Zodiac Academy 5: Cursed Fates

I raced across the pitch with Max right on my heels in the second half of the game, chasing down the Aurora Earthraider, Rosalie Oscura, as she sprinted around the pit, howling at the sky like she already thought she’d won it.

We were in the final round of the game, the timer ticking down the last minutes and Zodiac were six points up. She was trying to buy time as every member of her team went on the defence and tried to score points by pinning our players in the mud.

Orion was bellowing at me to run faster and out of the corner of my eye, I spotted three of their teammates overwhelming Justin Masters and slamming him into the dirt. Our lead was down to five points and the little Wolf I was chasing howled again.

She was fucking fast, I’d give her that, but as Seth and Cal circled the other side of the pit to cut her off, she had to know she was done for.

“Come and get me boys!” she hollered, slowing down for a moment as we closed in on her.

I raced forward but suddenly, the ground beneath my feet disappeared as she carved a huge chasm into the earth all around her and the four of us dropped down into it immediately.

A snarl of rage escaped me as I cast water beneath my feet, using it to blast me up and out of the crater again as she raced away once more.

Seth sent vines to trip her, but she danced over them with a bark of laughter before tossing up a wall of dirt to block the fireball Cal shot her way.

I didn’t bother with magic, letting the other three aim their power at her as I ran for the kill.

She charged towards the pit as Darcy stood before it, arms wide as she cast a wall of air to block the ball. Rosalie threw her free hand out and suddenly, the earth beneath Darcy’s feet collapsed, causing her and all of the Pit Keepers to fall down into the Pit which was now twice the size it had been.

She threw the ball with a howl of glee half a second before I slammed into her and pinned her down in the mud with a deep growl.

I turned to see if she’d scored the Pit but as the ball shot towards it, it collided with an air shield, bouncing back off again as Darcy managed to maintain it despite her fall.

Seth howled wildly as he leapt up to catch the ball and Darcy dropped the shield half a second before he slammed it down into the Pit and the whistle blew to sound the end of the game and our victory.

“Are you going to stay on top of me all evening, stronzo? Because if that’s your plan, we could do with getting rid of some of these clothes,” Rosalie purred as she wriggled beneath me.

I snorted a laugh as my attention moved back to the girl I was crushing and I stood, offering her a hand up as I grinned my fucking head off. The moment she was standing, I released her and ran across the pitch with a roar of victory as my team all leapt on each other in celebration and we jumped up and down in a tangle of limbs.

Seth howled to the sky and every member of our team joined in a second before Lance jumped onto the pile too and we all fell back in the mud laughing.

I caught Darcy’s eye as she grinned at me and a deep laugh escaped me as I pulled her in for a hug. “Nice work on that shield, Gwen,” I teased, scrubbing my knuckles into her hair as she shoved me off.

“Nice work on that tackle, Dari,” she joked back just as Lance leapt on me.

“You fucking beauty!” he snarled, grabbing my face between his hands and placing a rough, scratchy kiss on my forehead as he straddled me in the mud.

The other Heirs all started piling on top of us one after another and when we were finally done exchanging hugs and congratulations, we stood to accept the applause from the crowd.

Rosalie Oscura was running back and forth on the far side of the pitch, howling excitedly as the students from Aurora Academy went wild for her. And I guessed for the lowest funded academy in Solaria, coming that damn close to beating us was almost as good as winning. They’d definitely stepped up their game in the last few years and we’d have to be even more prepared for them next season.

The cheerleaders were all up, jumping around and calling out our names and I caught Roxy’s eye as she shook a pair of sparkly pom-poms at me and called my name out along with the rest.

My gaze snagged on my rings on her fingers as she continued to flaunt them at me and a growl rumbled through my chest.

I took off across the pitch towards her as Nova’s voice rang out announcing the final scores as if no one could read the scoreboard for themselves.

“I want my treasure back,” I said in a low voice, gravel coating my tone as my Dragon shifted beneath my skin. I came to a halt right in front of her and she gave me a killer smile which said she’d been dying for me to ask.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Roxy replied sweetly, moving to stand in front of me with her hands on her hips, pom-poms and all.

My gaze lingered on the ribbon she still had tied around her neck. I’d never asked a girl to cheer for me before and when she’d said yes, I’d had to fight hard not to grin my fucking head off and sweep her into my arms. Ignoring the fact that the stars would get pissy obviously. And I’d thought that she was happy about it too. So why had she chosen to do this shit with the treasure now? Why was she so fucking insistent on drawing out the rage in me, the worst parts of me, no matter how hard I tried to shield her from them?

