Preorder Edition Bonus Chapters from Zodiac Academy #6
A short scream ripped from her chest, the sound piercing and travelling right across the fair, but no one was coming to save her from me. She struggled in my hold, but she was in my trap now, her magic locked down and the sweet taste of her blood riding over my tongue.
The guy attending the wheel whistled to himself as he casually locked the gate, and we moved upwards at an ever-climbing pace, securing me some time alone with her.
“Get off of me!” She shoved me in a rage, and I grunted, reluctantly tugging my fangs free of her skin but keeping my arm firmly locked around her waist.
I moved my face close to hers, teeth bared, my thirst for this girl so sharp it made my head spin. And it went far beyond blood.
Her lips parted at my expression, her pupils dilating and the sound of her heartbeat thrashing like a caged bird in my ears. I waved a hand to cast a silencing bubble around us, and her expression filled with wrath.
“This has gone far enough,” I snarled, cutting to the chase. “You brought him here to piss me off.”
Her mouth opened in disbelief, her eyes hard with the rejection of my words. “You asked me to talk to him. And you’re not exactly here on your own, Professor,” she snapped.
“Lance,” I demanded, hating her calling me that after all we’d shared together. We weren’t student and teacher here, we were something so much more, and I was certain she felt it too. I wasn’t going to let her cower away from it now.
“No,” she hissed, trying to unknot my fingers from her dress, but my grip was iron. “I’m not calling you that because we’re not a thing anymore. I do not screw taken guys. If Fran doesn’t give you what you need in the bedroom, then I’m certainly not going to.”
Satisfaction resounded through me as I saw the jealousy in her, and a dark smile pulled at my mouth. “She isn’t my girlfriend.”
“Right. Is that why you rammed your tongue down her throat earlier? Because she’s not your girlfriend?” Her eyes glinted with the hurt I’d cast upon her, but she wasn’t the only one hurting here.
“You’re a hypocrite,” I accused, my smile falling as I pictured Diego’s mouth on hers again, laying a claim to something he had no right to claim. I lifted my hand and dragged my thumb across her lips, wiping them hard. She wriggled and fought, trying to stop me, but I had her completely cornered.
“What the hell are you doing?” She shoved my arms, but I ignored her, keeping her in place by pushing my knee against her thigh.
“I’m trying to get Diego Polaris’s saliva off of my girl,” I growled, and there it was.
My hidden desires pouring out of me like a raincloud breaking at long last. I’d called her my girl, proving that was what I wanted her to be.
And now I was this close to her again, it felt like the truth, not just some idle declaration.
She pressed a hand to my chest as confusion crossed her face, trying to get some space between us, and the doubts began to creep in again.
“Diego kissed me . I was caught off guard. But you kissed her because you wanted to,” she hissed, emotion burning through her eyes and letting me know how much it had killed her to see me kiss another woman. It was a relief, honestly. Even if I was a total asshole.
My lips pressed into a tight line. “You know why I did it.”
“Don’t do that. You always turn it back on me, expecting me to read your damn mind,” she snarled, still trying to push me back, but I pressed back against her and laid my hand on her thigh, trying to cross this chasm between us.
She grabbed my hand, throwing it back at me. “And don’t do that .”
“Why?”
“Because we’re done,” she said breathlessly, carving up my heart oh so prettily. “It was a one-night thing, let’s move on with our lives.”
“Do we feel done to you?” I asked, convinced she could sense this raw energy humming between us in the air. I wasn’t completely insane, was I? This was real, and she felt it too.
My gaze shifted to the bloody pinprick marks on her neck, and I lifted a hand to heal them, grazing my thumb over her silken skin and feeling her shiver for me.
Come on, Blue, admit you feel this too.
I waited for her answer, her pulse warring in my ears as the seconds ticked by.
“I can’t believe you kissed her,” she hissed, eyes sparking with fire and the power in her brimming at the edges of her skin.
She was bottled chaos, strength brewing in her like lava in the belly of a volcano, and I doubted she even realised it.
But one day, she was going to blow her top, and the whole world was going to realise the danger that had been lying in wait beneath the surface all this time.
We were nearly at the top of the Faerris Wheel and Darcy remained silent, turning to look across the fair while my gaze remained on her.
The sea of lights flickered and danced in her eyes, and I fell under her enchantment all over again.
She was a goddess who had so easily plucked my heart from my chest, deciding whether or not she wanted to take a bite out of it.
