Zodiac Academy Fated Throne - Caroline Peckham Page 0,281

to my girl.

She looked intoxicating in that gold dress and I’d been caught up in fantasies about dragging her off to the throne room ever since I'd first laid eyes on her.

There had been something seriously exciting about being with her in there of all places. Like we were mocking the stars for pitting us against each other over who got to sit their ass on it. Of course, they got the last laugh by cursing us though.

"We need to get going," Gabriel said, barely greeting me and I noticed he looked away from me pretty fast too, like he had little to no interest in my presence.

"This way," Roxy said, taking his arm and tugging him down a corridor to our left.

I eyed the casual contact with a hint of jealousy. I was jealous of anyone who could be close to my girl without repercussions. Which meant I was basically a hot mess of envy at all times which was threatening to burn into rage at the slightest provocation.

I followed them down the corridor and Roxy glanced back over her shoulder at me with a small smile that made my gut lurch and I found myself smiling back like some happy little elf at Christmas. If I wasn’t careful that girl was going to make me fucking soft. Problem was, I didn’t have any inclination to stop her.

We reached the door to the Royal Seer's Chamber and Roxy opened it carefully.

Cool air washed out of the dark room and her high heels clicked on the marble floor as she stepped inside.

With a wave of her hand, Roxy lit a series of sconces set into the walls with her fire magic and a long chamber was revealed to us.

I moved in behind them as Gabriel headed to the left wall, tilting his head back to look up at the portrait of an elderly man holding a crystal ball, his eyes glazed as he foresaw something.

The walls were all hung with huge portraits of past Royal Seers, men and women, sometimes royals in their own rights, others just powerful Fae gifted with visions of the future.

Roxy strode to the far end of the hall and stopped beneath a portrait of a stunning woman staring up at a midnight sky with a silver tiara placed on her head.

"She was almost as beautiful as you," I murmured as I came to stand behind her, gazing up at Queen Merissa, Roxy's mother and the last great Seer known to roam the world.

"Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like to know her," Roxy said softly, her voice laced with regrets. "To have grown up loved by parents who wanted us and cared for us."

"We would have been raised together," I murmured, because I knew it was true. "You and Darcy would have been with the four of us from the start, night and day, Awakened early, trained to lead."

She looked up at me then, arching a brow. "And in that scenario you would have been happy with that?" she asked me. "For us to be your queens and for destiny driving you to be our Councillor?"

I looked at her for a tension filled moment as I considered it then nodded. "If your mother and father had been alive then there never would have been an alternative. You would have been raised for the role. You would have been perfect for it."

"But because your father killed my parents and tried to kill us, abandoning us to the foster system in the mortal realm, we're just a pair of dumb girls who will never be fit to rule in your eyes?" she challenged, that argumentative glint in her eyes which I equally loved and hated.

"I didn't say that," I growled.

"So you're ready to bow to me then?" she taunted and my spine straightened in a clear refusal of that.

"I don't want to fight with you," I said in a low tone and she scoffed.

"And yet all the time this hangs between us, aren't we always going to be fighting deep down? When it comes down to it, your family betrayed mine. Your father took everything from us. A chance to grow up loved in the world where we belong, the chance to come into our powers early and learn all the things you were gifted so easily. And even after everything that's happened, you still want to keep stealing from us, don't you? You still believe that you and the other Heirs are more suited