Zodiac Academy 4: Shadow Princess

Snow swirled all around me and I looked about in confusion as I tried to figure out what was happening. I felt like I was trapped in a bubble in the centre of the storm. The blizzard raged outside of this little globe of peace but inside it, barely a snowflake stirred.

“Roxy?” Darius breathed and I looked up at him, wondering if he’d done this to me.

“Why am I here?” I asked, tipping my head back so that I could look at the stars which shone in the odd circle of space above me.

It didn’t make sense. My brain couldn’t process it. All I knew was that some deep magic had taken me hostage and led me here. To stand before the man I hated so desperately it hurt.

My gaze fell back to Darius like I just couldn’t bear to look away from him for long. He was wearing jeans and a black T-shirt, clearly no better dressed for the blizzard than I was in my blue leggings and crop top. But the magic that had called me from my room hadn’t given me a chance to even consider grabbing a coat. I wasn’t even wearing shoes. My fire magic flared beneath my skin, warming me against the elements and I guessed his was doing the same for him.

“We…this…” Darius looked up at the stars again for a moment like they might be able to help him with the answer to my question. “I think that this is our… Divine Moment,” he said slowly like voicing his opinion on this madness actually frightened him.

I scoffed lightly, my gaze raking over him like I was hunting for the punchline. But he didn’t laugh. He didn’t even smile, he just took a slow step closer to me.

“You mean you actually think the two of us could be Elysian Mates?” I asked incredulously. Because how could he believe that? How could he really think that two people destined to love each other with the fierceness of the sun could hate each other with the strength that we did? “We’re more likely to be Astral Adversaries.”

Darius frowned at my words like they’d cut him open.

“This isn’t a joke, Roxy,” he breathed, inching closer to me. “It’s not something either of us can choose. The stars picked us for each other. They’ve been challenging us and driving us together at the same time. That’s why we keep colliding the way we do, why you’re all I think about… Don’t you think about me too?”

“You mean when I fantasise about ways to hurt you for all the things you’ve done to me?” I asked darkly even though it was a lie. Because I may have thought about him like that more than once, but I’d also dreamed about him night after night. I’d fantasised over him and daydreamed about him and I’d beaten myself up over it a thousand times. Because he wasn’t some prize to win, he was my own personal hell. He’d made sure of that at every opportunity.

“I mean, like the way I lie awake at night, remembering what it felt like to hold you in my arms. How still the world felt, how pure that moment was between us. How I imagine I can still smell your perfume as my eyes fall closed and how I reach across my bed in the night wishing you were really there. Or like the way my heart beats harder when you walk into a room and my throat thickens when I try to think of the right things to say to you. How I fight to get your attention in any way I can because I can’t bear it when you ignore me.”

My lips parted and I didn’t know what to say. Because he was making the way he treated me sound so different to the way it felt when he did it.

“You’ve hurt me more than anyone I’ve ever known,” I breathed.

Darius swallowed hard, taking a step closer as his gaze took me hostage. He was so strong and so solid, like this unstoppable force of nature which had decided to come crashing into my life and had tried to tear me apart so many times I couldn’t count them.

“I’m sorry,” he breathed and I could feel how much he meant those words. They spilled through the cracks in my resolve like molten lava, searching for the fissures he’d carved in my heart with every cruel word and action and working to soothe them. They were the words I’d ached to hear from him so many times that it hurt me to even think about it. Because in all the time I’d known him, I’d never gotten the impression he felt an inch of the remorse that was shining in his eyes in that moment. But there it was. Darius was staring at me like he was breaking open and I was the only one who could put him back together.

“Why now?” I demanded. “If we weren’t standing here tonight, if we were somewhere else, would you have apologised to me?”

Darius’s brow pinched and I knew what his answer was without him having to voice it. Because of course he wouldn’t have. He wasn’t sorry about what he’d done to the Vega twin he’d vowed to get rid of. He was sorry that he’d unknowingly done those things to the girl who he was destined to love.