“You brought Diego here on a date to hurt me,” I growled, drawing her gaze back to me.
“You asked me to talk to him,” she said, shaking her head in anger.
“You know I didn’t mean take him on a fucking date,” I snarled.
She turned away, but I caught her chin so she couldn’t escape this fight, drawing her back to look me in the eye. “When I saw you leaving campus with him, I called Francesca.”
Her throat bobbed as she absorbed my words. “To get even?”
I nodded, regret washing over me. “Biggest fucking mistake of my life. I’d rather bleed than feel what I did when I saw his mouth on yours.”
“So you kissed her to get back at me?” she bit at me.
“Yes,” I said, drawing away a little, guilt hitting me over using Francesca like that, but I just wasn’t myself tonight. I’d descended into a madness I didn’t know how to control.
“I’ll ask you again. Are we done, Blue?” I gripped her arm tighter, needing the answer to that question, whatever way the axe might fall. If she was done with me, I had to know it here and now. Then I’d find a way to move on, but living in the unknown was torture.
Slowly, she shook her head, and the tension ran out of my body, relief cast into every corner of my bones.
“But maybe we should be,” she said quickly, seeing my reaction. “Part of me doesn’t want this to be done, but you hurt me.”
“You hurt me first.” My jaw locked tight in stubbornness, and she shook her head at me.
“What I did was not on the same level.” She glanced away, jaw set and anger blazing across her features.
I sighed, reaching out to cup her cheek, but she pushed my hand away, and my pulse rioted. “I’m sorry, okay? I shouldn’t have kissed her.”
She nodded stiffly, clearly not accepting that apology.
“If you want to hurt me in future, use your hands,” I said with a dark look. “I think physical pain would be preferable.”
“Well, I won’t stop wanting to hurt you until you apologise for what happened with Darius and Tory,” she said sharply, revealing the real crux of the matter. “You never said sorry, and that’s what breaks me the most. You don’t care about what you did.”
Her eyes glistened wetly, and my heart splintered at the sight of her pain. I knew she was mad about that, but it was the way of our kind. Fae on Fae.
I frowned, remembering she hadn’t been raised like I had with parents who actively encouraged me to fight with my sister and settle our issues with combat. I had been getting into fights at school since I could swing my fists, and so had every other Fae in this realm.
It was how we dealt with things; and no one was allowed to step in.
It was shameful to do so, and most Fae would rather end up beaten bloody, defeated in the dirt, than have someone swoop in and rescue them.
But Darcy and Tory had only ever had each other in the mortal realm, and their rules were different to ours, their culture entirely alien to me.
They’d probably fought side by side in fights and never thought anything of it.
They’d come to each other’s aid the moment their other half was in danger, and I’d stopped Darcy from doing that when her sister had been in trouble.
This clearly went deeper than I’d realised and wasn’t something that could be resolved by explaining the ways of our kind. She’d figure that out after she’d been here a year or two, then she’d get it. Because she was as Fae as I was, she just had to shake off the final shackles of the mortal realm.
“You need an apology, Blue? Fine. I’ll give you the best one I can think up.” I kissed the corner of her mouth, then stood up and climbed over the gate holding us in the carriage.
I jumped, hearing Darcy gasp behind me as I fell towards the ground, using air magic to guide me smoothly onto my feet.
It took me a surprisingly short amount of time to come up with a completely unhinged idea to get Darcy to forgive me, but as soon as I found the circus tent where they were holding an electrocution challenge, the plan simply slotted together.
There was a show finishing up in the tent, which a few of the professors from Zodiac were watching, so I waited until the coast was clear before messaging Darcy.
Lance:
I’m ready to make my apology.
Come to the circus tent in five minutes.
I arranged everything with a guy called Rusty Star who was running the game I’d be partaking in, and he guided me backstage to wait to play ‘The Numb Man’. A big guy stood there with his shirt off, eating a burrito with all the savagery of a wild goat, and I was left with him to await my fate.
A beautiful woman in a gemstone-encrusted bikini with a huge pink feather pluming up at her back came prancing over, smiling at me. “Hey sweetie, take your shirt off. We need to strap you in. It proves you’re not cheating, ‘kay?”
“Kay,” I echoed dryly.
She walked over to me on her high heels, eyebrows lifting. “Oh my stars, I’ve just realised who you are. Lance Orion, right? You were tipped off to be the next big Pitball star once.”