Preorder Edition Bonus Chapters from Zodiac Academy
I sprinted from one end of the Pitball pitch to the other, holding back on my Vampire speed and pushing myself to the very edges of my limits without the use of those gifts. Every time I reached the end, I dropped to the turf and did as many push-ups as I could until my arms failed me.
Sweat glistened against my skin, my shirt long discarded so just my shorts were in place.
When I was exhausted to the point of dizziness, I drained half my water bottle in one go, then grabbed one of the heavy earth balls I’d gotten out of the locker.
I threw it as hard as I could into the air, then ran to catch it, turning and bracing for the hard slam of the metal against my chest, digging my heels in to keep my balance.
Then I did it again, and again, until there was a reddened bruise rising across my pecs and I had to stop for more water.
Since I’d thrown the bottle of bourbon out of my office window, I hadn’t indulged in a single drop. And thanks to my ragingly fun need to escape my head most of the time, especially since things still felt so fucked between Darcy and I, I’d resorted to this shit.
I moved into drills at the edge of the pit, making a fireball hover above me on a gust of air while I did sit-ups beneath it.
Every time my back hit the floor, I released the power of air which held the ball skyward so it came flying down towards me in a fiery blaze, and I only let myself cast air again to stop it if I made it upright in time.
I called these death-ups, and often had the Pitball team do them while relying on the air elementals to keep the fireballs from hitting them.
Suffice to say, a lot of people ended up burned in those warm-ups, especially since Seth Capella and Max Rigel focused on keeping them and their little foursome safe from harm and often casually forgot to help out anyone else.
It was carnage, but that was Pitball. And if you couldn’t hack it in training, you sure as shit weren’t gonna hack it on the field.
“Trying to kill yourself, Orio?” Gabriel’s voice called to me from somewhere above, and a flash of dark wings crossed the sky.
He landed with a thud beside me, grabbing the ball out of the air, using his water Element to freeze it and douse the flames. They’d burn through that ice though, the balls all enchanted with powerful magic that couldn’t easily be tampered with.
He tossed it from hand to hand, and I slumped against the grass with my breaths falling furiously from my lungs. “What are you doing here?”
“Me and the family are in town for the Fairy Fair,” he said, and I noted the nice white shirt stuffed into the back of his jeans.
“Oh, is that today?” I muttered, although I already knew it was because I’d asked Darius to go Nymph hunting with me and he’d said he was busy with his Heir buddies heading to the fair.
And as every asshole and their owl on campus would be going there too, I was giving it a firm miss.
Although, there was one little owl I wouldn’t have minded attending with. ..
She was probably getting ready for it now with her friends, looking ten shades of tempting.
Gabriel picked up the bag for the fireball, slipping it inside and tossing it to the ground.
“Why don’t you join us?” he suggested, and I shook my head as he offered me his hand, tugging me to my feet.
“Nah, I’m just gonna stay home and…”
“Lay on the couch alone and watch old re-runs of your favourite Starfire games?” Gabriel finished for me with a pitying look. “Yeah, that sounds real pathetic, Orio.”
“That’s not what I was gonna say.” I folded my arms, and he gave me that all-knowing, all- seeing look that made a growl of annoyance rise in my throat. “Fine. But it’s not pathetic, it’s a perfectly reasonable evening.”
“Wow, you’re right. I can only strive to have a ‘perfectly reasonable evening’, that sounds like the peak of existence.” He smirked.
“Fuck you.” I cracked a grin, but it fell fast away as my dark mood settled over me again, barely tempered by the intense workout I’d been subjecting myself to for the past couple of hours.
“Look, I’ve got to go, everyone’s waiting for me. I just came by to give you this.” He pushed a hand into his pocket, taking out a small scroll and passing it to me.
It was held closed by two delicate golden clasps, and as I unrolled the parchment, I realised what I was looking at.
“This is one of the original Fable Curses,” I breathed in disbelief, the mark of the Fable family stamped at the top of it, a cursive G decorated with ivy. They were a family steeped in a history of dark magic and were famous for their creation of many twisted curses, all of which were now illegal.
“How did you get this?” I asked in awe. “Weren’t these all locked up tight in the Museum of Fae Antiquities?”
