Zodiac Academy 5: Cursed Fates

There were many things my father had taught me which I wished I could scour from my brain, but in some things, I had to admit he was right. Though I didn’t appreciate his methods of educating me on them.

On my eighth birthday, Mother had been throwing one of her grand parties to celebrate and half the damn kingdom were invited, very few of whom were actually my age. As the youngest of the Heirs, the others had been teasing me about my birthday mattering the least and I’d made the mistake of muttering complaints about the entire affair within earshot of Father.

Even then, I really should have known better, but I could admit that being born to be one of the most powerful men in the kingdom had made me into a bit of a brat at times. He’d moved to stand over me, his hulking form blocking out the sunlight as I sat pouting by the marquee and casting me in shadow as he’d sneered at me. The key to being the most important man in the room is in knowing it’s true right down to the very fabric of your soul, Darius. 

He’d driven his point home by making me choose one of the servants at random and I’d picked a Fae called Osmond who was four times the size of me and had been employed to tend the gardens at our manor for my entire life. He was a man I’d been fond of, who’d played ball with Xavier and me from time to time if our father was away for work. He was kind and had plenty of friends and I was young and stupid and didn’t realise that whoever I picked would be in for something bad.

Father called him into the house and brought him to the music room where the open space was built with perfect acoustics in mind.

At eight years old I was a big kid, my Dragon blood showing through even then, but I was still only around the size of most thirteen year old boys.

Father had wrapped me in a silencing bubble with him and explained just how much more important my life was than pretty much every other Fae alive. He told me that that meant I could take any of them and do whatever the hell I wanted to prove that point and they would thank me for my efforts while kissing my feet.

I was still in awe of my father then, naïve enough to take him at his word and act on his commands eagerly as I tried to win his approval, but that was the first time I hesitated to follow through on what he wanted.

He hit me so hard, I was deafened in my left ear and blood coated my tongue as I fell against the wall.

You are under no illusions that I’m the most important man in the room now, aren’t you, Darius? So go and show that Fae how important you are.

I’d lifted my chin and stalked into the music room where Osmond was waiting. He offered me this strange, sad kind of smile which I couldn’t understand at the time but I realised now was something between acceptance and pity.

In my coldest voice, I’d commanded him to his knees before me because he was far too tall for me to attack effectively while on his feet.

The first strike of my fist against his jaw had rocked pain up through my arm and a spike of fear through my chest. I’d glanced back at Father where he stood watching lazily from the doorway and he’d raised a single brow at me as if to ask if that was all I had.

The next punch I landed was harder and then harder again. I kept hitting Osmond until he fell to the floor before me and my knuckles were split and bleeding, then I started kicking him. My muscles burned with strength and this incredible feeling of power as he took each and every strike I dealt him just because of who I was. 

When I was out of breath and speckled in blood, I finally fell still and looked down at him in triumph, though guilt twisted through me too. Father had approached slowly, his polished shoes echoing on the hardwood floor as he closed in on me and my victim.

Do you want to pay the man for helping you learn this lesson, Darius? he’d asked, pulling a thick wedge of auras from his pocket. I could see enough hundred aura bills to know there was well over ten thousand there. But the look in father’s eyes said that that was another test too.

I’d reached out carefully and taken a single aura from his hand, dropping it onto Osmond dismissively and the smile Father had given me in return was all monster. He was thrilled.

He’d healed my ear but left my knuckles split and bloody for the party to prove to me that I could do anything I wanted and no one would ever dare question me. Because I was more important than them.

No one aside from the other Heirs asked why my fists were busted and Father bought me more gifts than any child could possibly need, including my first motorbike and a Faerarri. And for too long I’d been proud of that act.

Osmond still didn’t raise his head in my presence to this day and now when I looked back on that lesson, I knew that the worst part of it all was the value I’d put on his life. A single aura. It was somehow worse than if I’d offered him nothing.

