Zodiac Academy 7: Heartless Sky

Orion cursed as he worked to close the rift and I gritted my teeth as I struggled to maintain the hold I had on the doors, digging in deep with my earth magic while Nymphs howled and set off their fucking death rattles right outside it.

It hadn’t taken them nearly long enough to break through the first door we’d sealed, and I suspected the proximity of the shadow rift was working them up into a frenzy. It was clear why they were so affected by it too. Even now, as I fought with all I had to hold the door, binding it with rocks and vines against the strikes of the Nymphs on the far side of it, I still felt the pull of that dark and tainted magic.

It was like the brush of a hand down my spine, the whisper of a lover in my ear and the call of a Siren even more powerful than Max who was aching to lure me to paradise.

The tendrils of darkness reached for me much like they were reaching for the dark objects which lined the altar, and I had no doubt that other Fae had come here before me and fallen into the trap of their call. More than one of the dark items were weapons, ready and waiting to be used to spill the blood of the sacrifices which had clearly been brought here time and again if the scent of blood and stains on the stone were anything to go by.

With the doors shut, the space in here was almost entirely black, barely a hint of daylight finding its way in through the tiny cracks which lined the edges of the door, the Faelight Orion had cast the only brightness in the whole space.

I gritted my teeth and fought to hold the door as another tremor rocked through it.

“How’s it going?” I yelled over my shoulder, my fingers curling into fists as the door was pounded with even more force and the whole temple seemed to rattle with the strike, dust falling from the roof and scattering in my hair.

“Better when I’m not distracted,” Orion grunted like the asshole he was and I shook my head, wondering why I’d expected anything more from him as I slammed my hand against the wooden door and upped the flow of magic coursing through my veins.

“Well, if we aren’t done, I’ll have to seal us in fully,” I muttered, drawing a deep breath in through my mouth before closing my eyes and releasing a blast of potent earth magic as I pressed my palms against the door and took hold of the essence of it, forcing my will to change its soul to stone instead of wood and solidifying the entire thing while the Nymphs continued to shriek in fury outside it.

I sealed the door entirely, strengthening and thickening it until a slab of impenetrable granite stood between us and the monsters who’d come for us, effectively locking us in this place while making sure they stayed out.

I turned back to face Orion, lighting a fire in my palm so that I could see more of what he was doing and my breath caught in my lungs as my gaze fell upon the rift instead.

It was pulsing and writhing now, a desperate kind of energy building in it as it almost seemed to be trying to pull away from Orion as he worked to stitch the fabric of the fucking realms back together like he was sewing an easter bonnet for a damn parade.

As my gaze caught on the twisting vortex of darkness, I felt a sharp tug in my chest and before I knew what was happening, I was shooting forward, my thighs crashing against the edge of the altar as I snatched a wicked black dagger into my grasp and a groan of pleasure escaped my lips.

Shadows crept across my skin, whispering promises of untold fulfilment as I tipped my head back and groaned again, the caress of a thousand fingertips roaming all over my flesh, undoing every piece of me and promising me more power than I had ever even dreamed of owning.

Orion shouted something and I heard a single name amongst the words he spat my way, a name which had me shaking my head in an attempt to clear it, remembering the feeling of warm hands against my flesh and blood on my lips.

I clung on to that feeling with all I had, closing my eyes for a brief moment and severing the tie the shadows had tried to leash me with before I snapped them open again, looking down at the dagger in my hand and snarling as I realised the fucking shadows had almost snared me.

I called on my fire magic, igniting the hottest flames I could summon in my fist and working to destroy the blade in my hand, melting the metal and making the shadows hiss and spit angrily.

I threw the melted lump of metal away from me and the air above the altar seemed to vibrate as the shadows howled in protest, making my gaze fall to the myriad of other dark objects which were scattered across the altar.

I leapt up over the altar, turning my back on the rift as Orion cursed and fought to seal it, his arms trembling with the effort of forcing the thing shut as he continued to stitch the divide between this realm and the next.

I grabbed the edge of the stone altar, and with a combination of my earth magic and Vampire strength, I ripped the stone table from its setting and sent every dark item scattering across the floor away from the rift. The shadows screamed and wailed even louder, the sound threatening to make my ears bleed as I gritted my teeth against it and threw my hands out, blasting every one of the objects with my most potent fire and destroying as many of them as I could manage.

I felt the lash of the shadows against my back and braced against the sting and bite of pleasure they offered, fixing my mind on all the best memories I could muster and planting myself firmly within this realm where the true owners of my joy and love existed.

A panicked curse made me snap around and I found Orion gripping onto the edge of the broken altar, his eyes wide and fearful as his gaze met with mine. Something seemed to tug him towards the last slither of the rift which was still gaping open as the needle hung loose in his fingertips and blood dripped from his other hand, a small prick on his finger causing droplets of deepest red to run through open air towards the rift which hummed and groaned with a violent power that I knew would devour our entire realm if only it got the chance.

“What do I do?” I demanded as I shot towards him in a panic, grabbing his arm and trying to pull him away from the rift as it howled louder, more and more of his blood racing towards it.

I tried to push healing magic into his flesh so that I could block off the connection to his blood, but the moment I began to build it in my palm, Orion roared a refusal.