“You don’t know how many times I wished I could fix what I’d broken between us,” he said. “But I had to do those things…I had to make sure you and your sister didn’t rise up and claim our throne. It wasn’t about you and me, it was about the Council and the Royals. About Solaria and what’s best for all of its people. Darius and Roxy weren’t a factor in any of it.”

“Roxy?” I asked, arching a brow at him. Because he claimed he was sorry, but he wasn’t even going to stop calling me that. The name he taunted me with and cut me with. He wasn’t really sorry at all because that man who had done all of those things to me wasn’t some stranger. He was standing right before me, looking at me like somehow everything had changed between us in the blink of an eye, but how could that be true? How could I just forget about everything he’d put me through?

I clenched my jaw as I forced myself to focus on all of that. On every time he’d made me feel small or weak or humiliated and not on the way I’d felt when he’d held me close or pressed his lips to mine.

Darius seemed to realise where my thoughts had taken me and he shook his head as he stepped closer like he could just make me forget all of it if he wanted me to enough.

“Tory, please,” he choked, reaching out for me, his eyes burning with a desperate need. 

“You don’t get to call me that,” I snarled. “You call me Roxy, remember? You do it because that was what my mother called me. And you want to remind me that she’s dead every time you talk to me. Because that’s who you are. That’s what you are. And I don’t want anything to do with you.”

“No,” he growled. “I don’t call you Roxy because I’m trying to hurt you. I use that name so that I don’t forget who you are or what you are. You’re a Vega Princess. You could shatter everything I’ve worked for my whole life. And if I didn’t force myself to remember that fact, then I knew it would be too easy for me to forget about. Forget about challenging you and knocking you down and just…let myself imagine you could be something else. Something that I’ve wished you could be in the darkest corners of my heart for so long that I can’t deny it anymore. I want you. And I don’t care if you’re a Vega or not. I don’t care if your name is Roxy or Tory or anything else. I just want you.”

My heart was pounding as I looked up into his dark eyes and I felt the truth of those words washing over me. I wanted for them to be enough. I wanted it so badly it hurt. It cut into me and found all of the secret, whispered desires of my heart and spoke them in my ear. Because I ached for this beast before me. I wanted to close the distance between us and pull him close and never let go, but I still didn’t trust him. Hell, I didn’t even really know him. So how was I supposed to agree to a lifetime in his arms when I didn’t even know how tightly he’d hold onto me? What if his love was as fickle as his hatred? Or what if he thought that claiming me for his own meant owning me? I could be walking into a cage by accepting him as mine.

“If I’m right about this, we won’t get another chance,” Darius begged, raw desperation burning in his eyes as he looked at me, seeing the doubt that warred through me. “Don’t you understand? We’ll be Star Crossed. Bound to be alone forever. We’ll never find love with another. We’re meant to be together – it’s fate.”

My jaw tightened at his words. Because it didn’t even sound like he wanted me at all. He just didn’t want to be Star Crossed. He’d rather have me than no one. But I didn’t plan on being anyone’s consolation prize.

“Fuck fate,” I snapped. “I don’t want it. If it’s bound me to you then it’s a cruel and twisted thing. I don’t need destiny to choose my life for me. I’ll make my own fate and it won’t be with you!”

Panic bled into his eyes at my words and pain seared across my heart.

“Please. Think about what you’re saying. If I’m right then this is the moment that our stars have aligned. This is the moment when our souls are due to meet and connect with each other. I know you feel the same pull to me that I feel to you. You’re all I think about. All I dream about. You’re under my skin and in every thought and I know that I’ve done a thousand unforgivable things, but I swear I’ll never hurt you again. You’re meant for me. I’ll protect you with my life-”

“It’s too late,” I said, my voice low and refusing the barest hint of an argument. “This isn’t the moment when our fate is decided. This isn’t the reason we will never be able to be together. The moment that decision was made was the moment you first laid eyes on me. 