My gaze trailed down over her navy and silver cheer uniform before I could help it and my gut tightened as I noticed the letters DAR painted on the side of her toned waist. Did she really paint my name on her skin? And why do I like the idea of that so much?

Roxy tossed the pom-poms and folded her arms as she waited for me to reply and I managed to read the rest of the letters which curled around her side CY. Right. Idiot. Of course she wouldn’t paint my name on her body.

“You know exactly what I mean. Where’s the rest of my treasure?” I demanded, taking a step forward. But before I could reach her, Xavier and Mother appeared, throwing their arms around me in congratulations.

Roxy offered me a taunting smirk and slipped away into the crowd before I could stop her.

Where the fuck is she going?

What the fuck is she playing at?

And where the fuck is my gold??

By the time I’d received a round of congratulations from what felt like every single fucker at the school and said goodbye to my family, she was long gone.

My jaw ticked as anger trickled through my limbs, seriously dampening my post-win buzz. Taking a Dragon’s gold was like taking the moon from a Werewolf. It was just wrong on so many levels and I couldn’t let it lie. Not now. Not knowing that she still had it. I’d tried to make peace with the idea that it was gone before now, but this was taking things too fucking far.

I was more than a little relieved when the team finally headed down to The Orb for the after party. We were still filthy, our uniforms torn and bloody from the match but it was tradition for us to turn up like this, bathed in the filth of our glory.

We arrived in The Orb as a team, the rest of the school screaming and cheering us, the divide between Heir and Vega supporters forgotten for once in favour of something much more important. Pitball.

There was music blaring and people were dancing and drinking everywhere. My gaze instantly locked on Roxy as she danced above the crowd in the centre of the room, her cheerleading uniform clinging to her body like a second skin.

For a moment I couldn’t help but think about the time we’d stolen from the stars beneath the lake after Seth and Max’s party. It had been a beautiful form of torture which had haunted me daily ever since. I only wished it could have been ours alone. Or that I could have spoken with her properly afterwards. We hadn’t discussed it since, though Cal kept making offhand comments about setting something up again. But I didn’t even know if she wanted that. She’d been the one to say no to me after all. So maybe she’d just been taken by surprise that night and the ache she was forced to feel for me by the stars had combined with the drinks we’d had to make her give in to temptation. Or maybe it had been Cal. Though it hadn’t felt like that. It had felt like her attention was on me most of the time. But maybe I was just bullshitting myself because I still couldn’t bear the idea of them together.

An arm landed around my shoulders and a full Dragon growl escaped me as Caleb yanked me against his chest with a broad grin. His eyebrows went up in response and he released me before I could bite his damn head off.

“Thinking about it again, then?” he teased, pushing a hand through his mud stained hair.

I grunted in agreement, not trusting myself not to snap at him as I fought to wrangle my own anger back. It wasn’t his fault. I knew what he’d done was for us and I knew there was no chance at all of me having her to myself with the stars haunting us, but I just…

“Fuck,” I cursed, swiping a hand over my face. I couldn’t cope with my jealousy alongside my rage over the fucking treasure and the never ending agony of knowing that I would never be able to call Roxy mine anyway.

“If it’s got you this knotted up, we don’t have to do it again,” Cal said with a frown, pushing a beer into my hand. “I was trying to help, not make you feel worse.”

My heart dropped at that suggestion and the shadows suddenly reared up within me, offering a pit of oblivion to dive into to escape this hopeless feeling. Part of me wanted to agree with him. To say I didn’t want to try and do it again because I couldn’t take having him there with us too, that it cut me open and made me bleed all the time I was with them. But then I considered the alternative. Not having her at all. Never getting to feel her body against mine or kiss her full lips or make her heart pound to a rhythm that matched my own. And surely that was worse. But either way, it broke me. Either way, she wasn’t really mine at all.

“I know.” I blew out a frustrated breath. “It’s not…I’m not angry with you really. I’m angry with myself. If I’d just done something different, so many things…”

Caleb’s blue eyes darkened like he could actually feel my pain and he reached out to grip the side of my face as he made me hold his gaze. “We’re going to fucking fix this, Darius,” he swore. “Orion’s going to find a way and by the time he does, she won’t be able to deny her heart anymore. You’ll have proved to her exactly the kind of man you are and the kind you can be for her and then-”

I pulled away from him, shaking my head as my heart crumbled and shattered again and I was forced to grit my teeth against the agony of forever alone without her.

