Zodiac Academy 3: The Reckoning
The Reckoning: Chapter 20

I WAS TRAPPED IN a cage of terror so all consuming that I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t even scream for help.

My heart was slamming against my ribs, rushing to a deadly crescendo as I trembled on the edge of the void.

Darkness was calling to me, whispering my name on the back of a rancid breath. It wanted me. It yearned for me. And some deep, hidden part of me wanted it too. It was evil and terror and eternal flames but down in the lowest part of my soul there was a piece of me which wanted to be just like that as well. There was a promise of power floating on the taste of the air, drawing me in, urging me on.

I reached for it and my arm flared with an agony so intense it was blinding. It was as though the very essence of who I was was being drawn out through the deepest cut along my flesh.

Something was waiting for me in the shadows. Something which knew my name. Something which wanted to own me.

The agony grew as I tried to withdraw from it but when I paused, it lessened. I inched a little closer to the terror in the dark and a writhing power slipped beneath my skin.

I was flirting with the shadows and some base part of me liked it, wanted it…needed it.

I reached out, losing any sense of why I wouldn’t as the shadows coiled around my fingertips, wanting to be one with me, needing me to join with them, to go to them. And for a moment I couldn’t see why I wouldn’t answer their call willingly…

As I made a move to slip between the edges of the darkness, a deep heat grew at my back and something danced along the surface of my mind.

I fell still and the shadows writhed and wailed, desperate to have me. But the fire drew me back.

I turned, wrenching my gaze from the dark until I saw the flames at my back burning bright and fierce in the shape of an enormous, golden Dragon.

My eyes widened as I reached for him and a breath of pure, salty air tumbled past my lips as the world came crashing in on me again.

I groaned as pain assaulted me, the agony in my arm sharpening as reality closed in.

Darcy was sobbing somewhere close by. Someone was holding my hand and pressing healing magic beneath my flesh. But almost all of my attention fell upon the man holding me in his arms.

Darius was looking down at me, his eyes wild with panic as he brushed my hair away from my face.

He was saying something and it took me a moment to push aside the echoing in my ears so that I could listen to him.

“-would fucking break me. So don’t you dare give in to them. I’ll follow you into the shadows if I have to and drag you away from them kicking and screaming. Because they can’t have you. They fucking can’t.”

“Darius?” I asked in confusion, frowning up at him as he seemed to realise I was awake and his tirade came to an end.

“You’re back?” he asked, his voice breaking as he ran his fingers over the lines of my face.

I frowned at him, trying to remember how I’d gotten here. I glanced beyond him, replaceing Darcy and Orion staring down at me with concern.

The tide was crashing against the shore beyond them and I was laying half on the wet sand and half in Darius’s arms.

“What the hell was that?” Darcy demanded, her voice panicky.

I fought to remember how I’d gotten here and I suddenly recalled the two of them in the cave, the words they’d spoken and the way the dagger had whispered in my ear, begging me to use it. I vaguely recalled seeing two other people in the vision, but it had only lasted a moment. “Why was Lionel with Diego’s uncle?” I mumbled in confusion and Darcy frowned with concern.

Darius and Orion shared a look, some silent conversation passing between them, but said nothing to me.

I lifted my arm and winced at the tenderness I felt there. My flesh was bloodstained but the wounds were gone.

“I…that thing made me cut myself,” I said, frowning at how crazy that sounded but I knew it was true.

“What thing?” Darius demanded. “How did you manage to cast black-”

“She had this,” Orion said, speaking over him and holding out the silver dagger I’d taken from Darius’s bedroom the night I’d burned it down.

“A knife can’t just make someone cut themselves like that!” Darcy growled. “What the hell is it?”

“Where did you get that?” Darius asked, his grip on me tightening from comforting to restraining.

“I…” I looked between him and Orion, wondering how the hell I was supposed to explain that without giving away what I’d done but from the heat that was pouring from Darius, I got the feeling he was figuring it out already.

I scrambled backwards and Darius let me sit up but he didn’t release me, catching my wrist and pinning me with his dark gaze.

“Tell me where you got that dagger, Roxy,” he growled.

His grip on my wrist tightened to the point of pain and I winced at the rough treatment, trying to draw back. He yanked on my arm to keep hold of me and I was suddenly reminded of the way he’d held onto me when he’d dragged me to that swimming pool.

