Zodiac Academy Fated Throne - Caroline Peckham Page 0,159

up on the failures I'd made on her behalf.

The door opened and closed but I didn't look up. The other Heirs would all appear here at some point tonight. Darcy and Geraldine too. And maybe...

I lifted my head and found her there, hesitating by the door like she hadn't expected to discover me here alone and now didn't know what to do about it.

I didn't say anything. I couldn't. There were too many fucking words caught in my throat and too many images of the things Max had shown me of what she'd suffered through. My father hadn't wanted me to have her. So he'd done all of that just to make certain I never could. It was my fault. All of it.

The fear he’d given her for me was reflected in her eyes as she looked at me and the knowledge of that made me want to scream. I half expected her to just bolt, but Roxanya Vega wasn’t built like that and she raised her chin instead, ready to face her demon. I just wished that wasn’t how she viewed me.

"I...should apologise to you," she said in a quiet voice that was nothing like the girl I'd fallen for and spoke of all the hurt and trauma she'd endured because of me and my family.

"Why?" I asked, frowning at her as thunder rumbled overhead. The damn stars wouldn't even let us have this. She was ten meters away from me and my fucking heart was shredded to pieces over her, but we weren't even going to be offered the chance of a fucking conversation.

"For believing that you..." she trailed off, glancing at the window as lightning flashed outside.

While she watched the rain pouring down from the heavens, I watched her. I drank in the way her ripped black jeans hugged her figure and the bare skin of her waist which I ached to curl my hands around. Her skin was paler than it had been, her frame thinner, but Roxanya Vega had been cast by the stars to make me hunger for her no matter what shape her body was in. The cropped black sweater she wore had the words wild at heart written across it in swirling pink script and I was pretty certain that summed her up perfectly. Her chocolate brown hair tumbled down her spine and I was filled with the desire to push my fingers into the silken strands as I stole a kiss from those captivating lips of hers. The lips that had cursed me, caressed me, kissed me and taunted me. The ones that had always spoken her mind no matter whether she knew they'd get her into trouble or not.

She was wild at heart, but right now, her fire had been dampened until I barely recognised her anymore and I was left shattered in the face of what I'd done to her. Because this might have been on my father, but I knew it was on me too.

When she'd first come back here, I'd agreed to do everything I could to get rid of her. To protect our throne and our kingdom from this pair of stupid, un-Fae, practically mortal girls who I'd foolishly believed could never be strong enough to rule. But one look at her standing there after all she'd fucking survived since returning to Solaria proved how full of shit I was.

"I was a fucking idiot," I said to her, pushing myself to my feet and watching her cautiously as she turned to look at me again. She didn't flinch this time and I could have kissed Max for helping her to see what had been done to her memories of me, but I could still see some fear in her gaze as she looked at me and that cut into my heart in the worst way. Because I knew in part that she had good reason to fear me. I'd given it to her with every fucked up thing I'd done to her when she came to this academy. "The second you walked into The Orb on your first day after you were Awakened, I knew you weren't what I'd been expecting. My heart fucking leapt when I looked at you. My palms grew slick, my mouth got dry."

"Me and Darcy you mean?" she asked curiously, clearly thinking back on it too.

"No. Just you. I didn't even see her at first. I swear, I didn't even think you were who you are. For a few, endless seconds