Zodiac Academy 3: The Reckoning

WHEN I WAS A kid I used to have the same dream over and over again to the point that I could almost convince myself that it was real. It wasn’t anything special by most people’s standards. I just used to imagine myself curled up in bed between the loving arms of my mom and dad. The parents I’d never known. Warm and safe and loved. It had been a secret I’d never even shared with Darcy because I didn’t want to admit to her that I’d believed we were missing something in our lives. Having a twin was a blessing which meant I’d never been truly alone but growing up without knowing you had people there to love, nurture and protect you no matter what was hard on a kid.

As I grew up, I grew out of the dreams, steadily learning to rely on myself and my sister for support and love, growing a thick skin in the knowledge that I’d never have that kind of endless protection from a parent. And I’d certainly never looked to claim it from any man.

So this dream seemed oddly familiar and yet completely alien to me at the same time. Once again I was tucked in a bed, being held and protected against anything and everything the world might have to throw at me.

But instead of the soft embrace of parents I’d never known, my head lay on the chest of a man whose strong arms were wrapped around me like he never wanted to let me go.

His heartbeat thumped beneath my ear. My arm and leg were coiled over him while he held me against him, his hand resting on the curve of my thigh. He was warm unlike anyone I’d ever known, his skin almost seeming to hold a fire within it which filled my soul with strength and peace.

My eyes were closed so I couldn’t see him but I just felt oddly at home. Like this was where I was meant to be.

My hand lay on the hard muscles of his abs and I slowly started tracing the lines the muscles created with my fingertips, not wanting to shatter the peace of the dream by opening my eyes.

He inhaled deeply, his chest rising beneath me while the arm holding me pulled me a little closer still.

I continued my sleepy exploration of his stomach, my fingers tracing the lines lower and lower until they suddenly skimmed against the edge of a rough waistband. I frowned to myself at the sensation of denim against my fingertips. Who would sleep in a pair of jeans? What kind of weird dream man had I conjured up?

I ran my fingers along the top of the jeans, the rough material tickling at the edges of my memory but my head was too foggy to place it.

“If you keep doing that I’m going to stop being a gentleman about this situation.”

My hand fell still and I froze at the sound of that voice. There was no way even dream Tory would be deluded enough to feel safe in his arms.

My heart pounded a panicked rhythm against my ribcage and I peeled my eyes open, blinking a few times against the darkness I found waiting for me. Pain thundered through my skull and my tongue was thick in my mouth. I cringed against the headache, trying to focus on something around me as I slowly realised that this wasn’t a dream at all.

I spotted the fire burning low in the grate across the room first. There was a black fire guard standing before it and a plush cream chair beside it. I knew this room. I’d burned it down once. And somehow I’d ended up right in the centre of Darius Acrux’s goddamn golden bed.

I was too horrified at myself to move, my brain hunting for answers in a foggy sea of alcohol infused memories. I’d been drinking in The Orb with Sofia and Diego while she shielded our presence with a spell to deflect attention so that no one would spot us and play any Hell Week pranks on us. Or notice the fact that we’d stayed out after curfew. I remembered playing a strange Fae version of truth or dare with them while we worked our way through too many shots and Diego came up with ideas to retrieve his hat from Orion. Then…nothing. Certainly nothing that could explain to me how I’d ended up in Darius Acrux’s arms.

My gaze slid across the wide armchair where I spotted my academy skirt hanging over one arm. I swallowed a thick lump in my throat, turning my attention to what I was wearing…or wasn’t wearing. I plucked at the huge t-shirt which clearly wasn’t mine, pulling the neck wide so that I could look down inside it. A moment of relief found me as I spotted my bra still in place but he hadn’t released his hold on me so I couldn’t be sure my panties were still there too.

Darius slid his hand from my thigh, running it up my side over the fabric of the t-shirt until he found my hair where he began twisting it through his fingers. This was too damn weird. Why was he touching me like that? What the hell had we done last night to make him think he could? And why the hell was I letting him?

I still hadn’t moved, my head still lay over his pounding heart, my fingers still rested on the edge of his waistband.