My heart leapt with fright as I tried to pull away from him again, slivers of ice driving through my chest as I found myself back at the mercy of this monster. Why had I woken feeling safe in his arms? He was the one who had done this to me. That dagger was his and whatever the hell it was, it was dark. I had no doubt that if those shadows had taken me I’d be beyond help by now.

“Let me go,” I demanded but Darius just caught my other wrist as I tried to prise his fingers off of me.

He pulled me close, his breath mingling with mine as a deep growl resonated through his chest and his eyes shifted into reptilian slits.

“Where did you get that dagger?!” he shouted and fear washed through me on a tide.

“Let her go!” Darcy demanded but Orion caught her waist, holding her away from us as he waited for my answer too.

But I wasn’t just going to cave to fear and tell him what he wanted to know. I’d just come within inches of death and it was his fault yet again. I had some goddamn questions of my own.

“What the fuck is that thing?” I snarled. “It made me do that. It made me cut my damn arm open and tried to give me to the fucking nightmares to devour. Why the hell do you own something like that? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Darius’s grip tightened on me so hard that a gasp of pain escaped my lips but I didn’t back down.

Darcy was trying to struggle out of Orion’s grip but he was glaring at me intently and just kept her locked in his arms like he couldn’t even feel her fighting him. Some brilliant teacher he was, leaving me to the mercy of a Dragon.

“I want my fucking answer, Roxy!” Darius yelled. “Did you steal that from my room? Did you light that fucking fire?!”

I flinched away from his rage and threw magic from my body in a wild attempt to get him off of me. The wave of air crashed into him with the force of a tornado and Orion and Darcy were knocked from their feet too. Somehow Darius managed to keep his hold on me and I screamed as we were flung through the air.

I landed on top of Darius as we fell back to the ground but he didn’t miss a beat, whipping me around and slamming me back down into the wet sand as he moved to straddle me.

He caught both of my wrists in one of his huge hands and pinned them to the sand above my head. Coils of fire leapt from his free hand, winding their way up my arms and locking them in place above my head as he snarled down at me.

My heart was pounding a desperate, panicked rhythm as I looked up at him, his features shadowed by the bright moon which hung low in the sky beyond him.

Darius pushed his weight down on my hips as he sat over me, driving me down into the wet sand and curling a hand around my throat. He didn’t exert any pressure but his grip was enough to let me know that he held my life in his hands and pure terror washed through me, pinning me in place more effectively than his magic.

Darcy was shouting at Orion to release her but I couldn’t look away from the pissed off Dragon who was currently looking like he might actually kill me.

“Did you break into my room and steal that dagger?” he demanded, his voice low and predatory.

My heart was pounding, fear licking through my limbs like a living thing but a spark of defiance burned strong in the depths of my soul. Yes he had me at his mercy. Yes he had me beaten. But he would never break me. And after everything he’d done to me, I refused to cower beneath him now.

“You burned my clothes off of my body on my first day here. You encouraged every asshole in this school to make my life hell. You tortured and tormented me every second you got the chance and you laughed while you did it. You took my deepest fear and dragged me to that pool so that you could force me to relive it and you almost fucking killed me,” I hissed, all the venom of all the hatred I’d ever felt for him pouring out of me like it was an open wound. “So yes. I broke into your goddamn room and I stole your precious fucking treasure and that psycho dagger while I was there. And then I melted every other piece of gold you owned and begged the flames to burn the rest. And I fucking laughed while I did it. It was the least you deserved. And I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”

Silence rang out as a deathly rage flooded through Darius’s body. His fingers tightened around my throat an almost imperceptible amount but my limbs tensed in anticipation of what he might do. Terror came writhing through my body, devouring me whole and spitting me out to lay at his mercy in the sand but still I glared up at him. There was nothing I could do to stop him anyway and I wasn’t going to let him see my fear.

Darius bared his teeth at me, smoke spilling between his lips as a deadly snarl escaped him.

“Darius,” Orion warned but I could see the violence building in the eyes of the creature before me and I knew he was beyond hearing him.

A huge roar escaped him and his grip on me tightened half a second before Darcy screamed in defiance and he was thrown off of me.

I gasped in surprise, fighting off the bonds of Darius’s fire magic as he lost control of it and was sent crashing into the cliff wall with the force of Darcy’s air attack.