It was a lesson I wished I’d learned in any other way, but it was a valuable lesson all the same. From that day on, Father had enforced my superiority complex by teaching me to belittle and ignore other Fae as easily as breathing. And it might not have been a pretty lesson to learn, but there was some truth to it. In almost every situation I ran into, I was the most important man in the room. And I had no trouble at all in reminding other Fae of that.

I strode down the grey corridor in the Fae Investigation Bureau building in central Tucana with Mr Kipling keeping pace three steps behind me where I didn’t have to look at his sombre face. He was the best lawyer I knew, more than capable of handling any and every little problem which came my way. From persistent stalkers who I wanted off my case, to covering up any accidental murders I might have to deal with. Luckily that last one hadn’t been an issue for me yet, but if it ever was then I knew who to call. He was a Griffin, smart as a whip and one of three brothers who ran a legal empire based on fixing anything and everything a Fae might need. And best of all, they weren’t affiliated with my father. Dante Oscura had pointed me in their direction years ago and if they were good enough to keep half of the infamous Oscura Clan gang out of prison then I was more than confident that they would be able to help Lance too.

We strode through the waiting room where other Fae sat in hopes of gaining an appointment and I ignored them entirely.

Several uniformed officers stared at me in shock as I strode straight through a set of security doors and three of them actually tried to stand in my way. I knocked them aside with a blast of water magic and encased them against the wall in ice for good measure without even slowing my stride. Each of them were well trained and more than capable of fighting back, but they didn’t. Because I was Darius Acrux, the most important man in the fucking room.

Kipling breathed heavily behind me which was enough to let me know he was loving this power play. He was a man of few words, not wasting time on anything he didn’t deem necessary, but over the years, I’d learned to read his ticks and tells. And I was pretty confident he liked me. He was the oldest brother of three and was the one I dealt with most. With my constant issues with the press, admirers, straight up stalkers and so on, we spoke pretty damn regularly. He was only in his late twenties but something about him made him seem so much older, like his soul had seen and done so many things that it had lost all the lustre of youth too young. He was tall and heavily built with a square jaw and cold, calculating eyes. In fact, the three brothers all looked so similar that it was hard to pick them out of a line up, but this one was the leader. Just.

I kept going until I reached the commanding officer’s door and threw it open without knocking. Agent Hoskins shoved himself to his feet with something akin to a snarl on his face. He was a big bastard, a Manticore with a reputation that had the criminal underbelly of Solaria pissing their pants in their sleep. But I wasn’t afraid of him.

“Save it,” I snapped before he could try and reprimand me. “I’m here for a meeting with Lance Orion. I brought his lawyer and I suggest you don’t keep me waiting if you like this job.”

Hoskins puffed himself up as his muscles tensed defiantly. “Lord Acrux, I-”

“Lord Acrux isn’t here and I assure you, I’m a lot less amenable to bullshit than he is,” I growled, my eyes shifting to Dragon slits as I stalked towards him and used every inch of my height and bulk to intimidate him. He might have been big, but no fucker could rival an Acrux Dragon for muscle mass. “You will go and get Lance Orion now, or you’re going to find yourself with one hell of a problem on your hands.”

The head of the FIB swallowed thickly as he held my gaze for five long seconds while the weight of my power settled over the room so potently that it made the hairs prick up along the back of my neck. He finally dropped his eyes to somewhere around my chest and inclined his head to show submission.

“I’ll have him brought to an interview room. If you can just wait-”

“Now,” I snarled and he blanched just enough to let me know he was afraid of me. Good. He should be afraid.

Hoskins lifted a phone on his desk and quickly dialled out to get some other agents to bring Lance out to meet with me.

“If you can just wait for Agent Bravas to come and escort you to-”

“You’ll be escorting me,” I snapped before turning my back on him in the most insulting way I could manage and striding back out into the corridor.

Kipling was hiding the edge of a smile as he followed me from the room and all of the agents beyond the door were trying their damn hardest not to point and stare as their boss hurried around me to lead the way on like a whipped little bitch. No doubt they’d all suffer his rage once I was gone but for now, I had his balls firmly cupped in my palm.