“Please tell me we didn’t…” I couldn’t actually bear to say it but I had to know because my memory was turning up blanks.

“I prefer my girls a little less blind drunk and a little more eagerly responsive,” he replied. “Besides, you wouldn’t forget it if I’d fucked you.”

Heat rose along my spine at that insinuation but I ignored it in favour of focusing on the relief his words provided.

“Thank heaven for small miracles,” I sighed but for some reason I still hadn’t moved.

“No need to sound so pleased about it,” Darius muttered but he sounded kind of amused at the same time.

“So why am I here?” I asked because this still made no damn sense to me and for some unknown reason I seemed to be frozen in place.

“You got yourself so wasted that you passed out and started using magic in your sleep.”

I frowned at that. I’d been drunk, yeah, but I could handle my alcohol. Passing out in a public place was pretty full on even for me and I was fairly sure I wouldn’t have drunk that much… would I?

Darius kept explaining when I didn’t respond. “I had to use my power to bring yours back under control and then I brought you back here so that I could make sure you didn’t set your bedroom alight in the night or anything.”

At his words, I noticed the feeling of his magic coiling around mine where it had obviously been all night. He hadn’t actually pushed it to merge with mine but it was dancing along the edges of my power as if it was asking to join it. On instinct I let the barrier around my power drop, welcoming his in.

Darius sucked in a sharp breath as his magic tumbled into mine and a breathy moan escaped my lips before I could stop it as the thrill of his magic caused every muscle in my body to tighten for a moment. The ecstasy of our magic combining was kind of addictive, like I could feel the heat of his power filling every dark space in my body and I had to fight to make sure it didn’t burn me.

I pushed his magic back out before I could get lost in the feeling of it and we lay in silence for a few long seconds, neither of us commenting on what I’d just done. I was glad he didn’t ask me about it because I really didn’t know why I’d done it. But now every inch of my skin was alive with the memory of his magic filling me.

His fingers kept moving in my hair and I frowned, wondering why he was doing that. And why the hell I still hadn’t moved. It was like we were under some spell where peace existed between us and we both knew it would be broken if either of us made any sudden movements.

“Did you undress me?” I asked slowly, heat clawing along my spine at the idea of that.

Darius released a breath of laughter and I inched back a little, moving so that my head was on the pillow beside his instead of resting on his chest. He rolled towards me, moving onto his side and shifting so that his hand rested on my bare thigh. He didn’t move his hand once it landed there but the heat of his touch was burning through me like magma.

“You don’t remember putting on a strip show for your friends in The Orb?” he asked, looking into my eyes.

I frowned a little. I could remember playing some Fae drinking game and forgetting the rules so that I lost a hell of a lot and consumed more than my share of the drinks. I had to admit that I wouldn’t have shied away from a dare like that but it didn’t really explain our current situation.

“No,” I said eventually.

“Well you ripped all the buttons off of your shirt right before you passed out. I brought you back here to keep an eye on you – much to the disgust of your little Pegasus friend I might add.”

“Sofia?” Yeah, I could imagine she wouldn’t have wanted Darius Acrux taking me off to his room after all the shit he’d put me through. He obviously hadn’t listened to her complaints though.

“She’s pretty loyal to you,” he said. “But as she couldn’t exactly challenge me, she had to accept that I was just going to look after you. You took care of stripping off the rest of your clothes after that. Right before you straddled me and stole my shirt.”

I opened my mouth to protest against the idea of that but it actually sounded vaguely familiar.

Darius was just watching me like I was somehow fascinating to him and I couldn’t help but stare back into his deep brown eyes. His thumb shifted, painting a line of fire across my thigh and my heart thumped a little harder in response.

“And then we just… slept?” I confirmed.

“I wouldn’t have touched you while you were wasted like that,” he said, his gaze travelling over my face and landing on my mouth.

But I’m not wasted now…

I reached out slowly and pressed my palm down on his chest so that I could feel his heart pounding to the same fierce tune as my own. I dropped my gaze to the back of my hand so that I didn’t have to see the way he was looking at me anymore.

