Zodiac Academy Fated Throne - Caroline Peckham Page 0,145

his lips as he surveyed Catalina over his wine glass. She supressed a shudder and I watched her with a faint frown as I realised I hadn’t removed Lionel’s most recent Dark Coercion from her since he’d bonded me to him, the thought making my gut stir guiltily.

"So what?" Darius demanded. "Now you're going to start persecuting even more Orders? Just because this fucking...Seer claims to have seen a secret library in a vision. Even if it's true that some small selection of Sphinxes and Minotaurs were in on such a collusion, how can you possibly claim that all of them are to blame? And how come these Orders all happen to be those you despise the most - the weakest, most common Orders who you've always looked down on so fucking much? It seems more than a little convenient to me."

Lionel lowered his fork to his plate slowly and turned his eyes from Darius to me.

"I think it's time for my son to learn that lesson, don't you agree, Roxanya?" he asked in a low voice and Clara clapped excitedly as she moved to stand on her chair to get a better view.

“Punish him, Daddy! Make him bleed!” she cried.

Ice spilled through my veins as I realised he was going to make me dish out the punishment and I couldn't help but remember him making me hurt Darius before in the throne room. But it had been different then. I'd been watching through a veil of shadows, unable to feel anything, unable to care either. This was asking too much of me while I was playing this part and I didn’t think I was going to be able to do it.

"Why not just do it yourself?" Darius demanded, pushing to his feet and opening his arms to make himself into an easier target. "Or don't you have the stomach for it anymore, old man?"

Lionel tutted at the goading and I looked up at Darius with wild eyes as I silently begged him to stop. I knew why he was doing it - he was trying to save me from having to be the one to hurt him, but I also knew that the more he ran his mouth, the worse Lionel would make this for him and I couldn't fucking bear that.

"It hurts you more when she does it," Lionel explained cruelly, getting to his feet and placing a hand on my shoulder. "Perhaps I should get her to use something more personal than the shadows to really drive the point home?" He lifted his steak knife between us, cocking his head thoughtfully as he looked at his son.

"Stop," Xavier begged, moving to get to his feet, but Clara flicked her fingers as she took hold of the shadows in him and shoved him back down into it.

Lionel looked like he was about to give me the knife and panic flared in me at the thought of that, but before I could figure out how to stop this from happening, Clara threw a ball of shadows at Darius with a cackle of glee.

He cursed as he was knocked back a step and a gasp escaped me before I could halt it. Luckily no one seemed to notice as Lionel nodded his approval, his eyes fixed on his son as he suffered.

"Give him more, Clara," Lionel snarled, his hand tightening on my shoulder.

His excitement turned my stomach and my magic shifted beneath my skin, urging me to do something that I knew would make everything so much worse.

Darius fell to the floor as she flooded his body with her dark power, his limbs spasming as he writhed in agony, a cry of pain escaping his lips that had ice spilling through my core.

Lionel released me suddenly and I gasped as he strode forward and slammed his steak knife straight into Darius’s gut, causing him to bellow in pain.

I lurched forward a step just as the door burst open so hard that it crashed into the wall and half fell off the hinges. I only caught a blur of motion moving across the room and suddenly Orion was there, throwing a huge blast of air magic out from his palm that knocked Lionel back several paces before he managed to get his own magic up to shield himself and the rest of us.

Xavier caught my arm to stop me as I made a move to step forward, his fearful gaze meeting mine as he shook his head in a silent warning