Zodiac Academy Fated Throne - Caroline Peckham Page 0,311

spitting right in his face. It was over now anyway. He knew. So fuck him and fuck this bullshit half life I’d been living beneath him.

Lionel flinched as blood and saliva ran down his face then growled at me as he grasped my throat again in an iron clad grip. He reached down to score a line of fire across my thigh with a single finger, burning through the concealment spell I'd placed on my skin to hide my tattoo.

"How sweet," he purred as he read the words marking me as Darius’s before wrapping his hand over the ink and drawing Dragon fire to his palm.

I couldn't help but scream as the ink was destroyed alongside the flesh on my thigh and the sickening scent of burning skin filled the air. When he finally withdrew his hand, I almost passed out from the pain of it.

Vard drew close behind him as Clara's laughter filled the air and my gaze caught on the ruby necklace she was wearing. The one that Darius had given me which she twisted between her fingers to taunt me with.

Tremors racked my body as I tried to remember everything Max had taught me about evading Cyclops invasion. But with so much pain in my flesh it was almost impossible to force my thoughts to align enough to prepare for it.

Vard licked his lips as his mismatched eyes slid together and Lionel grasped my chin as he forced me to turn and look at his Seer.

I gritted my teeth and forced my mind to lock all of the secrets I was keeping away in the dark. He wasn’t going to find them. I’d die before I gave my sister up, my brother, my friends. I would keep everything we’d been doing to fight back against this monster secret and conceal the location of the Imperial Star no matter what. He wasn’t going to break me. But he was definitely going to try.

The last thing I heard before I fell into the chasm of Vard's power was Lionel's voice thick and heavy in my ear. "I think it's time you were reminded of who you truly love, Roxanya."

I sat eating my breakfast at the huge dining table beside Xavier, waiting for Roxy to arrive while my gut knotted with tension over how late they all were to appear.

I wasn't sure how much longer I was going to be able to go on with this ruse. I hated it. Fucking loathed it. And we still hadn't made a single bit of progress towards finding anything that would free her from the bond my father had placed upon her.

The last time I'd spoken to Orion about it he'd suggested we figure out a way to trap her and Clara somewhere, leaving my father vulnerable and them unable to run to his aid so that I could finally force him to face me like a true Fae. And I had to agree.

The only problem with doing that would be in actually tricking the two of them and managing to hold them for long enough to enact it. We wouldn't even be able to tell Roxy our plan or the bond would force her to thwart it and the idea of locking her up somewhere without her even knowing why made me feel all kinds of uncomfortable. But I knew she'd understand after it was done.

Clara was the main issue. She never left Father's side and seemed to have no desires beyond pleasing him, so trapping her was going to be damn near impossible to orchestrate without him realising what was going on. And while he could still call on the Nymphs to protect him too, we really needed to make sure he was alone somewhere and unable to call on them in time to save himself.

There wouldn't be any mistakes this time. We couldn't afford for it to go wrong again.

I’d been calling Orion repeatedly while sitting here too, wanting to hear more about how everything had gone with Diego’s hat, but his Atlas was just going straight to voicemail. And thanks to the fact that I’d snagged a bottle of rum and taken it back to my room to drink myself into oblivion after the party last night, I’d woken up too late to head over to the summerhouse in person.

Father had made it clear he expected us here for Christmas breakfast at eight, but it was almost nine now and he still hadn’t arrived.

The door finally opened as Jenkins