We headed down long, grey corridors and through locked doors before I spotted Lance walking towards me, herded on by a group of six agents.

They ushered him through a door before I could do more than meet his eye and I strode in a moment later to find him sitting in a bare room with a table and three chairs laid out for us. His hands were manacled in magic blocking cuffs which one of the agents was about to chain to a bolt in the centre of the metal table.

I flicked a ball of fire at the agent, striking his hands and making him drop the chain with a shout of pain before he could lock it in place.

Every other agent in the room lurched to whip guns from their hip holsters and I growled loud enough to make them shit themselves.

“If any one of you aims a weapon at me, I’ll gladly cook your ass in Dragon fire for treason and piss on your smouldering bones for good measure.”

Mouths popped open, guns were lowered, wide and terrified gazes were levelled at me from all around and I growled again to make my point.

“Get the fuck out,” I snapped and they all fucking ran to do so without even waiting for Hoskins to okay it.

“Attorney client privilege states that this conversation remain private and cannot be spied on,” Kipling said in a curt voice as he turned to face Hoskins in the doorway and pulled a small, cylindrical device from his pocket. He pressed it to the wall and raised a solitary eyebrow. “You have three hidden cameras and an amplification spell cast on this room.” He slid the device back into his pocket with a calculating look. “That’s a major infraction. When was the last time you were given food, Mr Orion?” he added without looking at Lance.

“They gave me a slice of bread last night,” he grunted.

“Three square meals a day, a clean cell, a shower and fresh clothing are mandatory requirements for Fae incarcerated in a holding cell while awaiting prosecution. This isn’t Darkmore Penitentiary, Agent Hoskins, Mr Orion has Fae rights which must be adhered to. Innocent until proven guilty.”

“I’ll get him a proper meal and a change of clothes for his return to his cell,” Hoskins grunted reluctantly.

“He will require a suitable, clean mattress, warm blankets, constant access to toilet facilities and water at all times. I’ll be checking in to make sure he has all of those things,” Kipling said in a flat tone as he turned to place his briefcase on the table.

“Consider it done,” Hoskins grunted.

“Oh, I do,” Kipling agreed. He pulled out his curofile and I couldn’t help but watch the magical object with fascination as he opened the white binder and lifted a freshly inked page from the top of it before pressing his finger to the base of the paper and imbuing it with his magical signature.

Kipling crossed the room to stand before Hoskins and held the page out to him. “Agent Hoskins, you have been served on behalf of the FIB for failing to provide due care and comfort to a suspect under your charge and for attempting to spy on legally protected conversations between myself and my client. I’ll see you in court.”

Hoskins gaped at the legal document in his hand and Kipling threw the door shut in his face.

I exchanged a dark smile with him as he set about securing the room from any more magical spy work with a series of complex spells and turned my gaze to Lance instead.

I threw my arms around him and he grunted as he leaned into my embrace, unable to hug me back due to his cuffed hands. My heart leapt and pounded in relief as the ache in my chest eased from having him so close.

He looked like shit and smelled like he hadn’t showered. His hair was a mess, he was wearing the clothes he’d been arrested in and there were huge bags beneath his eyes.

“How are you?” I asked him as I drew him close, running my hands up his back.

“How’s Blue?” he asked in return.

“Fucking furious,” I replied. “She beat the shit out of Seth in front of the whole school. He’s been howling all fucking night and day since.”

A merciless laugh escaped him. “That’s my girl.”

“I asked him outright if he did this,” I added because Seth would be lucky to be alive if I believed he had. “But he swore he didn’t. I know you don’t have a high opinion of him, but he’s my brother just like you are. I believe him.”

Lance scoffed and pushed out of my arms, dropping into the chair on his side of the table and I tried not to let the sting of that rejection show.

“Who else then?” he growled. “Who else knew?”

“I haven’t been given the name of the witness as of yet,” Kipling said formally as he finished up his magic and took a seat opposite Lance.