“Don’t meld your magic with mine or you’ll be doomed too,” he snarled, knocking me against the broken altar as pain and pleasure flashed in his gaze in equal measures. “When my grip fails, it will consume me,” he gasped. “You have to find a way to close it. You need to cut Lavinia off from-”

“Don’t start talking like you’re already dead, asshole. Is it your magic that it’s caught you by?” I asked frantically.

Orion grunted a confirmation, his face drawn in pain which I knew had nothing to do with whatever the fuck the shadows were doing to him and everything to do with what he thought he was about to lose if he was ripped from this life. 

“Once it burns through all of my magic it will drag my soul after it,” he ground out. “You need to run, you need to-”

I shot towards him with a snarl, my fangs snapping out as I got my answer and I collided with his back, locking an arm around his chest and fisting his hair with my other hand before yanking his head to the side and driving my teeth deep into his throat.

Orion snarled furiously, the outrage he felt at me biting him more than clear in the rigidity of his posture as I drew in a mouthful of his blood and swallowed greedily.

The moment the power of his magic swept over my tongue, his ability to use it was locked down and his connection to the shadows via it was severed. 

He stumbled a step as his link to the rift was destroyed but I held him up as I drank deeply, savouring the intoxicating taste of his blood while keeping my fangs buried in his neck so that the connection couldn’t reform.

Orion struggled for a moment before seeming to realise the chance I was giving him and raising the needle once again, driving the point of it into the edge of the rift and growling with the effort of using his leaden limbs to force it through the divide.

I kept drinking while he finished his work, the entire chamber we stood in rattling and shaking as the rift fought against its destruction until the very last moment.

A deep and heavy silence fell as the rift was finally sewn shut, the pressure in the chamber dropping so suddenly that my ears popped.

Orion dropped the needle, sagging against me as I found myself caught in the bloodlust, unable to pull back like I should have done as I continued to feast on his blood.

This wasn’t what our kind did. It went against the Vampire Code.

But he was one hell of a powerful Vampire and I couldn’t deny the thrill I was getting from owning him blood and bone like this.

I growled as I sucked harder and Orion growled right back, his hands taking hold of my arm where I still held him and lifting my wrist in a flash of speed. My heart lurched with realisation, but I wasn’t fast enough to stop him before his fangs slid into my wrist and a snarl of victory rumbled through him.

Shock rolled through my core as he began to drink, my Elements locking down inside me and my heart thrashing at what we were doing.

This was beyond taboo. The Code had been drawn up in part to stop this very thing. Since the height of the blood ages almost two thousand years ago, the practice of forming covens had been discarded as a part of the pact formed to end the bloody hatred between Vampires and other Fae. It was ancient history now, but back then, our kind had built covens by doing this very thing, feeding from one another and forming a bond which linked them closely and made it easier for them to hunt in packs. For years, Vampire covens had roamed the land, killing other Fae with abandon and using their combined ferocity as a unit to spread terror far and wide. It hadn’t been long before other Fae had started hunting our kind, killing them to stop the bloodshed and coming damn close to wiping us out.

But then a deal had been struck. The last remaining Vampires had created the Code and the practice of forming covens had been disbanded along with promises being made by our kind not to indulge in the hunt so that our bloodlust would be kept in check.

To this day, our Order were bound by that code and it was our responsibility to follow it or face the consequences of losing control of the bloodlust if we didn’t.

The flow of our combined magic swimming from my body into his then back to mine again was making my head rush and my pulse spike. 

I could feel the power of that connection building between the two of us until the beasts we were seemed to merge into one, the surge of power and bloodlust combining into a heady mix that only those of our kind could fully appreciate.

My blood heated and buzzed in my veins, an ancient magic warring beneath my skin and his, changing our natures as we found a unity which had never seemed possible between the two of us before that moment, a deep and unshakable respect and bond growing in us as we became something so much more than we had been before.

We both drew our fangs from each other’s flesh at the same moment, stumbling apart and turning to stare at one another with heaving chests, bloodstained lips and thrashing hearts.

“Oh shit,” Orion breathed in shock and I nodded because I felt it too.

“We don’t have time for this,” I panted, trying to get my head straight while the rush of what we’d just become made my skin itch and my muscles tingle with the need for the hunt.

Orion nodded, licking his lips and giving me a hungry look which told me I clearly tasted as good as he did. But I couldn’t let myself get caught up in the fact that I’d just crossed that most taboo of lines with him.

“Then let’s open this place up so the twins can destroy what’s left here,” Orion said firmly, lifting his gaze to the roof above our heads and bringing a smirk to my lips as I realised what he was planning.

“Earth and Air combined would do a better job,” I pointed out, offering him my hand and he only hesitated for half a second before slapping his palm into mine, the rush of our magic colliding instantly as our barriers fell away as if they’d never even existed in the first place.

“Looks like I trust you now, sanguis frater,” he said, offering me a dark smile which made my fangs prickle.

“Seems so,” I said, returning his smile as we both raised our hands and used our combined magic to blast the roof from the temple with an explosion so immense, I swear the entire forest trembled beneath the force of it.

We sped out after the lumps of shattered rock while the dust still billowed and lumps of it still sped through the air, Orion lifting us on a gust of air magic while I made the rocks we landed on as soft as a mattress and we shot away together so fast that not even the stars could see us as we ran.