Zodiac Academy 4: Shadow Princess
Shadow Princess: Chapter 1

Orion led Tory and I upstairs along a wooden corridor and into a room with a king-sized bed sitting at the heart of it. The back wall was painted with a mural of the sea and a water feature in the shape of two fish curling around each other made a soothing splashing noise in one corner. It was pretty obvious which Heir this room belonged to.

Tory headed across the space, marching straight through a door I guessed was a bathroom and slamming it behind her.

Orion caught my hand, tugging me close for half a second and crushed his lips against mine. Emotion welled inside me and I clutched onto his robe, a tear spilling from my eye.

“Fuck, Blue. I’m so sorry,” he whispered, squeezing my hand.

“It’s okay.” I breathed, desperate to fall into the comfort of his arms for a moment, but the sound of the toilet flushing made me pull away.

“I’ll cast a silencing bubble for you so you can have some privacy,” Orion said in a louder tone, raising a hand to do it.

“Thanks…bye.”

His eyes remained on mine until the door shut between us and I moved toward the bed just as Tory returned to the room. My heart was thumping wildly and I rested a hand to it as I willed it to slow down. I was so exhausted, but wide awake at the same time. This night was the longest one I’d ever endured and as I checked a clock on the wall, I realised it wasn’t too far from dawn.

I slid under the covers and Tory did the same, the two of us shifting close together like we had back in our shitty apartment in Chicago. That sofa-bed had forced us together, now we did it voluntarily, needing to draw on the comfort of our bond. We faced each other, propping our heads up on the pillows while our free hands clutched together.

“Orion cast a silencing bubble,” I told her. “We can say what we like.”

“I’d say what I like anyway,” Tory said with a hard look.

“Do you really blame Darius for what happened?” I asked with a tug in my gut. I understood why she was angry at him, but I couldn’t blame him for the choice he’d made for the sake of his brother.

“Not for what happened, but I blame him for being too much like his father. And for not trying hard enough to help us.”

My throat constricted at the memory of being in that pit with Orion’s hand locked around mine, his apologies falling over me like rain. I’d never seen him look so helpless. I’d never felt so helpless either. He and Darius had tried to help us but they’d just…failed.

“I think he wanted to help,” I said gently.

“It wasn’t enough,” Tory snarled and for a second darkness seemed to curtain her eyes.

I frowned, a rush of powerful energy spilling into my body as if it came directly from where our hands met. A deep well of darkness seemed to open up inside me and as I pictured Darius’s face, I hated him too. I hated him so much I could feel it burning a path right through to my soul. And I wanted to drown in this dark feeling until it consumed me.

“Darcy, your eyes,” Tory breathed in alarm, sitting up and dropping my hand.

The darkness still swirled in my chest, seeming to call to me. I blinked hard, looking to Tory, focusing on her and forcing that frightening feeling to recede.

I moved to kneel and gaze into Tory’s eyes, checking there was no sign of that lingering shadow.

“What’s wrong with us?” I whispered, my voice abandoning me as anxiety stroked my heart.

Tory swallowed, shaking her head. “Maybe it’s just an after effect of what Lionel did. We were in the shadows, they passed right through us.”

I nodded slowly, pressing a hand to my chest as that dark pit stirred inside me again and fear crept into my bones. “What if they didn’t pass on? What if they’re still here? Don’t you feel it?”

Tory pressed a hand to her own chest, worry entering her gaze. Her lips parted in horror. “Oh fuck. I think you’re right.”

“We have to tell Orion.” I moved to get up but Tory snatched my wrist.

“No! We can’t tell him. He’ll tell Darius.”

“So?” I shook my head at her and the shadows swirled in her gaze again.

She blinked quickly, releasing my arm. “Please,” her tone softened. “I don’t trust him, and what can Orion do anyway? We’ll figure this out on our own, like we do everything else.”

I frowned, biting into my lip. “Orion will know what to do. He’s been teaching Darius dark magic, he must know about the shadows too.”

“Yeah and look what happened the last time we hung around him and his dark magic bullshit.”

My heart pinched sharply at the memory of Tory with that draining dagger, bleeding out on the ground. Then the way Darius had reacted…

“Alright,” I whispered, slipping back under the duvet and trying to chase away the chill in my body. “But if it gets out of hand, I’m telling him. We don’t know what this means and we can’t exactly look it up in any old textbook.”

“I know…but just for now, okay?” She slid back under the covers with me and my heart began to slow.

“Okay.”

“At least one good thing came out of this. We’ve got our Order forms,” Tory said with a half-hearted smile.

I returned it, trying to draw on the positives, though it was hard after everything we’d witnessed. “Yeah and now we have to hide it.” I rolled my eyes and Tory snorted a laugh.

“I know, right? When are we ever gonna get a break around here? I wanna go flying and knock Darius out of the clouds.”

I broke a small laugh, my eyes aching from how tired I was. It felt like the world had flipped on its axis since midnight. Like we’d stepped into an alternate reality where we were stronger than the Heirs and Lionel Acrux. We still had to harness that power and maybe in the meantime, these shadows would pass out of our bodies and we wouldn’t have to live with the oppressive weight of them I could feel growing in my chest. But I had the horrible feeling, it wouldn’t be that simple.