I caved and sat too, folding my arms to stop myself from punching something over the fucking injustice of the situation. I didn’t know who else it might be, but whoever it was had made themselves an enemy of mine.

“As soon as you find out, I’ll kill them,” I promised.

“A full character assassination will take place of course,” Kipling nodded as if I’d meant that instead of bloodshed, but we all knew I hadn’t. “In the meantime, my brothers and I spent the entirety of the last seventeen hours watching the video evidence. It was a six hour tape, so it took a while but during that time we managed to individually catalogue each law break and how we will fight against their use in this case.”

“You watched hours of my girl and me having sex?” Lance snarled protectively and he looked damn close to leaping out of the chair and throttling Kipling just for having seen it.

“If it appeases you, you may wish to know that my brothers and I have very specific tastes sexually and neither you nor Miss Vega fulfil them, so I can assure you the work was in no way gratifying. I prefer men in their fifties or older with considerably more body hair than you. My middle brother only enjoys sex with inanimate objects and my youngest brother likes Medusa women in shifted form.”

“Oh,” Lance said, cutting a glance to me which said he was half relieved and half freaked out by that. I liked to know everything about the people I employed, so I already knew all of that anyway but the plain faced way Kipling discussed it was definitely weird as fuck.

“So, as I was saying. You have the full use of me and both of my brothers for the duration of your case. Both of them are listening in now by the way and relaying ideas to me.”

“You’re on the phone to them?” Lance asked with a frown as he looked for an earpiece and I almost smirked.

“No. We underwent a…procedure, several years ago which links our psyches. It was immeasurably painful, destroyed most of our ability to feel empathy and removed all forms of privacy between us. But it makes our work as a unit so much more cohesive that we all agree it’s worth the sacrifice.”

“Aside from when your middle brother starts humping a grapefruit or something and you’re linked in for the show, I guess,” I joked to lighten the tension in the room and Kipling just shrugged.

“He’s been more interested in sponge cakes recently, but we are getting off topic,” Kipling deadpanned.

There was a beat of silence where I almost laughed before realising it wasn’t a joke and Lance cut me a look like he was wondering if these guys were really the right men for the job. But he also knew I’d only ever get him the best so he didn’t comment.

“So,” Kipling began, drawing another sheet of paper from his curofile. He’d explained the magic of it to me once. Basically, his brothers each had one of their own and any document they created was magically duplicated into the other files no matter how far they were from one another. So while this Kipling had been listing out all of the infractions Agent Hoskins had made against Lance, his brothers had compiled the file and sent it over for him to use. It was seamless and pretty fucking spectacular magic. “We can dismiss the charge of sexual biting. Miss Vega is your Source and that was a well-known fact. There are no rules in the school contract you signed or anywhere else to say that you had to bite her in a specific place. So it doesn’t matter that you bit her breasts, inner thigh and buttocks. That will be dismissed.”

Lance shot me a look and cleared his throat. “Okay. What else?”

“We have, four counts of full coitus, two counts of cunnilingus, one count of fellatio. A single spank which I think we can dismiss as an accidental fall-”

“Fuck me, Lance you couldn’t have just had a quickie, could you?” I muttered as Kipling went on and Lance ran a hand over his face with a groan.

“Four hundred and three kisses-”

“You counted the kisses?” Lance blanched.

“One hundred and sixteen pecks to the lips. Eighty four kisses to the lips with tongue. Thirty seven to her left breast, forty five to the right, eight to-”

“By the stars, is that really necessary?” Lance growled.

“We are extremely thorough in our work. It may interest you to know that the cunnilingus is likely to work in your favour if we have a mainly female jury. They tend to see that as an act of selflessness and love as opposed to the work of a sexual predator. Unfortunately, the fellatio somewhat detracts from it, but depending on the moral standards of the male jury members, it might balance out. Especially once they see how willing Miss Vega is in the tape-”

“You’re not playing that tape in court!” Lance yelled suddenly, leaping to his feet, slamming his fists down on the table and shoving away from it in a rage. “I won’t have countless assholes ogle her like that. I’d sooner just plead guilty and take my punishment!”

