Zodiac Academy Fated Throne - Caroline Peckham Page 0,91

taut muscles of his stomach. I mean seriously, could someone just put a shirt on that man?

You’re not distracted by Darius going around all shirtless and shit.

Well he’s a tuna sandwich dammit.

Orion started telling us about everything he’d learned from the Guild member he’d met in Darkmore. When he mentioned the password which had revealed a secret message to him in the diary from his father, my mind whirled with all that it meant. Had my mother and his father really foreseen all of this happening? Had they been friends?

“So what does Lionel know exactly?” Gabriel asked, resting his elbows on his knees to the left of me.

“He doesn’t know much as far as I can tell,” Orion said thoughtfully. “Just that I’m the only one who can read the diary and decipher what’s in it.”

“How long is he going to keep you here for?” I asked. Was he going to be forced to return to Darkmore once Lionel was done with him? And how were we supposed to stop Lionel getting any information while Orion was stuck here being made to work on the diary? I couldn’t help but be relieved that at least he was away from the psychos in Darkmore, but now he was living in a maniac’s backyard. It was like being pulled out of a box of acid slugs only to be thrown into a pool of Griffin shit.

“I don’t know,” he said, levelling me with a hopeless look. My heart clenched. I had the urge to smooth the frown on his brow and tell him we’d find a way to fix this, but it wasn’t my place anymore. And he wasn’t owed shit from me anyway. “He forced me to make a star vow with him that I’d make every effort to find the Imperial Star. But that’s pretty vague so he’s left me a lot of wiggle room.”

Darius smirked. “My father’s so cocky, he’d never even consider the possibility that you might work around his vow.”

“Well, that’s because he thinks I give a shit about what he’ll do to me if he finds out,” Orion said dryly and my gut yanked.

“He won’t do anything to you,” Darius growled, though the silence following his words said we all knew he could make no such promise. And I despised knowing that.

“Have you seen Clara?” Gabriel asked gently and Orion shook his head.

“No,” he sighed, then turned to me, his eyes full of sadness. “Is Tory like her?”

“She’s not like Clara really, she’s just…lost,” I said as something inside me shattered.

“I’m sorry,” Orion murmured. “Have you made any more progress with figuring out how to rid her of the shadows?”

I shook my head and Darius stood up suddenly.

“Try it now, we missed our session last night,” he said, beckoning me up from my seat.

I frowned. I hated hurting him every time I did it wrong, but I knew it was the only way to work it out. “Maybe we should wait until we get back to Zodiac.”

“I want to see,” Orion said firmly. “Maybe I can help.”

“You’re not a professor anymore,” Seth pointed out super unhelpfully and Orion growled dangerously.

“He knows about dark magic though, idiot.” I shoved Seth in the forehead and he grinned at me, looking like he was about to jump up and start a play fight. “Stay,” I mocked him like he was a dog, pointing a finger at him and he nipped the end of it with a smirk.

I shook my head at him with a half smile and turned to find Orion standing right behind me, looming over me like a damn tower.

“Come on, show me this shadow shit,” he demanded.

“Did you have to come all the way over here to say that?” I muttered, side stepping him and feeling him follow a hair’s breadth behind me as I walked over to Darius. Goosebumps rose along the back of my neck and I was glad of my long hair to hide them from the intimidating shadow currently following me. What was with the stalking??

I reached for Darius then my eyes snagged on a pile of jewellery, blades, metal objects and coloured stones laying on a table beyond him. “What’s all that?”

Orion shared a look with Darius. “Lionel is having his Nymphs bring me all kinds of shit that could be concealing the Imperial Star.”

Gabriel started laughing, cracking up and we all turned to him while he tried to pull himself together.

“What’s so funny?” Seth asked with a grin.

Gabriel reined it