“I love you, Darius Vega,” Roxy said, her eyes falling closed as she settled herself against my chest where the pounding of my heart thumped against her ear. “I loved you first,” I told her, tightening my arm around her and letting my eyes shut too.
Superiors?” I asked, arching an eyebrow at him. “I don’t see anyone superior to me around here.”
“I can’t see anyone better than us here. How about you, Darcy?”
“Nope,” my sister replied dismissively.
Roxy Vega might just have been right about becoming my new obsession, because I had never found anyone who could light me up the way she did with a glare and a hostile comment. And as her parting words caught up to me, my smile only deepened.
She was my rock, my sanity, the one thing I had always and would always fight to the death and beyond for, and without her, I was nothing but a ruinous shell of the girl she loved in return.
“Why would you want me to stay?”Darius frowned like he wasn’t sure what to say to that but he inched a little closer all the same. “Because it feels right.”
“Cheerleaders sometimes support a certain player on the field,” Darius said as he pushed his hand into his pocket and took out a navy ribbon with the word Fireshield on it. “Will you cheer for me today, Roxy?”
“You make my heart race with all the best kinds of fear and my gut clench with the angriest butterflies I've ever known. I have hated you more than I even knew I could hate a man and I think if I love you with as much fury then I'll burn up in it.”
“I did need her. I needed her like I needed air in my lungs. She was my rock, my sanity, the one thing I had always and would always fight to the death and beyond for.”
"He really does love you," Orion said in a low voice which jolted me out of my staring and I cleared my throat as I dropped my gaze down to my feet.
"I'm not an easy person to love," I muttered.
"Neither is he. That's probably what makes you so perfect for each other."
“I knew I didn’t just marry you because you were dying,” I groaned longingly.
“No,” he agreed. “It was because I was dying and I have a big cock.”
zodiac academy 9
“I love you, Roxanya Vega.” I said, my voice raw with the truth of that. “No matter what happens with this fate, the war, my father, the throne, all of it pales beside my love for you.”
Darius: Don’t I get a reply this time?
Darius: I can see you’ve read that…
Darius: And that…
Tory: Stop hassling me, stalker.
Darius: What, no photos in your underwear tonight?
Tory: I’m pretty sure it’s your turn to send me something. Also, fuck off.
"It's you, dumbass," Roxy snapped, shoving me again and making me growl even louder. Why the fuck did she think it was a good idea to bait the beast in me when I was ready to-
"It's only you. Even though it can't be, it fucking is."
"Because I'm not giving up on you, Roxy. I don't care what I have to do or what it costs to pull you back out of the shadows. I won't stop until you're yourself again,"
“I’ve got you, Roxy,” Darius growled, his hands moving again as he used his water magic to pull the rest of my blood up out of my lungs so that I could breathe again and I sucked a breath down immediately as my vision focused once more.
“Marry me, Roxy,” I said, knowing it was unfair of me to ask but doing it all the same. Because there were a lot of things I wasn’t going to get to do with my life now but I didn’t want to miss out on that.
We were the most powerful Order of Fae that had been seen in a thousand years. We were the 1st Fae to possess all 4 Elements in living memory.
So maybe it was time we stopped denying our birth right. Because the Vegas had been born to rule.
I looked at this woman, this princess, this ultimate fantasy of mine and she stared me down as she waited me out, knowing that when it came down to it, I could never deny her anything she desired of me.
She was mine. Destined to be mine by the stars. The girl who should have been my Elysian Mate and was so much more besides. I needed this. I needed her. I'd been like the moon without the light of the sun without her all this time.
"Darius," I murmured, unsure what I was even going to say just as thunder crashed in the sky above. "I miss you too," he interrupted. "More than any words could ever convey."
"You fucking idiot," I snapped, "Why the fuck were your eyes open?" "Because I wasn't going to risk them getting past me to you," he snarled like that was the most obvious thing in the world and I punched him again.
"And what would I do without you?"
“Whenever the fuck that is,” I growled, my mood instantly souring as I thought of the month I’d already lost with her. “I missed her fucking birthday.”