“I’m afraid the tape will be played regardless of plea,” Kipling said calmly as if Lance didn’t look about five seconds away from ripping his throat out. I guessed he had plenty of experience working with gangsters and killers to have learned not to flinch under such rage. “Like I said, the best we can hope for now is to convince the jury that this was love, not abuse and get them to be lenient. I won’t lie to you though, Mr Orion. The prosecution will paint you out as a sexual predator who manipulated his way into the bed of one of the most important people in Solaria. They will be looking to prove that you tricked and brain washed her, convinced her to believe she loved you and made her spread her legs for you so that you could use her to claim more power and place a pawn on the Solarian Throne. You will lose your job, no question. You will be power shamed, I guarantee it. The best we are hoping for here is house arrest and magical confinement for an extended period of time. I’d guess ten years but I’ll fight for two. And we can always use appeals to lower it if I don’t get that outcome. But I’ll take any of those outcomes because what the prosecution will be fighting for tooth and nail is a prison term. Supermax because of your power levels and the fact that the girl you abused is a Vega.”

“Darkmore?” Orion breathed, his gaze sliding to me again as fear spiked through my chest.

That place wasn’t a prison. It was hell on Earth. An underground hive filled with the worst criminals in all of Solaria and beyond who were sent down there to rot in the dark. I’d even heard rumours that they kept a genetically engineered monster down there to make sure the inmates had no chance of escaping. And there were no rules there either, no laws to protect inmates. Only ways to control them. Less than half of the inmates survived their full sentence to be released again. I’d do anything and everything in my power to make sure Lance didn’t end up there.

“Don’t even think about it,” I snarled. “You’re not going to prison.”

“Darius,” Lance said suddenly, looking up at me with real fear in his eyes. “You have to swear to me that you’ll look after Blue. Promise me you’ll keep helping her with the shadows. Swear to me that she will not fall prey to your father or his hateful quest for power!”

I moved to grab him, clasping his head between my hands as he looked at me with wild eyes. “You’re not going to prison,” I growled again.

“Promise me!” he bellowed, shoving me back a step as he snarled at me. “She’s all that matters to me! I need you to swear it. You’ll protect her, teach her, fix your shit with Tory and make something work between the Heirs and the Vegas so that you can overthrow Lionel and Clara.”

“Okay,” I gave in at the desperation in his tone. He needed me to swear it, but I refused to give up. “I swear to look after her, so long as you swear to do everything you can to get yourself out of this mess.”

I looked around at Kipling like he had all the answers and Lance nodded as that hollow look crept into his gaze again.

Kipling cleared his throat like the outburst hadn’t even happened. “Then let’s start from the very beginning. I’m going to need all of the details to get the right spin on this.”

“Okay,” Lance breathed as he sank back down into his chair and I followed as I took mine too. “I’ll tell you whatever you need to know.”

***

I flew back to campus in my Dragon form, a bag filled with my clothes clamped in my jaws as the sun began to set and the orange light made my golden scales sparkle.

I did a circuit of the grounds and as I passed Aqua Lake, a blast of fire caught my attention from the shore.

My gut plummeted as I spotted Caleb and Roxy sitting together on the stony beach, but as Caleb threw up more fire which he shaped into words, a completely different kind of shiver ran through my limbs.

Round 2?

I circled the lake and tucked my wings as I flew down to join them, slowing my speed and landing heavily on the bank behind them as I dropped my bag.

Roxy got to her feet and turned to look at me, laughing at something Caleb said but I didn’t catch it. And that wasn’t annoying as fuck. 

My attention swivelled between them as they laughed together and my heart pounded in a desperate kind of way. I ached for her to look at me like that, carefree and happy, enjoying the moment without any drama or pain.

