My gaze caught on my bed and I couldn’t help but remember what it had felt like to hold Roxy in my arms all night. How had I been so blind? I’d felt it. I’d felt that pull towards her from the moment I first set my eyes on her when she’d walked into The Orb after her Awakening. It should have clicked together for me right then. She’d been standing beside her twin sister, the two of them like mirror images and yet my entire focus had been on her. I’d hungered for her from that first second, I’d studied her in every quiet moment since. She probably had no idea how many times I’d sat watching her across The Orb or in our Elemental lessons. How every time she walked into a room my skin had prickled and burned with this need to go to her. And like a fucking idiot I’d channelled all of those cravings and desires into exactly what my father had wanted me to do. Hurting her, attacking her, trying to destroy her. Everything in me had driven me at her for love, but I’d let his poison twist it into hate. For what?
Power.
What was the point in power if I was alone with it? It wouldn’t keep me warm at night. It wouldn’t give me a damn thing that I actually wanted. My whole life I’d felt alone in so many ways. And so had she. But instead of coming together, we’d just pushed ourselves apart until-
I expelled a harsh breath and turned my mind from Roxy Vega and everything she might have been.
There was no point in torturing myself over it. No doubt the stars would see to that thoroughly enough without me needing to dwell on it myself.
And I may not have had anything to live for myself anymore. But that was okay. There were other things I could dedicate myself to now. Like making sure Clara Orion went back to the hell she’d just crawled out of and never returned.
The shadows licked keenly beneath my skin and I embraced them as they curled between my fingers, twisting up and around my arms and kissing my flesh as they burned through the pain in my heart and let me focus. They understood the true call of power. And that thirst I’d always had for it was easy enough to latch onto as I let them feast on the darkness in me.
Sometimes I feared I was too like my father. In moments like this, I relished that corruption in me.
The shadows built beneath my skin until my heart stopped racing. It didn’t stop aching, not entirely; I doubted there were enough shadows in the entire Shadow Realm to smother that pain, but it was enough for me to focus.
I crossed the room and pulled a pair of jeans and a black wifebeater from my drawer, dressing quickly and kicking on a pair of boots too.
The chest at the foot of my bed stood open and I moved to it, pushing my hands into the mounds of gold coins and jewels and enjoying the flickering pulse of my magic replenishing as I sought out the darkness hiding with the gems.
It only took a moment to lock onto that feeling of raw energy which accompanied my draining dagger and I pulled it from the centre of the treasure with a sigh of ecstasy as the dark magic called to me.
I worked to conceal the blade with my magic, lashing it to my hip and pouring every drop of talent I had into hiding it from sight. I placed illusions over it and concealment spells to make anyone who looked towards it look away again. Once I was sure it was well hidden, I moved to grab a pouch of stardust from my top drawer and took a calming breath.
It was more than a little tempting to coat myself in golden jewellery again. After letting Lance feed from me and only spending a few hours replenishing I was running low once more, but I should have enough for what I needed to do. It wasn’t going to be pretty. It would be quick, brutal and necessary. Clara Orion wasn’t the girl she’d once been. I was surer of that than I was of anything right now. She never would have tried to kill Lance before this. Whoever that was wearing her skin now, it wasn’t her. They’d dragged some kind of monster back out of the Shadow Realm and I’d happily risk my life to remove her from my father’s clutches.
I just hoped Lance would be able to forgive me for it once it was done.
I drew in a deep breath and threw the stardust over my head, thinking of home. Not that the Acrux Manor had ever felt much like home to me. But it was the place where I’d grown up, so despite the cloud of dread and fear which clung to its imposing walls, I guessed it really was home.
My room at Zodiac Academy twisted out of existence and the stars glimmered all around me as they swept me away. For a moment I could have sworn I heard them whispering, mocking, plotting, but then my boots sank into the snow at the foot of the drive of Acrux Manor and they fizzled out of sight again. I guessed I wouldn’t be surprised if they were plotting against me now. They’d offered me up the greatest gift they could present and I’d sabotaged it so thoroughly that Roxy had turned it down. I supposed I was cursed instead.
I turned my gaze upon the house where all my nightmares lived and strode up the long drive with my jaw set.
The security guards spotted me and offered respectful nods as I headed up to the enormous entryway with the door big enough to admit a Dragon.
No doubt they’d already sent a message to inform Jenkins of my arrival and just as I reached the smaller door set into the Dragon-sized monstrosity, he pulled it open.
“Master Darius,” he purred, head bowed low. “What an unexpected pleasure.”
“I need to speak with Father,” I said, not bothering with small talk.
Jenkins was my father’s man through and through, he’d earned me a beating more than once as I grew up, always ratting me out if I did even the slightest thing out of line. And he knew exactly what he was condemning me to with his tales too. He’d seen my mother patch me up plenty of times. Never said a word, just pursed his lips and cleaned the blood off of the hardwood floors like I’d offended him by bleeding on them. There was definitely no love lost between me and the family butler, though he continued to simper and bow at my feet as if he worshipped the ground I walked on.
“Of course. Would you like to make yourself comfortable in the smoking parlour and I’ll see when he can accommodate yo-” Jenkins looked up from his bow and met my gaze as he spoke, his mouth falling open in shock as he took in the black rings surrounding my irises.
Before I had to endure the inevitable question, Xavier appeared at the top of the sweeping staircase before me, his hand gripping the golden bannister so tightly that his knuckles shone white through the skin.
“I didn’t want to believe it,” he breathed, his features painted in heartbreak which cut right through me.
I opened my mouth, but nothing left my lips and a moment later he’d made it to the foot of the stairs and thrown his arms around me as a choked sob escaped him. His embrace was bruising and for a moment all I could do was close my eyes and accept the small comfort of being held in my brother’s arms.
“I don’t understand,” he whispered as he pulled back to look up at me. Though he didn’t have to tilt his head as much as he used to. Despite Father’s neglect, Xavier was growing into a man and even though he didn’t have a Dragon lurking beneath his flesh, there was still a strength in his gaze which spoke of his resilience. You didn’t survive in this household without growing a thick skin and learning how to channel pain into strength. “Why would she say no? She loved you, I could see it in her eyes, I could feel it between you, I-”
“Enough,” I growled as my heart throbbed and splintered. “Whatever you think you saw, it wasn’t that. She might have been drawn to me, but she saw me clearly enough. She locked eyes with the demon lurking within my soul and knew she’d be better off away from me than bound to it.”