The moment I walked into this academy with the chance to find my place in this world for the first time in my life, when I should have been able to make this place my home but you decided to make it my hell instead. So instead of looking at me like I’m the one who is denying fate and stealing your one true chance at happiness from you, then why don’t you look at yourself? Look at every vile thing you’ve said and done to me. Remember burning my clothes off and humiliating me. Remember finding out my fears and bringing them to life. Remember how your magic felt when you used it to trap me beneath the ice in that pool and you left me in there to die.” And the more I thought about all of those things, the more I realised they’d been tests. When he’d hesitated before making me climb the ladder to the diving board or when the two of us had held back on speaking the words in our hearts, we’d been failing. And when we’d fought together against the Nymphs, or in those moments that I’d let down my walls with him and we’d been happy together for a brief time, we’d passed. But there were so many more failures, so many more times that we’d hurt each other instead of coming together…

“I know,” he said, his voice breaking on that word. “All the awful things I’ve done to you will haunt me forever. But please, please just give me forever to fix them. Let this bond form between us and I’ll prove to you how good our lives could be together. I won’t force you to do anything or be with me if you don’t want to, but at least give us a chance. Kiss me again with the stars overhead and let our story begin anew here.”

I couldn’t help but stare at him as he drew closer to me, reaching out tentatively and taking my hands into his. 

His dark eyes flared with hope when I remained in place, looking up at him as the snow swirled all around us. 

His skin was warm against mine, his touch eliciting sparks of electricity which hummed beneath my flesh and set my heart pounding. 

His stunning features hovered so close to mine, his eyes open and vulnerable for once as he stood in the snow, offering himself to me. I’d never been able to deny the attraction I felt to him. To this monster who stood before me in the flesh of a man, suggesting that he might just be everything I’d ever dreamed of. Because who didn’t want to find their one true love? Who didn’t wish for that kind of bond? My whole life, I’d never had someone choose to love me. No one had ever looked at me the way he was now and said that they picked me. The only one who had ever loved me was Darcy and she’d been stuck with me whether she liked it or not. Anyone who had the option had always let me down. Always. And as much as I wouldn’t let it show, that had broken something in me until I’d begun to believe that I just wasn’t the kind of girl people felt love for. I was too harsh and hard and jaded. No one wanted that long term. Though a secret part of me had always hoped that one day someone would. But could I really believe that Darius could be that man? After everything he’d done to me and I’d done to him…

Darius trailed his right hand up my arm slowly like he was worried he might spook me. The fire in my skin was enough to make my knees weak, his touch calling out a desperate lust in me which begged for him to sate it. I craved him, desired him and ached for him in a way I’d never felt for any man before him. 

There was truth to his claim about us, I knew it in my heart. This was it. Our one chance to seize a life together. To give my heart to him and let him pull me into his arms like I belonged to him and he belonged to me. 

His fingertips brushed up my neck before reaching my jaw. 

The desperate beat of my heart was overwhelming, a deep presence seeming to build around us as the magic of this moment grew to its crescendo. 

Darius’s fingers scored a line along my jaw, his thumb tracing my bottom lip, stroking, caressing. I could feel the memory of the kisses he’d already claimed from me tingling beneath my flesh. But this one would be different. This one would bind us to one another forever.

He moved closer. The stars glimmered in the sky overhead, expectant energy coiling about us. 

His breath danced with mine, the scent of him overwhelming me and drawing the darkest desires from my heart. 

I’d never wanted anyone like I wanted Darius Acrux, but I’d never hated anyone like I hated him either. 

His hand slid to cup my cheek, his gaze locked with mine. For the first time, he wasn’t guarded or scowling or pushing me away. He was opening up, inviting me in and offering me everything. 

My lips parted for the promise of his kiss. 

He leaned closer, his lips drawing nearer, the barest of whispers parting us. 

“No,” I breathed. 

Darius stared at me like he didn’t understand, like those two little letters held no meaning to him and they couldn’t possibly have spilled from the lips he was destined to kiss. 

But they had. And I meant them. 

No matter what kind of man he could be for me now, it wouldn’t change the kind of man he’d been up until this moment. They were one and the same. Two halves of the same whole. He was my deepest desire and my worst nightmare all wrapped into one. 

He shook his head, the tender grip on my cheek tightening as he begged me not to have meant it. 

But I had. 

“You don’t understand,” he said desperately. “We’re meant for each other. We’re destined to be together.”

His words cut me open and bled me dry. They were the promise of something I’d always wished to find and something I knew I could never have now. 