His skin was flaming hot beneath my palm, the depth of his fire magic burning within him like an inferno. I wanted to look up again and catch his gaze with mine but if I did then I was fairly sure that I knew what would happen. And this dark temptation before me was so much more monster than man.

I’d never had an opportunity to really study the tattoos which marked his flesh before and I let myself look at the patterns which wove their way over his shoulders and chest in the dim light. A wing swept across his ribs from some design on his back, the feathers burning like they were made of fire themselves. The red Libra symbol on his forearm began a network of constellations and star signs which formed a sleeve over his bicep, though it stood out starkly as the only image with any colour in it.

 Flames climbed over his left shoulder from the tattoo covering his back which I knew spurted from the mouth of a dragon. I was sure I could have lost myself in the art on his back if I could see it and I itched to ask him about them but it seemed too personal somehow and I held my tongue.

I shifted my gaze back to my hand above his pounding heart where his skin was bare of any marks. I cast about for something else to ask him as the silence spread and a kind of expectant energy seemed to build between us. I could still feel him watching me, waiting for me to look up and give him the answer to the question which was hanging between us.

“So what was I dreaming about that made me use magic?” I asked as I tried to piece together the missing lumps from my evening. “Was I trying to grow a fairy forest or create a tornado filled with cupcakes?”

“No… it was more of a nightmare than a dream,” Darius admitted slowly.

“Well I only ever have one nightmare so…” I frowned as I stopped myself from going on, wondering why I’d been going to tell him about that. This hangover must have been making my brain fuzzy, or maybe I was still drunk and honestly that seemed like the only reason to explain why I was keeping company with him instead of leaving.

But if he was right and I’d been having a nightmare then I wouldn’t have been growing trees or playing with wind. There would have been water and ice and panic…

“You were freezing everything around you,” Darius said quietly. “And then you started coughing up water.”

“Right.” I pursed my lips as I nodded.

Suddenly everywhere that had felt hot between us felt cold and that same ice slithered through my veins as I tried to push myself out of his hold. He wrapped his arm around me more tightly, stopping me from rising.

“Don’t go,” he breathed and there was a strange kind of plea in his voice.

I pushed harder, my limbs growing cold with the same ice he said I’d been casting last night and he flinched where my hand pressed to his chest before releasing me.

I managed to sit upright and Darius pushed himself up too, catching my hand as I started to scramble backwards, having every intention of getting the hell out of here.

“Tell me about it,” he begged. “Don’t just leave.”

“Tell you about what?” I demanded, meeting his eye again and thankfully finding the spell between us broken.

“Your nightmare. You said you only ever have one, so you must know what it was about.” His grip tightened on my fingers.

“It’s not the same as it used to be anymore,” I said coldly, wondering why I was even bothering to have this conversation. But I wanted him to know. I wanted him to see exactly what he’d done to me even if I didn’t really believe he was capable of feeling bad for it. “I used to relive that car crash again and again. I’d be stuck in the car as it sank to the bottom of the river and the cold water raced up over my head… My ex, Zane, just swam away and left me there to die. I used to think he was the worst person I’d ever met. But really he was just a coward. He saved his own ass and didn’t risk it for me. He left me there to die but he didn’t put me there intentionally.”

Darius scowled darkly, a low growl rumbling in the base of his throat as I told him about Zane like the idea of that asshole pissed him off. Which was about the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard because I was sitting in a bed with someone a thousand times worse than him.

I snatched my hand out of Darius’s grip as he continued to hold onto me like he thought he was comforting me or something.

“Now when I have that nightmare, I manage to get myself out of the car and swim for the surface,” I breathed, forcing myself to hold his eye. “But when I get there it’s frozen over and there’s no way for me to get out. I’m stuck, drowning, holding my breath while the last of my energy fades away and I know that I’ll die as soon as I take another breath… And when I wake up screaming, I know full well that there are people a lot worse than Zane in this world.”

Tears were burning my eyes and I scrambled backwards, getting to my feet and wincing against the banging in my skull as I moved. I began hunting for my clothes in the dark, wondering if I should just abandon them and run back to my room as I was. I’d had a newspaper article published about me claiming I had a sex addiction so I doubted looking like I was on the walk of shame could hurt my reputation much more than that anyway.