“It isn’t going to happen, Cal. I don’t believe there’s going to be some convenient do over for us,” I said darkly. “I’m going to do everything I can to make things right between me and her because she deserves that much. She deserves to know how much I care about her even if she can’t ever be mine. I don’t want her thinking the man the stars chose for her was nothing but a monster. But I am a monster all the same. And no matter how much I make up for, that isn’t going to change. There’s darkness in me that will never find the light. So she’s better off away from me anyway.”

I pushed past him before he could reply and carved my way through the crowd towards our couch.

People slapped me on the back, called out my name and offered me drinks as I went and I tried to offer them smiles in return, but I was pretty sure I was closer to hitting a glower.

As I finally made it to our red couch, I fell still. Roxy hadn’t been dancing on a table like I’d thought, she was standing on the back of the couch. Directly above my usual spot at the end of it.

Anger licked along my limbs as I looked up at her in that micro skirt and her long socks and she turned to look down at me with the biggest fucking smile imaginable on her face. It wasn’t a kind smile. It was goading, knowing, taunting, dangerous. The kind of smile I shouldn’t have liked but really did.

“What are you up to?” I demanded.

I may have vowed not to fight back against her in our combat classes, but she was seriously treading a fine line by doing this. Everyone knew this couch belonged to us. As stupid as it was, her jumping all over my territory like this was practically a declaration of war. If I let it pass with all of these witnesses then it was political suicide. I had to prove to everyone that she was still beneath me, but I refused to lay a hand on her and she knew it. I just didn’t understand why she was pushing me like this.

“Here he is!” she cried. “Player of the match!”

The crowd cheered and I frowned. She wasn’t here to pay me compliments, she was up to something. But I didn’t know what yet.

“Get down,” I demanded and several of the students surrounding us backed up like they could sense a fight coming. But that wasn’t going to happen. I refused to let her back me into one no matter how fast my pulse was pounding.

Roxy tapped a finger against her lips dramatically. A finger which held a Dragon ring that had been in my family for eight generations. My blood lit with Dragon fire and the taste of smoke coated my tongue for a moment.

“And give me back my treasure,” I added in a dark tone.

“Oh! That reminds me…” Roxy hopped down from the back of the couch into my spot and reached for her bag which lay on the floor beside it. She rummaged around for something while I folded my arms and waited her out.

When she sat up again, she had a pendant hanging from her neck beneath the ribbon I’d given her. It held a stunning fire ruby the size of an egg, cut in the shape of a heart. It was worth over a million auras. She’d also placed a crown on her head which had actually been a gift from a Vega Queen to my great, great grandmother. She’d pushed gold bracelets and bangles over her wrists and was wearing even more of my rings too.

A deep growl rattled through my chest as she sat back in my spot with a taunting grin and my fingers curled with the desire to punish her for daring to touch my gold. A Dragon’s treasure was more precious than all the stars in the damn sky and only a fucking fool would dare to touch it, let alone dress themselves up in it like she was right now. If she was anyone else, she’d have found herself charred to a crisp already. As it was, the thin grip I was holding on my rage was slipping out of my control.

I lunged at her and she screamed in surprise as my hands landed either side of her head on the thick red cushions and I bared my teeth right in her face.

“Give those back!” I snarled and from the corners of my eyes I could see people running.

My skin was flaring so hot with fire magic that they were probably all getting burned as the heat rolled off of me. But not Roxy. Fire couldn’t hurt her. Maybe it was fate for her to be a Phoenix, the only creature immune to the worst of my power. Maybe the stars had always wanted me to be unable to hurt her.

She stared up at me with her big green eyes for the longest moment before laughing darkly. “Make me.”

Suddenly the heat between us had nothing to do with fire magic and everything to do with me and her. This fucking wrecking ball who’d come crashing into my life, tearing apart everything I thought I’d known while refusing to shift from her course one single bit.

I growled again as I reached out and grabbed her, lifting her out of my spot before spinning around and sitting in it myself and dumping her in my lap.

“I told you I’m not going to hurt you, Roxy,” I purred, just for her to hear as she steadied herself by pressing her palms against my shoulders as she was forced to straddle me while my fingers curled around the bare skin of her waist. “So how about we play a game instead?”

We were drawing an audience, but in that moment I didn’t give a shit. I was either going to flip out and go full Dragon on everyone here or I was going to defy the stars and this girl in my arms by holding her close despite the fact that my instinct was to demand blood. I may have held darkness within my flesh, but I refused to be ruled by it ever again. I was my own man and I was going to make my own choices. Which meant I’d never hurt her again.

“What’s that?” Roxy breathed, her pupils dilating so that there was more black than green in her eyes.

