Zodiac Academy Fated Throne - Caroline Peckham Page 0,292

around as he leapt out of the shadows from the top of a grand piano. I shot aside as he landed, skidding in his fancy shoes with a laugh spilling from his lips as he stood his ground and magic crackled through the air.

I shot towards him, throwing fire at the shield he'd created then darting out of the way as he tried to catch me in a net of air magic.

"I think you've gotten too comfortable thinking you can get a drink from me every time we play this game," Seth taunted, his eyes tracking my movements as I sped around him, looking for an opening.

"I think you like it when I bite you," I tossed back. "You like the rush."

"Oh yeah?" he asked, smirking as the air magic he was wielding tossed his long hair around his shoulders.

I kept shooting from place to place, aiming fire magic his way over and over again as I looked for a weakness in his defences and I quickly cast an illusion of myself into existence before hiding behind a giant horn.

Seth fell for it as the fake me shot towards him and as he directed his magic that way, I sped out of my hiding place and threw a javelin of fire at the back of his shield.

He wasn't dumb enough to have weakened it while focusing on the fake me, but with his attention taken from the area I was attacking, and the full weight of my power thrown into the strike, I managed to break through.

I slammed into him, knocking him from his feet and sending the two of us rolling across the floor as we laughed and fought, punching and kicking as we both struggled to get the upper hand.

We were so caught up in our scrap that we didn't even notice we'd rolled right over to the carefully lined up instruments. We crashed into a cello which went flying into a tuba and the next thing we knew, the whole orchestral line up came crashing down like a row of dominos.

The two of us froze, lips parted and staring at the carnage we'd caused as Seth pinned me to the wooden floor and the sound of a guard shouting in the distance caught my ear.

"Come on," I hissed, shooting to my feet and wrenching Seth onto my back before zooming out of the room and away through the palace corridors as fast as I could run.

I picked a door at random once we were far enough away and I burst into a dark kitchen as we fell about laughing.

"You should have seen your face," Seth mocked. "You looked about ready to shit a brick, Cal."

"You think?" I grabbed him and flipped him around, shoving him back against the worktop and fisting a hand in his hair as I tilted his head aside to bear his throat to me. "Kinda like the way you look when I have you at my mercy like this then?"

Seth snarled, grabbing my waist and shoving me around until he was driving me back against the counter instead, moving his hand to grasp a fistful of my blonde curls too. "Maybe you need a reminder of who you're playing with," he warned.

I snorted a laugh and lunged at his neck, but I crashed against an air shield he'd constructed tight against his skin and he smirked at me.

"Cheat," I grumbled, the ache in my fangs growing to a desperate throb as I eyed the thump of his pulse beneath his skin.

"No rules, remember?" Seth taunted.

My gaze moved up from the constant thrum of his pulse, sliding over the roughness of his jaw and lingering on his mouth for several long seconds before I lifted my gaze to meet his.

Seth's eyes were the richest brown I'd ever seen, like the deepest, warmest tone of chocolate with little flecks of gold buried amongst them and a soul so rich and caring lying within them.

"You know?? I said slowly. "The whole world thinks you're an asshole. In fact, like ninety nine percent of the people you meet would agree with them because you can be a total Alpha mega dick when you want to be."

"Keep talking like that Cal and you're gonna get me weeping," he teased but I only lifted the corner of my lips in a smile at him.

"I'm just saying that beneath it all, you're actually the best of us. Once you let someone in, you feel their pain like it's your own.