hoisted us across the divide between realms and deposited us back outside the Zodiac Academy boundary.

The sudden quiet as we landed made the energy between us crackle expectantly as I glanced up at the cloudless Solarian sky and got my bearings again.

Soft fingertips landed on my waistband and I sucked in a breath as I looked down at Roxy as she unbuckled my belt with a taunting smirk on her face that said I should have known better than to challenge her. Not that I had any complaints about her taking my pants off. I watched as she tugged my jeans down just low enough to show her the tattoo which curved over my left hip and sank down close enough to my cock to make it harden for her instantly. Not that it took much for it to do that for her, but having her hand beneath my waistband was a sure fire way to achieve it.

I watched her as she looked at the tattoo, tracing the words with her fingertips and breathing them into the silence. ‘There is only her.’ She continued to paint the marks that made up the Gemini and Leo constellations followed by the lines of the geometric design that charted the pattern of the moon and stars the night she’d said no to me. It was pretty complex, an interlinking design of triangles and interlocking lines that mapped out the alignment of the heavens on the night that had changed everything. Gabriel was the one who’d told me to get it, showing up at my room and telling me he’d seen it. The moment I laid eyes on the design he’d sketched out I’d known in my soul that he was right about it being destined to mark my flesh.

Distant thunder was closing in on us and I knew we’d find ourselves in yet another storm if we continued to linger here, but it was just too hard for me to pull away from her. I needed to know if she felt this too. I needed to hear the words she’d never spoken to me even though I knew I’d never deserve them. 

‘Are you still afraid of me, Roxy?’ I asked in a low voice as her fingertips traced the tattoo and she followed the lines of the ink right along the length of it.

‘Yes,’ she breathed, raising her eyes up to meet mine and making my gut twist with a hurt so sharp it stole my breath away. ‘But it’s a good kind of fear.’

I stared down at her with my heart pounding at those words, wanting nothing more than to pull her into my arms and taste the sweetness of her lips against mine, but she was already backing up.

And as the thunder boomed overhead once more and the earth trembled beneath our feet, I knew she had to go.

But it didn’t make it hurt any less as I watched her walk away.