Zodiac Academy Fated Throne - Caroline Peckham Page 0,212

his fangs, because I’d rather die than kill the man I loved.

I hadn't felt this alive in months. The pure, unadulterated power of my Phoenix was burning through my limbs with such intensity that my freaking veins were humming with it.

Molten fire burst from my hands in a mixture of red and blue and I revelled in the heat of the flames as they stoked my magic and filled me to the point of bursting.

Darius fought like a warrior beside me, swinging his axe with a two handed grip and carving through the bodies of the dead like he was felling trees. His muscular frame flexed with the power of the blows and my gaze kept travelling to him over and over again.

A ferocious howl caught my ear from the direction of the gates and I froze as I whirled around to look down the hill in that direction. That wasn’t Seth.

My blood chilled as I spotted the figures racing up the path towards us, the sound of the pack of hounds baying for our blood making fear wash through me in droves.

"The Reaper Hounds just broke down the gate!" I yelled, loud enough for everyone to hear me as I pointed in their direction.

They were too far from us for me to have to worry about looking them in the eyes yet. But their mountainous black bodies stood out as darker shadows within the graveyard, their monstrously large size impossible to miss as they looked more like horses than dogs.

"We need to run for the tomb!" Darius commanded in a tone that brokered no arguments. "We can make a stand there if we have to and I'll fly us out of here the moment Orion and Darcy return with the Imperial Star."

The others were still fighting the undead who continued to crawl up out of the ground and I urged my wings to burst free of my flesh as I took to the sky.

"What are you doing?" Darius demanded, reaching for me as I swept over him and I pointed towards the pack of dogs charging this way.

"I'm going to make it as hard for them to follow us as I can," I said, ignoring the way he was shaking his head in refusal as I swept away from him over the heads of our friends and further down the path with fire burning in my limbs.

The moment I was past Max and Geraldine, I swept my hands out either side of me and cast a blazing wall of Phoenix fire across the path to slow the hounds.

As soon as it was in place, I dove back to the ground, casting a sword made of nothing but Phoenix fire into my hands as I banished my wings before swinging it at the head of the closest corpse and barking at the others to start running.

Seth raced up the path ahead of us in his white Wolf form and Caleb shot between the headstones, stabbing corpses with his twin daggers and sending them tumbling to the ground before they even knew he was upon them.

Geraldine and Max came to run with me and we charged through the crowd of undead, with our weapons swinging and power blazing through the air which made it crackle around us.

I'd lost sight of Darius and I hunted for him through the throng of corpses as we fought our way up the hill, my heart racing as I looked left and right with fear taking me captive.

The sound of the Reaper Hounds reaching the wall of fire behind me made my pulse skip as they howled their fury at the sky and I looked back over my shoulder, my gut lurching as one of them leapt right through the flames and landed on the path at the foot of the hill.

"Oh fuck," I gasped, putting on a burst of speed and dropping my hold on the sword I'd created as I wielded air instead.

I created a shield around myself, Max and Geraldine then threw it out from my body with the full strength of my power so that the corpses surrounding us were blasted back and we were gifted a free run up the path.

"Have heart, my lady!" Geraldine cried. "We are true of honour and have the stars at our backs. We cannot fail."

"The stars are never at my back, Geraldine," I grunted as I ran on. "Those sparkly motherfuckers only ever send me bad luck."

Geraldine didn't get a chance to answer as we