“When Max pulled that fear from you I don’t think he looked at it as closely as he should have,” Darius said slowly from the bed. “If I’d known that-”

“What?” I snapped, looking up at him angrily. “What is it that you think you can possibly say about that night that might make me see you any differently at all? Why do you even care anyway?” I demanded.

“I don’t know,” Darius replied on a breath and the way he was looking at me made me pause for a minute. “But for Fae, fear is weakness. Our parents force us to face our fears and overcome them to make us stronger. If we can’t then it’s just proof that we aren’t good enough. We only wanted to show everyone that you weren’t strong enough to face yours… I guess we didn’t really think through all the repercussions for you though.”

“Good enough for what?” I demanded, ignoring that last part because I didn’t care if he realised he should have thought through the repercussions more, that didn’t help me now. “Everyone has fears. And yeah, maybe facing them is good sometimes but what you and your friends did to us wasn’t out of some sense of trying to make us stronger. It was cruel and calculated and it was fucked up.”

“I know.”

Points to him for not trying to excuse it but I didn’t want to see the pain it was causing him. He didn’t have a right to be looking at me like that.

“Well good for you, you know exactly how much of a dick you are. Next time I’m having a nightmare feel free to leave me to it. I don’t need help from the monster who gave it to me in the first place.” I managed to locate the light switch and flipped it on before wincing heavily as a knife drove right through my skull in response.

I spotted my satchel by the door and moved to grab it with relief, flipping it open to make sure my key was still in there.

My fingers brushed against the stolen dagger and I gasped as its presence washed over me, filling me with the desire to wrap my fingers around its hilt and take it into my grasp. I froze for a moment as its power called to me, begging me to wield it. I’d brought the stupid thing out with me last night because for some reason I’d thought it might be helpful if we were attacked by Nymphs again. But that thought kind of felt like it had come from the blade instead of me and as I looked at it now I wondered why the hell I’d brought it with me.

Darius got out of the bed and moved into my personal space, making my heart leap with fear as I quickly released the dagger and flipped my satchel closed again.

“My powers were Awakened three years before I came to this Academy so that I could spend that time mastering them with various tutors alongside the other Heirs,” he said slowly like he thought he might spook me if he said too much at once. “During that training, my father did a thousand things to me to make me face my fears. He’d make me walk through fire, jump from cliffs, lock me in tight spaces, beat me, drown me, whip me, pretty much anything and everything he could think of so that he could forge me into a man who showed no fear. It’s what we do. It’s who we are.”

“Well congratulations,” I muttered as I backed up, my hand closing on the door handle. Yep, I was abandoning my clothes because there was no way in hell I was staying here for another second. “Now you’re just like him.”

Darius’s face fell like I’d just punched him and the door spilled open behind me.

I turned and darted out into the corridor, jogging away from him and heading straight for the stairs. I didn’t stop until I made it into my room, miraculously avoiding any of my Housemates on the way.

I locked the door behind me and pressed my back to the smooth wood as I released a long breath. I didn’t know what Darius had been trying to prove by taking me back to his room last night but if he thought I was going to thank him for it then he was insane. The only reason I’d needed his help at all was because of what he’d done to me in that swimming pool. And maybe a little because I needed to learn when enough drink was enough. But I had no intention of altering anything at all about the way I felt about him.

He may have been strangely nice to me for one night but it didn’t change anything between us. The past spoke for itself. And there wasn’t anything that he could say to me to justify that.

I just wished my racing heart would agree.

I locked my door, then dragged my nightstand in front of it too, needing a solid barrier between me and the outside world.

“Fuck,” I breathed as my pounding heart finally began to settle. Why did I let myself get into these situations? I could only be grateful that nothing else had happened between us because that would have been goddamn catastrophic.

I grabbed my Atlas from my satchel then dropped the bag on the floor. I tapped the device but found it dead and sighed as I plugged it in to charge before heading for a shower.