“Let’s play chicken with the stars. We sit here and let them do their worst to tear us apart. The first one to get out of this seat wins.”

Thunder crashed in the sky outside as if to make my point even clearer and Roxy looked up at the roof in alarm as the flaming sconces which hung from it shuddered ominously. The stolen pendant swung at her throat before falling to sit between her breasts and making me stare for the longest moment.

“Fine,” she agreed, looking back down at me again, her eyes lighting with the challenge. “But if I win, me and the Ass Club get your couch.”

I snorted dismissively. “Well if I win, I get every last piece of my treasure back.”

“Done.” She smirked at me as the ground began to tremble and the determination in her eyes made me wonder if we might just end up killing ourselves with this game. I wasn’t sure if either of us had it in us to lose willingly.

“What’s going on?” Seth’s voice came from behind me but I didn’t bother to look at him, my gaze firmly captured by the girl in my lap.

The ground shook more fiercely which effectively made her body vibrate against my dick as she straddled me in that tiny skirt and I grunted as she gave me a knowing look. I couldn’t deny that I’d had more than a few fantasies about getting her in a position like this with that cheer outfit on and me still wearing my Pitball uniform. It was a pretty cliched fantasy, but a hot one none the less. Especially with the way she looked in her uniform.

“Problem, Darius?” she teased, shifting her hips again as my dick hardened between us. I should have been too angry to be turned on, but with her it always felt like this. Like we were dancing the line of love and hate with the only thing consistently present being lust.

“You whore!” Mildred’s voice jolted me out of our moment of insanity and I looked up just as she charged at us, her gaze firmly set on Roxy in my lap like she fully intended to tackle her off of me.

I shifted forward at the last moment and she hit me instead, knocking both of us off the couch and I dropped my hold on Roxy as we fell to the ground. 

By the time I’d pushed myself upright, I found Roxy pinned beneath Mildred as she swung a fist straight at her face.

“Stop!” I commanded, but Mildred didn’t even bat an eyelash at me. Her lips were curled back to reveal that under cut jaw and her beady eyes flared with fury.

Her fist slammed into Roxy’s jaw and blood flew as she snarled in rage beneath her.

I took a step forward to intervene, but Max’s hand landed on my shoulder and he whirled me around to look at him before I could.

“It’s Fae on Fae, man, what are you thinking?” he asked with a frown and I could only glower as I looked back to the fight, forcing myself to remain still.

It might have made me ache to hold back but he was right, I couldn’t get involved in a fight between two Fae. And if it had been anyone else, I never would have considered it. But Roxy always made me want to break the rules.

“You jumped up, crown touting, cock sucking, whore!” Mildred slammed her fist into Roxy’s face again, not even bothering to use magic as she screamed insults in her face which included way too many references to me being her beloved.

“What’s the matter, Mildred?” Roxy snarled. “Is it just that you can’t suck cock properly with that mis-matched jaw of yours or is it that you know Darius is only marrying you because his father is forcing him to?”

“When I take my beloved to the bedroom he will be screaming so loudly that he won’t even remember the name Vega!” Mildred howled as she punched Roxy again.

“Yeah, screaming in horror,” Roxy spat and I almost fucking laughed aside from the fact that she was about to get her face smashed in by that beast of a girl.

“We’ll see if he’s so tempted by you when I’m done pulverising that pretty face of yours and I cut your perky tits off for good measure!” Mildred howled.

“Not the tits!” Tyler Corbin gasped from the other side of the crowd as he filmed the whole thing.

My heart pounded. Roxy might have been tough, but Mildred was four times the size of her. She needed to fight back with magic if she was going to stand a chance, but as she swung her head forward and cracked the bridge of Mildred’s nose with a savage headbutt, I got the feeling she wasn’t going to use it.

Roxy swung a fist into Mildred’s throat to follow it before driving her knee up between her legs as hard as she could.

“Ooo right in the vag!” Tyler called and a laugh caught in my throat.

“Yes, Tor!” Darcy screamed as she pushed her way to the front of the crowd. “Show her how we fight where we come from!”

As Mildred reared back, Roxy lunged forward, rolling them over so that she was on top before swinging her fists down into Mildred’s ugly face with a brutality that made my heart race.

She was wild and vicious, blood pissing down her face from her own injuries as she used my stolen rings to batter Mildred again and again. I wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t end up with Dragons imprinted all over her face from the shape of the jewellery.

Mildred gave as good as she got, punching Roxy in the sides, the chest, even trying to bite her fist as she punched her.

