Zodiac Academy Fated Throne - Caroline Peckham Page 0,57

my pulse raced as I drew even more shadows to the surface of my skin, sighing as the fear began to subside and the pleasure of their power took its place.

"What about Darius?" Gabriel asked but I just shook my head. I wasn't supposed to talk to him about that. Not him, not anyone. Only my king and Vard and Clara. I wouldn't be coaxed into saying anything to anyone else.

"He's the worst kind of poison," I breathed. "The kind you don't realise is killing you until you've already taken too much."

"Darius isn't poison, Tory," Gabriel said firmly, coming to a halt at a turn in the path where the trees surrounding us were so thick that I could barely see between them.

"He is to me," I replied. But that was all I was going to say on the subject.

Gabriel opened his mouth to respond, but before he could, a blast of power slammed into the back of my air shield and I gasped as I barely managed to hold it in place.

I whirled around, drawing more air into the shield as Seth burst from the trees, his face set in determination as he cast more air at me and I had to fight to make sure he didn't break through my shield.

I gritted my teeth in determination just as another attack hit the shield at my back and I looked around to find Darius directing water at me, his brow furrowed as he worked to break through my defences.

My heart began to race at the sight of him coming for me, just the way he did in my nightmares, his face set in a cruel mask and his body written with determination.

"Stop," I commanded, raising my hands either side of me as I pushed more power into my air shield and the ground beneath my feet began to tremble as Caleb shot out of the trees and attacked me too.

"Tory!" Darcy called as she stepped onto the path and heat flared along my limbs as I spotted my twin taking part in this ambush as well. They were all against me, just like my king had told me they were. They were going to hurt me and take me away from him and steal everything I cared about in this world if they got the chance. "We aren't trying to hurt you. We just want to help you regain control of your Phoenix. We need you to free yourself from the shadows and-"

"What if I don't want to be free of them?" I snarled, gritting my teeth as the combined pressure of so much magic almost buckled my shield. My king needed me to wield the shadows with him. I wasn’t going to let them go against his wishes. I wasn’t going to disappoint him like that. It was unthinkable.

"Her shield is about to crack," Gabriel announced as he added his own water magic to the assault and Max and Geraldine emerged from the trees to help too.

"I'm ready!" Caleb called and I spotted a syringe held in his hand which sent fear slicing into me. I couldn’t let him get close to me with that thing. I’d die before he did.

My heart was pounding and the shadows were whispering promises of death in my ears as they begged me to use them.

The shadows were always so hungry for blood that they would make me sloppy if I gave them too much freedom. I needed to control them rather than allowing them to control me, but I was burning through my power resources and any moment now, they were going to break them down.

"Go carefully," Darius barked. "If any one of you hurts her, I will personally beat the shit out of you for it."

"We are going careful," Seth growled as he increased the pressure of his attack and I felt my shield cracking.

I sucked in a sharp breath and dropped my shield half a beat before it would have broken anyway then yelled out as shadows burst from my body in an explosion of darkness that blotted out the world.

They slammed into the entire group who had surrounded me, hurling them off of their feet and into the trees in every direction and the sound of their screams made me smile savagely as their pain fed my darkness.

I took off running the moment the path was clear, throwing up a huge wall of shadows at my back as I reconstructed my air shield with what little power remained