He opened his mouth to answer, but it dawned on me who had retrieved this before he even said his name.
“Leon,” he said with half a shrug.
“That Lion is one hell of a thief,” I said, then snapped my head up from the scroll to look at Gabriel. “Don’t tell him I said that. He’ll send me a fucking gift basket full of dildos or some shit.”
“That was one time,” Gabriel said with a snort.
“What in the actual hell did he think I needed fifteen dildos for?” I said, shaking my head, confounded all over again by the bizarre gift Leon had sent me after I’d helped him out with some dodgy shit they’d all gotten caught up in back in their days at Aurora Academy.
“I’ll tell him one would have sufficed,” Gabriel chuckled, and I gave him a hollow look.
“Don’t you laugh. You wanna know what happened to those dildos? Fucking Washer happened to them. Found them in the trash and made a dream catcher out of them that he hung in his window.”
“By the stars.” Gabriel grimaced, and I turned my attention back to the scroll. “Do you think that could be what you’re looking for?”
I frowned at the curse laid out on the scroll and the sketch of the moon and sun crossing over at the top of it.
This dark magic could only be performed on a Lunar Eclipse, and I knew for a fact that Lionel possessed a very rare, very outlawed collection of the Fables’ works because my own mother had gifted them to him.
The curse was all kinds of messed up and sounded just like the sketchy sort of shit Lionel would be interested in.
“Could be,” I said with a nod. “I’ll show this to Darius and see if he can find any sign of his father gathering these items.” A lot of it was rare as hell, and some of it didn’t even exist anymore, so far as I knew.
The curse required the use of a Blentle feather, but those birds had died out a long time ago. “Thanks, Noxy.”
“No worries.” He flexed his wings, then hesitated, grey eyes glazing over before he returned to the present moment, a knowing smile playing around his mouth. “You should get home for your night of fun.”
He clapped me on the shoulder and took off into the sky, leaving me there with the sense that he knew something I didn’t. But that was kind of inescapable when it came to being friends with him.
I watched his dark-winged form disappear beyond the open roof of the stadium, then sighed and shot forward with a blur of speed.
It took me exactly one second to tidy up all the Pitballs, then I was in the shower in the changing room, butt naked and lathering body wash against my skin.
In the fifth second, I was by my locker, fully dry from the combined use of my air and water magic, and by the sixth, I was dressed in my suit pants and shirt.
I kicked on my shoes, the soles of them made with toughened Minogum, just like all of my shoes were.
The Vamporium was a designer store specialising in footwear for my Order, and they were made to withstand grinding against any surface right up to our top speed.
I grabbed my bag, tossed my locker shut, and raced out of the stadium again, finding the pathways busy with students all dressed up for a night out at the Fairy Fair. Fucking upbeat, smiley little shits.
I weaved between them, tearing across Earth Territory in the direction of Asteroid Place, but slowed to a normal pace as I spotted a glimmer of blue hair ahead, my heart colliding with my ribcage full force.
I paused at a kink in the path that passed through a small cluster of trees, listening to every word she spoke to the prick accompanying her.
Diego motherfucking Polaris. He was hatless.
And had he cut his hair? Asshole. He was all dressed up like a fancy little fuckwit too.
What was his aim, was he trying to impress my girl?
Shit, was she going to the fair with him?
Her hair was half pulled up with a silver clip and a knitted black dress hugged tightly to her figure, drawing my gaze along her curves. Curves which I had dragged my tongue over and tasted the perfection of not so long ago.
My fangs prickled in my mouth, and I started walking again instead of lurking here like a creep.
I trailed behind them, watching their every move as my jaw began to grind.
Their arms were hooked together, and they both looked all too fucking comfortable with each other for my liking.
It struck me like a truck at what this shitstorm of a reality was.
They were going to the fair together, just the two of them, no whiff of another freshman in sight.
And that sounded an awful lot like a fucking date.
Darcy suddenly glanced back over her shoulder like she’d sensed me there, and her bright green gaze slammed into me like a tsunami.
I stepped smoothly down the path to my right which led toward Asteroid Place, proving I was just coincidentally right behind her instead of following her like a stalker, keeping my expression void of the blazing hellfire rising in my chest.