“So you’ve realised that all the time you spent torturing me, you should have been falling in love with me?” I asked bitterly. “Well it’s too late, you can’t undo what you’ve done-”

“I was falling in love with you,” Darius replied, his voice cracking. “Everything else wasn’t real. That’s not who I really am! I-”

“Yes it is,” I said fiercely. “It is who you are. You can tell me you hated doing it or felt obligated for whatever reason you want, but you are still the one who did all of those things to me. You’re the one who put us on this path. I never wanted a war with you. But you didn’t give me a choice in that. And now I’m not giving you a choice in this.” My voice was strong but my heart was breaking. I could feel a great fissure tearing open right through the centre of my chest, but it didn’t matter. If the only true love I was ever destined to have was to be built on a foundation of hate then I didn’t want it. 

“Please,” Darius asked again. “I’m giving you my heart. If you give me yours in return I’ll spend every moment of our lives proving to you that I can be worthy of it.”

“It’s too late,” I growled, finding some strength somewhere and throwing all of it into my words while the rest of me shattered and died, broken into a thousand pieces I knew would never mend. “If fate is so cruel as to only offer me true love with a man who could hurt me as much as you have, then I’ll go without love,” I swore. “You want my heart? I’d sooner cut it out than give it to you.”

Darius was shaking his head, denying the words I’d thrown at him as he managed to draw me closer. I let him because I had no strength left to fight him off and because the pain of denying the stars was crashing through me like a storm, dashing my soul to pieces while my heart burned away to nothing. 

I didn’t care if destiny meant for me to be his. I had no intention of letting fate guide my life, especially if it led me to this. To a monster who was built in the image of his father. To a man who would cause me to suffer for his own gain, time and again. 

“Please, just be mine, Tory,” Darius begged. 

“I’d rather be alone,” I whispered. 

I pulled my hand out of his, stepping back as he shook his head again, refusing to believe me, failing to understand that I meant it. 

My heart was breaking, something inside me ripping away as I chose this path and sealed our fate. We wouldn’t be together. We’d be Star Crossed, destined lovers who missed their chance. But that wasn’t on me. It was on him. 

And even as I felt the tears spilling down my cheeks, the icy wind chilling them to my face, I didn’t relent. 

“Tory, I-” Darius followed as I stepped away so I backed up again and again until he fell still. 

The clouds drew closed overhead, the stars hidden once more as our constellations fell out of alignment. Something inside me was breaking with a finality I could feel in the depths of my soul. It hurt. It tore at me, ripping at the fabric of who I was and laying me bare for the whole world to see. But I knew in my heart I’d done the right thing. No matter what the stars had to say on the subject, Darius Acrux had made my life a living hell. I wouldn’t give him a moment of happiness in payment for that. He didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve me. And that was how it had to be. 

My gaze locked with his just as a black ring formed around his pupils. His eyes widened in horror and I guessed the same thing had happened to me too. That was it. We were marked. Star Crossed. 

The bubble of peace we’d been standing in shattered suddenly and the blizzard howled in around us to claim this place like it had never existed at all.

I turned and ran from him, leaving him standing in the snow, looking like the sky had caved in on his head and I’d just torn his heart right out of his chest. 

Pain like nothing I’d ever felt scored through me, carving a chasm into my heart and blinding me as I raced out into the snow.

My heart was pounding a desperate, panicked rhythm as every fibre of my being ached to turn back. To run to him and wrap my arms around him and kiss him like I’d been fated to. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. It was too late anyway.

And as a roar filled with pure agony cut through the sky somewhere above me, I knew that Darius knew that too.

We’d never even begun and yet I felt like I’d just lost something so important that I couldn’t even breathe.

My pulse pounded, my vision blurred and my heart shattered for the man who had worked so hard to break me for so long.

He’d offered me his heart and I’d turned my back on it despite the agony I’d seen it cause him. I’d left my broken heart there with his too. 

And there was no power in the world that could ever fix what I’d done.

Darius Acrux had set out to break me from the first moment he’d ever laid eyes on me. And he’d finally gotten his wish.