The bright lights in the bathroom drove more daggers through my skull and I groaned. It had been a goddamn school night, what had I been thinking getting wasted like that? I’d wanted to have a drink but the stars only knew what had pushed me to have so much. I could remember feeling buzzed and then it just went black. How had I managed to hop from tipsy to blackout without seeing it coming?

I set the water running in the shower and looked at myself in the mirror. My hair was a mess of curls and eyeliner had smudged beneath my eyes a little but the most horrendous thing in the reflection was the look in my eyes. It wasn’t even shame. My eyes were alight with the thrill of Darius’s magic.

“Hopeless,” I mocked myself before pulling his t-shirt over my head. The scent of cedar and smoke coiled around me like a caress and for half a second I was back in his arms.

I tossed the shirt away from me with disgust at myself and it landed back in my bedroom. My underwear quickly followed and I dove into the shower to wash Darius Acrux off of my flesh. I cranked the heat up to scalding for good measure and washed my hair twice. The feeling of his hands on my skin didn’t wash off though and eventually I had to leave the imprints there.

I dried myself quickly, dressing in a fresh uniform before realising my shoes were missing. I cursed Darius and applied makeup while squinting against the harsh lights of my bedroom. Cardinal Magic with Orion was gonna be a goddamn nightmare with this hangover.

My Atlas started pinging like crazy as it came back to life and I reached for it with a groan, needing that noise to stop. The first thing to flash up was my horoscope.

Good morning Gemini.

The stars have spoken about your day!

After a turbulent start, you may begin to see things in a new light today. Sometimes things aren’t just black and white and though you may be tempted to stick to original assumptions about certain situations, if you open your mind to the possibility of change you might be pleasantly surprised.

A Libra and Pisces will work to dampen your flame today but keep heart, if you can make it through the hard part, you may just find your luck changing as the day wears on.

Well if a Libra was going to dampen my flame then I had a fair idea that that would be Orion. Peachy.

As I closed down my horoscope I found multiple messages from Sofia, Diego and Darcy all in a panic about Darius Acrux kidnapping me and wanting to know I was alright.

I sent a quick reassuring message to our group chat telling them I’d survived the Dragon and would fill them in on everything over multiple coffees in The Orb ASAP. The one thing I did know was that I wanted to get the hell out of Ignis House before I ended up running into Darius again.

I snagged a pair of black stilettos from my wardrobe, cursing the fact that I’d left my shoes in Darius’s room. But I’d sooner spend the day in the ridiculous heels than have to go knocking on his door in search of my pumps. The mere thought of that made me want to curl up in a ball and scream. Nope. Crippled feet from heels were far preferable to the agony of that interaction.

Why had I let myself begin to forget all the things the Heirs had done to us? We hadn’t even made anymore moves against them since the Pitball match.

Time to change that.

I grabbed the bag I’d hidden in the bottom of my closet and stuffed it into my satchel with a surge of determination.

I slid the nightstand away from the door and wrapped a thick jacket around myself before opening the door.

I almost tripped over the pile of folded clothes sitting outside my door and my heart pitter-pattered as I snatched them up. I quickly switched out the stilettos for my pumps, trying not to think too much about the Dragon who’d returned my things. Perhaps Darius was five percent not an asshole. Still ninety five percent a dickwad who’d tried to murder me though so I wasn’t going to be sending him a thank you card.

I pulled my headphones on but my pounding head couldn’t take the hell of music so I didn’t turn any on. I just wanted to discourage anyone who might want to talk to me from doing so.

I needed coffee, Darcy and coffee in that order. My stomach was churning and just the thought of all the food at The Orb made me feel like I might puke but I had to get out of here.

The common room was filling up as I crossed it and I spotted Darius instantly, sitting in his usual spot, surrounded by his fan club. His hair was wet and he’d dressed in his uniform with one of those black robes over it already. His eyes followed me as I crossed the room but I pulled my hood up, withdrawing into the darkness within it as I tried to banish the painful light which wanted to split my head in two.

“Fresh meat!” The sound of approaching footsteps followed the yells as I was spotted and my gut dropped dramatically. 

Fuck no! Do not mess with me right now! 

