Zodiac Academy Fated Throne - Caroline Peckham Page 0,141

to meet her here."

"So...she's coming alone?" he asked, his throat bobbing as he glanced towards the kitchenette where Darcy had told me the tunnel emerged.

"Yeah. And if I come back here and find she's been crying, you'll be enjoying that flaming balls feeling. Got it?"

Orion shuddered, placing a protective cushion over his lap. "You're a savage."

"Damn right I am. Don’t go thinking I don’t mean it. Also…maybe you should get changed. I mean, it might make her feel a little better to see how much you’ve let yourself go, but I’m guessing you don’t want to broadcast what you had for dinner to her.” I pointed at the spaghetti stains on his sweatpants and he growled in frustration.

“I haven’t let myself go,” he complained. “I just dropped a bit of my food like five minutes before you showed up here.”

“Uh huh. So what’s the excuse for your shirt being inside out?”

He grabbed his collar and tugged it forward to check and I laughed at him as his eyes bugged out a bit.

“Asshole,” he muttered when he realised I’d been joking.

“Seriously though, did Lionel not leave you any scissors here? Because the homeless yeti look was never in fashion, dude. And Darcy definitely won’t be impressed by it,” I said with a smirk.

“Alright I get it. I’m a mess,” he growled. “But I don’t need relationship advice from you. You’ve got your own shit to work out.”

“Like what?” I asked, rearranging my flouncy dress as I tried to feign ignorance and he scoffed at my act, jabbing me in the arm.

“I’ve had Darius in my bed every night this week talking about you non fucking stop,” he replied. My gut tightened as I wondered if he was exaggerating or not and I couldn’t decide if I wanted him to be. “Maybe I should be kicking you in the junk too.”

“Maybe,” I agreed softly, not really knowing what to say about the Fae the stars had chosen for me.

“He’s a good man, Tory,” Orion said roughly. “Give him a chance to prove that to you again.”

I sighed, not really giving him an answer to that because I wasn’t sure what kind of answer I could give. I was so messed up over Darius that it was impossible for me to make any kind of decisions about him, let alone the fact that the rings in our eyes made those kinds of decisions pretty irrelevant anyway.

I glanced at the clock, seeing that it was five to eight and resisting the urge to start bouncing up and down at the thought of Lionel arriving soon.

“I need to go. Lionel is due back at eight and I'm equally dreading seeing him and so excited that I think I might puke." I released a dark laugh and stood, drawing on the shadows to help dull my nerves. If I was going to do this then I had to make sure my mask didn't slip.

"Look after yourself, Tory," Orion said, pushing to his feet and walking with me towards the door with a look on his face that said he really didn't want to let me leave, though we both knew I had to.

"You concentrate on being nice to my sister and I'll manage a dinner with the King just fine. Then I’ll be back once he’s asleep – Darcy will probably arrive before then.”

Orion’s face paled and he looked down at his spaghetti stain with a frown which made me snort a laugh as I started moving towards the door.

“Now you’ve just gotta decide, do you go with another sweatpants, t-shirt combo? Fancy it up to jeans? Or go all out with a suit and try to casually pretend you forgot she was coming and just happened to be wearing your fanciest shit,” I joked and his face fell.

“Fuck you. I wasn’t even thinking about that until you said it. Next time you’re meeting up with Darius I’m gonna get in your head over outfit choices too.”

“Good luck with that. Unlike you, I don’t give a shit what I wear. We’re not all so vain, you know?” I teased and he growled irritably.

“I’ll figure out some other weakness to exploit in you then,” he threatened.

“Well that’s easy enough. I’m all fucked up inside, so you can just play up to my insecurities about whether or not I’m even a fully functioning Fae anymore.”

“That’s not funny,” Orion muttered, shaking his head at me.

“I gotta laugh if I don’t wanna cry, right? Now if you don’t mind, I