But as she turned to look at me again, her laughter fell away and she bit her lip nervously. I stilled as she approached, looking down at her as she strode straight towards a Dragon who was bigger than a bus like I was a fucking house cat. I hadn’t spoken to her since I’d told her I loved her and I didn’t really know what I was going to say. But I had to think that if Caleb had suggested that the three of us repeat what we did a few weeks ago, he must have asked her first. And as much as it hurt me to know I couldn’t have her to myself, if this was the only way I could have her at all then I was willing to make the sacrifice. Because I woke up aching for her and I spent the day thinking of her and every glimpse I caught of her, every word we exchanged, it wasn’t enough. I needed more. And if this was the only way I could get that then I’d make my peace with it somehow and just ignore the parts of my heart which burned with agony at the thought of him touching her too.

I breathed out slowly and she was engulfed in smoke for a moment, a soft laugh escaping her just before her hand landed on my scaly nose.

“I definitely like you better like this,” she teased as I leaned down and let her stroke me, her palm running right up between my eyes. I wondered if she had any concept of how few people had ever gotten this close to me in my Dragon form.

“Because he can’t talk, right?” Caleb joked as he moved closer too, pushing a hand through his unruly blonde curls.

“Yeah,” Roxy agreed and I snorted smoke in her face again. Her other hand swung out as she coughed against the smoke and she lightly slapped me on the snout to tell me off.

“Did you just slap a fucking Dragon?” Caleb asked, his eyes sparkling as he looked at her with a little too much appreciation for my liking.

“It’s easier to believe he’s not a monster when his fangs are on show,” Roxy said, cutting him a bright smile which made a growl rumble through my throat. She turned to look at me again and I practically sighed as she ran her hands over my scales once more. “How fucked up is that?” she murmured and if I really was a house cat I might have been purring.

“Almost as fucked up as having to have a chaperone every time you want to hang out with him,” Caleb teased and I grunted again before shifting back into my Fae form.

Roxy gasped as her hands landed on my chest instead of my face and her gaze instantly fell to my dick.

“Do you wanna just stand there staring or take a picture to look at later?” I teased.

“I choose the picture,” she replied instantly. “Maybe you can get all oiled up and send me one?”

Caleb barked a laugh and offered her a high five as she withdrew her hands with a grin and stepped back.

“Don’t tempt me, Roxy, if sexting you is on the cards then I’ll do it constantly,” I warned as I grabbed a spare pair of sweatpants out of my bag and pulled them on. I didn’t want to wear the damn suit I’d worn to see Lance again.

She opened her mouth to reply, but the ground began to shake beneath us as she did. “Why is that happening now?” she asked as she took a step back again to put more distance between us.

I glanced at Cal in confusion. The stars had never had an issue with us being together so long as we weren’t alone and he was standing closer to me than Roxy was. So what was their problem? She’d only touched me for a moment.

Roxy kept backing up until she was right at the water’s edge and the quaking ground finally began to fall still.

“So…are we going to go and take a closer look at the stars in the amplifying chamber?” Cal asked, his gaze snagging on Roxy’s bare legs beneath her little denim shorts for much longer than I liked. I wondered if he was hanging out with her like this regularly again or if he’d only invited me to join them because he’d seen me flying through the clouds above them. The idea of that made my heart race in a terrifying kind of way. Because I’d suggested it once to both of them. Back when the hopelessness was consuming me and the guilt of what had happened between us was tearing me apart so much I could hardly think. I’d told them to be happy together if that was what they wanted, knowing that it would destroy me if they did while feeling that I deserved to be destroyed anyway. But could I really handle that? Could I really face that reality day in day out?

No. I was pretty sure it would kill me.

Roxy seemed like she wanted to say something, but the ground started rumbling again and a crash of thunder overhead made me look up to the heavens.

I drew in a sharp breath as I spotted the Gemini, Leo and Taurus constellations lit up brightly above us despite the fact that the sun hadn’t even set.

“Shit,” Cal muttered. “They figured it out.”