I threw my hands up, automatically sending a shockwave of air magic tearing away from me in every direction. People and furniture went flying everywhere as I threw way too much force into the attack and only Darius and the people around him were spared the hit as he shielded them just in time.

Half a smile tugged at his lips but I looked away from him, jogging straight for the stairs to escape before the Hell Week assholes could come at me again.

“Let her go,” Darius’s voice followed me out and heat raced down my spine but I refused to even wonder why he’d done that. Probably just didn’t want me to puke on the carpet.

The day was beautiful, the sky pale blue and clear of clouds as the sun rose to fill it and birds cried out joyfully. I scowled at it.

Stupid sun.

I needed a grey day to go with my grey mood and all of that bright light was going to cause me serious issues. I fished a pair of sunglasses out of my satchel and placed them on with a groan. 

Why did I have to drink so much? Why did he have to be the one to find me? Why did he have to look so damn good in the mornings with his hair all mussed up and his shirt off…

As I finally made it into The Orb, I paused in surprise, looking around at the flowers which covered every available surface in every colour imaginable. As I looked closer, I realised they were growing through a thick layer of ice which sparkled in the shimmering lights which burned around the curved walls. I guessed that this was the result of my out of control magic and I marvelled a little at what I’d managed to create.

My lips parted and awe almost drove my headache away until the smell of food sent my stomach tumbling over itself instead.

There weren’t many students here yet but a couple of teachers were looking at the ice and flowers and discussing them in low voices.

“I say we leave the decorations up for a while, enjoy the change!” Washer said, rubbing his hands together enthusiastically.

“The choice is really between burning the whole thing away or trying to encourage the ice to melt and the plants to wither,” Pyro disagreed. “We can’t leave the place covered in ice and flowers. But the magic is so damn strong that it doesn’t want to budge. I’m guessing this prank is courtesy of the Heirs, we should figure out which of them did it and dock House Points. At the least they should have to clean it up.”

“Oh those rascals would never admit to it even if it was them,” Washer said, waggling a finger. “Do you want me to give melting it a go then? I might get everyone wet though…”

I passed them by before hearing Pyro’s response and glanced around to check no one was paying me any attention before casting the spell Sofia had taught me last night. My skin tingled as the glamour fell over me and I was hidden from the sight of anyone looking my way. It worked by simply making people look past me and could be broken if someone concentrated hard enough so I needed to hurry.

I crossed the room straight towards the red couch where the Heirs always held court and smiled to myself as I pulled the bag from my satchel. I grabbed a glittering purple Pegasus horn vibrator out first and quickly wedged it between the cushions. Next, I pulled out a riding whip which we’d gotten personalised so that Caleb Altair stood out in silver letters along the length of it and laid it at the edge of his usual spot with my heart pumping adrenaline into my limbs.

I headed straight for the coffee machine with a smirk playing around my lips and dropped the glamour again as I looked around to make sure no one had seen through my spell. I grabbed a tray and quickly made six coffees before carrying them to a set of curved couches in the corner where we’d have a good view when the Heirs arrived.

I shot Darcy a message to let her know what I’d done so that I wouldn’t have to risk telling her while people might overhear us then reached for my coffee in desperation. 

The first mouthful of my hot drink drew me a little closer to feeling human again and I released a soft moan as I drank it down.

“Holy shit, Tor, what the hell happened to you last night?” Darcy demanded as she jogged towards me. I barely managed to deposit my coffee on the table before she wrapped her arms around me. “Diego practically broke my door down looking for me and then Sofia called me and told me Darius Acrux had kidnapped you but there was a teacher lurking outside the exit to Aer House because of the curfew and I couldn’t leave to find you!”

“It’s alright, he didn’t do anything bad,” I reassured her. “The reason I look like shit is purely self inflicted.”

Darcy plopped down into the soft armchair opposite me and claimed her coffee as I started on my second. I still had my sunglasses on like a total douchebag but I couldn’t bear to lower them.

“I can’t believe you got wasted on a school night,” she said, rolling her eyes at me.

“Well you ditched us so I had to have your drinks too,” I joked.

“So what happened with Darius?” she pressed.