“Holy shit,” Seth breathed as he nuzzled against my arm. “This would be so hot if it wasn’t, you know, Mildred. But if I imagine her being literally any other girl then I’d be so turned on right now.”

I swallowed a lump in my throat as I refused to agree out loud, but he was right. There was something about Roxy as she fought like that, her lip curled back with determination and absolutely no mercy in her. They might have been fighting like mortals having a bar brawl, but with a crown on her head and blood painting her flesh, I didn’t think she’d ever looked more like the Savage King’s daughter before. She really was a Fae Princess. And I liked it.

Mildred cursed and screamed, throwing fists like sledgehammers so hard that I was pretty sure I heard ribs cracking, but Roxy wasn’t going to give in.

She swung her arm back one final time and with a scream of rage, she hit Mildred so hard in her pug face that she blacked out.

A laugh tumbled from my lips before I could stop it and Roxy looked up at me with a wild determination in her eyes as she grinned like a damn warrior.

The crowd were cheering and Geraldine led the Ass squad in that annoying as fuck song about princesses as they all celebrated her win, but I ignore them as I moved forward to offer Roxy a hand up.

“I’ll toss Mildred back in her room, heal her and cast a sleeping spell on her so that she can properly recover,” Cal announced as he moved around us and I couldn’t help but smile at him.

It might have annoyed the fuck out of me that he’d been with my girl, but he really was a good friend. A true brother.

He threw Mildred over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and shot out of the room as Seth howled in excitement.

“Come on,” I said to Roxy. “I’ll clean you up and heal those wounds.”

“Okay.” Roxy followed me back to the couch and I sat her down in my spot before throwing a ring of fire and a silencing bubble up around us to give us some pretence of privacy. 

“Doesn’t this count as us being alone?” Roxy asked as I dropped to my knees in front of her and she pulled her busted bottom lip between her teeth.

That shouldn’t have been hot, but it really fucking was.

“I’m going with no,” I replied, but as the ground trembled beneath my knees I had to admit it did.

“Maybe you should just-”

“I’m going to look after you,” I growled, leaving no room for negotiation. “So just let me.”

Her lips parted, eyes flared, fingers gripped the edge of the couch and I was sure she was about to tell me no, but instead she just nodded.

I reached out and curled my fingers wound around her waist as I pressed healing magic from my skin into hers, closing my eyes so that I could concentrate. She had cracked ribs and healing bones was more difficult than damaged tissue.

She fell still as I shifted my hands over her flesh and I tried to ignore the way the floor quaked beneath me. We couldn’t stay in this bubble for long, but I wished that we could. I wished we could just build a bubble where the stars couldn’t see us and stay in it forever. Although I guessed if I offered her that she’d just say no again.

I sighed as my magic depleted, using the last drops of it to heal her and clean the blood from her skin after burning through so much in the game.

A soft touch against my hair made me open my eyes and I looked up at her as she pushed the crown onto my head.

“Mildred knocked me off of the couch first,” she explained in answer to the question in my eyes. “So you win. Besides, you need a big head like yours to pull off a crown like this.”

I snorted a laugh as the ground trembled so violently that I was almost knocked back onto my ass.

Roxy quickly pulled the rings and bracelets from her hands and offered them to me too and I pushed them into my pockets wordlessly.

But as she reached up to unclasp the blood ruby pendant from around her neck I caught her wrist to stop her. “Keep it,” I said, my gaze slipping to the priceless heart where it lay against her flesh. Dragons didn’t give treasure away. Ever. It was inherited through the family or we bought more of it, but we never gifted it to anyone. It went against everything we stood for and the fierce possessiveness of our natures. But for some reason that I couldn’t fully comprehend, I wanted her to keep that necklace. “It looks better on you anyway.”

Her eyes widened but before she could reply, I dropped the wall of fire and stepped away from her. Darcy hurried forward with wild eyes, looking between me and her sister for a long moment like she’d expected us to be arguing or something. But the last thing I was going to do was call Roxy out for beating Mildred’s ass for me. She’d absolutely been working in my interests and I wasn’t even going to pretend to be pissed about it.

“Are you okay, Tor?”

“Darius fixed me up like new. Did you see the bit when I kneed her in the vag?” Roxy asked as she grinned and Darcy started laughing.

“It was classic, you’ve gotta come see Tyler’s slow motion footage of you punching her in the throat too!”

The party was in full swing around us again and I couldn’t help but feel a little more like joining in as I watched Roxy walk away from me. She glanced back once and my heart leapt as she offered me the smallest of smiles.

Roxy Vega might never be mine, but sometimes I found I didn’t mind pining for her as much as I should have.