***

I woke early to the smell of coffee and groaned longingly, dropping out of bed and squinting at the clock. It was just after eight am but it didn’t look like Tory was going to wake up any time soon. She was spooning a pillow overly sexually, her ass hanging out from beneath Darius’s T-shirt.

I couldn’t help a smile as I headed to the door, tiptoeing outside and wondering what kind of welcome party I was going to get from Darius this morning. But his anger never seemed as strongly aimed at me as it was at Tory. And sometimes the look in his eyes seemed so much more impassioned, like it wasn’t just fury he felt toward her.

I crept downstairs, the heat of a fire washing over me as I moved into the lounge/kitchen where Orion was making coffee. I did a sweep of the room, but there was no sign of Darius. And though I longed to walk straight over to Orion and wind my arms around his waist, I didn’t think it was worth the risk.

“White, black, sugar, none? It just occurred to me I don’t know nearly enough about you, Blue.” Orion turned to me with a slanted smile. He was shirtless which was impossible not to notice, but all I could think was what if someone heard you say that?

“Darius has gone for a fly,” he answered my panicked look. “And I can hear your sister snoring a mile off.”

“She doesn’t snore,” I laughed and he smirked.

“Alright, wheezing then.”

“She’ll kill you if she hears you say that,” I teased, but my heart felt weighted with lead like I couldn’t quite let the joke distract me from everything that had happened yesterday.

“So? Coffee?” Orion raised a brow.

“White, one sugar,” I said and he turned to finish it. “Thanks.”

I moved toward him, my arm brushing his as he passed me my coffee and I took a sip of the life-giving nectar. I sighed, replaceing Orion watching me and blushed under his intense gaze. I nudged his knee with mine, figuring that was safe territory.

“What?” I whispered and his expression hardened.

“I just didn’t picture this being the first time we woke up in the same house together.”

My brows knitted as he reached out to brush his fingers along my jaw.

“Lionel won’t ever get near you again,” he swore and I shook my head.

“You can’t promise that, Lance. And I don’t want you to. I’m not your responsibility.”

He opened his mouth to argue then jerked his head back to look at the ceiling. A second later a loud thump signalled a huge beast landing on top of the treehouse.

“That woke Tory up,” Orion murmured and I nodded, moving away and sitting down on the couch.

Darius dropped through a hatch in the roof butt naked and strode toward the chest at the back of the room, yanking on some clothes.

“Flying didn’t burn off any of that anger then?” Orion asked and Darius turned to him with a dark look. His eyes slipped to the coffee and he moved forward to fill a cup, but by the time he made it there, Orion had already done it for him with his Vampire speed.

“Thanks,” Darius muttered, taking a long swig. “And it did burn some of it off, actually. This is me happy by comparison.”

“Well at least I got an extra hour of sleep while you were gone,” Orion said with a yawn.

“Dude you totally starfished the second I got out of bed,” Darius said with a low laugh.

“Wait, did you two share a bed?” I balked and the two of them turned to me like they’d just remembered I was there.

“We fell asleep talking,” Orion said in an extra stern voice like I was suddenly his student again.

I cocked a brow; that bullshit was not working on me one bit.

Tory appeared on the stairs with a grin on her face. “You fell asleep talking like little girls at a sleepover?”

“Pfft.” Darius pointed between the two of us. “You two did the exact same thing.”

“We’re twins!” we said at the same time.

Tory moved down the steps, heading to the chest of clothes and pulling on some pants which were much too big for her. “Whatever. You guys can go back to canoodling. We’re leaving.”

I folded my arms. “I think we should talk about last night.”

“What else is there to talk about?” Tory asked, shooting a glare at Darius. “And I’m certainly not talking about things with him anyway.”

Darius scowled at her and Orion shot me a weary look.

Tory looked around the lounge with a frown. “How do we get out of here?”

Darius pointed at a door in the tree trunk which parted this room from another.

“Great. See ya.” Tory flipped Darius the finger then strode toward it and slipped through the door.

I finished my coffee, looking to Orion and releasing a sigh.

“I’ll replace out more about Phoenixes and message you all later,” he said. “There’s no classes today. I imagine most of the students and the faculty will be hungover as fuck.”

“Especially Washer.” Darius grimaced.

“Ew,” I breathed, setting my coffee cup down on the table. “See you later then.” I headed out of the door, feeling both of their eyes burning into me as I left and I imagined they were about to talk about us the second I was gone.

I caught Tory at the bottom of the stairs and we headed out into The Wailing Wood with no shoes on – which was especially crappy as it happened to be a frosty morning. I shivered as we hurried along the path, sending a wave of fire into my veins to warm me up.

“What else do you think our Order can do?” Tory wondered aloud.

A smile pulled at my mouth. “Let’s hope it fights off shadows.”

She nodded seriously. “Shadows and big fat iguanas.”

“Yeah,” I laughed, thinking of Lionel Acrux until my mirth burned up and died because we really were screwed if he ever found out what we truly were. And the fact that the shadows hadn’t passed through us at all, but had stayed right here with us. “I really goddamn hope so, Tor.”