I let out a heavy breath. What the hell had happened with Darius? I filled her in on all of it and she gave me a report of what Sofia and Diego had told her too. By the end of it I still didn’t really know what to make of the Fire Heir’s behaviour.

When she told me what had happened with Seth, my eyebrows practically got lost in my hairline.

“Maybe the stars are doing something weird at the moment,” I said eventually. “Because that now means all four Heirs have managed to behave in less than asshole like ways in the last twenty-four hours. And that sure as shit isn’t natural.”

Darcy barked a laugh and relaxed back into her chair with a shake of her head. “You’re right. Maybe Neptune is twisting their personalities into those of non-jerks for a while.”

“Long may it last,” I murmured over my third coffee.

“Well I’ll drink to that,” she agreed.

We clinked coffee cups and I winced at the sharp sound. Whatever the hell was going on with the Heirs, I just hoped it was going to stay this way.

As that thought occurred to me, the four assholes in question appeared. I raised an eyebrow at Darcy to draw her attention and she slid from her seat to take a place in the chair beside mine which offered her a better view of them as they drew closer to their couch. 

“Maybe pissing them off again wasn’t the best idea,” I muttered, though it was too late to back out now. 

“Pfft, this is nothing compared to what they did to us,” Darcy replied, taking a long drink from her mug. 

Seth dropped down into his seat, tipping his head back and howling in that way he did to make sure everyone noticed he’d arrived. Like his ego just needed the hit of having all eyes on him for two seconds every morning or he’d self combust.

Darius looked my way as he took his seat but I didn’t react, knowing he couldn’t tell I was looking back at him with my sunglasses shielding my eyes. 

Darcy busied herself with pretending to scroll through something on her Atlas as she watched them through a veil of her hair and I had to fight to keep the preemptive smirk off of my face. 

Max dropped into his seat the same moment Caleb did and he instantly shifted to yank the horn vibrator out from under his cushion. Geraldine was walking past them and stopped to point, calling out loudly as she spotted what Max was holding. 

“For the love of sanitary sausages, please tell me you aren’t bringing your depraved hobbies in here where we all eat our meals!” she cried. “It’s bad enough you paid a griffin to take a dump on your chest without bringing your randy rocket out with you for breakfast!”

Darcy and I nearly choked on our laughter at what she’d accused him of – it was goddamn genius.

Silence fell as everyone looked at Max whose mouth had fallen open in shock. In the seconds it took him to scramble for a response, Geraldine swept away, heading for us with mischief glimmering in her eyes as laughter broke out around us. 

“This isn’t mine!” Max shouted, getting to his feet. 

“No, that looks like it must be Caleb’s!” someone called from the back of the room and the rest of the Heirs were suddenly on their feet too. 

A laugh burst from my mouth and Darcy gripped my arm as she fought to hold her own laughter back. Geraldine dropped down opposite us, a restrained smile on her lips as she took a coffee from the table. 

As Caleb got up, he knocked the whip with his knee and it fell to the floor with a clatter. 

Darius bent down to retrieve it, his grip tightening on it as he held it up for the others to see. 

“What the fuck is this?” Darius growled, his eyes shooting around the room though thankfully not lingering on us. 

“Did you really pay a griffin to take a dump on your chest, Max?” a girl shouted. “Because I’d do it for free!”

Max’s face turned a violent shade of purple and a wave of anger slammed through The Orb from him a second before he launched the horn vibrator across the room. It hit the metal wall with a dull thunk then fell to the ground where it promptly started vibrating and bouncing all over the place. 

“When we find out who’s behind this shit, you’re going to wish you were never born!” Caleb bellowed as he snatched the whip from Darius’s hands and snapped it in half with a loud crack. 

My chest was hurting as I fought against my laughter, biting down on my lip almost hard enough to draw blood but it was a losing battle. There were more than a few sniggers breaking out from all around the room and I clutched onto Darcy as I lost control. 

The Heirs stormed from the room and a cascade of laughter followed them as they went. 

“Galloping gargoyles, that might have been the best one yet,” Geraldine gushed and even though the laughter was definitely making my headache worse, I was pretty sure I had to agree.