He got to his feet instantly, a ball of deadly flames springing to life in his hands. Orion cursed and I felt his magic slipping over me as he threw up a shield half a second before the flames collided with it, bursting over us in a blazing arc of red and orange.

“Stop!” Orion commanded, shooting forward to place his hands on Darius’s chest to hold him back.

Darcy was at my side in moments, dragging me to my feet and casting a concerned eye over me. We stood together, raising our hands defensively as we waited to see what would happen next.

Darius was actually shaking with rage and I got the feeling he was having a lot of trouble containing the Dragon beneath his skin.

His gaze was locked on me and I matched the pure hatred I found there with even more of my own. Why had I even begun to consider that there could be anything more to him than this? After everything he’d done to me, I should have known that he could never be any different.

Darius tried to step around Orion but he refused to move, using his Vampire strength to hold him back.

Darius growled and I flinched, drawing closer to Darcy as we joined hands and let our magic flow between us, ready for whatever he might do next.

Orion snarled right back at him and the two of them glared at each other for an eternal moment.

“Think about this, Darius,” Orion warned. “We have the dagger back now, she can’t tell anyone about it because she’d have to admit what she did to your room. This has worked out in our favour.”

“In our favour? She burned my fucking room down and stole from me!” Darius bellowed. “I can’t just let that stand!”

“In light of what you did to her, you probably should have expected some payback,” Orion snapped. “I’m surprised all of the Heirs haven’t found themselves at the end of their retaliation yet!”

I exchanged a glance with Darcy and my heart pounded a little faster.

Orion looked around like he’d heard it and Darius pointed an accusatory finger at us. “I’m not just going to let her get away with doing this. I’m Fae! I’m a Celestial Heir! I can’t just-”

“You can and you will! If you want Tory to hide her knowledge of that dagger then you’ll have to let this anger go. Let everyone keep on believing Milton did it. We have the dagger back and-”

“Milton,” Darius interrupted suddenly. “You set him up?”

“He spread naked photos of me around the school,” I hissed. “And I wanted to see you lose faith in your little group of followers.”

Darius tried to lunge at me again and Orion grunted as he fought to hold him back.

“You made me shun my friend!” he shouted. “How the hell am I supposed to explain-”

“You’re not!” Orion snapped. “You can’t admit that Milton didn’t do it without exposing her. And if you do that then she will have no reason to stay quiet about the dagger!”

“You still haven’t told us what that dagger is. It almost killed Tory,” Darcy hissed. “We want some answers.”

“All you need to know is that that dagger and what we were doing aren’t the kinds of things you mess around with,” Orion warned darkly.

“So you just expect us to keep quiet about your shady little secrets without giving us any real information?” I asked with a scowl.

“Just like we’ll keep quiet about you, yes.” Orion’s tone held no room for negotiation and I exchanged a look with my sister.

“We need better answers than that,” Darcy demanded.

“Well you aren’t going to get them, Blue. Just keep your mouths shut and so will we. That’s the best you’re going to get.” Orion looked back at Darius who offered me a glare filled with poison before pulling off his shirt and tossing it to Orion. His pants and the rest of his clothes followed suit and he turned away from us, releasing a roar as he shifted into his Dragon form.

We stood our ground as the giant, golden reptile, stalked away from us across the sand but thankfully he didn’t look back. He ducked low, spreading his wings in anticipation of a flight and Orion looked at us one last time before shooting after Darius and leaping onto his back with his Vampire speed.

Darius took off instantly and we watched as they flew out over the sea, a great arc of fire spewing from Darius’s mouth as he delivered an earth shattering roar to the heavens.

I slowly released my grip on Darcy’s hand, biting my lip as some of the terror leaked from my limbs.

“What the fuck?” I breathed.

“My thoughts exactly,” Darcy echoed and the two of us exchanged a look filled with all the horror of what had just happened before turning and starting our walk back off of the beach and away from Air Cove.

I didn’t understand half of what had just happened but one thing was completely and utterly clear to me and I was going to make sure I never forgot it again. Darius Acrux was not my friend. He was cruel and mean and ruthless and he wouldn’t bat an eye at hurting me a hundred times in a thousand different ways. I never should have tried to see him as anything other than what he was. And I wouldn’t be making that mistake ever again.