I looked back at Roxy just as a tear slipped from her eye, her gaze caught on me like there was something she wanted to say. But whatever it was, she abandoned it as the next tremor rocked the ground at our feet and she suddenly shifted into her full Phoenix form.

My eyes widened as her entire body was coated in flames, beautiful burning wings blazing from her body before she took off so fast that the blur of her motion was left imprinted on the backs of my eyelids.

I watched as she flew away from me with more pain in my heart than I felt I could bear as the quaking ground finally fell still. 

I dropped down onto the bank, hiding my face in my hands as I growled in frustration over the loss of something I’d never really had.

A moment later Cal sat beside me with a heavy sigh, throwing his arm around me as he rested his head against my shoulder.

“I’m sorry, man,” he muttered. “I was afraid they might figure it out the first time. That was why I went to all the effort of keeping it secret, hiding your magic with the bangles, even the blindfold…”

“The blindfold was fucking hot,” I muttered. I didn’t think I’d ever gotten hard as quickly in all my life as I had when he’d presented her to me all wrapped up like that and waiting. Hands tied behind her back, blindfold on, she’d looked entirely vulnerable and utterly corruptible but as badass as they come all at once.

“I’m sorry it’s fucked now though,” he said.

I sighed heavily. “It was fucked anyway. Even if we could make it work long term with you in the mix, how is that fair? For us to be fighting to be together when the stars have made the entire world fight against it. And to pull you into that shit too, tangle you up with us and whatever the fuck it is we’re doing…”

“It wasn’t exactly a hardship,” he said with a shrug, but there was an edge to his voice which said that wasn’t quite the truth.

I shifted away from him, turning to face him so that I could look into his navy eyes and I psyched myself up to ask a question I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer for.

“We need to talk about Roxy,” I said slowly.

“You mean Tory,” Caleb said with a smirk. “You know she hates it when you call her Roxy, right?”

“No. She doesn’t hate it, it gets under her skin but that’s exactly where I like to be. Besides, you’re wrong, her name is Roxanya Vega and she was born to be a Solarian princess. Calling her Tory is just a crutch to allow yourself to forget that.”

Caleb snorted a laugh. “I’d have trouble forgetting that.”

“You’re skirting the issue,” I muttered.

“I know.” He held my eye and I huffed, hating the irritation I was feeling towards him. He was my brother, the least I could do was speak honestly with him.

“So, was a part of the reason you wanted to involve yourself because you want her too?” I asked.

Cal frowned, started to shake his head, stopped, looked up at the sky and sighed heavily.

“I…no, I don’t really want her for myself. Not now,” he said slowly. “There was a time when I used to daydream about it. Me and her being something…different. I dunno. She keeps me on my toes, she makes me laugh and the sex was fucking-” I growled at him and he smirked as he shrugged. “You’ve been there, man, you know exactly what the sex is like with her.”

“This conversation is likely to end in your death,” I muttered as I tried to rein in my anger and jealousy and just deal with the fact that I should have gone after her when I’d first seen her instead of waiting and letting this situation play out.

Cal snorted a laugh like I was joking even though it was pretty clear I wasn’t and he pushed a hand through his curls again. It was just one of those things he did without thinking, but I’d seen the way girls looked at him when he did it and with this particular subject of conversation, it really annoyed the fuck out of me.

“So why are we having it?” he asked.

“Because…” He waited me out and I forced myself to go on. He was my brother and we needed to clear the air on this subject even if neither of us liked the outcome. “The worst thing about being Star Crossed isn’t even knowing that I’m never going to have love or happiness in my life like that. It’s about knowing that she isn’t. So I guess what I’m asking is, if I wasn’t in the picture, if she didn’t have black rings in her eyes…would it be you and her?”

Caleb drew in a deep breath as he looked at me and I could tell he was really considering his answer before he gave it.

“Me and Tory,” he began slowly. “It was fun, like crazy fun. She never just fell at my feet like most of the girls who are so desperate to bag an Heir that they forget all about their dignity. I could never tell if I’d be getting a yes or a no from her and then when she started letting me hunt her, it awoke this feral part of me which I hadn’t even known I’d been missing. We laughed together and have chemistry that just makes everything so hot and she seriously doesn’t know when to stop pushing my fucking buttons and that was pretty fucking liberating.”

