Zodiac Academy Fated Throne - Caroline Peckham Page 0,254

all the same, cursing them just like they'd cursed me and breathing out a giant plume of Dragon fire in an enormous fireball which blossomed right up to the sky.

I hung my head, watching the flames as they slowly died out before me and my heart stuttered as I spotted a figure stepping through the smoke as it cleared, her long hair falling all around her and a dark look on her face that told me she was pissed as all hell.

"Don't you run away from me, Darius Acrux," Roxy snarled, striding right up to me in that tank top which I just now realised was actually mine.

Her feet were bare and her golden wings were flexing at her back, glinting with the fire of her kind despite the pounding rain.

An air shield closed over me as thunder boomed through the heavens again and lightning struck it, splintering over the dome she'd created and lighting her up as if she was the one wielding it.

I shifted back into my Fae form, my muscles bunching with tension as I fought between the desire in me to go to her and the need to protect her from the wrath of the stars.

I stood totally still as she strode towards me, her eyes flaring with danger and determination.

"You know, when I was dragged out of my life and brought to your world, people kept telling me over and over again about the way the stars choose our destinies. They told me that our fates are set in stone and sealed by those twinkling little dots of light way off up in the sky. And I told them I didn't believe in fate. No matter how many times predictions and horoscopes and all of it was proved right, I kept scoffing and telling them I didn't believe it."

"That's not a surprise, Roxy. You're the most stubborn Fae I've ever met."

"Said the pot to the kettle," she growled and a ripple of anger burned in me at the tone she used with me. Even after all this time she was still just as disrespectful, just as rude and cutting and fierce as she'd been on the first day I'd laid eyes on her. Maybe even more so now.

"Well if you find me so obnoxious then why did you chase me out here?" I challenged.

"Because, from the moment I arrived here I swore I wouldn't let anyone decide my fate for me. So despite the fact that you're literally the rudest, most pig-headed, infuriating asshole I have ever met, I still want you. So fuck the stars. Fuck the moon and the meteors and the fucking clouds. Let the sky watch me as I tell it to get fucked. Nothing up there or down here gets to tell me what to do. You told me I was yours and I think that you're mine too."

"You think?" I asked. "I told you I love you. I tattooed it on my flesh, Roxy, I feel like I've made my feelings pretty clear. You're all I want for myself. The only choice I wish I could make and the only one I can't. So you don't think anything. You know I'm yours, every damn piece of me. But you've never told me what you want out of owning me or if I own you too."

Thunder roared in the sky but Roxy ignored it entirely as she held her air shield in place, not even flinching when lightning crashed against it repeatedly.

"I'm the girl no one ever loved, Darius," she said. "No one but Darcy, my whole life. And though I never let it show, I used to dream of finding someone who would love me like a prince in a fairy tale so I could be their princess. But I don't love you like a princess. There isn't anything soft or sweet or easy about us. It's wild and unpredictable. It hurts more than any pain I've ever felt and consumes me more completely than anything I ever could have predicted. You make my heart race with all the best kinds of fear and my gut clench with the angriest butterflies I've ever known. I have hated you more than I even knew I could hate a man and I think if I love you with as much fury then I'll burn up in it."

"So you don't want to let yourself love me?" I asked, looking down at her as she stopped barely a meter from me and the