Zodiac Academy Fated Throne - Caroline Peckham Page 0,23

funnel cake!”

I steered her back toward our table where the A.S.S. all looked concerned. Justin rose from his seat, wrapping her in a hug and she sobbed loudly against his shoulder.

“It’s alright, Grussy,” he cooed.

I looked to Sofia and Tyler across the table, their brows pinched in worry as I mouthed a hey to them.

“The fuck?” Max appeared, shoving Justin away from Geraldine and gripping her cheeks in a punishing hold. “Why are you crying?”

“Get off of me, you heinous halibut,” she demanded, pushing him away and sniffling as she pulled herself together. “Now go back to your salmon pond and leave me be.” She shooed him away then walked off around the table with her chin held high before dropping back into her seat.

Justin dusted off his shoulders like Max had left a mark on his clothes, pushing his fingers into his blonde hair and puffing his chest up as he tried to appear as big as the Heir he was foolishly facing off with. “Don’t you tell Grussy what to do,” he said firmly, planting his hands on his hips. “I won’t stand for it.”

“Oh yeah?” Max snarled, squaring up to him. “And what are you gonna do about it?” He lifted his chin, emphasising his several inches of height on Justin and to his credit, Justin didn’t flinch.

“Perhaps I’ll write a strongly worded letter to your father,” Justin said haughtily.

“Oh do sit down you valiant woodlouse!” Geraldine cried to Justin. “I appreciate the sentiment, but I am quite capable of sending strong words directly to this cantankerous cuttlefish myself.”

Justin dropped into his seat with a pout, but Geraldine patted his hand and his expression softened a little.

Max grumbled something under his breath and walked away to the Heirs’ couch. I slipped into my seat as chatter broke out around the room again. Plenty of silencing bubbles went up and it wasn’t hard to guess what they were all talking about.

“Did you see the article?” I asked Sofia and she nodded sadly while Tyler looked pissed as hell. He’d put on about twenty pounds of muscle over the summer and his hair was now dirty blonde all over, floppy and glinting with silver glitter.

“My mom will run something in The Daily Solaria to counter it,” Tyler promised. “We can do another interview.”

I nodded as I picked at a bagel. I’d been putting out as many interviews as I could to try and counter the damage Lionel was doing with Tory, but the plain fact was, all signs pointed to his version of the truth. If we could only expose him for using dark magic and harbouring the shadows then maybe my efforts would be worthwhile, but doing that could possibly mean dragging Darius, Tory and Orion down with them, which I was never going to risk.

I pushed a piece of the bagel into my mouth as I sighed. I was on strict orders to eat three meals a day from Darius after he’d figured out I’d been using healing magic to skip meals back in August. Food just didn’t taste of anything these days, but I also knew there was no sense in depriving myself either. I needed to be strong enough to keep fighting the Nymphs, to go after my enemies.

I’d put back on the weight I’d lost when Orion went to prison, but I was all defined abs and muscle tone now considering half my time was spent either training for combat or in combat.

There was nothing quite like destroying members of Lionel’s Nymph army to ease some of the tension living in me. It was kind of frightening how easy killing them came to me these days. After Diego’s death, I knew they weren’t all soulless monsters. But the ones we faced were wholly team Lionel. And I didn’t feel guilty about burning them up in my Phoenix flames or watching as the Heirs destroyed them with the weapons I’d gifted them. Combining Dragon and Phoenix fire caused one helluva pretty bonfire too.

There were stories being told about the Nymph hunters in the news. The FIB were looking for information on them i.e. us. Some people whispered excitedly about the vigilantes out to save the world, others claimed they were a secret division of the FIB and others claimed we were a bunch of foolish idiots who would end up dead on the end of a Nymph probe one of these days and would only end up making the Nymphs more powerful when they stole