I bit my tongue on every angry, bitter, jealous thought which ached to tumble from my lips and waited for him to finish as my heart pounded with this dull ache which I was afraid would consume me entirely if it got its way.

“But it was also…kinda hard work,” he said, offering me a grin. “She literally never messaged or called me except in response to me doing so first. She refused to meet up with me nine times for every time she said yes. When we went to the Fairy Fair we had a fucking brilliant time, but I had to work my ass off to figure out what she’d like to do and then when I took her on that date…” He groaned and dropped his head back as I chuckled at the memory too.

“I can’t believe you fucked it up so bad,” I said.

“I can’t believe you never took her out yourself,” he shot back and I sighed. “Seriously, you had that whole perfect date planned out, you can’t tell me it never occurred to you.”

“Only in a fantasy kind of way,” I admitted. “I was aware enough of all the reasons she had to refuse me to know that it wasn’t worth actually asking.”

Caleb gave me a look which really only could be described as pity and I narrowed my eyes at him.

“Anyway,” he said. “Coming back to my point. If I’m totally honest, no, I don’t think me and her could have gone long term. I like hanging out with her the way I like hanging out with you guys – she’s great for a laugh and can drink me under the table, she winds me up damn near constantly, her blood tastes like ecstasy. Then I got sex thrown in too.”

“That sounds kind of like the perfect girl,” I muttered.

“Maybe if it had been easy, but…I think I was always just a place holder for her. While she really had her eye on you.” He smiled at me in a way that didn’t hold any anger, just acceptance. “And at least now I know why.”

“So there’s not a part of you that thinks or hopes that now that me and her can’t-”

“No,” he cut me off. “I don’t want this to sound harsh man, but I don’t want to be her consolation prize. And I don’t want you to have to give up on her either-”

“I don’t want to talk about this insane idea you and the others have about us defying the stars,” I growled.

“Why not?” he demanded, refusing to let me turn away from the subject. “You seem to want to fight for her, you want to prove to her you’re more than the monster she thought you were. What’s the point of that if you don’t believe there’s any hope for you?”

“Because that’s what love is,” I said in a low voice, running my finger over a bare patch of skin on my right forearm thoughtfully. “It’s giving everything without expecting anything in return. It’s sacrificing your heart and happiness for someone else and it’s owning all of your mistakes and trying to make them right. Not because you expect to get something in return for it. But because the person you love needs to know how you feel.”

I got to my feet, intending to leave but Caleb shot upright too, catching my arm before I’d even made it a step away.

“Doesn’t she deserve to have love then?” he asked. “Doesn’t she deserve to wake up every day in the arms of someone who loves her? To have laughter and happiness and a hundred fucking Dragon babies if that’s what she wants?”

“She does, but-”

“But nothing,” he snapped. “That’s why all of us are working so damn hard to figure out a way around this for you. Because we believe you both deserve that. So stop selling yourself short. Stop selling her short. And decide right here and now that you’re going to fight for your girl. Really fight for her. Not just achieve this bullshit mission to right all your wrongs against her. Prove to her that you deserve her and then climb up into the fucking sky and tear the stars right out of it for her if they still don’t agree.”

The ferocity in his eyes made my heart pound harder as his words lit an ache in me which was so fucking tempting that I didn’t even want to try and resist it.

“You want me to fight against the will of the stars for her?” I asked, though for some insane reason that didn’t sound as terrifying as it should have. Terrifying was not fighting, it was accepting this fucking hell as our fate. It was giving in and letting the stars and my father and some fucked up version of fate choose my life for me.

“Isn’t that what you want?”

My tongue felt leaden in my mouth, my palms slick and my heart racing as I thought about that. Did I want to fight with every goddamn fibre of my being for Roxy Vega to be mine?

“Yes, it is.”